1881 in science
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The year 1881 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents |
[edit] Biology
- October - Charles Darwin publishes his last scientific book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
- L. S. Poliakov describes the wild horse discovered by Nikolai Przhevalsky in Mongolia in 1879 as a new species, Przewalski's Horse (Equus przewalski poliakov).[1][2]
- The first systematic study in forensic entomology is conducted by physician and entomologist Hermann Reinhard in Germany.[3]
[edit] Chemistry
- Friedrich Beilstein publishes the first edition of his Handbuch der organischen Chemie.
[edit] Mathematics
- Simon Newcomb makes the first statement of Benford's law.[4]
[edit] Medicine
- September 25 - The first modern Caesarean section is performed successfully by German gynecologist Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in Meckesheim using the transverse incision technique.
- December - Eduard von Hofmann carries out autopsy studies of the nearly 400 victims of the Vienna Ringtheater fire, carbon monoxide poisoning being held an underlying cause of death.
- Louis Pasteur discovers a vaccine for anthrax.
- Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor, first proposes that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct human contact.[5]
- English ophthalmologist Waren Tay publishes the first description of the genetic disorder which will become known as Tay–Sachs disease.[6]
- approx. date - The non-invasive sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch.[7]
[edit] Technology
- May 16 - The Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, the world's first electric tramway, is opened in Berlin by Siemens & Halske.[8]
- September 26 - Godalming in England becomes the first town to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).[9]
- October 10 - Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre opens in London, the world's first public building to be fully lit by electricity, using Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs.[10][11][12] The stage is first lit electrically on December 28.[13]
[edit] Awards
- Copley Medal: Karl Adolph Wurtz
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Peter Martin Duncan
[edit] Births
- January 31 - Irving Langmuir (d. 1957), American chemist.
- May 1 - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (d. 1955), French paleontologist and philosopher.
- August 6 - Alexander Fleming (d. 1955), British bacteriologist.
- November 13 - Ludwig Koch (d. 1974), German Jewish animal sound recordist.
[edit] Deaths
- February 3 - John Gould (b. 1804), English zoologist.
- March 26 - Lovisa Åhrberg (b. 1801), Swedish surgeon.
- May 14 - Mary Seacole (b. 1805), Jamaican-born nurse.
- May 26 - Jakob Bernays (b. 1824), German philologist.
- June 23 - Matthias Jakob Schleiden (b. 1804), German biologist.
- July 27 - Hewett Watson (b. 1804), English biologist.
- October 31 - George W. DeLong (b. 1844), American Arctic explorer.
[edit] References
- ^ "Przewalski's horse". TAKH. 2009. http://www.takh.org/Przewalski_horse.html. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
- ^ Hellemans, Alexander; Bunch, Bryan (1988). The Timetables of Science. Simon & Schuster. p. 304. ISBN 0671621300.
- ^ with Friedrich Moritz Brauer (1882). "Beiträge zur Gräberfauna" ["Contributions on the fauna of graves"]. Verh. k. & k. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien 31 pp. 207-210.
- ^ Newcomb, Simon (1881). "Note on the frequency of use of the different digits in natural numbers". American Journal of Mathematics 4: 39–40. doi:10.2307/2369148. JSTOR 2369148.
- ^ Chaves, Carballo E. (2005). "Carlos Finlay and yellow fever: triumph over adversity". Military Medicine 170: 881–5. PMID 16435764.
- ^ Tay, Waren (1881). "Symmetrical changes in the region of the yellow spot in each eye of an infant". Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society 1: 55–57.
- ^ Booth, Jeremy (1977). "A short history of blood pressure measurement". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 70 (11): 793–9. PMC 1543468. PMID 341169. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1543468/. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
- ^ "The Siemens tram from past to present". Siemens. http://www.siemens.pl/upload/images/TS-Siemens_lekkie%20pojazdy_historia.pdf. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
- ^ "Godalming Power Station". Engineering Timelines. http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=744. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
- ^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 434–435. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
- ^ "The Savoy Theatre". The Times (London): p. 7. 1881-10-03.
- ^ Burgess, Michael (January 1975). "Richard D'Oyly Carte". The Savoyard: 7–11.
- ^ "Savoy Theatre". The Times: p. 4. 1881-12-29. http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/carte/savoy/electric.html. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
