Johann Julius Walbaum was a physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and taxonomist. He was the first to describe many previously unknown species from remote parts of the globe, such as the Great Barracuda

Barracuda

The barracuda is a ray-finned fish known for its large size and fearsome appearance. Its body is long, fairly compressed, and covered with small, smooth scales. Some species could reach up to 1.8m in length and 30 cm in width...

 (Sphyraena barracuda), the Chum salmon

Chum salmon

The chum salmon, Oncorhynchus keta, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is a Pacific salmon, and may also be known as dog salmon or Keta salmon, and is often marketed under the name Silverbrite salmon...

 (Oncorhynchus keta) from the Kamchatka River

Kamchatka River

The Kamchatka River runs eastward for through Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East towards the Pacific Ocean. The river is rich with salmon, millions of which spawn yearly and which once supported the settlements of the native Itelmen....

 in Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, and the curimatá-pacú (Prochilodus marggravii) from the São Francisco River

São Francisco River

The São Francisco is a river in Brazil. With a length of , it is the longest river that runs entirely in Brazilian territory, and the fourth longest in South America and overall in Brazil...

 in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. He was also the first to observe gloves as a preventative against infection in medical surgery. In 1758, the gloves he observed were made from the cecum

Cecum

The cecum or caecum is a pouch, connecting the ileum with the ascending colon of the large intestine. It is separated from the ileum by the ileocecal valve or Bauhin's valve, and is considered to be the beginning of the large intestine. It is also separated from the colon by the cecocolic...

 of the sheep, rather than rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

, which had not yet been discovered.

The Naturhistorische Museum in Lübeck, opened in 1893, was based on Walbaum’s extensive scientific collection, which was lost during the Second World War.