Prof Christopher Girtanner FRSE (1760-1800) was a short-lived but influential Swiss author, physician and chemist. He was also Privy Councillor to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg.
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Life
He was born in St Gall in Switzerland on 7 December 1760, the son of Hieronymus Girtanner, a banker and his wife, Barbara Felicitas . He studied variously at St Gall, Lausanne, Paris, Edinburgh and London. He received his doctorate (MD) from the University of Gottingen in 1782.
He spent some years in Britain, and apparently owned a "salt manufactory near Edinburgh" (presumably at Joppa) in 1789. In 1790 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Daniel Rutherford, Andrew Duncan and John Playfair.
In 1796 he analysed the appearance of syphilis into Europe in the late 15th century. The ongoing debate of his day was at to whether the disease appeared spontaneously in Europe or was brought by the discovery of the Americas.
He died in Gottingen in Germany on 17 May 1800.
Family
In 1790 he married Catherina Maria Erdmann.