Otto Karl Berg

Life & Legacy

Otto Karl Berg (15 August 1815 in Stettin – 20 November 1866 in Berlin) was a German botanist and pharmacist. The official abbreviation of his name, in botany, is O. Berg.
He was the son of Johann Friedrich and Wilhelmine Friederike Berg. He studied pharmaceutical botany at the University of Berlin and published his first Handbuch der Pharmazeutischen Botanik ("Handbook on Pharmaceutical Botany") as he graduated in 1845. In 1848, he married Caroline Albertine Florentine Witthaus, with whom he had six children.
He joined the faculty of Botany and Pharmacology at the University of Berlin in 1849, where he specialized in South American flora. In 1862 he was appointed associate professor, and during his time in that position, he helped to make an independent discipline of pharmacology.