2.3 Scheele’s Brothers and Sisters
Johan Marti(e)n Scheele (February 14, 1734–January 15, 1754). Carl Wilhelm had
probably only vague memories of his oldest brother, who was sent to Gothenburg in
Sweden at a young age to become an apothecary apprentice. It has been assumed
that apothecary Andreas Bauch (Chap. 9) at the Unicorn pharmacy in Gothenburg
was a friend of the Scheele family, as he also had his roots in northern Germany.
Johan Martin arrived in Gothenburg around 1748; there is a preserved apothecary
manual written by him in Gothenburg that year. The manual, written in Latin, is an
alphabetical list of different medicines accompanied by a list of medicaments that
should be kept on board the Swedish East Indian Company’s ships bound for
China. This manual, now preserved at the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society, has
been transcribed and published by Zekert as the third volume of his Scheele
biography [30]. After only a few years, Johan Martin died from typhus at the age
of 19.
Fig. 2.7 The house in
Stralsund where Scheele was
born. Photo Anders
Lennartson, August 2018
20
2 Bergman and Scheele: Childhoods