Researching Johann Schmidt

He began his medical career as an army Unterchirurg (under surgeon), and later studied ophthalmology under Joseph Barth (1745–1818) 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 (On Post-Cataract and Inflammation of the Iris following Cataract Surgery). In 1802, together with Karl Gustav Himly (1772–1837) 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 Op. 38 (arrangement of the Septet Op. 20) to Schmidt.

Johann Georg Schmidt was born in Bohemia. He was educated in the studio of Peter Strudel and was influenced by Martino Altomonte. He often worked with architects such as Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. He worked especially in Lower Austria and Vienna, on high altarpieces and other paintings, in places such as the Franciscan Church, Vienna, Altenburg Abbey, Klosterneuburg Priory, Lilienfeld Abbey and Zwettl Abbey. He died in Krems.

Born in Kitzingen, Smith sr. probably studied at Halle, where he met Handel. He moved in 1705 to Nuremberg, and then, a couple of years later, to Ansbach. In Ansbach he was a wool merchant and amateur musician, until about 1716 when Handel visited and convinced him to move and become a professional musician. By 1720, he and his family had settled in London, where he was making a living as a viola player and as Handel's copyist, as Handel's treasurer, and through his music shop in Coventry Street. Smith sr. employed his wife and children as copyists, including his son John Christopher Smith, who became Handel's amanuensis later on.

Smith sr. and Handel worked well together and were close friends until the late 1740s, when Smith sr. tried to persuade Handel to co-operative with the Middlesex Opera Company. Relations between the two men grew worse, and they were estranged for much of the 1750s. John Smith jr. managed to reconcile them shortly before Handel's death.

Schmidt was born in Hamburg to a merchant family. Under the request of their family, he became a gardener and studied botany in 1843 at the University of Heidelberg (with Gottlieb Wilhelm Bischoff) and in 1849 at the University of Göttingen (with August Grisebach and Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling), in 1850, he was promoted with a dissertation of the causes of the plant to spread, in 1851, he went to a collecting trip in the Cape Verdean Islands and studied its habilitation in Heidelberg on the local flora of Cape Verde.

In 1852, he became private lecturer of Heidelberg and studied the local flora. He also provided for example, mint and figworts for Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. In 1852 he became a member of the Leopoldine order. After the death of Gottlieb Wilhelm Bischoff, he temporarily headed the botanical garden. He hoped to have a full appointment succeeding Bischoff as director of the botanical gardens, instead, Wilhelm Hofmeister became in 1863. He was announced back to Hamburg as a tutor. He suffered a stroke in 1902 and after the death of his wife in 1904, he moved to Elberfeld, he died in 1905.

Its herbarium is in Hamburg (hermabrium Hamburg, HBG) and the library is in Kiel.

The genus of grasses named Schmidtia is named after him.