1853 in science

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The year 1853 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• March 17 – Claude Bernard presents his doctoral thesis describing the glycogenetic function of the liver.[1]
• Anton de Bary publishes the first study demonstrating that rust and smut fungi cause plant disease.

Exploration

• November 25 – First definite sighting of Heard Island in the Antarctic.
• Alfred Russel Wallace publishes A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, with an account of the native tribes, and observations on the climate, geology, and natural history of the Amazon Valley.

Mathematics

• Jakob Steiner investigates the Steiner system.[2]

Medicine

• August 1 – Under terms of the Vaccination Act 1853 in the United Kingdom, all children born after this date are to receive compulsory vaccination against smallpox during their first 3 months of life.[3]
• William Little publishes a paper "On the Deformities of the Human Frame" in which he gives the first description of pseudo-hypertrophic muscular dystrophy.[4]
• Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood independently invent a practical hypodermic syringe.
• Antoine Desormeaux produces and names an endoscope illuminated by a kerosene lamp, using it to examine the urinary tract.[5]

Meteorology

• John Francis Campbell invents the original form of Campbell–Stokes recorder (for sunshine).

Technology

• Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci first develop the Barsanti-Matteucci engine, an internal combustion engine using the free-piston principle.[6][7]
• Sir George Cayley builds and demonstrates the first heavier-than-air aircraft (a glider).

Awards

• Copley Medal: Heinrich Wilhelm Dove[8]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Adolphe d'Archiac; Édouard de Verneuil

Births

• January 24 – Alfred Senier (died 1918), British chemist.
• February 15 – Frederick Treves (died 1923), English surgeon.
• March 2 – Ambrosius Hubrecht (died 1915), Dutch zoologist.
• March 10 – William Hampton Patton (died 1918), American entomologist.
• April 8 – Laura Alberta Linton (died 1915), American chemist.
• July 18 – Hendrik Lorentz (died 1928), Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate.
• September 2 – Wilhelm Ostwald (died 1932), Baltic German chemist.
• September 9 – Pierre Marie (died 1940), French neurologist.

Deaths

• March 17 – Christian Doppler (born 1803), Austrian mathematician and discoverer of the Doppler effect.
• March 20 – Robert James Graves (born 1796), Irish physician
• April 23 – Auguste Laurent (born 1807), French chemist.
• July 8 – Ernst Friedrich Germar (born 1786), German entomologist.
• September 14 – Hugh Edwin Strickland (born 1811), English geologist and ornithologist.
• October 2 – François Arago (born 1786), French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.
• October 18 – Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim (born 1771), German naturalist.

References

1. Nouvelle fonction du foie, considéré comme organe producteur de matière sucrée chez l'homme et les animaux. Paris.
2. Steiner, J. (1853). "Combinatorische Außgabe". Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik. 45: 181–182.
3. "United Kingdom Vaccination Act 1853". Policy Navigator. The Health Foundation. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
4. Siegel, I. M. (1988). "Historical Vignette #9. Little big man: the life and genius of William John Little (1810-1894)". Orthopedic Review. 17 (11): 1156, 1161–6. PMID 3060808.
5. Engel, Rainer (2007). "Development of the Modern Cystoscope: An Illustrated History". Medscape. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
6. "The Historical Documents". Barsanti e Matteucci. Fondazione Barsanti & Matteucci. 2009. Archived from the original on 2017-02-25. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
7. Ricci, G. (2012). "The First Internal Combustion Engine". In Starr, F.; Marshall, E.L.; Lawton, B. (eds.). The Piston Engine Revolution. London: Newcomen Society. pp. 23–44. ISBN 978-0-904685-15-2.
8. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.