Lavater brothers


The Lavater brothers were Johann Heinrich Lavater and Johann Jacob Lavater, both Swiss physicians and naturalists.

Biography

The brothers were the sons of Heinrich Lavater, also a physician, and a professor of physics and mathematics in Zurich.
Johann Heinrich gained his doctorate in Basel in 1647, and became a physician in Bern in 1653. In 1668 he prepared the Zurich Ordinance about plague. He became professor of medicine and natural history at the Carolinum, Zurich.
Little is known of Johann Jacob, except that he too was a physician and a naturalist.

Legacy

named the genus Lavatera in the Malvaceae in their honour in 1753.