1819 in science
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The year 1819 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy and space science
- Johann Franz Encke computes the orbit of Comet Encke, identifying it as periodic.
- July 1 â Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819, (C/1819 N1). It is the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago.
Chemistry
- Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier isolate the alkaloid brucine from Strychnos nux-vomica.
Exploration
- February 19 â Captain William Smith in British merchant brig Williams sights Williams Point, the northeast extremity of Livingston Island in the South Shetlands, the first land discovered south of latitude 60° S.
- October 15 â Desolation Island in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic is discovered by Captain William Smith in the Williams.
- A British Arctic expedition under William Edward Parry comprising HMS Hecla and HMS Griper reaches longitude 112°51' W in the Northwest Passage, the furthest west which will be attained by any single-season voyage for 150 years.[1]
Geology
- G. B. Greenough publishes his book A critical examination of the first principles of geology in a series of essays in London.
Medicine
- August â René Laennec publishes De lâAuscultation Médiate ou Traité du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur in Paris, describing his invention of the stethoscope.
- English physician John Bostock publishes the first account of allergic rhinitis (in himself).[2][3][4]
- French physician Pierre Amable Jean-Baptiste Trannoy publishes one of the first epidemiology treatises in France: Traité élémentaire des maladies épidémiques ou populaires à l'usage des officiers de santé (Elementary Treatise on Epidemic or Popular Diseases for the use of health officers).[5]
Technology
- May 22 â SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, although only a fraction of the trip is made under steam. The ship arrives at Liverpool, England, on June 20.
- Invention of the M1819 breech-loading flintlock using interchangeable parts by Captain John H. Hall of Harpers Ferry Armory in the United States.
Institutions
- Cambridge Philosophical Society founded as a scientific society at the University of Cambridge in England.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Not awarded[6]
Births
- March 24 â Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (died 1885), German medical pathologist.
- May 3 (O.S. April 21) â Nikolai Annenkov (died 1889), Russian botanist.
- June 5 â John Couch Adams (died 1892), Cornish-born mathematician and astronomer.
- July 17 â Eunice Newton Foote (died 1888), American physicist and women's rights campaigner.
- July 28 â Thomas Evans Blackwell (died 1863), English civil and hydraulic engineer.
- August 9 â William T. G. Morton (died 1868), American dentist.
- August 13 â George Gabriel Stokes (died 1903), Irish-born mathematician and physicist.
- September 18 â Léon Foucault (died 1868), French physicist.
- September 23 â Hippolyte Fizeau (died 1896), French physicist.
Deaths
- January â Elsa Beata Bunge (born 1734), Swedish botanist
- August 19 â James Watt (born 1736), Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer and mathematician[7]
- November 22 â John Stackhouse (born 1742), English botanist