Zimmermann

Zimmermann, JOHANN GEORG, RITTER VON, philosophical writer, was born at Brugg in the canton of Aargau, 8th December 1728, studied medicine at Göttingen, and by his dissertation, De Irritabilitate (1751), laid the foundation of his fame. After a tour through Holland and France, he became town-physician at Brugg, and here he published his famous book On Solitude, a work of artificial melancholy and sentiment, which had a vogue now somewhat difficult to understand, and was translated into almost every European language (Ueber die Einsamkeit, 1755; entirely new ed. 4 vols. 1784-85). Other works were Vom Nationalstolz (1758), and Von der Erfahrung in der Arzneikunst (2 vols. 1764). From 1768 first body-physician to George III. of England and Hanover, he was summoned to Berlin to the last illness of Frederick the Great, and after the king's death published several vain and worthless books about him. He died 7th October 1795. See the book by Bodemann (Hanover, 1878).