1881 in science explained

The year 1881 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• 22 May – John Tebbutt discover the long-period comet, C/1881 K1 (also known as the Great Comet of 1881, Comet Tebbutt, 1881 III, 1881b).^[1]

Biology

• October – 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]
• The first systematic study in forensic entomology is conducted by physician and entomologist Hermann Reinhard in Germany.^[3]

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".^[4]

Mathematics

• Simon Newcomb makes the first statement of Benford's law.^[5]

Medicine

• July 13 – Dr. George Goodfellow performs the first laparotomy to remove a bullet.
• September 25 – The first modern Caesarean section is performed successfully by German gynecologist Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in Meckesheim using the transverse incision technique.
• December – 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.^[6]
• French obstetrician Étienne Stéphane Tarnier introduces a form of neonatal incubator (couveuse) for routine care of premature infants at the Paris Maternité.^[7]
• English ophthalmologist Waren Tay publishes the first description of the genetic disorder which will become known as Tay–Sachs disease.^[8]
• approx. date – The non-invasive sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch.^[9]

Technology

• March 1 – The Cunard Line's, the first steel transatlantic liner, is launched at J. & G. Thomson's yard at Clydebank in Scotland.^[10]
• May 16 – The Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, the world's first electric tramway, is opened in Berlin by Siemens & Halske.^[11]
• June – The positive-buoyancy powered submarine "Fenian Ram" (Holland Boat No. II), designed by John Philip Holland, is first submersion-tested in New York City.
• September 26 – Godalming in England becomes the first town to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).^[12]
• October 10 – 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.^{[10] [13] [14]} The stage is first lit electrically on December 28.^[15]
• December 21 –, 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.
• Peter Herdic patents the Herdic horse-drawn cab in the United States.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Karl Adolph Wurtz^[16]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Peter Martin Duncan

Births

• January 29 – Alice Catherine Evans (died 1975), American microbiologist.
• January 31 – Irving Langmuir (died 1957), American chemist.
• March 17 – Walter Rudolf Hess (died 1973), Swiss physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• April 28 – Edith A. Roberts (died 1977), American plant ecologist.
• May 1 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (died 1955), French paleontologist and philosopher.
• August 6 – Alexander Fleming (died 1955), British bacteriologist.
• September 18 – Vera Lebedeva (died 1968), Soviet Russian pediatrician.
• October 4 – George Constantinescu (died 1965), Romanian engineer.
• October 11 – Lewis Fry Richardson (died 1953), British mathematical physicist.
• October 22 – Clinton Davisson (died 1958), American physicist.
• November 9 – Margaret Reed Lewis (died 1970), American cell biologist.
• November 13 – Ludwig Koch (died 1974), German Jewish animal sound recordist.

Deaths

• February 3 – John Gould (born 1804), English zoologist.
• March 26 – Lovisa Åhrberg (born 1801), Swedish surgeon.
• May 14 – Mary Seacole (born 1805), Jamaican-born nurse.
• May 19 – Joseph Barnard Davis (born 1801), English craniologist, physician and anthropologist.
• May 26 – Jakob Bernays (born 1824), German philologist.
• June 16 – George Rolleston (born 1829), English physician and zoologist.
• June 23 – Matthias Jakob Schleiden (born 1804), German biologist.
• June 29 – Maurice Raynaud (born 1834), French physician.
• July 27 – Hewett Watson (born 1804), English biologist.
• October 31 – George W. DeLong (born 1844), American Arctic explorer.
• November 30 – Jean-Alfred Gautier (born 1793), Swiss astronomer

Notes and References

1. News: THE GREAT COMET OF 1881. The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide, South Australia). 8 June 1881. letter from C. Todd
2. Web site: Przewalski's horse. TAKH. 2009. 2011-11-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20120302021718/http://www.takh.org/Przewalski_horse.html. 2012-03-02. dead.
3. with . Friedrich Moritz Brauer . Moritz Brauer . Friedrich . 1882 . Beiträge zur Gräberfauna" ["Contributions on the fauna of graves"]. . Verh. k. & k. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien . 31 . 207–210 .
4. Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Archaeological Society 5:5–21.
5. Simon. Newcomb. Note on the frequency of use of the different digits in natural numbers. American Journal of Mathematics. 4. 1881. 39–40. 10.2307/2369148. 2369148.
6. Chaves. Carballo E.. Carlos Finlay and yellow fever: triumph over adversity. Military Medicine. 2005. 881–5. 170. 16435764. 10.7205/milmed.170.10.881. free.
7. 11882561. 1721389. 2002. Dunn. P. M.. Stéphane Tarnier (1828–1897), the architect of perinatology in France. 86. 2. F137–9. Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition. 10.1136/fn.86.2.f137.
8. Waren. Tay. 1881. 1. Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society. Symmetrical changes in the region of the yellow spot in each eye of an infant. 55–57.
9. A short history of blood pressure measurement. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1977. Jeremy. Booth. 70. 11. 793–9. 341169. 1543468. 10.1177/003591577707001112.
10. Book: Williams, Hywel. Cassell's Chronology of World History. registration. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2005. 0-304-35730-8. 434–435.
11. Web site: The Siemens tram from past to present. Siemens. 2011-06-16. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110725013704/http://www.siemens.pl/upload/images/TS-Siemens_lekkie%20pojazdy_historia.pdf. 2011-07-25.
12. Web site: Godalming Power Station. Engineering Timelines. 2010-07-06. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716111833/http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=744. 2011-07-16.
13. News: The Savoy Theatre. The Times. London. 1881-10-03. 7.
14. Burgess. Michael. Richard D'Oyly Carte. The Savoyard. 7–11. January 1975.
15. News: Savoy Theatre. The Times. 1881-12-29. 4. 2012-01-30.
16. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopædia Britannica . 23 July 2020 .