Georg Heinrich Freiherr von Langsdorff (8 April 1774 – 9 June 1852) was a German naturalist and explorer, as well as a Russian diplomat, better known by his Russian name, Grigori Ivanovich Langsdorf. He was a naturalist and physician on the First Russian circumnavigation from 1803 to 1805. Later Langsdorff was nominated consul general of Russia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. From there he organized expeditions to Minas Gerais (1813 to 1820) and the Langsdorff Expedition to the Amazon rainforest, which lasted from 1825 to 1829. Life Georg Heinrich Langsdorff was born in April 1774 at Wöllstein, in the Electoral Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire. He studied medicine and natural history at the University of Göttingen, Germany, under Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and graduated with a doctorate in medicine and surgery in 1797. That same year he accompanied Christian August, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Field Marshal of the Portuguese land army, to Lisbon. However, after Prince Christian died in 1798, he set up a private medical practice, and subsequently accepted the post of surgeon to English troops in Portugal. After the Treaty of Amiens he visited London and Paris, and returned to Göttingen. He was appointed a member and correspondent of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences on the 29th of January 1803. He requested to join the scientific crew of the First Russian voyage of circumnavigation but received a polite rejection letter; the expedition's ships would take on board the official naturalist at Copenhagen. The day he received the letter he left Göttingen and reached Copenhagen in seven days, where the Russian ships were still docked. He implored with ambassador to Japan Nikolai Rezanov, and supported by Captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern, his petition to join the expedition was granted. Russian Voyage of Circumnavigation Langsdorff participated as a naturalist and physician in Krusenstern's Russian expedition from 1803 to 1805. On this journey he visited Falmouth in England, Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Santa Catarina Island in Brazil, Nuku Hiva, the Hawaiian Islands, Kamchatka and Japan. When the expedition returned to Kamchatka he left with ambassador Nikolai Rezanov and headed to the northwest coast of North America. He explored the Aleutians, Kodiak and Sitka; and returned from San Francisco by ship to Siberia and from there made his way overland to Saint Petersburg, arriving in 1808. He encountered various problems on his journey. For example, in Brazil the humidity caused the