[Jan Fryderyk Wolfgang's autobiography (1850) in the light of hand-written and printed sources].
The archival collection of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius (Wilno) contains many manuscripts relating to the scientific work of Jan Fryderyk Wolfgang (1776-1859), professor of pharmacy and pharmacology of the Wilno University in the years 1807-1831, the founder and main figure in the Wilno pharmacognostic school, a botanist with substantial achievements in wide-ranging research on the flora of the Wilno region, as well as a historian of pharmacy. The most interesting of the manuscripts include Wolfgang's Autobiografia [Autobiography], written in 1850, and a list of his publications covering a total of 57 items (including some that have hitherto remained unknown), a work entitled Historya Farmakologii i Farmacyi [History of pharmacology and pharmacy], and a particularly valuable manuscript (666 + 12 sheets) entitled Farmakologiia [Pharmacology]. Worth mentioning are also two catalogues of books from Wolfgang's library: one compiled by Wolfgang himself (37 sheets) and the other by Adam Ferdynand Adamowicz. The content of the autobiography manuscript is contained on five sheets. The author of the present article analyzes the document, comparing the information contained in it with the biographies of J. F. Wolfgang that hhave been published so far (these being primarily the biography by Dominik Cezary ChodYko, published in 1863, and that by Witold W3odzimierz G3owacki of 1960). The text of the autobiography is quoted in full, together with numerous comments. The analysis of the manuscript as well as the biographical data contained in the above-mentioned biographies indicate that Wolfgang had great achievements as a scientist (in both research and organizational work), as a champion of public causes and as an educator of a generation of botanists-pharmacognostics. It also transpires from the autobiography, as well as from the research by historians, that he was a very good and trustful person, who readily granted access to his research to his collaborators and pupils. This eventually turned against him: he laments the loss of the materials of his floristic research "at untrustworthy hands" and deplores the fact that they were published under the name of other scientists. Jan Fryderyk Wolfgang died on 17 May 1859, in his estate at Po3uknie. He was buried at the no longer extant Lutheran graveyard at Pohulanka. A symbolic grave of Wolfgang is to be found at the Rossa Catholic cemetery in Wilno (sector XIV, grave no. 157).