Göran Rothman

Rothman was born at Skatelöv in Småland to Johan Rothman, a physician–botanist who had studied at Harderwijk and Leiden. Rothman senior had previously been a tutor to young Carl Linnaeus at a grammar school in Växjö, and had cared for him like he would a son. He matriculated at Uppsala University in 1757, earned a master's degree in philosophy four years later, and on 27 May 1763 defended the medical dissertation De Raphania under Linnaeus. The thesis dealt with "Raphania" (ergotism), which Linnaeus believed arose from eating bread baked with newly harvested grain contaminated by Raphanus raphanistrum seed. After qualifying, Rothman settled in Stockholm as a physician; in 1765 he was sent to Åland to help curb a lingering plague outbreak, and in 1770 he was appointed supervisor of quarantine stations in the Stockholm Archipelago.

Through the Tripolitan envoy Abderhman, Rothman secured Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences backing for an exploratory voyage to collect plants in North Africa. He left Sweden in 1773 and spent three increasingly difficult years in Tripoli and neighbouring parts of present-day Libya and Tunisia. Promised funds failed to materialise, and the venture produced few specimens or publications; by the time he returned in 1776, Rothman was physically and financially exhausted. He resumed medical practice and lecturing in Stockholm but died two years later, aged just thirty-nine.