In 1774, on the recommendation of Heyne, he became secretary to the famous Strassburg scholar R.F. Brunck, and in 1811 professor of ancient languages and eloquence at Breslau (chief librarian, 1816) where he died on the 12th of January 1822.
Of his numerous works the most important was his Kritisches griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (1797-1798), the first independent work of the kind since Stephanus's Thesaurus, and the basis of F. Passow's and all succeeding Greek lexicons. A special improvement was the introduction of words and expressions connected with natural history and science.
The scientific writings of ancient authors especially attracted him. He published editions of Aelian, De natura animalium; Nicander, Alexipharmaca and Theriaca; the Scriptores rei rusticae; Aristotle, Historia animalium and Politica; Epicurus, Physica and Meteorologica; Theophrastus, Eclogae physicae; Oppian, Halieutica and Cynegetica; the complete works of Xenophon and Vitruvius; the Argonautica of the so-called Orpheus (for which Ruhnken nicknamed him "Orpheomastix"); an essay on the life and writings of Pindar and a collection of his fragments. His Eclogae physicae is a selection of extracts of various length from Greek and Latin writers on scientific subjects, containing the original text and commentary, with essays on natural history and science in ancient times.
See F Passow, Opuscula academica (1835); C Bursian, Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland (1883).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.