1863 in science

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The year 1863 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Friedrich Bayer founds the chemical manufacturing company of Bayer at Barmen in Germany.
• Teerfarbenfabrik Meister, Lucius & Co. of Höchst (Frankfurt) in Germany produce a green dye from coal tar.^[1]

Life sciences

• Max Schultze advances cell theory with the observation that animal and vegetable protoplasm are identical.^[2]
• Henry Walter Bates publishes The Naturalist on the River Amazons.

Medicine

• February 17 – First meeting of what will become the International Committee of the Red Cross is held in Geneva, Switzerland, following the lead of humanitarian Henry Dunant.^[3]
• William Banting publishes Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public in London, the first popular low-carbohydrate diet.^[4]
• Ivan Sechenov publishes Refleksy golovnogo mozga ("Reflexes of the brain").^[5]

Meteorology

• The Paris Observatory begins to publish weather maps.

Paleontology

• Richard Owen publishes the first description of a fossilised bird, Archaeopteryx.^[6]

Physics

• January – John Tyndall first explains the workings of the greenhouse effect.^[7]

Technology

• February 10 – Alanson Crane patents a fire extinguisher.
• July – The tiny Confederate States of America hand-propelled submarine H. L. Hunley is first tested successfully (although thirteen crew – including her inventor Horace Lawson Hunley – are lost in two sinkings later in the year).^[8]
• December 19 – Linoleum patented in the United Kingdom.^[6]

Institutions

• March 3 – National Academy of Sciences incorporated in the United States.
• November 29 – Polytechnic University of Milan founded as the Istituto Tecnico Superiore.

Publications

• January 31 – The first of Jules Verne's scientifically inspired Voyages Extraordinaires, the novel Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon), is published in Paris.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Adam Sedgwick
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Gustav Bischof

Births

• March 25 – Simon Flexner (d. 1946), American pathologist and bacteriologist.
• April 29 – Signe Häggman (d. 1911), Finnish pioneer of physical education of the disabled.
• May 14 – John Charles Fields (d. 1932), Canadian mathematician.
• July 12 – Paul Drude (d. 1906), German physicist.
• October 16 – Beverly Thomas Galloway (d. 1938), American plant pathologist.
• Undated – Cuthbert Christy (d. 1932), English medical investigator, zoologist and explorer.

Deaths

• March 7 – Charles Wilkins Short (b. 1794), American botanist.
• July 21 – Josephine Kablick (b. 1787), Czech botanist and paleontologist.

References

1. Burke, James (1978). Connections. London: Macmillan. p. 205. ISBN 0-333-24827-9.
2. Das Protoplasma der Rhizopoden und der Pflanzenzellen; ein Beiträg zur Theorie der Zelle.
3. Boissier, Pierre (1985). History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Geneva: Henry Dunant Institute. ISBN 2-88044-012-2.
4. Groves, Barry (2002). "William Banting: The Father of the Low-Carbohydrate Diet". Second Opinions. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
5. Meditsinsky vestnik 47–48.
6. Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1863". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
7. In a public lecture, "On Radiation Through The Earth's Atmosphere", reprinted in his book Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat (1872).
8. Chaffin, Tom (2008). The H. L. Hunley: the Secret Hope of the Confederacy. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-9512-4.