Jacob Theodor Klein (nickname Plinius Gedanensium; 15 August 1685 – 27 February 1759) was a German jurist, historian, botanist, zoologist, mathematician and diplomat in service to the King of Poland, Augustus II the Strong. He established a botanical garden and menagerie in Danzig apart from setting up a cabinet of natural history known as the Museum Kleinianum which he filled with specimens collected through a wide network.
Life
Klein was born in a family of lawyers on 15 August 1685 in Königsberg, Duchy of Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He studied law at the University of Königsberg while also attending lectures on natural history, music, and history. Between 1706 and 1712, Klein travelled through England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Dutch Republic in an educational journey, before returning to Königsberg. He was present in England during the first parliament of 1707. He was unable to go through France possibly due to the Spanish War of Succession. He moved to Danzig after the death of his father, where he was elected city secretary in 1713 in the service of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony. Between 1714 and 1716 he served as the city's representative, or “resident secretary at court,” (residierender Sekretär) in Dresden and then Warsaw. He accompanied Peter the Great who was visiting Germany and represented Danzig at the marriage of the daughter of Augustus III and the King of Sicily in 1737. Klein began his scientific works in 1713 and began publishing his findings by 1722, as a member of the Institute of Sciences in Bologna. Influenced by Johann Philipp Breyne, his works dealt with matters of zoological nomenclature, and he set up his own system of classification of animals, which was based on the number, shape, and position of the limbs. He used his position as secretary to found a botanical garden there (now called Ogród Botaniczny w Oliwie). For his work in the natural sciences, Klein had been rewarded with membership of several scientific societies, including the Royal Society in London, the Academy of in St. Petersburg, the Deutsche Gesellschaft in Jena, and the Danzig Research Society. He was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Danzig in 1742. One of Klein's daughters, Dorothea Juliane Klein, married physicist Darniel Gralath, who would become mayor of Danzig. Gralath inherited Klein's library, which was praised by Swiss mathematician Jogann Bernoulli. Klein died on 27 February 1759 in Danzig.
Botanical garden and "Museum Kleinianum"
Using his position as secretary of Danzig and with the help of other scholars, Klein set up a botanical garden in 1718, which was one of, if not the largest of its time. The garden was expanded to include live animals, zoological, fossil and amber collections, the shell collection of the mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaus Witsen, as well as a greenhouse which he used for experimentation with exotic plants including coffee trees which he tried to introduce. The collection became known as the Museum Kleinianum. It was sold to Margrave Friedrich of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in 1740. After the Margrave's death in 1763, the collection was donated to the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). It was praised by prominent Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli, who visited the museum in 1777 or 1778.
Scientific works
System of classification Inspired by Johann Phillipp Breyne, Klein developed an interest in science as early as 1713 and began publishing in 1722. He was especially interested in the systematic classification of living organisms, but excluded insects from his classifications. His system was based on external, easily identifiable traits, such as the number, shape and position of limbs. This put his work in opposition with that of Carl von Linné, of whom he was critical, and whose work has since garnered more widespread recognition, though some of Klein's classifications are still in use, for example, in the naming of echinoderms. His work on sea urchins was the most prominent source of information on the species at the time. His essay Tentamen Herpetologiae (1755) featured the first mention of the term herpetology - the study of amphibians. However, his system of classification meant that species such as frogs and lizards, which belong to amphibians and reptiles respectively, were not distinguished as belonging to separate classes. Klein was critical of Linnaeus' system of classification, believing only easily recognisable features could be used to classify animals, as Adam had done when naming animals according to the Biblical story of creation.
Historiae Piscium Naturalis
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