Biologists 19th century
Henry Walter Bates was a British naturalist, biologist and traveler.
As a young man, Henry worked in a factory and attended the local mechanical institute, where he excelled in Greek, Latin, French, drawing and composition, later learning German and Portuguese. He also practiced classical music and was an avid entomologist.
In 1844, Bates met entomologist Alfred Russel Wallace, who a few years later invited him to go to the tropical jungle on a scientific expedition. In May 1848, they arrived in Para, Brazil, near the mouth of the Amazon River. Wallace returned to England four years later, but Bates remained there for a total of 11 years, exploring the entire Amazon Valley, where he collected some 14,712 species, mostly insects, of which 8,000 were previously unknown.
On his return to England in 1859, Bates began working on his vast collections and preparing a famous paper published in 1862 entitled Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley. In 1864 Bates was appointed assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (London), a position he held until his death. He wrote The Naturalist on the Amazon River (1863), as well as many works on entomology.
Bates's work in demonstrating the action of natural selection in animal mimicry (imitation of other living organisms or inanimate objects) provided strong support for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Much of Bates's insect collections are in the British Museum.
Giovanni Battista Brocchi was an Italian mineralogist, geologist and paleontologist.
Brocchi studied law at the University of Padua, but was seriously interested in natural sciences and mineralogy. In 1802, Brocchi became a teacher of natural history at the Brescia Gymnasium. Appointment in 1808 as inspector of mines in Milan gave him the opportunity to travel extensively in Italy, making extensive notes and collecting numerous samples. The fruits of these labors appeared in various publications, notably his "Treatise mineralogical and chemical on the iron mines of the department of Mella" (1808). He then obtained a position as inspector of mining in the newly created kingdom of Italy.
In 1811 Brocchi wrote a valuable essay entitled "Mineralogical Memoirs on the Fassa Valley in the Tyrol." He made his first extensive exploration of central Italy in 1811-1812, witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius, and was able to compare the condition of its crater before and after the eruption. But his most important work is Fossils of the Sub-Apennines with geological observations on the Apennines and adjacent soil (1814), which contains precise details of the structure of the Apennine ridge and an account of the fossilization of Italian Tertiary strata in comparison with existing species. Brocchi also wrote several significant works on biology.
In the fall of 1822 he sailed from Trieste to Egypt, whence he made excursions up the Nile and into Syria and Palestine. In 1826 he contracted the bubonic plague, of which he died. His last journals and collections are preserved at the Museo Civico in Bassano. In all, Brocchi published five voluminous books and about seventy articles in various journals.
John Curtis was a British entomologist and illustrator, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
As a young man, John Curtis studied engraving and became increasingly interested in entomology. In 1824 he began publishing his major work entitled British Entomology: illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects inhabiting Great Britain and Ireland, which is still considered the best 19th century encyclopedia on the subject. It was published monthly by subscription from 1824 to 1839, each issue containing four plates with two pages of accompanying text. The finished work consisted of 16 volumes covering 770 species of insects. The French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) called British entomology "a model of perfection."
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for contributing to the understanding of evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
Charles-Frederic Dubois was a Belgian naturalist, artist and author of books on birds and butterflies.
Based on the results of his study of birds and scales of Belgium, Academician Dubois wrote Planches colorées des oiseaux de l'Europe ("Colored Plates of Birds of Europe") and Catalog systématique des Lépidoptères de la Belgique ("Systematic Catalog of Scales of Belgium"), which after his death was completed by his son Alphonse Joseph Charles Dubois (1839-1921).
Alphonse Dubois, full name Alphonse Joseph Charles Dubois, was a Belgian naturalist and physician.
Alphonse Dubois had a doctorate in medicine and in 1869 became curator of vertebrate animals at the Royal Museum of Natural History in Brussels. He worked with his father, the academician Charles-Frédéric Dubois (1804-1867), on the publication Les Oiseaux de l'Europe et leurs œufs (The Birds of Europe and their Eggs), completing it after his father's death. The book consisted of two volumes, the second of which consisted of illustrations by Dubois Sr.
William Henry Edwards was an American amateur naturalist, entomologist, and businessman.
Edwards was a pioneer in the West Virginia coal industry, opening some of the earliest mines in the southern part of the state. He was also an accomplished naturalist and widely recognized as an authority on North American butterflies. As a businessman, he was involved in the coal industry, but the study of butterflies remained his passion.
During his lifetime he published some 250 scientific papers on scales, including a three-volume treatise, Butterflies of North America, which is highly regarded for its scholarship and the quality of its illustrations. Edwards paid great attention to the life stages of the insects in question, describing each stage in detail. The illustrations, on the other hand, were drawn by Mary Pirt, a talented Pennsylvania artist, and hand-colored by Lydia Brown.
Christian Friedrich Freyer was a German entomologist.
According to contemporaries, Freyer was a venturesome and tireless collector of scales. He studied and first described 245 species of butterflies, including 193 species of nocturnal moths and 52 species of day butterflies. Freyer's importance as a field entomologist becomes evident from his work Die Falter um Augsburg ("Butterflies in the vicinity of Augsburg"). In it he lists 1,091 species. Freyer also created an international network between renowned European entomologists and involved them in his work.
George Robert Gray was a British zoologist.
Gray practiced ornithology and scales, and for forty years headed the ornithology department of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London. Gray's major work on ornithology is entitled Genera of Birds (1844-1849), and is decorated with illustrations by David William Mitchell and Joseph Wolf. Gray also described many species of scales, and in 1833 became a founding member of the Royal Entomological Society of London.
Adrian Hardy Haworth was a British scientist of entomology, botany and carcinology, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
Haworth made significant contributions to botany and entomology, describing many species of plants and insects. He summarized and published the results of his entomological collections in the extensive Lepidoptera Britannica (1803-1828), which was the first major monograph on the scales of Britain and one of the most authoritative works of the 19th century. Haworth was also a carcinologist and specialized in shrimps.
William Chapman Hewitson was a British naturalist, entomologist and artist, a member of the Linnean Society.
After gaining financial independence, Hewitson devoted himself entirely to natural history, particularly the study of scales and birds. His rich collection of exotic butterflies contained over 4,000 species and was considered one of the finest. Hewitson published numerous works on entomology and ornithology and was an accomplished scientific illustrator. His principal work was Illustrations of new species of exotic butterflies, a richly illustrated encyclopedia to which Hewitson devoted the last thirty years of his life, expending enormous personal resources, personally drawing and coloring the figures. At his death he left his entire butterfly collection to the British Museum.
Henry Noel Humphreys was a British artist, illustrator, naturalist, entomologist and numismatist.
He was educated at King Edward's School and studied medieval manuscripts in Italy, and became a distinguished scholar in many fields of science. In addition to publications on entomology, Humphreys wrote works on ancient Greek and Roman coins, archaeology, and the art of writing and printing.
Humphreys was a successful book illustrator, and is also known for publishing sumptuous books whose design is reminiscent of medieval carved and jeweled bindings.
William Jardine was a Scottish naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, artist and publisher of works on zoology.
Jardine studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and was an excellent sportsman. Although his main passion was ornithology, he also studied ichthyology, botany and geology. Sir William Jardine was a prominent Scottish Victorian naturalist, author and publisher of 40 volumes of the popular Naturalist's Library (1833-43). Of these, 14 volumes were devoted to ornithology, 13 volumes to mammals, 7 volumes to entomology, and 6 volumes to ichthyology.
A series in four volumes, Illustrations on Ornithology, co-written with Prideaux John Selby, was published between 1825 and 1843. His book on burrows and fossil tracks, The Ichnology of Annandale, includes fossils from his ancestral estate. Jardine was a leading expert on salmon and trout in the British Isles. His outstanding knowledge of the species was profound that in 1860 he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Salmon Fisheries of England and Wales. His research culminated in the best and most comprehensive monograph on these fish, "British Salmonids," with the remarkable illustrations by Jardine himself. William Jardine's private natural history museum and library are considered the finest in Britain.
Theophilus Johnson was a British artist, amateur naturalist and publisher.
He trained as a clerical worker and then started his own printing business. Johnson had a passion for the natural sciences and spent much time in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London. His drawings and books cover a wide range of topics, from molluscs to mammals, but his main interest was entomology.
Theophilus Johnson's publications on entomology depict the various species of moths found in the British Isles on beautifully colored watercolor sheets, and include illustrations of their larvae as well as the plants they feed on. During his lifetime he illustrated more than 46 volumes with original watercolors.
François Levaillant was a French ornithologist, traveler and writer.
Levaillant was born in Dutch Guiana, where his father was French consul. He returned with his family to France, where he eventually became a dealer in natural history specimens. At the age of 27, trained as an ornithologist, he traveled to southern Africa with the Dutch East India Company to collect specimens for his collection. Levaillant was one of the first naturalist explorers to venture into uncharted and dangerous Africa to see and study birds in their natural habitat.
Returning to France in 1785 after several years of traveling, he began writing ornithological works based on his diaries. His Histoire naturelle des perroquets (Natural History of Parrots) was published between 1801 and 1805, and his six-volume History of the Nature of Africa was published between 1799 and 1808. Levaillant also wrote the popular book Le Vaillant's Voyage to the Interior of Africa and others. He was one of the first Europeans to make ethnographic observations, empathizing with African peoples and treating them as equals.
Jane Webb Loudon, full name Jane Wells Webb Loudon, is an English futurological writer, one of the pioneers of the science fiction genre, an artist and amateur botanist.
At the age of 20, Loudon wrote the novel that brought her fame, "The Mummy!" (1827). Set in the year 2126, the novel describes an England filled with advanced technology, including automated lawyers and steam-powered surgeons, coffee makers, and an information highway resembling the modern Internet.
Loudon was married to the well-known horticulturist John Claudius Loudon, and they wrote several books together, and she also published her own very successful series of books with titles such as Gardening for Women, A Lady's Companion to the Flower Garden.
Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger was a German anatomist, biologist and professor of anatomy.
Meckel came from a family of physicians; his grandfather and father were physicians and anatomists and had their own anatomical museum at home. Meckel studied medicine at the universities of Halle and Göttingen, writing his doctoral dissertation on congenital anomalies of the heart. As a pathologist, he specialized in the study of congenital malformations and aspects of lung and blood vessel development. He also described Meckel's diverticulum, which he discovered during a pathologic examination, and became the founder of the science of teratology.
After Napoleon's occupation, the University of Halle reopened in May 1808, and Meckel was appointed professor of surgery, normal and pathological anatomy, and obstetrics. He taught throughout his life, continued to conduct research in pathology, and collected specimens for his collection. The scientist was the author of numerous articles and several multi-volume treatises, including one on pathologic anatomy and an atlas depicting human anomalies. His principal labors were devoted to the comparative morphology of vertebrates. In 1810 he completed the translation of Cuvier's (1769-1832) five-volume Leçons d'anatomie Comparée from French into German.
Meckel was a member of the German Academy of Naturalists "Leopoldina," a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London.
Frederic Moore was a British illustrator, naturalist and entomologist.
Moore worked for many years as assistant curator for the East India Company at the London Museum and discovered many species of butterflies. He also published six volumes on the butterflies of South Asia (Lepidoptera Indica) and a catalog of birds in the East India Company's collection.
Frederic Moore was a member of the Linnean Society of London and the Entomological Society of London.
Seth Lister Mosley was a British artist, naturalist and ornithologist.
Although Mosley had no specialized training, he came from a naturalist's family and from a young age was involved in the study of natural history. He visited almost every museum in Britain and became one of the foremost British naturalists in the late nineteenth century.
Mosley was widely known as a taxidermist, illustrator, naturalist, magazine editor, and newspaper columnist. He managed several private museums in Huddersfield before being appointed Keeper of Collections at Huddersfield Technical College, and in 1922 he became the first curator of the Tolson Memorial Museum.
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and the founder of microbiology and vaccination.
Pasteur received a bachelor of arts and sciences from the Royal College of Besançon and a doctorate from the École Normale in Paris, then spent several years as a researcher and teacher at the Lycée de Dijon. In 1848 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, and in the following year began to study the nature of wine fermentation, which began his revolutionary journey of most important scientific discoveries.
He invented a way to kill bacteria by boiling and then cooling the liquid, a process known today as pasteurization. Pasteur discovered the first vaccine in 1879 when he was exposed to a disease called chicken cholera. By accidentally exposing chickens to a weakened form of the culture, he demonstrated that they became resistant to the actual virus. Pasteur subsequently expanded his theory of germs and developed causes and vaccines against anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox, and the success of Pasteur's rabies vaccine in 1885 brought him worldwide fame.
Louis Pasteur's contribution to science, technology and medicine cannot be overemphasized. He pioneered the study of molecular asymmetry; discovered that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease; invented the process of pasteurization; saved the brewing, wine and silk industries in France; developed vaccines against the dreaded diseases anthrax and rabies, which saved millions of lives.
In 1873, Pasteur was elected an associate member of the Academy of Medicine, in 1882 - a member of the French Academy, and in 1888 in Paris was opened the Pasteur Institute. He was also awarded France's highest honor, the Legion of Honor.
Lawrence Rawstorne was a British naturalist writer.
He is best known for his treatise Gamonia: or the Art of Preserving Game, which is devoted exclusively to the subject of pheasant breeding, concealed shooting, and the management of woodlands for the specific purpose of preserving game. The book contains 15 hand-colored aquatint plates by and drawing by J. T. Rawlins and was published in London in 1837.
Robert Henry Fernando Rippon was a British zoologist, entomologist and illustrator.
Rippon was a musician, but later became passionate about natural history. In the 1860s he made a collecting trip to Panama, New Grenada and South America, and around the same time his talent as a natural history artist developed.
In 1890, Rippon began work on a multi-volume work on the butterfly-birdwings Icones Ornithopterum. He wrote the text himself, drew, lithographed, and hand-colored the plates. The work, eventually published in 25 parts, became his "principal and almost all-purpose occupation" for nearly 20 years.
After Rippon's death, his vast collection was donated to the Natural History Museum. The insects alone numbered 105,760, including more than 21,000 butterflies and 17,000 moths.
Theodor Schwann was a German cytologist, histologist and physiologist, author of the cell theory.
Schwann's most significant contribution to biology is considered to be the extension of cell theory to animals. Schwann extended Schleiden's theory of the cell as the basic unit of the plant world to animals. In 1839 Schwann published his seminal work on the general theory of the cell as the basis of life, Mikroskopische Untersuchungen ber die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen ("Microscopic Investigations on the correspondence in the structure and growth of animals and plants"). Schwann's theory can thus be regarded as the progenitor of the school of mechanistic materialism in biology.
Schwann also studied the formation of yeast spores and concluded that the fermentation of sugar and starch was the result of life processes. He also introduced the term metabolism to describe the chemical changes that occur in living tissues, defined the role of microorganisms in putrefaction, and formulated the basic principles of embryology, noting that an egg is a single cell that eventually develops into a complete organism.
John Obadiah Westwood was a British entomologist and archaeologist, artist, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
John Westwood was the first Hope Professor at Oxford University, where he held the Chair of Invertebrate Zoology. He made a significant contribution to Australian entomology and wrote a large number of papers between 1835 and 1864.
Westwood was a good illustrator and published several illustrated works on insects and antiquities. He did not travel himself, but described insect species from around the world based on specimens, especially large, outlandish, and colorful ones obtained by naturalists and collectors in England. In 1855 the scientist was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London.
Alexander Wilson was a Scottish-born American naturalist, ornithologist, illustrator, and poet.
Wilson emigrated from Scotland to America in 1794, spent several years teaching in Philadelphia and New Jersey, and then became interested in studying native birds. He traveled extensively in the American wilderness and captured and studied over 300 different birds, including several previously unknown. He made his own drawings and detailed descriptions, supported by reading scientific literature.
The results of his research were published under the title American Ornithology in eight volumes beginning in 1808. The ninth volume was published after his death in August 1813. One of the first subscribers was President Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Wilson was a member of the Society of Artists of the United States and the American Philosophical Society. The Wilson Ornithological Society is named in his honor, and a monument is erected in Abbey Close, Paisley. Several species of birds are named in his honor.
Josef Wolf was a German artist and natural history illustrator.
Josef Wolf was already a respected natural history artist in Germany when he moved to London in 1848 and was engaged by the famous English ornithologist John Gould (1804-1881) to illustrate his monographs. Wolf fairly quickly became the most famous animalist painter of the 19th century. In addition to illustrating for Gould, Wolf was responsible for the publication of Zoological Sketches, commissioned by the Zoological Society of London. Wolf was widely recognized during his lifetime; he created the genre of wildlife art.
Wolf's animalistic art consisted of his ability to capture a moment of movement combined with a deep physiological knowledge of animals.
Joseph Wolf was a German artist and natural history illustrator.
Joseph Wolf was already a respected natural history artist in Germany when he moved to London in 1848 and was engaged by the famous English ornithologist John Gould (1804-1881) to illustrate his monographs. Wolf fairly quickly became the most famous animalist painter of the 19th century. In addition to illustrating for Gould, Wolf was responsible for the publication of Zoological Sketches, commissioned by the Zoological Society of London. Wolf was widely recognized during his lifetime; he created the genre of wildlife art.
Wolf's animalistic art consisted of his ability to capture a moment of movement combined with a deep physiological knowledge of animals.
