Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher

Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher (15 November 1757 in Glückstadt, Holstein – 9 December 1830) was a Danish surgeon, botanist and professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen.He was born to Joachim Christian Schumacher, a sergeant in the infantry of the Duchy of Schleswig, and his wife, Caroline Magdalene in Glückstadt in present-day Germany.After confirmation became the apprentice of the regiment surgeon, Mehl, a learned and skilled man, who gave his eager student a thorough introduction to both medicine and botany, thereby waking Schumacher's natural gift for science.By 1773, at the age of 16, his keen efforts got him appointed as a military surgeon with his father's battalion in the army stationed in Rendsburg, working under Dr. Mehl's command.He graduated from Theatrum Anatomico-chirurgicum no later than 1779, and begun studying botany under the guidance of both Rottbøll and Martin Vahl, who had recently become lecturer at the University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden.