1858 in science

The year 1858 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• June 2 – Donati's Comet, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati; it remains visible for several months afterwards.
• September 10 – George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora from the Dudley Observatory near Albany, New York. ^[1]

Biology

Darwin

• Publication of Darwin's theory of evolution:
  • June 18 – Charles Darwin receives papers from Alfred Russel Wallace setting out the latter's theory of natural selection which he forwards to Charles Lyell.
  • July 1 – Darwin and Wallace's papers on their theories of evolution, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (submitted with the support of Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker) are read by John Joseph Bennett to a meeting of the Linnean Society of London. They are first published on August 20.
• William Herschel initiates fingerprinting as a means of identification, in Bengal. ^[2]
• Rudolf Virchow publishes Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre: 20 Vorlesungen, gehalten während der Monate Februar, März und April 1858 im Pathologischen Institut zu Berlin.
• George Bentham's Handbook of the British flora is published. This will be in use (in editions edited by Joseph Dalton Hooker) for a century.

Chemistry

• May 28 – Erasmus Bond (owner of Pitt & Co. of London) patents tonic water, manufactured using quinine. ^{[3] [4]}

Exploration

• February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika. ^[5]
• May 14 – Dr David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi Expedition, under the patronage of the Royal Geographical Society, arrives at the African coast with the prefabricated iron paddle steamer Ma Robert. ^[6]
• August 3 – John Hanning Speke discovers Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile. ^[5]

Mathematics

• The Möbius strip is discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing. ^{[7] [8] [9]}
• Arthur Cayley publishes "A memoir on the theory of matrices", introducing the modern concept of the matrix in mathematics. ^{[10] [11] [12]}
• In Luxor, Egypt, the Rhind papyrus is found (named for Alexander Henry Rhind, the discoverer; it is sometimes called the Ahmes papyrus for the scribe who wrote it around 1650 BC).

Physiology and medicine

• August 2 – Medical Act 1858 passed "to Regulate the Qualifications of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery" in the United Kingdom.
• December 1 – The recently formed Odontological Society of London opens the Dental Hospital of London in England. ^[13]
• First publication of Gray's Anatomy .
• Publication in London of Thomas B. Peacock's On Malformations, &c., of the Human Heart, with original cases which becomes a standard cardiology textbook. ^[14]
• French pediatrician Eugène Bouchut develops a new technique for non-surgical orotracheal intubation to bypass laryngeal obstruction resulting from a diphtheria-related pseudomembrane. ^[15]

Psychiatry

• First treatise on postpartum psychiatric disturbances, by Louis-Victor Marcé, MD. ^[16]

Technology

• January 31 – I. K. Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames using Tangye hydraulic rams. ^[17]
• August – The first aerial photography is carried out by Nadar from a moored balloon in France using the collodion process. ^[18]
• August 16 – Official inauguration of the transatlantic telegraph cable; however, it fails on September 1.
• Mirror galvanometer invented by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin.
• Hoffmann kiln patented in Germany by Friedrich Hoffmann for continuous production brickmaking.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Charles Lyell ^[19]
• Wollaston Medal for geology: James Hall

Births

• January 2 – Bernard Sachs (died 1944), American neurologist.
• January 9 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, née Knight (died 1934), American botanist.
• January 28 – Eugène Dubois (died 1940), Dutch paleoanthropologist.
• February 7 – Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate (died 1931), Dutch anthropologist.
• March 18 – Rudolf Diesel (died 1913), German mechanical engineer.
• March 27 – Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer (died 1945), German physician and bacteriologist.
• April 23 – Max Planck (died 1947), German theoretical physicist.
• May 19 – Thomas Allinson (died 1918), English physician and dietetic reformer.
• May 28 – T. H. E. C. Espin (died 1934), English astronomer, scientist and clergyman.
• July 9 – Franz Boas (died 1942), German-born anthropologist.
• August 11 – Christiaan Eijkman (died 1930), Dutch physiologist.
• August 19 – Ellen Willmott (died 1934), English horticulturist.
• August 27 – Giuseppe Peano (died 1932), Italian mathematician.
• October 4 – Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (died 1935), Banat-born physicist.
• November 1 – Ludwig Struve (died 1920), Russian astronomer.
• November 30 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (died 1937), Bengali physicist.
• Laura Forster (died 1917), Australian physician.

Deaths

• January 4 – Amelia Griffiths (born 1768), British phycologist.
• April 28 – Johannes Peter Müller (born 1801), German physiologist.
• June 10 – Robert Brown (born 1773), Scottish botanist.
• June 28 – Jane Marcet (born 1769), British popular science writer.
• November 8 – George Peacock (born 1791), English mathematician.
• December 10 – Joseph Paul Gaimard (born 1793), French naval surgeon and naturalist.
• December 16 – Richard Bright (born 1789), English physician.

References

1. "(55) Pandora". Minor Planet Center. International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
2. Herschel, William J. (1916). The Origin of Finger-Printing (PDF). Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-1-104-66225-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
3. Raustiala, Kal (2013-08-28). "The Imperial Cocktail". Slate . The Slate Group . Retrieved 2024-05-14.
4. Walker, Kim; Nesbitt, Mark. "Just the tonic: A natural history of tonic water". Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved 2024-05-14.
5. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN   978-0-14-102715-9.
6. "The Zambesi Expedition". Livingstone Online. Archived from the original on 2012-03-02. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
7. Pickover, Clifford A. (2006). The Möbius Strip: Dr. August Möbius's Marvelous Band in Mathematics, Games, Literature, Art, Technology, and Cosmology . Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN   978-1-56025-826-1.
8. Herges, Rainer (2005). "Möbius, Escher, Bach – Das unendliche Band in Kunst und Wissenschaft". Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau: 301–310. ISSN   0028-1050.
9. Rodley, Chris, ed. (1997). Lynch on Lynch. London. p. 231.
10. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 148 (1858). Repr. Cayley, Arthur (2009) [1889]. The Collected Mathematical Papers. Cambridge Library Collection – Mathematics. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 475–96. ISBN   978-1-108-00507-4. archive.
11. Dieudonné, Jean, ed. (1978). "III". Abrégé d'histoire des mathématiques 1700-1900. Vol. 1. Paris: Hermann. p. 96.
12. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 156. ISBN   978-1-84724-008-8.
13. Gelbier, Stanley (2005-10-01). "Dentistry and the University of London". Medical History . 49 (4): 445–462. doi:10.1017/s0025727300009157. PMC   1251639 . PMID   16562330.
14. "Thomas Bevill Peacock (1812-1882), 19th Century Cardiologist". Journal of the American Medical Association . 203 (9): 801. 1968. doi:10.1001/jama.1968.03140090185016. PMID   4865659. Archived from the original on 2012-03-02. Retrieved 2011-03-30.
15. Bouchut, E. (1858). "D'une nouvelle méthode de traitement du croup par le tubage du larynx" [On a new method of treatment for croup by larynx intubation]. Bulletin de l'Académie Impériale de Médecine (in French). 23: 1160–2. Retrieved 2010-09-06.
16. Trede K, Baldessarini RJ, Viguera AC, Bottero A (2009). "Treatise on insanity in pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women (1858) by Louis-Victor Marcé: a commentary". Harvard Review of Psychiatry . 17 (2): 157–65. doi:10.1080/10673220902891802. PMID   19373623. S2CID   8551341.
17. "ss Great Eastern". Brunel 200. 2006. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2011-06-29.
18. "Brief history of aerial photography". www.findaerialphotography.com. 2007. Retrieved 2015-01-02.
19. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.