Philippi, Rudolph Amandus b. September 14, 1808; Charlottenburg, Prussia d.July 23, 1904; Santiago de Chile, Chile
German scholar of the zoology, botany, natural history, and geography of Chile; brother of Bernhard Eunom Philippi. After private and maternal instruction, Philippi entered Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s school in Yverdon in Switzerland at the age of ten.
As a youth he showed a special inclination toward collecting and classifying natural objects, with a preference for botany. After four years the family moved back to Berlin, where he attended the Gymnasium Zum Grauen Kloster until 1826. Upon graduation he studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Berlin and received his doctorate there in 1830. Incipient pulmonary disease caused him to travel to Italy, where an acquaintance with geologists Friedrich Hoffman and Arnold Escher von der Linth prompted him to do geological studies in Naples and Sicily. After returning to Germany, Philippi took his medical examinations to become a general practitioner, but he then devoted himself to assessing the research materials he had gathered in Italy. He assumed his first academic post in 1835 as professor of natural history and geography at the Higher Gewerbeschule (Trade College) in Kassel, where Friedrich Woehler, Robert Bunsen, and Wilhelm Dunker were teaching. In 1836 he cofounded the Verein fur Naturkunde (Natural History Society) there and became its first director. The works he produced at this time report the results of another trip to Italy and stand out especially because of the numerous tables included in them. In 1849 Philippi assumed the office of rector of the Gewerbeschule. Because of his liberal views, he felt pressured by the reactionary political leadership that was gaining strength and, for this reason, relinquished his teaching position. He decided to accept his brother’s summons to Chile. Shortly after his arrival there in 1851, Philippi undertook, together with surveyor Friedrich Wilhelm Doll and mining engineer Carl Ochsenius, his first excursions into the hinterland of the province of Valdivia. He also succeeded in climbing the volcano Osorno almost to the summit in 1852, whereby he got his first overview of the orographical structure of the southern Andes area. In 1853 he was made principal of the Lyceum in Valdivia, but in the same year he was called to be professor of botany and zoology at the University in Santiago de Chile. In connection with this appointment, he was entrusted with directing the National Natural History Museum. He used his tenure (until 1898) to systematically improve and expand its collections. In addition, he established the botanical garden in Santiago de Chile.At the end of1853 he set out on behalf of the Chilean government into the Atacama, accompanied by Friedrich Wilhelm Doll as cartographer. The journey led him from the coast near Taltal to San Pedro de Atacama. The scientific productiveness of this trip is reflected in the description of several hundred plant species, in the knowledge of geological structure, and in the depiction of the regional character with its salt pan. All the more astonishing is the fact that Philippi did not recognize the enormous mineral wealth of this region and its potential economic benefit. He made numerous trips through the varied landscapes of Chile and its islands, by which further expanding his collections. He set forth the findings of his zoological, botanical, paleontological, and geographical efforts in numerous publications. He published articles in the Anales de la Uni- versidad de Chile (Annals of the University of Chile), Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin (Journal of the Geographic Society of Berlin), as well as Peter- manns Mitteilungen (Petermann’s Reports). His complete works reveal a descriptive and systematizing character; his industriousness in collecting finds its parallel in the quantity of his publications, which number several hundred items.
Philippi was named honorary chairman of the German Scientific Society in Santiago, founded in 1883.
His name is honored in Germany in the Philippi- Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Naturwis- senschaften (Philippi Society for the Advancement of the Natural Sciences) and in the journal Philippi—Abhandlungen and Berichte aus dem Naturkundemuseum Ot- toneum zu Kassel (Philippi—Transactions and Reports from the Ottoneum Natural History Museum at Kassel), which has appeared since 1970, one volume for three years with four or five issues.Wolfgang Crom
See also Chile; Philippi, Bernhard Eunom
References and Further Reading
Barros-Arana, Diego. El doctor Rodolfo Amando Philippi, su vida y sus obras. Santiago: Impr. Cervantes, 1904.
Gotschlich, Bernardo. Biografia del doctor Rodulfo Amando Philippi (1808—1904). Santiago: Lampert, 1904.
Hantzsch, Viktor. “Philippi, Rudolph Amandus.” Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog 9 (1904): 186—191.
Henze, Dietmar. “Philippi, Rudolph Amandus.” In Enzyklopadie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde. Vol. 4. Ed. Dietmar Henze. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlags-Anstalt, 2000, pp. 99-105.