Jan Ingenhousz

Jan Ingenhousz or IngenHousz FRS was a Dutch physiologist, biologist and chemist. He is best known for showing that light is essential to photosynthesis and thus having discovered photosynthesis. He also discovered that plants, like animals, have cellular respiration. In his lifetime he was best known for successfully inoculating the members of the Habsburg family in Vienna against smallpox in 1768 and subsequently being the private counsellor and personal physician to the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa.

He was born into the patrician Ingen Housz family. From the age of 16, Ingenhousz studied medicine at the University of Leuven, where he obtained his MD in 1753. He studied two more years at the University of Leiden, where he attended lectures by, among others, Pieter van Musschenbroek, which lead Ingenhousz to have a lifelong interest in electricity. In 1755 he returned home to Breda, where he started a general medical practice.

Source: Wikipedia