Johann Adam Schmidt


Johann Adam Schmidt was a German-Austrian surgeon and ophthalmologist who was a native of Aub, a town near Würzburg.
He began his medical career as an army Unterchirurg, and later studied ophthalmology under Joseph Barth in Vienna. In 1795 he became a professor at Josephs-Akademie in Vienna, where he gave lectures on several subjects in medicine.
He performed pioneer research of iritis, and in 1801 was the author of a significant work on the disorder titled Über Nachstaar und Iritis nach Staaroperationen. In 1802, together with Karl Gustav Himly he founded Ophthalmologische Bibliothek, which was the first German magazine of ophthalmic medicine. In 1811 his Lehrbuch der Materia Medica was published posthumously, which was a work on medicinal plants and their properties. In this book the term "pharmacognosy" is originally coined.
Schmidt is best remembered as a personal physician of Ludwig van Beethoven, whom he attended to from 1801 until 1809. Beethoven dedicated the trio for piano, violin and cello in E-flat major opus 38 to Schmidt.

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