Karl Fuks (1776-1846) is famous as the founder of the Kazan naturalists’ school and the author of the guidebook on practical medicine and hygiene, which he wrote in Tatar. It was he who suggested the idea of establishing the first botanical garden in Kazan. When Fuks was the rector of Kazan University the architectural ensemble of the main building was constructed, the representative image, owing to which the Kazan State University is easily recognized all over the world.

Karl Fuks was born and grew up in Herborn, then he got a Doctor’s degree in medicine at the University of Marburg. In 1800 he came to St. Petersburg as a general practician. In a few years he was appointed as ordinary professor of Natural History and Botanic of the Kazan University. All his further activity is connected with Kazan, where he lived for 40 years.

Karl Fuks is the first doctor, who got recognition of Tatars from Kazan. Muslims, being afraid of witchcraft, which is strictly disapproved by Koran, gave no credence to foreign doctors. Fuks was the only exception, doors were always opened for that “tabib”. His knowing the Tatar language and great doctor’s talent won all hearts of Kazan citizens. The main trend in medicine where he found no match was diagnostics.

The professor often went to ethnographical expeditions to neighboring villages, where he studied customs and traditions of the Volga Region people. His essays issued in “Zavolzhsky Muravei” literary magazine were of great success. Publishers printed his books also with great pleasure. Fuks’s work “Kazan Tatars in Statistics and Ethnography” is a real encyclopedia which is still up-to-date.