1869 in science explained

The year 1869 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Events

• November 4 – The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.

Chemistry

• March 6 – Dmitri Mendeleev makes a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
• June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid, in Albany, New York.
• July 15 – Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès files a patent for margarine (as oleomargarine) in France as a beef tallow and skimmed milk substitute for butter.
• German chemist Lothar Meyer makes a formal presentation of the revised and expanded version of his independently-created 1864 periodic table, „Die Natur der chemischen Elemente als Funktion ihrer Atomgewichte".
• Publication of Adolphe Wurtz's Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquée begins in Paris.

Life sciences

• April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.
• June 24 – Sea Birds Preservation Act passed in the United Kingdom, preventing killing of designated species during the breeding season, the first Act to offer any protection to British wild birds.^[1]
• Paul Langerhans discovers the pancreatic islets.
• Friedrich Miescher discovers deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. Found in the nuclei of cells, Miescher names it "nuclein".
• Neurasthenia is first published as a diagnosis in psychopathology by Michigan alienist E. H. Van Deusen of the Kalamazoo asylum^[2] followed a few months later by New York neurologist George Miller Beard.^[3]
• French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David receives the skin of a giant panda from a hunter, the first time this species has become known to a Westerner;^[4] he also first describes a specimen of the "pocket handkerchief tree", which will be named in his honor as Davidia involucrata.
• Alfred Russel Wallace publishes The Malay Archipelago.

Mathematics

• W. Stanley Jevons publishes The Substitution of Similars and has a "Logic Piano" constructed to work out problems in symbolic logic.^[5]
• Hermann Schwarz devises Schwarz–Christoffel mapping.

Technology

• Approximate date – Henry Christopher Mance develops a practical military heliograph in the British Raj.^{[6] [7] [8]}

Awards

• Copley Medal: Henri Victor Regnault^[9]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Clifton Sorby

Births

• February 14 – C. T. R. Wilson (died 1959), Scottish physicist and meteorologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• February 27 – Alice Hamilton (died 1970), American physician.^[10]
• April 8 – Harvey Cushing (died 1939), American neurosurgeon.
• April 17 – Robert Robertson (died 1949), Scottish-born chemist.
• June 19 – Christopher Addison (died 1951), English anatomist and politician.
• July 18 – Maria von Linden (died 1936), German bacteriologist and zoologist.
• August 23 – Robert Gunther (died 1940), English historian of science.
• October 3 – Robert W. Paul (died 1943), English pioneer of cinematography.
• November 23 – Valdemar Poulsen (died 1942), Danish audio engineer.
• December 16 – Bertha Lamme (died 1943), American electrical engineer.
• Helen Boyle (died 1957), British physician and psychologist.

Deaths

• July 22 – John A. Roebling (born 1806), German American bridge engineer.
• July 28 – Carl Gustav Carus (born 1789), German physiologist and landscape painter.
• September 11 – Thomas Graham (born 1805), Scottish chemist.

Notes and References

1. Barclay-Smith. Phyllis. 1959. The British contribution to bird protection. Ibis. 101. 1. 115–122. 10.1111/j.1474-919X.1959.tb02363.x. 2021-02-16. 2013-01-05. https://archive.today/20130105075744/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120816053/abstract. dead.
2. Van Deusen. E. H.. Observations on a form of nervous prostration (neurasthenia) culminating in insanity. American Journal of Insanity. April 1869. 25. 4. 445–461. 10.1176/ajp.25.4.445.
3. Beard. George. 1869. Neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 80. 13. 217–221. 10.1056/NEJM186904290801301.
4. Encyclopedia: Giant Panda. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2010-08-09.
5. Book: Grattan-Guinness, Ivor. Ivor Grattan-Guinness

   . Ivor Grattan-Guinness. 2000. The Search for Mathematical Roots, 1870–1940. Princeton University Press. 978-0-691-05857-3.

6. Book: Woods, Daniel. Military Communications: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century. 2008. ABC-CLIO. 978-1851097326. 208. https://books.google.com/books?id=RBC2nY1rp5MC&dq=heliograph&pg=PA211. Heliograph and Mirrors. Sterling, Christopher.
7. Mance. Henry. The Heliograph or Sun Telegraph. United Service Institution of India. 1872-02-10. 1. 5. 123–130. 2027/mdp.39015035103855?urlappend=%3Bseq=665. 2013-06-16.
8. Goode. Samuel. Mance's Heliograph, or Sun-Telegraph. Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. 1875-06-14. XIX. LXXXIII. 534–548. 2011-06-21. 10.1080/03071847509415772.
9. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopedia Britannica . 23 July 2020 . en.
10. Book: Sicherman, Barbara . Notable American Women: The Modern Period: a Biographical Dictionary . Cambridge . Belknap Press . 1980 . 303 . 978-0-67462-733-8 .