1858 in science

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The year 1858 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Contents 1 Archaeology 2 Astronomy 3 Biology 4 Evolution 5 Exploration 6 Mathematics 7 Medicine 8 Psychiatry 9 Technology 10 Awards 11 Births 12 Deaths 13 References

Archaeology

• In Luxor, Egypt, the Rhind papyrus is found (named for Alexander Henry Rhind, the discoverer); it is sometimes called the Ahmes papyrus for the scribe who wrote it around 1650 BC.

Astronomy

• Donati's Comet, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati on 2 June and remains visible for several months afterwards.

Biology

• William Herschel initiates fingerprinting as a means of identification, in Bengal.^[1]
• Rudolf Virchow publishes Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre: 20 Vorlesungen, gehalten während der Monate Februar, März und April 1858 im Pathologischen Institut zu Berlin.

Evolution

• July 1 - Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on their theories of evolution are presented to the Linnean Society of London.

Exploration

• February 13 - Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.^[2]
• May 14 - Dr David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi Expedition, under the patronage of the Royal Geographical Society, arrives at the African coast with the prefabricated iron paddle steamer Ma Robert.^[3]
• August 3 - John Hanning Speke discovers Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile.^[2]

Mathematics

• The Möbius strip is discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing.^[4][5][6]
• Arthur Cayley publishes Memoir on the theory of matrices, introducing the modern concept of the matrix in mathematics.^[7][8][9]

Medicine

• First publication of Gray's Anatomy.
• Publication in London of Thomas B. Peacock's On Malformations, &c., of the Human Heart, with original cases which becomes a standard cardiology textbook.^[10]

Psychiatry

• First treatise on postpartum psychiatric disturbances, by Louis-Victor Marcé, MD.^[11]

Technology

• I. K. Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames using Tangye hydraulic rams.^[12]
• Hoffmann kiln patented in Germany by Friedrich Hoffmann for continuous production brickmaking.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Charles Lyell
• Wollaston Medal for geology: James Hall

Births

• January 28 - Eugène Dubois (d. 1940), Dutch paleoanthropologist.
• March 18 - Rudolf Diesel (d. 1913), German mechanical engineer.
• April 23 - Max Planck (d. 1947), theoretical physicist.
• August 27 - Giuseppe Peano (d. 1932), Italian mathematician.
• October 4 - Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (d. 1935), Banat-born physicist.
• November 1 - Ludwig Struve (d. 1920), Russian astronomer.

Deaths

• April 28 - Johannes Peter Müller (b. 1801), German physiologist.
• June 10 - Robert Brown (b. 1773), Scottish botanist.
• November 8 - George Peacock (b. 1791), English mathematician.
• December 16 - Richard Bright (b. 1789), English physician.

References