Every Living Thing

Linnaeus returns to Sweden in 1738 but sees no future for himself at Uppsala, so instead, he moves to Stockholm. But in the city, he’s unhappy, feeling ignored and living in poverty. He blames a man named Johann Georg Siegesbeck for his recent career setbacks, apparently neglecting the fact that he has few credentials for his work as a doctor, having not even treated a single real patient yet. Siegesbeck is a botanist who was friendly with Linnaeus in person but wrote a book trashing many of Linnaeus’s ideas. Linnaeus is so despondent that he considers giving up botany.

Since patients don’t come to Linnaeus, he goes out searching for them on his own, finding young men in coffee shops who look like they’ve recently lost weight, which often meant a venereal disease, then treating them with a mercury-based cure that was believed to be effective at the time. His small practice grows modestly, getting the attention of Marshal Carl Gustaf Tessin, head of the Swedish parliament. He offers Linnaeus a position at a major naval hospital, where venereal disease is a major concern.

On June 26, 1739, Linnaeus finally marries his fiancée Sara-Lisa Moraeus, receiving a dowry that helps him buy a house large enough for a family. All the while, he still corresponds with Jussieu. Meanwhile, in July of 1739, the current intendent of the Jardin du Roi dies suddenly of smallpox, and Buffon, through his connections, manages to get himself appointed as the next intendent. Jussieu relays the news to Linnaeus. Around the same time, Linnaeus begins to think about botany again, despite his promises earlier to give it up.

When Linnaeus writes a second edition of Systema Naturae, he replaces homo, the single human species, with four different species of humans: White, Red, “Tawny,” and Black. As Linnaeus is finishing up this second edition, he get news that Olof Rudbeck has died. Rosén is in line to take his position. In spite of this rivalry, Linnaeus himself eventually manages to go back to Uppsala and get a teaching position. Although he is ambivalent about teaching medicine, he moves with Sara-Lisa and his new son, Carl Junior, to Uppsala in March of 1742. His big project after arriving is to revamp the neglected botanical garden at the university.