Chapter III (3)

[99] See Patrick Blair’s ‘Botanic Essays,’ in two parts (1720), pp. 242-276. Even the Latin ode is borrowed without acknowledgment.

[100] The account in the text is taken from Koelreuter’s report in his ‘Historie der Versuche über das Geschlechte der Pflanzen,’ as given at p. 188 of Mikan’s ‘Opuscula Botanici Argumenti.’ Logan’s work, ‘Experimenta et Meletamata de Plantarum Generatione,’ unknown to me, is said by Pritzel to have been published at the Hague in 1739. Koelreuter cites from a London edition of 1747.

[101] Koelreuter’s report in Mikan’s collection is again the authority which is here relied on.

[102] Koelreuter says that he sent pollen of Chamaerops in 1766 to St. Petersburg and to Berlin, where it was successfully employed by Eckleben and Gleditsch. He wished to try how long the pollen retains its efficacy.

[103] See Vol. II. p. 502, of the ‘Physiologie végétale.’

[104] See Mikan, ‘Opuscula Botanici Argumenti,’ p. 180.

[105] Joseph Gottlieb Koelreuter was born at Sulz on the Neckar in 1733, and died at Carlsruhe in 1806, where he was Professor of Natural History, and from 1768 to 1786 Director also of the Botanic and Grand-ducal Gardens. On giving up the latter position he continued his experiments in his own small garden till the year 1790. Karl Friedrich Gärtner in his work ‘Ueber Bastardzeugung’ of 1849, at p. 5 says that after the latter date Koelreuter occupied himself with experiments in alchemy; but this must be a mistake. Gärtner, loco cit., and the ‘Flora’ of 1839, p. 245, supply all that seems to be known of the life of this distinguished man. The ‘Biographic Universelle’ contains no account of him. It would appear that he was in St. Petersburg before 1766.

[106] See Gärtner, ‘Ueber Bastardzeugung’ (1849), p. 62. I have unfortunately been unable to meet with the second continuation of Koelreuter’s work.

[107] Christian Konrad Sprengel, born in 1750, was for some time Rector at Spandau. There he began to occupy himself with botany, and devoted so much time to it that he neglected the duties of his office, and even the Sunday’s sermon, and was removed from his post. He afterward lived a solitary life in straitened circumstances in Berlin, being shunned by men of science as a strange, eccentric person. He supported himself by giving instruction in languages and in botany, using his Sundays for excursions, which any one who chose could join on payment of two or three groschen. He met with so little support and encouragement that he never brought out the second part of his famous work; his publisher did not even give him a copy of the first part. Natural disgust at the neglect with which his work was treated made him forsake botany and devote himself to languages. He died in 1816. One of his pupils wrote a very hearty eulogium on him in the ‘Flora’ of 1819, p. 541, which has supplied the above facts.

[108] See Hermann Müller, ‘Befruchtung der Blumen durch Insecten,’ Leipzig (1873). p. 5.

[109] Lazaro Spallanzani was born at Scandiano in Modena, and died at Pavia in 1799, where he was for a long time Professor of Natural History. He made researches in very various questions of natural science, and especially in animal physiology; but they seem to have been conducted with the same want of care and deliberation which appears in his experiments on sexuality in plants. A long article in the ‘Biographie Universelle’ gives a detailed account of his scientific labours.

[110] August Henschel was a practising physician and a University teacher in Breslau.

[111] Karl Friedrich Gärtner, son of Joseph Gärtner, was born at Calw in 1772, and died there in 1850. He attended lectures on natural science at the Carlsacademie at Stuttgart, and then went first to Jena for medical instruction, and in 1795 to Göttingen, where he was a pupil of Lichtenberg. He took a degree in 1796 and settled as a physician in his native town. Here he occupied himself at first with questions of human physiology, and afterwards worked at the supplement to his father’s ‘Carpologia.’ He collected notices and extracts for a complete work on vegetable physiology. This design was never fulfilled, but it led to his taking up the question of sexuality in plants, to which he devoted twenty-five years (‘Jahresheft des Vereins für vaterl. Naturkunde in Würtemberg,’ 1852, vol. viii, p. 16).

[112] See also Sachs, ‘Lehrbuch der Botanik,’ Leipzig, 1874.

[113] The more important works referred to in this section are Robert Brown’s ‘Miscellaneous Writings,’ edited by Bennett, 1866-67; von Mohl on G. Amici, in the ‘Botanische Zeitung,’ 1863, Beilage, p. 7; Schleiden, ‘Ueber die Bildung des Lichens und Entsichung des Embryos,’ in ‘Nova Acta Academiae Leopoldinensis,’ 1839, vol. xi, Abtheilung, 1; Hofmeister, ‘Zur Uebersicht der Geschichte von der Lehre der Pflanzenbefruchtung,’ in ‘Flora’ of 1867, p. 119.

[114] The authorities for these statements are collected by Hofmeister in ‘Flora,’ 1857, p. 120, etc.

[115] W. P. Schimper, in his ‘Recherches anatomiques et morphologiques sur les Mousses’ of 1850, had made some important statements respecting the sterility of female moss-plants growing at a distance from male specimens, and proved that the presence of male plants among females that are otherwise barren renders them fruitful.

[116] See the Fragments of Aristotelian phytology in Meyer’s ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. p. 120.

[117] J. B. van Helmont was born at Brussels in 1577, and died at Villvorde near Brussels in 1644. He was a leading representative of the chemistry of his day. Kopp, in his ‘Geschichte der Chemie,’ 1843, i. p. 117, has given a full account of his life and labours.

[118] J. D. Major, who was born at Breslau in 1639, and died at Stockholm in 1693, is quoted by Christian Wolff, as well as by Reichel (‘De vasis plantarum.’ 1758, p. 4) and others, as the founder of the theory of circulation, which he propounded in 1665 in his ‘Dissertatio Botanica de planta monstrosa Gottorpiensi,’ etc. Kurt Sprengel (‘Geschichte der Botanik, ii. p. 7) classes him also among the defenders of the doctrine of palingenesia, a superstitious belief in the reproduction of plants and animals from their ashes, which was used to prove the resurrection of the dead.

[119] He says, ‘in mediis vasculis reticularibus,’ which when taken in connection with his general histology, must be understood to mean the bast-bundles.

[120] The date of the birth of Edme Mariotte is not known. He was a native of Burgundy, and lived in Dijon at the time of his earliest scientific labours. He was an ecclesiastic and became Prior of St. Martin sous Beaune near Dijon; he was a Member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris from its foundation in 1666, and was one of the first Frenchmen who experimented in physics and applied mathematics to them. He died in Paris in 1684 (‘Biographie Universelle’).

[121] See the Fragments of Aristotelian phytology in Meyer’s ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. pp. 119, 125.

[122] His views are known to me only from Magnol’s paper in the ‘Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences,’ 1709, and Sprengel’s ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ ii. 20. Perrault’s treatise is according to Pritzel’s ‘Thesaurus’ of the date of 1680, but is published in the ‘Œuvres divers de Perrault’ of 1721.

[123] Especially in pages 1165, 1201, 2067, 2119.

[124] Stephen Hales was born in the county of Kent in 1677 and was educated at home without showing any special ability. At the age of nineteen he became a member of Christ’s College in Cambridge, and there showed his taste for physics, mathematics, chemistry, and natural history. Nevertheless he took orders and held Church preferment in different counties. He became a Member of the Royal Society in 1718, and read before it his ‘Statical Essays.’ His ‘Hæmostatics’ appeared in 1733. He made and published other investigations and discoveries of very various kinds before his death in 1761. He was buried in his church at Riddington, which he had rebuilt at his own cost, and the Princess of Wales caused an inscription to his memory to be placed in Westminster Abbey. See his Éloge in ‘Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences,’ 1762.

[125] See Sprengel, ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. 229, and Reichel’s and Bonnet’s works mentioned below.

[126] Georg Christian Reichel was born in 1727 and died in 1771. He was Professor in the University of Leipsic.

[127] Charles Bonnet, born at Geneva in 1720, sprang from a wealthy family, and was intended for the profession of the law, but gave himself up from an early age to scientific pursuits, and especially to zoology. He was afterwards a member of the great council of Geneva, and wrote various treatises on scientific subjects, psychology, and theology. He died on his properly at Genthod near Geneva in 1793. See the ‘Biographie Universelle’ and Carus, ‘Geschichte der Zoologie,’ p. 526.

[128] See p. 35 of the German translation by Arnold, 1762.

[129] Henri Louis du Hamel du Monceau was born at Paris in 1700 and died in 1781. He had an estate in the Gatinais, and turned his studies in physics, chemistry, zoology, and botany to account in the composition of a number of treatises on agriculture, the management of woods and forests, naval affairs, and fisheries. He was made Member of the Academy in 1728 on presenting to it an essay on a disease then raging in the saffron-plantations, and caused by the growth of a fungus (‘Biographie Universelle’).

[130] See Kopp, ‘Geschichte der Chemie’ (1843), i. p. 306, and ‘Entwicklung der Chemie in der neucrenzeit’ (1873), p. 138.

[131] Still less was gained from an observation made by Bonnet, that leaves exposed to sun-light in water containing air show bubbles of gas on their upper surface. Bonnet expressly denied the active participation of the leaves in the phenomenon, since the same thing happens with dead leaves in water containing air.

[132] Jan Ingen-Houss, physician to the Emperor of Austria, practised first in Breda, and afterwards in London. He was born at Breda in Holland in 1730, and died near London in 1799.

[133] Jean Senebier, born at Geneva in 1742, was the son of a tradesman, and after 1765 pastor of the Evangelical Church. On his return from a visit to Paris he published his ‘Moral Tales,’ and at the suggestion of his friend Bonnet competed for a prize offered at Haarlem for an essay on the Art of Observation. He was awarded the second place in this competition. In 1769 he became pastor at Chancy, and in 1773 librarian of Geneva. At this time, among other literary labours, he translated Spallanzani’s more important writings; he also studied chemistry under Tingry, and carried out his researches into the influence of light. In 1791 he wrote an article for the ‘Encyclopaedie méthodique’ on vegetable physiology. The revolution in Geneva drove him into the Canton Vaud, and there he composed his ‘Physiologie végétale,’ in five volumes. He returned to Geneva in 1799 and took part in a new translation of the Bible. He died in that city in 1809 (‘Biographie Universelle’).

[134] Nicolas Théodore de Saussure was born at Geneva in 1767, and died there in 1845. He was the son of the famous explorer of the Alps, and assisted his father in his observations on Mont Blanc and the Col du Géant. In 1797 he wrote his treatise on carbonic acid in its relation to vegetation, a prelude to his ‘Recherches chimiques’; the latter work received great attention from the scientific world, and he was made a corresponding member of the French Institute. He was a man of literary tastes, and took part also in public affairs, being repeatedly elected to the Council of Geneva. His preference for a secluded life is said to have been the reason why he never undertook the duties of a professorship. See the supplement to the ‘Biographie Universelle’ and Poggendorf’s ‘Biographisch-litterarisches Handwörterbuch.’

[135] Henri Joachim Dutrochet, born in 1776, was a member of a noble family which belonged to the department of the Indre and lost its property during the revolution; he therefore adopted medicine as a profession, and took his degree at the Faculty of Paris in 1806. He was attached to the armies in Spain as military surgeon in 1808 and 1809; but he retired as soon as possible from practice and devoted himself in great seclusion to his physiological pursuits, living for some years in Touraine. He was made corresponding member of the Academy in 1819, and communicated his discoveries to that body. Becoming an ordinary member in 1831, he spent the winter months from that time forward in Paris. He died in 1847 after two years’ suffering from an injury to the head. Dutrochet was one of the most successful champions, in animal as well as vegetable physiology, of the modern ideas which displaced the old vitalistic school of thought after 1820. See the ‘Allgemeine Zeitung’ for 1847, p. 780.

[136] See above on page 513.

[137] Thomas Andrew Knight, President of the Horticultural Society, was born at Wormsley Grange, near Hereford, in 1758, and died in London in 1838.

[138] See ‘Arbeiten des botanischen Institutes in Würzburg,’ vol. i. p. 99.

End of Project Gutenberg's History of Botany (1530-1860), by Julius von Sachs