1876 in science

Overview of the events of 1876 in science

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1876 in science

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1877

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

## Astronomy

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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

## Mathematics

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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

## Births

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* 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

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

## References

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1. ^ Koch, R. (1876). "Die Ätiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus anthracis" (PDF). Cohns Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen. 2 (2): 277–310. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
2. ^ Galton, Francis (1883). Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. pp. 26–27.
3. ^ O'Connor, J. J.; Robertson, E.F. (1997). "Josiah Willard Gibbs". MacTutor. School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 2007-03-24.
4. ^ Rice, A. L. (1999). "The Challenger Expedition". Understanding the Oceans: Marine Science in the Wake of HMS Challenger. London: Routledge. pp. 27–48. ISBN 978-1-85728-705-9.
5. ^ Caldwell, Chris. "The Largest Known Prime by Year: A Brief History". Retrieved 2011-12-30.
6. ^ United States patent #174,466.
7. ^ Brewer, Nathan (2012-03-01). "Engineering Hall of Fame: Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov". IEEE USA InSight. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
8. ^ van Dulken, Stephen (2001). Inventing the 19th Century. London: British Library. pp. 104–5. ISBN 0-7123-0881-4.
9. ^ "Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
10. ^ "Early History of the Microphone". UGA Special Collections Library Online Exhibitions. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
11. ^ United States patent #182,389.
12. ^ "Hawksley, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12691. Retrieved 2011-08-27. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
13. ^ Rennison, R. W. (1996). Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England. p. 81\. ISBN 9780727725189.
14. ^ Houlsby, A. Clive (1990). Construction and Design of Cement Grouting; A Guide to Grouting in Rock Foundations. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-51629-5.
15. ^ Glossop, Rudolph (1961). "The Invention and Development of Injection processes Part II: 1850-1960". Géotechnique. 11 (4). British Geotechnical Association: 255–279. doi:10.1680/geot.1961.11.4.255.
16. ^ Baxter, Albert (1891). History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Munsell.
17. ^ Dethloff, Henry C. "Texas A&M University". The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
18. ^ "WEP Milestones". Berkeley Engineering. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on 2012-01-10. Retrieved 2011-11-24.
19. ^ "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.

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