1759 in science
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The year 1759 in science and technology involved several significant events.
Astronomy
- Halley's Comet returns; a team of three mathematicians, Alexis Clairaut, Jérome Lalande and Nicole Reine Lepaute, have – for the first time – predicted the date.
Biology
- Caspar Friedrich Wolff's dissertation at the University of Halle Theoria Generationis supports the theory of epigenesis.[1]
Botany
- Kew Gardens established in England by Augusta of Saxe-Coburg, the mother of George III.[2]
Geology
- Giovanni Arduino proposes dividing the geological history of Earth into four periods: Primitive, Secondary, Tertiary and Volcanic, or Quaternary.[3]
Medicine
- June 15 – The first vascular surgery in history is performed by a Dr. Hallowell at Newcastle upon Tyne in England, who uses suture repair rather than a tying off with a ligature to repair an aneurysm on a patient's brachial artery.[4][5] The new procedure of reconstructing a damaged artery replaces the practice of ligation that had risked the amputation of a limb or organ failure.[6]
- Angélique du Coudray publishes Abrégé de l'art des accouchements ("The Art of Obstetrics").
Physics
- Posthumous publication of Émilie du Châtelet's French translation and commentary on Newton's Principia, Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle.
Technology
- English clockmaker John Harrison produces his "No. 1 sea watch" ("H4"), the first successful marine chronometer.[7]
Transport
- James Brindley is engaged by the Duke of Bridgewater to construct a canal to transport coal to Manchester from the duke's mines at Worsley, in North West England.
- October 16 – Smeaton's Tower, John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of South West England, is first illuminated.[8]
Awards
Births
- January 29 – Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, French botanist (died 1828)
- July 19 – Jacques Anselme Dorthès, French physician, entomologist and naturalist (died 1794)[10]
- August 12 – Thomas Andrew Knight, English horticulturalist (died 1838)
- September 19 – William Kirby, English entomologist (died 1850)
- December 2 – James Edward Smith, English botanist (died 1828)
- Date unknown – Maria Petraccini, Italian anatomist and physician (died 1791)
Deaths
- February 16 – Bartholomew Mosse, Irish surgeon (born 1712)
- April 6 – Johann Gottfried Zinn, German anatomist and botanist (born 1727)
- July 27 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician (born 1698)
- September 10 – Ferdinand Konščak, Croatian explorer (born 1703)
- November 29 – Nicolaus I Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (born 1687)