1881 in science
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The year 1881 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
- 22 May â John Tebbutt discovers the long-period comet, C/1881 K1 (also known as the Great Comet of 1881, Comet Tebbutt, 1881 III, 1881b).[1]
Biology
- October â Charles Darwin publishes his last scientific book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
- L. S. Poliakov describes the wild horse discovered by Nikolai Przhevalsky in Mongolia in 1879 as a new species, Przewalski's horse (Equus przewalski poliakov).[2][3]
- The first systematic study in forensic entomology is conducted by physician and entomologist Hermann Reinhard in Germany.[4]
Chemistry
- Friedrich Beilstein publishes the first edition of his Handbuch der organischen Chemie.
History of science and technology
- The birch bark Bakhshali manuscript, incorporating perhaps the earliest known use of mathematical zero, is unearthed near Bakhshali in British India.
- Publication in England of a pioneering study in industrial archaeology, H. A. Fletcher's "The archaeology of the west Cumberland iron trade".[5]
Mathematics
- Simon Newcomb makes the first statement of Benford's law.[6]
Medicine
- July 13 â Dr. George Goodfellow performs the first laparotomy to remove a bullet.
- September 25 â The first modern Caesarean section is performed successfully by German gynecologist Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in Meckesheim using the transverse incision technique.
- December â Eduard von Hofmann carries out autopsy studies of the nearly 400 victims of the Vienna Ringtheater fire, carbon monoxide poisoning being held an underlying cause of death.
- Louis Pasteur discovers a vaccine for anthrax.
- Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor, first proposes that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct human contact.[7]
- French obstetrician Ãtienne Stéphane Tarnier introduces a form of neonatal incubator (couveuse) for routine care of premature infants at the Paris Maternité.[8]
- English ophthalmologist Waren Tay publishes the first description of the genetic disorder which will become known as TayâSachs disease.[9]
- approx. date â The non-invasive sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch.[10]
Metrology
- The International Congress of Electricians, meeting in Paris, makes significant progress in definition of the International System of Units.[11]
Technology
- March 1 â The Cunard Line's SS Servia, the first steel transatlantic liner, is launched at J. & G. Thomson's yard at Clydebank in Scotland.[12]
- May 16 â The Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, the world's first electric tramway, is opened in Berlin by Siemens & Halske.[13]
- June â The positive-buoyancy powered submarine "Fenian Ram" (Holland Boat No. II), designed by John Philip Holland, is first submersion-tested in New York City.
- August 30 â French inventor Clément Ader demonstrates his théâtrophone system which delivers the first example of transmitted binaural 2-channel stereophonic sound, delivered over telephone wires from the operatic stage of the Palais Garnier to the International Exposition of Electricity in Paris.[14][15][16][17]
- September 26 â Godalming becomes the first town in England to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).[18]
- October 10 â Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre opens in London, the world's first public building to be fully lit by electricity, using Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs.[12][19][20] The stage is first lit electrically on December 28.[21]
- December 21 â SS Aberdeen, the first oceangoing ship successfully powered by a triple expansion steam engine, designed by Alexander Carnegie Kirk, is launched at Robert Napier and Sons' yard at Govan in Scotland.
- Nikolay Benardos introduces carbon arc welding, the first practical arc welding method.[22]
- Peter Herdic patents the Herdic horse-drawn cab in the United States.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Karl Adolph Wurtz[23]
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Peter Martin Duncan
Births
- January 29 â Alice Catherine Evans (died 1975), American microbiologist.
- January 31 â Irving Langmuir (died 1957), American chemist.
- March 17 â Walter Rudolf Hess (died 1973), Swiss physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- April 28 â Edith A. Roberts (died 1977), American plant ecologist.
- May 1 â Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (died 1955), French paleontologist and philosopher.
- August 6 â Alexander Fleming (died 1955), British bacteriologist.
- September 18 â Vera Lebedeva (died 1968), Soviet Russian pediatrician.
- October 4 â George Constantinescu (died 1965), Romanian engineer.
- October 11 â Lewis Fry Richardson (died 1953), British mathematical physicist.
- October 22 â Clinton Davisson (died 1958), American physicist.
- November 9 â Margaret Reed Lewis (died 1970), American cell biologist.
- November 13 â Ludwig Koch (died 1974), German Jewish animal sound recordist.
Deaths
- February 3 â John Gould (born 1804), English zoologist.
- March 26 â Lovisa à hrberg (born 1801), Swedish surgeon.
- May 14 â Mary Seacole (born 1805), Jamaican-born nurse.
- May 19 â Joseph Barnard Davis (born 1801), English craniologist, physician and anthropologist.
- May 26 â Jakob Bernays (born 1824), German philologist.
- June 16 â George Rolleston (born 1829), English physician and zoologist.
- June 23 â Matthias Jakob Schleiden (born 1804), German biologist.
- June 29 â Maurice Raynaud (born 1834), French physician.
- July 27 â Hewett Watson (born 1804), English biologist.
- October 31 â George W. DeLong (born 1844), American Arctic explorer.
- November 30 â Jean-Alfred Gautier (born 1793), Swiss astronomer[24]