Swedish professor of medicine and botany in St. Petersburg. Johan Pehr Falck undertook a lengthy expedition to Central Asia where he gathered a great deal of data on the plants, animals and the Turkic people before committing suicide in the city of Kazan. Born in the parish of Broddetorps in Skaraborg County he was schooled in Ulricehamn and Skaraborg before entering Uppsala University. Training to become a medical doctor, he was devoted to the natural sciences which he studied under Carl Linnaeus. Not having come from a well off family, Falck had to pay his way at the university by tutoring and Linnaeus even had him tutor his son Carl. Described at the time as melancholy, he suffered from depression interspersed with periods of intense zeal and hard work, probably displaying what would now be classed as a manic depression.
In 1760 Linnaeus sent Falck on a field trip to Gotland to collect plants and coral fossils for him and later set about finding a place for him on the Danish Arabian Expedition. Hoping to work alongside Peter Forsskål, the pair arrived in Copenhagen together, but in the end only one botanist was chosen and it was Forsskål who ended up on the trip. Disappointed, Falck returned to Uppsala, but this was fortunate for him as the majority of members on this expedition never returned. After defending his dissertation on the genus Alstroemeria L., Linnaeus soon found a new opportunity for his budding student in St. Petersburg. In 1763 Falck left Sweden once more but was shipwrecked off Narva on the way and lost most of his possessions. His luck improved on arrival in St. Petersburg and he was offered several positions, taking up the chair of botany and medicine at the Medical College in 1765. In the city's apothecary garden he planted seeds sent by Linnaeus and was keen to send new Siberian plants back to his master in Sweden, obtaining material from different explorers and even priests travelling east.
At this time in Russia, Catherine II was funding many expeditions into Siberia and Central Asia and Falck was put forward as leader of one of several expeditions to Orenburg. In 1768 the party left for Moscow before exploring the Volga region, the Kazakh Steppe, and continuing through Siberia to the border with China. For several years Falck made detailed observations and collections everywhere he went, sometimes working almost frantically. Documenting the plants and animals he discovered, Falck was particularly interested in the different ethnic groups he came across and today his biggest contribution is considered to be in the fields of philology and ethnography.
By 1773 his maniacal drive was beginning to get the better of him and he set out on the return journey to St. Petersburg but spent the entire winter in Kazan, apparently unable to move on because of his illness. With the decision to travel to Georgia in the summer to make use of the thermal springs, Falck was on the move again, although nothing was heard from him until word came from Kazan that he had returned and was bed-ridden. Suffering from hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety, he took opium to relieve himself of these afflictions, but it only served to diminish his appetite and he became emaciated. In March 1774 his good friend, fellow explorer J.G. Georgi, found him dead.
Georgi took Falck's wealth of manuscripts back to St. Petersburg and was later tasked with editing them. Three volumes entitled Beyträge zur Topographischen Kenntnis des Russischen Reichs were produced and contain an account of Falck's travels and detailed descriptions of plants, animals and people. His book was perhaps not as popular as it could have been because so many publications on the flora and fauna of Siberia were at that time being produced. It does, however, contain invaluable information on the names and significance given to all manner of plants and animals by the Turkic tribes of Central Asia. His specimens were all sent to Linnaeus and can therefore be found in Sweden or London.
Sources:
M. Rowell, 1980, "Linnaeus and Botanists in Eighteenth-Century Russia", Taxon, 29(1): 15-26
I. Svanberg, 1986, "Turkic Ethnobotany and Ethnozoology as Recorded by Johan Peter Falck", Svenska Linné-Sällskapets Åsskrift, 1986-1987: 53-118.
