Henryk Kratter i jego prace z meteorytyki

Henryk Kratter was born in 1799 in Lvov. Probably there he were going to school. Afterwards he studied medicine in Vien. During his studies he interested in meteorites and then prepaered his doctor thesis (Kratter 1825a) and the book (Kratter 1825b) on them. The information source of both works was only literature, because he didn’t examined meteorites by himself. He based on writings by Chladni (Chladni 1794) and (Chladni 1819), Scherer (Scherer 1809) and Schreibers (Schreibers 1820). Such choise of sources warranted high scientific standard of Kratter’s works but they are written in complicated style with very long sentences and many digressions what makes realy laborious reading and understanding them. Kratter announced subject of his next work as iron meteorites, not described in his thesis and book, but he didn’t write anything more about meteorites. After defence of his thesis and graduation Kratter started to work as a doctor, first in Padva and later in Budva and in Kotor in Montenegro nowadays. At the end Kratter moved to Zloczov and he was a provincial physician until his death in 1862. He was a member of Medical Society and Zoological-Botanical Society in Vien. He wrote two books about mineral waters of Szczawnica and treatment with them (Kratter 1842a) and (Kratter 1842b). Kratters name is commemorated by the name – nebra kratteri – of the cockchafer discovered by him in Carpathian Mountains in neighbourhood of Jassy town, now in Romania.