1881 in science
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
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The year 1881 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents
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]
Chemistry
- Friedrich Beilstein publishes the first edition of his Handbuch der organischen Chemie.
History of science and technology
- The birch bark Bakhshali manuscript, incorporating perhaps the earliest known use of mathematical zero, is unearthed near Bakhshali in British India.
- Publication in England of a pioneering study in industrial archaeology, H. A. Fletcher's "The archaeology of the west Cumberland iron trade".[4]
Mathematics
- Simon Newcomb makes the first statement of Benford's law.[5]
Medicine
- July 13 – Dr. George Goodfellow performs the first laparotomy to remove a bullet.
- 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.[6]
- English ophthalmologist Waren Tay publishes the first description of the genetic disorder which will become known as Tay–Sachs disease.[7]
- approx. date – The non-invasive sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch.[8]
Technology
- March 1 – The Cunard Line's SS Servia, the first steel transatlantic liner, is launched at J. & G. Thomson's yard at Clydebank in Scotland.[9]
- May 16 – The Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, the world's first electric tramway, is opened in Berlin by Siemens & Halske.[10]
- June – The positive-buoyancy powered submarine "Fenian Ram" (Holland Boat No. II), designed by John Philip Holland, is first submersion-tested in New York City.
- September 26 – Godalming in England becomes the first town to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).[11]
- 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.[9][12][13] The stage is first lit electrically on December 28.[14]
Awards
- Copley Medal: Karl Adolph Wurtz
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Peter Martin Duncan
Births
- January 31 – Irving Langmuir (died 1957), American chemist.
- May 1 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (died 1955), French paleontologist and philosopher.
- August 6 – Alexander Fleming (died 1955), British bacteriologist.
- September 18 – Vera Lebedeva (died 1968), Soviet Russian pediatrician.
- November 9 – Margaret Reed Lewis (died 1970), American cell biologist.
- November 13 – Ludwig Koch (died 1974), German Jewish animal sound recordist.
Deaths
- February 3 – John Gould (born 1804), English zoologist.
- March 26 – Lovisa Åhrberg (born 1801), Swedish surgeon.
- May 14 – Mary Seacole (born 1805), Jamaican-born nurse.
- May 26 – Jakob Bernays (born 1824), German philologist.
- June 23 – Matthias Jakob Schleiden (born 1804), German biologist.
- July 27 – Hewett Watson (born 1804), English biologist.
- October 31 – George W. DeLong (born 1844), American Arctic explorer.
References
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- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Archaeological Society 5:5–21.
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