1894 in science

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The year 1894 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• March 21 (23:00 GMT) – Syzygy: Mercury transits the Sun as seen from Venus, and Mercury and Venus both simultaneously transit the Sun as seen from Saturn.

Biology

• Patrick Manson develops the thesis that malaria is spread by mosquitoes.
• Jean Pierre Mégnin publishes La faune des cadavres application de l'entomologie à la médecine légale in Paris, an important text in forensic entomology.^[1]
• Alexandre Yersin and Kitasato Shibasaburō independently identify the bacterium later called Yersinia pestis in the 1894 Hong Kong plague.^[2][3]

Chemistry

• Argon identified by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay.^[4][5]
• Viscose, a form of artificial silk or rayon, is patented by Charles Frederick Cross with Edward John Bevan and Clayton Beadle.

Physiology and medicine

• Otto Binswanger describes what will become known as Binswanger's disease.

Psychology

• Psychological Review established in the United States by James Mark Baldwin and James McKeen Cattell.

Technology

• August 13 – The first Allan truss bridge, designed by Percy Allan, is completed in New South Wales.^[6]
• August 14 – Oliver Lodge demonstrates "Hertzian waves" i.e. radio transmission (of Morse code) in the University of Oxford from the Clarendon Laboratory to the University Museum (200 ft; 61 m) for the British Association for the Advancement of Science^[7] using a modified Branly coherer.
• November 6 – William C. Hooker of Abingdon, Illinois is granted a United States patent for a spring-loaded mousetrap.^[8]
• Construction of the first oil-engined rail locomotive, an experimental unit designed by William Dent Priestman and built by his company, Priestman Brothers of Hull, England.^[9]
• John Joly of Dublin devises the Joly colour screen, an additive colour photographic process for producing images from a single photographic plate.^[10]
• Astronomical photographer Julius Scheiner devises a film speed measurement system.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Edward Frankland^[11]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Karl von Zittel

Births

Born January 1: Satyendra Nath Bose

• January 1 – S. N. Bose (died 1974), Indian physicist.
• January 13 – Dorothée Pullinger (died 1986), French-born British production engineer.
• February 11 – Izaak Kolthoff (died 1993), Dutch 'father of analytical chemistry'.
• February 16 – Constance Tipper, née Elam (died 1995), English metallurgist.
• April 29 – Marietta Blau (died 1970), Austrian physicist.^[12]
• May 5 – August Dvorak (died 1975), American educational psychologist.
• June 13 – Leo Kanner (died 1981), Austrian-born clinical child psychiatrist.
• June 14 – W. W. E. Ross (died 1966), Canadian geophysicist and poet.
• June 23 – Alfred Kinsey (died 1956), American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist, founder of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University (Bloomington) in 1947.
• July 8 – Pyotr Kapitsa (died 1984), Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• July 17 – Georges Lemaître (died 1966), Belgian physicist.
• August 2 – Bertha Lutz (died 1976), Brazilian herpetologist and women's rights campaigner.
• November 19 – Heinz Hopf (died 1971), German mathematician.

Deaths

Died January 1: Hermann von Helmholtz

• January 1 – Heinrich Hertz (born 1857), German physicist.
• February 3 – Edmond Frémy (born 1814), French chemist.
• March 29 – Georges Pouchet (born 1833), French comparative anatomist.
• April 2 – Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (born 1817), Mauritian-born physiologist and neurologist.
• April 9 – Arthur Hill Hassall (born 1817), English physician, microbiologist and chemical analyst.
• April 27 – Birdsill Holly (born 1820), American hydraulic engineer.
• November 26 – Pafnuty Chebyshev (born 1821), Russian mathematician.
• October 7 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (born 1809), American physician and writer.
• September 8 – Hermann von Helmholtz (born 1821), German physicist.

References

1. Benecke, Mark (2001). "A brief history of forensic entomology". Forensic Science International. 120 (1–2): 2–14. doi:10.1016/S0379-0738(01)00409-1. PMID 11457602.
2. Yersin, Alexandre (1894). "La peste bubonique à Hong-Kong". Annales de l'Institut Pasteur. 8. Paris: 662–67 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
3. Bockemühl, J. (April 1994). "100 years after the discovery of the plague-causing agent — importance and veneration of Alexandre Yersin in Vietnam today". Immunitat und Infektion. 22 (2): 72–5. PMID 7959865.
4. Rayleigh, Lord; Ramsay, William (May 1894). "Argon, a New Constituent of the Atmosphere". Proceedings of the Royal Society. 57 (1). London: 265–287. doi:10.1098/rspl.1894.0149. JSTOR 115394.
5. Emsley, John (2001). Nature's Building Blocks: an A–Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford University Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0-19-850340-8.
6. "Timber Truss Bridges" (PDF). McMillan Britton & Kell Pty Limited. Roads and Traffic Authority. December 1998. Retrieved 2011-06-17.
7. Display in University Museum.
8. #528671. "Animal-Trap". Google Patents. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
9. Webb, Brian (1973). The British Internal Combustion Locomotive 1894–1940. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 978-0-7153-6115-3.
10. Hirsch, Robert (2005). Exploring Colour Photography: A Complete Guide (new ed.). London: Laurence King Publishing. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-1-85669-420-9.
11. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
12. Halpen, Leopold E. (1997). "Marietta Blau". In Rayner-Canham, Marelene F.; Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey (eds.). A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-77351-642-7.