Main Entry: duct of Ri·vi·nus

Pronunciation: \-rə-ˈvē-nəs\

Function: noun

: any of several small inconstant efferent ducts of the sublingual gland

Rivinus, Augustus Quirinus (1652–1723), German anatomist and botanist. Rivinus described the excretory ducts of the sublingual glands in an article on dyspepsia published in 1678. In 1701 he made a list of the recognized drugs of the time. He classified certain drugs as useless or undesirable and tried to remove from the materia medica of his time such substances as feces and urine. In the field of botanical taxonomy he is remembered for his attempts to classify plants more systematically. He was one of the first botanists to use a binomial nomenclature.