1876 in science explained

The year 1876 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• December 7 – First recorded observation of the Great White Spot on Saturn, made by American astronomer Asaph Hall, who uses it to calculate the planet's rotation period.

Biology

• Robert Koch demonstrates that Bacillus anthracis is the source of anthrax, the first bacterium conclusively shown to cause disease.^[1]
• Koller's sickle in avian gastrulation is first described by August Rauber.
• Francis Galton invents the silent dog whistle.^[2]
• Meiosis is discovered and described for the first time in sea urchin eggs by the German biologist Oscar Hertwig.

Chemistry

• Josiah Willard Gibbs publishes On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, a compilation of his work on thermodynamics and physical chemistry which lays out the concept of free energy to explain the physical basis of chemical equilibria.^[3]

Exploration

• May 24 – End of the Challenger expedition.^[4]

Mathematics

• Édouard Lucas demonstrates that 127 is a Mersenne prime, the largest that will be recorded for seventy-five years.^[5] He also shows that the Mersenne number 2⁶⁷ − 1, or M₆₇, must have factors.

Medicine

• February 22 – Swedish woman Karolina Olsson lapses into a form of hibernation for 32 years.
• David Ferrier publishes The Functions of the Brain.
• William Macewen demonstrates clinical diagnosis of the site of brain tumors and performs the first successful intercranial surgery.
• Patrick Manson begins studying filariasis infection in humans.
• Meharry Medical College founded in Nashville, Tennessee as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College; it is the first medical school for African Americans in the Southern United States.

Technology

• February 14 – Scottish American inventor Alexander Graham Bell and American electrical engineer Elisha Gray each file a patent for the telephone, initiating the Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy.
• March 7 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.^[6]
• March 10 – Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful bi-directional telephone call, saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you".
• April – Joseph Zentmayer makes his Centennial microscope in the United States.
• April 15 – Russian-born electrical engineer Pavel Yablochkov first publicly demonstrates the 'Yablochkov candle', a form of arc lamp, in London.^[7]
• May 17 – Nicolaus Otto files his patent for the four-stroke engine using the Otto cycle.^[8]
• August 8 – Thomas Edison is granted a United States patent for his mimeograph.
• Emile Berliner invents an improved form of microphone (the carbon-button type) which will be adopted for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.^{[9] [10]}
• Francis Edgar Stanley of Newton, Massachusetts, patents an atomizing paint distributor, a form of airbrush.^[11]
• The Seth Thomas Clock Company is awarded a United States patent for an adjustable wind-up alarm clock.
• Thomas Hawksley first uses pressure grouting to control water leakage under an embankment dam at Tunstall Reservoir in Weardale, County Durham, England.^{[12] [13] [14] [15]}
• Melville Reuben Bissell files a United States patent for an improved carpet sweeper.^[16]

Institutions

• October 4 – First classes begin at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.^[17]
• Elizabeth Bragg becomes the first woman to graduate with a civil engineering degree in the United States, from University of California, Berkeley.^[18]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Claude Bernard^[19]
• Wollaston Medal: Thomas Henry Huxley

Births

• January 5 – Lucien Bull (died 1972), Irish-born pioneer in chronophotography.
• January 23 – Otto Diels (died 1954), German Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
• February 15 – E. H. "Chinese" Wilson (died 1930), English-born plant collector.
• April 22 – Robert Bárány (died 1936), Viennese-born Nobel Prize winner in medicine.
• June 13 – William Sealy Gosset (died 1937), English statistician.
• October 3 – Gabrielle Howard née Matthaei (died 1930), English-born plant physiologist.
• November 9 – Hideyo Noguchi (died 1928), Japanese bacteriologist.
• November 19 – Tatyana Afanasyeva (died 1964), Russian-born mathematician.
• November 25 – Paul Nitsche (executed 1948) Nazi German psychiatrist and eugenicist.

Deaths

• November 26 – Karl Ernst von Baer (born 1792), Baltic German naturalist.
• Undated  - Anna Volkova (born 1800), Russian chemist.

Notes and References

1. Koch. R.. 1876. Die Ätiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus anthracis. Cohns Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen. 2. 2. 277–310. 2011-05-31.
2. Book: Galton, Francis. 1883. Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. 26–27.
3. Web site: O'Connor . J. J. . Robertson . E.F. . Josiah Willard Gibbs . MacTutor . School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland . 1997 . 2007-03-24.
4. Book: Rice, A. L.. Understanding the Oceans: Marine Science in the Wake of HMS Challenger. London. Routledge. 1999. 27–48. The Challenger Expedition. 978-1-85728-705-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=F5agn3NSzEoC&pg=PA27.
5. Web site: The Largest Known Prime by Year: A Brief History. Chris. Caldwell. 2011-12-30.
6. [United States]
7. Web site: Nathan. Brewer. Engineering Hall of Fame: Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov. 2012-03-01. 2024-07-27. IEEE USA InSight.
8. Book: van Dulken, Stephen. Inventing the 19th Century. London. British Library. 2001. 0-7123-0881-4. 104–5.
9. Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal. en-us. Wired. 2023-09-19. 1059-1028.
10. Web site: Early History of the Microphone. UGA Special Collections Library Online Exhibitions. 2023-09-19.
11. United States patent #182,389.
12. Hawksley, Thomas. 2004 . 10.1093/ref:odnb/12691 . 2011-08-27.
13. Book: Rennison, R. W.. Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England. 81. 9780727725189. 1996.
14. Book: Houlsby, A. Clive. Construction and Design of Cement Grouting; A Guide to Grouting in Rock Foundations. Wiley. 1990. 0-471-51629-5.
15. Rudolph Glossop. Rudolph. Glossop. The Invention and Development of Injection processes Part II: 1850-1960. British Geotechnical Association. Géotechnique. 11. 4. 1961. 255–279. 10.1680/geot.1961.11.4.255.
16. Book: Baxter, Albert. 1891. History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Munsell.
17. Web site: Henry C. Dethloff. Henry C. Dethloff. Texas A&M University. The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. 2011-11-18.
18. Web site: University of California, Berkeley . WEP Milestones . Berkeley Engineering . 2011-11-24 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120110020425/http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/bpi/jmep/milestones.html . 2012-01-10 .
19. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopedia Britannica . 23 July 2020 . en.