1868 in science

	… 1858; 1859; 1860; 1861; 1862; 1863; 1864; ; 1865; 1866; 1867; 1868; 1869; 1870; 1871; ; 1872; 1873; 1874; 1875; 1876; 1877; 1878 …;
	Art; Archaeology; Architecture; Literature; Music; Philosophy; Science; +...

The year 1868 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

January 30 – Publication of Charles Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (by John Murray in London), including his theory of heredity, which he calls pangenesis.
Jules-Emile Planchon and colleagues propose Phylloxera as the cause of the Great French Wine Blight.^[1]
Roland Trimen reads a paper to the Linnaean Society explaining Batesian mimicry in African butterflies.^[2]^[3]
T. H. Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it Bathybius haeckelii. He admits his mistake in 1871.^[4]
The Granny Smith apple cultivar originates in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, from a chance seedling propagated by Maria Ann Smith (née Sherwood, 1799–1870).^[5]

Chemistry

August 18 – The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere by French astronomer Jules Janssen during a total eclipse in Guntur, India, but assumed to be sodium.^[6]
October 20 – English astronomer Norman Lockyer observes and names the D₃ Fraunhofer line in the solar spectrum and concludes that it is caused by a hitherto unidentified element which he later names helium.^[7]
Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.^[8]

Medicine

Jean-Martin Charcot describes and names multiple sclerosis.^[9]^[10]
Adolph Kussmaul performs the first esophagogastroduodenoscopy on a living human.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]

Paleontology

March – French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first anatomically modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.

Technology

October 28 – American inventor Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, for a form of electronic voting machine.

Awards

Copley Medal: Charles Wheatstone
Wollaston Medal for Geology: Carl Friedrich Naumann

Births

January 31 – Theodore William Richards (died 1928), chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
February 7 – Aleen Cust (died 1937), veterinary surgeon.
March 15 – Grace Chisholm Young (died 1944), mathematician.
March 22 – Robert Millikan (died 1953), physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics.
April 4 – Philippa Fawcett (died 1948), mathematician.
April 8 – Herbert Jennings (died 1947), zoologist.
April 14 – Annie Russell (died 1947), astronomer.
May 2 – Robert W. Wood (died 1955), optical physicist.
June 6 – Robert Falcon Scott (died 1912), explorer.
June 14 – Karl Landsteiner (died 1943), physiologist.
July 4 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt (died 1921), astronomer.
October 23 – Frederick W. Lanchester (died 1946), automotive engineer.
November 8 – Felix Hausdorff (died 1942), mathematician.
December 9 – Fritz Haber (died 1934), chemist.
J. B. Christopherson (died 1955), physician.

Deaths

February 11 – Léon Foucault (born 1819), physicist.
February 24 – John Herapath (born 1790), physicist.
May 22 – Julius Plücker (born 1801), mathematician and physicist.
June 25 – Alexander Mitchell (born 1780), engineer and inventor of the screw-pile lighthouse.
September 26 – August Ferdinand Möbius (born 1790), mathematician.
December 25 – Linus Yale, Jr. (born 1821), inventor.
December 31 – James David Forbes (died 1809), physicist, glaciologist and seismologist.

References

^ "The Great French Wine Blight". Wine Tidings. 96. July–August 1986. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-01. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ Published in Transactions 26(3) (1870): 497.
^ "Roland Trimen, 1840-1916". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 91 (641): xviii–xxvii. 1920. doi:10.1098/rspb.1920.0020. JSTOR 80995.
^ Ley, Willy (1959). Exotic Zoology. New York: Viking Press.
^ Martin, Megan (2005). "Smith, Maria Ann (1799–1870)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 2012-01-27.
^ Kochhar, R. K. (1991). "French astronomers in India during the 17th –19th centuries". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 101 (2): 95–100. Bibcode:1991JBAA..101...95K.
^ Hampel, Clifford A. (1968). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. pp. 256–268. ISBN 0-442-15598-0.
^ Coe, Brian (1978). Colour Photography: the first hundred years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant. ISBN 0-904069-24-9.
^ Enerson, Ole Daniel. "Jean-Martin Charcot". Whonamedit?. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ Charcot, J.-M. (1868). "Histologie de la sclerose en plaques". Gazette des hopitaux. 41. Paris: 554–55.
^ Killian, Gustvan (1911). "The history of bronchoscopy and esophagoscopy". The Laryngoscope. 21 (9): 891–7. doi:10.1288/00005537-191109000-00001.
^ Modlin, Irvin M.; Kidd, Mark; Lye, Kevin D. (2004). "From the Lumen to the Laparoscope". Archives of Surgery. 139 (10): 1110–26. doi:10.1001/archsurg.139.10.1110. PMID 15492154. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
^ Elewaut, A.; Cremer, M. (2002). "The History of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy — The European Perspective". In Classen, Meinhard et al. (ed) (ed.). Gastroenterological endoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58890-013-5. Retrieved 2010-09-06. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
^ Vilardell, F. (2006). "Rigid gastroscopes". Digestive endoscopy in the second millennium: from the Lichtleiter to echoendoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. pp. 32–5. ISBN 978-3-13-139671-6. Retrieved 2010-09-06.

[1] "The Great French Wine Blight". Wine Tidings. 96. July–August 1986. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-01. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[2] Published in Transactions 26(3) (1870): 497.

[3] "Roland Trimen, 1840-1916". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 91 (641): xviii–xxvii. 1920. doi:10.1098/rspb.1920.0020. JSTOR 80995.

[4] Ley, Willy (1959). Exotic Zoology. New York: Viking Press.

[5] Martin, Megan (2005). "Smith, Maria Ann (1799–1870)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 2012-01-27.

[6] Kochhar, R. K. (1991). "French astronomers in India during the 17th –19th centuries". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 101 (2): 95–100. Bibcode:1991JBAA..101...95K.

[7] Hampel, Clifford A. (1968). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. pp. 256–268. ISBN 0-442-15598-0.

[8] Coe, Brian (1978). Colour Photography: the first hundred years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant. ISBN 0-904069-24-9.

[9] Enerson, Ole Daniel. "Jean-Martin Charcot". Whonamedit?. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[10] Charcot, J.-M. (1868). "Histologie de la sclerose en plaques". Gazette des hopitaux. 41. Paris: 554–55.

[11] Killian, Gustvan (1911). "The history of bronchoscopy and esophagoscopy". The Laryngoscope. 21 (9): 891–7. doi:10.1288/00005537-191109000-00001.

[12] Modlin, Irvin M.; Kidd, Mark; Lye, Kevin D. (2004). "From the Lumen to the Laparoscope". Archives of Surgery. 139 (10): 1110–26. doi:10.1001/archsurg.139.10.1110. PMID 15492154. Retrieved 2011-10-17.

[13] Elewaut, A.; Cremer, M. (2002). "The History of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy — The European Perspective". In Classen, Meinhard et al. (ed) (ed.). Gastroenterological endoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58890-013-5. Retrieved 2010-09-06. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

[14] Vilardell, F. (2006). "Rigid gastroscopes". Digestive endoscopy in the second millennium: from the Lichtleiter to echoendoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. pp. 32–5. ISBN 978-3-13-139671-6. Retrieved 2010-09-06.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]