The New International Encyclopædia/Lichtenstein, Martin Heinrich Karl

LICHTENSTEIN, lĭK'ten-stīn, Martin Heinrich Karl (1780-1857). A German traveler and zoölogist, born at Hamburg, and educated at Jena and Hehnstedt. He went as physician and tutor with the Dutch General Janssens to South Africa (1801), and served as surgeon to an infantry battalion of Hottentots and as governmental commissioner to the Bechuanas. In 1806, on the occupation of the colony by the English, he returned to Germany, devoting himself to the study and classification of the zoölogical and especially ornithological material he had collected in Africa. In 1811 he was made professor of zoölogy at Berlin, and two years afterwards was appointed to succeed Illiger as director of the Zoölogical Museum. His more important publications were Reisen im südlichen Afrika (1810-11) and Darstellungen neuer oder wenig bekannter Säugetiere (1827-34).