Christopher Packe

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Christopher Packe

1686-1749

English physician who produced the first map—A New Philosophico-Chronological Chart of East Kent (1743)—representing topographical features with scientific accuracy. He was also the first to use barometric readings to determine map-elevations and plot these as spot heights. Packe's anthropomorphization of the landscape contributed to geophysiological discourse—the view that Earth is a living organism—which in the twentieth-century produced James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. Packe also conducted chemical experiments and practiced medicine in Canterbury (1726-49).

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