Ernst Soner

Portrait. Credit: Wellcome Library

Ernst Soner(Nuremberg,December 1572 –Altdorf bei Nürnberg,28 September 1612) was a German doctor and herbalist.

Life

Son of a businessman, he studied medicine atAltdorf Universityfrom 1589 to 1592 withNicolaus TaurellusandPhilipp Scherbe(1555–1605).

In 1598, a study trip toLeidencoincided with the missionary activity there of two PolishSocinianmissionaries,Krzysztof Ostorodt(d. ca. 1611) andAndrzej Wojdowski.Soner was one of many students converted to Unitarianism. He then travelled through England, France and Italy, studying extensively inPadua,where it is assumed he studied with the "rationalistAristotelian"Cesare Cremonini(1550–1631).

InBaselhe graduated in medicine and in 1602 settled in Nuremberg to practice. In 1605 he succeed Philipp Scherbe and in 1607/1608 was made rector of theAltdorfer Akademie.He failed to save his colleagueNicolaus Taurellusfrom the plague.

Among his pupils wereJohann Crell(from 1620 rector of theRacovian Academy),Michael Gittich,Martin RuarusandJonas Schlichting,influential proponents of Polish Unitarianism and the early Enlightenment.

Works

• Theses de febribus.1596.
• Theses de sanguinis missione in genere, pro Galeno.1597.
• Disputatio inauguralis de melancholia.1601. also in:Decas III disputationum medicarum selectarum.1620.
• Theses medicae de sanguinis detractione per venas.1606.
• De materia prima disputationes duae.1607. also in J. P. Felwinger (ed.):Philosophia Altdorphina.1644, Disp. IV und Disp. V.
• Commentarium in libros XII Metaphysicae Aristotelis,1657

External links

This article is mainly based on the German Wikipedia entry which itself is mainly based on:

• de:s:ADB:Soner, Ernst,Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie