1865 in science explained

The year 1865 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Archaeology

• John Lubbock publishes Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, including his coinage of the term Palæolithic.^[1]

Astronomy

• Vassar College Observatory opens at Poughkeepsie, New York, with Maria Mitchell as its first director.

Chemistry

• Friedrich Kekulé proposes a ring structure for benzene.^[2]
• Adolf von Baeyer begins work on indigo dye, a milestone in modern industrial organic chemistry which revolutionizes the dye industry.^[3]
• Johann Josef Loschmidt indirectly determines the number of molecules in a mole, later named the Avogadro constant.^[4]

Economics

• William Stanley Jevons published his book The Coal Question, which would form the scientific basis for the Jevons paradox.

Life sciences

• Louis Pasteur shows that the air is full of bacteria.
• Joseph Lister begins to experiment with antiseptic surgery in Glasgow using carbolic acid.^[5]
• Max Schultze gives the first known description of the platelet.^[6]
• Claude Bernard publishes Principes de Médecine experimentale.
• February 8 & March 8 – Gregor Mendel reads his paper, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (Experiments on Plant Hybridization), at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia.^[7]
• May 17 – Father Armand David first observes Père David's Deer in China.^[8]
• June - August – Francis Galton formulates eugenics.^[9]
• September – John Henry Walsh (writing as 'Stonehenge' in the magazine The Field) gives the first definition of a dog breed standard (for the pointer) based on physical form.^[10]
• September 28 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson obtains a licence from the Society of Apothecaries in London to practice medicine, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the United Kingdom,^[11] and sets up in her own practice.

Physics

• Rudolf Clausius gives the first mathematical version of the concept of entropy, and also names it.^{[12] [13]}
• James Clerk Maxwell publishes A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.^[5]

Technology

• Aveling and Porter produce the world's first steam roller at Rochester in England.^[14]
• Hermann Sprengel produces the Sprengel pump which is capable of creating a significant vacuum.^[15]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Michel Chasles^[16]
• Wollaston Medal in Geology: Thomas Davidson

Births

• January 22 – Friedrich Paschen (died 1947), German physicist.
• February 1 – Henry Luke Bolley (died 1956), American plant pathologist.
• March 19 – William Morton Wheeler (died 1937), American entomologist.
• March 31 – Anandi Gopal Joshi (died 1887), Indian physician.
• April 28 – Charles W. Woodworth (died 1940), American entomologist.
• June 27 – John Monash (died 1931), Australian civil engineer and General.
• August 10 – Charles Close (died 1952), Jersey-born cartographer.
• October 12 – Arthur Harden (died 1940), English biochemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient.
• November 4 – Chevalier Jackson (died 1958), American laryngologist and pioneer of endoscopy.

Deaths

• January 14 – Marie-Anne Libert (born 1782), Belgian botanist.
• January 31 – Hugh Falconer (born 1808), British geologist, botanist, paleontologist and paleoanthropologist.
• April 23 – Diego de Argumosa (born 1792), Spanish surgeon.
• April 30 – Robert FitzRoy (born 1805), English admiral and meteorologist, suicide.
• May 27 – Charles Waterton (born 1782), English naturalist and explorer.
• June 5 – Sir John Richardson (born 1787), Scottish-born naturalist, explorer and naval surgeon.
• July 25 – Dr. James Barry (born 1789-1799), Irish-born military surgeon.
• August 12 – Sir William Jackson Hooker (born 1785), English botanist.
• August 13 – Ignaz Semmelweis (born 1818), Hungarian physician, following restraint in insane asylum.
• August 26 – Johann Franz Encke (born 1791), German astronomer.
• August 29 – Robert Remak (born 1815), Polish/Prussian Jewish embryologist.
• September 2 – Sir William Rowan Hamilton (born 1805), Irish mathematician, physicist and astronomer.
• October 17 – Joseph-François Malgaigne (born 1806), French surgeon.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Palaeolithic, adj. and n. . 3rd . Oxford English Dictionary online version . Oxford University Press . 2012-02-24 . https://www.webcitation.org/65kLYSVHL?url=http://www.oed.com/;jsessionid=6590B9B41357E72B72FD9A83C4130F30?authRejection=true&url=%2Fview%2FEntry%2F136182 . 2012-02-26 . live . December 2011 .
2. F. A.. Kekulé. Sur la constitution des substances aromatiques. Bulletin de la Société Chimique de Paris. 3. 1865. 98–110.
3. Web site: Adolf von Baeyer: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1905 . Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901–1921 . Elsevier Publishing Company . 1966 . 2007-02-28.
4. NPR. KUHF-FM Houston. Johann Josef Loschmidt. 1858. The Engines of Our Ingenuity. The Engines of Our Ingenuity. Lienhard, John H.. 2003. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1858.htm. Johann Josef Loschmidt .
5. Book: 1865. The People's Chronology. Everett, Jason M.. Thomson Gale. 2006.
6. Schultze. M.. Ein heizbarer Objecttisch und seine Verwendung bei Untersuchungen des Blutes. Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie. 1865. 1. 1–42. 10.1007/bf02961404.
7. The "Rediscovery" of Mendel's Work. Randy. Moore. Bioscene. 27. 2016-12-06. May 2001. https://web.archive.org/web/20170202002119/http://papa.indstate.edu/amcbt/volume_27/v27-2.pdf. 2017-02-02. dead.
8. Web site: Elaphurus davidianus. Ultimate Ungulate. 2004. 2011-05-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20110605153301/http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Elaphurus_davidianus.html. 5 June 2011 . live.
9. Francis. Galton. Hereditary talent and character. Macmillan's Magazine. 12. 1865. 157–166, 318–327. 2016-12-06.
10. Web site: First modern dog discovered. University of Manchester. 2013-03-06. 2013-03-07.
11. Apart from the woman passing herself off as Dr James Barry. Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
12. Clausius . R. . Über die Wärmeleitung gasförmiger Körper . . 125 . 353–400 . 1865 . 26 April 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110605212636/http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/bpt6k152107/f369.table . 5 June 2011 . live . 10.1002/andp.18652010702 . 1865AnP...201..353C .
13. Book: Clausius, R.. 1867. The Mechanical Theory of Heat – with its Applications to the Steam Engine and to Physical Properties of Bodies. London. John van Voorst.
14. Web site: Aveling and Porter. Grace's Guide. 2011-05-25.
15. Book: Thompson, Silvanus P.. Silvanus P. Thompson. The Development of the Mercurial Air-pump. 1888. E. & F. N. Spon. London. 14 - 15. Hermann Sprengel..
16. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopedia Britannica . 23 July 2020 . en.