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Women in Germany
Between 1650 and 1710, women made up 14% of all German astronomers. Women who wanted to work in science lived in Germany, but came from a different background where the tradition of female participation in craft production enabled some women to become involved in observational science, especially astronomy. -
Joseph pitton de Tourefort
Joseph pitton de Tourefort was a French botanist. He studied the science of plants and would frequently journey through Western Europe in which he accumulated 1356 species of plants. In 1700, Tournefort developed a system that classified plants in relation to how corolla is formed where he made clear distinction between species and genus. He was the first to discover the exhaustive analyses of genera. His discoveries were all published in his book, “Institutiones rei herbariæ”. -
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Fashion in the period 1700–1750
Picture Both men and women would wear "widening silhouette" which followed the look of the 1680s and 90s. It was essential that men wore white wigs. The fashion look was achieved by having natural hair powdered. (3) -
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Men's Hairstyles
Picture There were many different styles of wigs being worn for different age groups and occasions.Between 1700 and 1720, the large high parted wigs from 1690 was still popular. White wigs with tight curls was more popular; however, many colours were still worn. Natural hair or wigs were later worn long which was either tied back with a black ribbon at the back of the neck or brushed back from the forehead. (3) -
Tomaso Albinoni
Tomaso Albinoni was an Italian Baroque composer. He was a famous opera composer but was remembered for his instrumental music; for instance the concertos where some were frequently recorded. In 1701, Albinoni "wrote his hugely popular suites Opus 3, and dedicated that collection to Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany". -
Maria Margarethe Kirch
While making her regular nighttime observations, Maria discovered a previously unknown comet, the so-called "Comet of 1702", becoming the first woman to make such a discovery. -
Queen Anne
Queen Anne ascended the thrones of England and Scottland after the death of King William III on March 19th. (4) -
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
Antony van Leeuwenhoek wasn’t like any other scientist. He never had any higher education or knew any other language besides his own native language. Leeuwenhoek made many significant discoveries in the history of biology such as discovering bacteria, sperm cells, blood cells, microscopic nematodes, rotifers, and many more. In December 25, 1702 he discovered the free-living one-celled organism protists where one of them was known as ciliate. -
Antonio Maria Valsalva
Antonio Maria Valsalva came from a prominent family where he was given a good education. His main focus was on anatomy and was interested in the function of the internal and external ear. He named the inner ear as Eustachian tube and described the functions and the muscles. Valsalva was known as the founder of microscopic anatomy. In 1704, he published the book, “De aure humana” which contained many dissections and all his years of hard work such as animal experiments. -
Antonio Pacchioni
Antonio Pacchioni was particularly interested in the study of anatomy. He was very much concerned with dura mater, which is the membrane which forms the outermost of the coverings of the spinal cord and brain. The year 1705 was when he made a description which helped him make a mark in the history of anatomy. He was the one who described the arachnoid granulations, known as “Pacchionian glands”. -
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Hermann Boerhaave
Hermann Boerhaave was known as the greatest first clinical teacher of his time. He was recognized by many as a great physician and was the founder of “the modern system of teaching medical students at the patient’s bedside”. He published many textbooks such as “Aphorisms on the Recognition and Treatment of Diseases”, published in 1709 which contained all his medical information he had gathered. -
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Pierre Le Gros the Younger
Picture of Pope Gregory XV Pierre Le Gros the Younger was a French sculptor and was active in Baroque Rome. During 1709-1713, "Le Gros was in charge of the Monument of Pope Gregory XV". -
Womens Role
Individuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed women’s roles were confined to motherhood and service to their male partners, the Enlightenment was a period in which women experienced expanded roles in the sciences.The rise of salon culture in Europe brought philosophes and their conversation to an intimate setting where men and women met to discuss contemporary political, social, and scientific topics. -
Antonio Caldara
Audio Antonio Caldara was born in Venice where he was known as an italian Baroque composer. It was discovered that his father was a violinist. In 1710, Caldara decided to move to Rome. For the public theatre at Macerata, he composed "La costanza in amor vince l'inganno (Faithfulness in Love Defeats Treachery)" during his stay. -
South Sea Company
South Sea Company was founded in 1711 where it's known as a "British joint-stock compay". During the War of the Spanish Succession, the company was part of a treaty to the Spain's South American colonies. (4) -
John Ray
John Ray was born in England and took an interest in nature, particularly plants. He was known to be an influential theologian and philosopher. In 1713, Ray published his work "Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium", on plants, birds, mammals, fish, and insects. He would search for the "natural system" as Linnaeus did. However, he classified plants in a different way. Ray used overall morphology as classification. -
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Christoph Willibald Gluck
Gluck was an opera compser:
Video of Orphee et Eurydice (1774 tenor version in French) - No. 1. The Mourning
Some of his notible works:
Don Jean (1761) - Ballet
Orfeo (1762) - Opera
Alceste (1767) - Opera -
King George I
King George I succeeded the throne after the death of Queen Anne. King George I was the first of the Hanoverian dynasty. (4) -
Raymond de Vieussens
Raymond de Vieussens was from France and graduated at University of Montpellier in 1670 with a medical doctorate. He made important insights pertaining to different areas of medicine. In 1715, Vieussens book "Treatise of the Heart" was well known which includes important discussions about the structure of the heart. His work contained the autopsy result of a patient as well as the first documented clinical presentations. -
Scottish Highlands
"Disarming Act attempts to secure the peace of the Scottish Highlands". (4) -
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Ulrika Eleonora
Picture Ulrika Eleonora, who was the Queen Regnant of Sweden, wore a classic royal robe and gown. (3) -
Jean-Baptiste Goiffon
Jean-Baptiste Goiffon was a physician of Lyon and was part of the Italian army for the duration of the “War of the League of Augsburg”. In 1720, it was known that there was an outbreak of the Great Plague of Marseille. During 1720-1721, Goiffon developed a theory about the cause of the contagion regarding the plague. He proposed that it was due to the action of animalcules. -
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, known for her prolific letter writing, pioneered smallpox inoculation in England. She first observed the inoculations while visiting the Ottoman Empire, where she wrote detailed accounts of the practice in her letters. She enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, both because it was an "Oriental" process and because of her sex. -
Benjamin Marten
In 1720, Benjamin Marten proposes that the main cause of the Phthisis or consumption of the lungs was due to a specific animalcule which infected the lungs. This was verified 163 years later by Robert Koch. -
South Sea Bubble
Video of The South Sea Bubble of 1720 Speculation in the South Sea Company's stock caused "a great economic bubble known as the South Sea Bubble". For many, this caused a financial ruin. (4) -
Men's Fashion
"By the 1720's, the skirts of the coat had pleated panels inserted in the side seams; these were occasionally stiffened to increase the fullness over the hips. Coats had no collars early, and a short standing collar later. Oversized, turned-back cuffs extended to the elbow. Waistcoats remained long. Full dress coats and waistcoats were trimmed with lace, braid, or heavy embroidery; undress clothing had a similar cut but without the trim." (3) -
Zabdiel Boylston
Zabdiel Boylston was a physician who brought American colonies to first acknowledge smallpox inoculation. This practice introduces the smallpox disease into the individual who had not had smallpox before where the individual then develops lifetime protection against this disease in their body system. Boylston began the practice in secrecy in the year 1721 during the Boston smallpox epidemic since many physicians were against this practice. As a result, only a few died during the epidemic. -
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Tomaso Albinoni
List of compositions by Tomaso Albinoni Between 1723 and 1740, Albinoni composed at least 50 operas where 28 of them were made in Venice. He declared that 81 operas were his work. His 80th opera was named "libretto". -
Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales was a chemist, English physiologist, inventor and country vicar. During his leisure time, he would do research in zoology and botany. Hales was the founder of experimental plant physiology. In 1727, he published his work in plant physiology, "Vegetable Staticks". Hales work focuses more on successive experiments than theoreoms. He made definite notions about leaves playing a role in plant nutrition of how leaves gather some of their nutrition through air and absorb light. -
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Women's Fashion in 1730-1740
Picture Between 1730 and 1740, females would wear skirts over the small hoops which is known as the hoop skirt. This is a women's undergarment where it creates a fashionable shape for the skirt. (3) -
Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales published his second volume, “Haemostaticks”, which contained “experiments on the 'force of the blood' in various animals, its rate of flow, the capacity of the different vessels” and many more. He was “regarded as one of the originators of experimental physiology.” -
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Franz Joseph Haydn
Famous composer who created 104 symphonies in total: Paukenmesse (1796)
The Seven Last Words (1796)
Lord Nelson Mass (1798)
The Creation (1798) -
University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen was founded by George II, King of Great Britain as well as the Elector of Hanover. -
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus published his first edition “Systema Naturae” in 1735. He proposed a new classification for “the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom and the kingdom of stones”. He introduced many conventions and concepts which are still used today. -
Émilie du Châtelet
Émilie du Châtelet, a mathematician and physicist, was Voltaire’s intellectual companion and lover. She completed the first and only complete translation of Newton's Principia from Latin into French. She included a commentary and analysis where she used the "new" calculus (vs. the old geometry) to dissect Newton's theories. Du Châtelet was elected to the Bologna Academy of Sciences and her chateau of Cirey became the intellectual hub of the Enlightenment. -
Jan Swammerdam
Jan Swammerdam's was the son of a pharmacist in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Swammerdam took an early interest in natural history, particularly insects. Even though he had a medical degree, he chose to pursue in scientific investigations, researching insects. In 1737, Hermann Boerhaave published Swammerdam’s two volume “Biblia naturae” where it was known as “one of the greatest biology books ever published". "His studies formed the foundation of a new science--entomology", which deals with insects. -
David Hume
David Hume was a historian, essayist, economist, and a Scottish philosopher. He was known for his scepticism and philosophical empiricism. He was recognized as one of the most important people in the history of the Scottish Enlightenment and Western philosophy. In 1739, he published his work “A Treatise of Human Nature” which examines “the psychological basis of human nature". He wanted to create a “naturalistic ‘science of man’”. -
Antonio Maria Valsalva
Antonio Maria Valsalva described the aortic sinuses of Valsalva in his writings, which was published after his death in 1740. -
Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet was born in Geneva, Switz and was known as a philosophical writer as well as a Swiss naturalist. He discovered parthenogenesis, which is “reproduction without fertilization” along with developing the catastrophe theory of evolution. In 1742, Bonnet was the one who discovered stigmata. Stigmata were known to be pores in which caterpillars and butterflies breathe from. -
Treaty of Worms
In 13 September 1743, "Great Britain signs the Treaty of Worms with Austria and Sardinia". (4) -
George Berkeley
George Berkeley was recognized as a well-known British Empiricist. In 1744, he published his work “Siris”, which includes “a discussion of the medicinal virtues of tar water”. -
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus was known as a zoologist, physician and a Swedish botanist. He is considered to be the father of modern taxonomy as well as one of the many fathers of modern ecology. He was born in soutern Sweden and was the one "who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature". After the death of Celsius from tuberculosis, Linnaeus reversed the Celsius temperature in 1745 "to facilitate more practical measurement". -
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis had a father who was known as the member of the Council of Commerce. Maupertuis was brilliant at observing the natural world. At one point, he was part of a Royal Society and even studied under Johann Bernoulli to improve his mathematical and scientific knowledge. In 1745, he published “Vénus physique” where "he discussed the biological theory of the formation of the embryo”. -
Scottish clans
Little people song "The Act of Proscription seeks to crush the Scottish clans". The law forbid the Scottish from wearing the kilt. (4) -
Eva Ekeblad
In 1748, Eva Ekeblad became the first woman inducted in to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. -
John Fothergill
John Fothergill was a plant collector, Quaker, philanthropist and an English physician. His father was a farmer and a Quaker preacher. In 1748, his pamphlet included the first explanation of streptococcal sore throat. His work was translated into many languages. -
Rene Antoine de Reaumur Ferchault
Rene Antoine de Reaumur Ferchault published his memoirs in 1749, which he explains his research about birds in regards to artificial incubation of eggs. He discusses about “the art of hatching and raising all-season domestic birds of all species, whether by means of heat from the manure, or by the means of ordinary iron”. -
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Fashions for men in the mid 1700's
pictureThroughout the period, men continued to wear the coat, waistcoat and breeches of the previous period. However, changes were seen in both the fabric used as well as the cut of these garments. More attention was paid to individual pieces of the suit, and each element underwent stylistic changes. Under new enthusiasms for outdoor sports and country pursuits, formal attire earlier in the century gradually gave way to carefully tailored woolen "undress" garments for all occasions. (2) -
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Fashion of the mid 1700's
Video of fashion gallery! European countries and North America was characterised by greater abundance, elaboration and intricacy in clothing designs, loved by the Rococo artistic trends of the period.
French style was defined by elaborate court dress, colourful and rich in decoration, worn by such iconic fashion figures as Marie Antoinette. (2) -
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Maupertius, in Système de la Nature, introduced pangenesis, a theory in which an embryo contained materials and particels derived from all parts of the parent. The heritable novelties arose from changes in fluids or were induced by the environment. (1) -
Axel Fredric
Axel Fredric Cronstedt discovered nickel. (1) -
Benjamin Franklin
After experimenting for years with friends, Benjamin Franklin published "Experiments and Observations on Electricity". Franklin suggested an experiment to prove that lightning is a large-scale electrical discharge, a task which later he took upon himself, using a kite. This led to the invention of the lightning rod. (1) -
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur showed through experiments that gastric juice liquifies meat. (1) -
James Lind
James Lind called attention to the value of fresh fruit in the prevention of scurvy. (1) -
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Wolfgang Anadeus Mozart (1752-1791)
Completed 41 symphonies. Some of his notable works are: Coronation Mass (1779)
The Marriage of Figaro (1786)
Symphony No. 38 in D, The Prauge Symphony (1787)
Don Giovanni (1787)
Symphony No. 41 in C, Jupiter Symphony (1787)
Die Zauberflote (1791)
Clarinet Concerto (1791)
Requiem Mass -
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Muizo Clementi
Clementi was the first to create keyboard works expressly for the capabilities of the pianoforte. Audio of Gradus ad Parnassum -
Carolus Linneas
Carolus Linneas published Species plantarum, in which he distinguished plants in terms of genera and species. (1) -
Albinus and Wandelaar
Albinus and Wandelaar published "Tabulae Ossium Humanorum", an anatomical study of bones. (1) -
Joseph Black
Joseph Black heated calcium carbonate which separated into calcium oxide and carbon dioide and then recombined back into calcium carbonate. He called carbon dioxide 'fixed air' because it could be fixed into solid matter. (1) -
Benjamin Bannecker
Benjamin Bannecker, an African American, makes the first clock built entirely in America. (1) -
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French-Indian Wars
Video of the French-Indian War The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war. -
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis published “Essai de Cosmologie” where it highlights the natural history: In the fortuitous combinations of the productions of Nature..., only those with certain adaptive relationships could survive.... In the other, infinitely greater part, there was neither adaption nor order. All these have perished...and the species we see today are only the smallest part of those which a blind destiny produced". (1) -
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
Buffon, in a new edition of Histoire naturalle, suggested that species were directly subject to moulding by their environment, and that these changes were perpetuated by heredity. (1) -
Joseph Black
Black distinguished between heat and temperature, and discovered latent heat. (1) -
Carl Linnaeus
Linné published the 10th edition of "Systema Naturae", where he applied the genera and species system to animals based on their external appearance. (1) -
Caspar Friedrich Wolfe
Caspar Friedrich Wolfe examined the developmental anatomy of chick embryos and observed that the different organic systems were formed successively. In other words, that specialized organs develop out of unspecified tissue. (1) -
Halley's comet
The return of Halley's comet confirmed Newton's mechanics. (1) -
Giovanni Battista Morgagni
Giovanni Battista Morgagni published a book that had proposed that the symptoms of disease resulted from pathological changes in the organs. He postulated that by studying body's organs rather than its parts, there would be a better understanding of these changes. (1) -
Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter
Between 1761 and 1766, Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter published accounts of 136 experiments in artificial hybridization and drew the conclusion that inheritance was quantitative. (1) -
Marcus Antonius Plenciz
Marcus Antonius Plenciz postulated that certain ‘living agents’ were the cause of infectious diseases, in his published “Opera medico-physica”. (1) -
Johan Carl Wilke
Johan Carl Wilke designed an electrostatic generator. This was in part of explaining his theory that distinguishing "between the communication of electrical matter and the segregation of the normal supply of one body by the action of the atmosphere of another". (1) -
Thomas Bayes
Thomas Bayes established the rule that the probability of an event was not effected by prior observations in an essay on the doctrine of chances.(1) -
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny. (1) -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani established that microbes are never spontaneously generated; which reconfirmed Joblot's results and extended them. (1) -
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Samuel Wesley
Wesley was an English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart and was called by some "the English Mozart." Audio of Eight Lessons for Harpischord -
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish isolated hydrogen (he called it ‘inflammable air’) and described it by distinguishing it from carbon dioxide. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier renamed ‘inflammable air’ to hydrogen. (1) -
Leonhard Euler
Euler proposed that the wave length of light determines its color. (1) -
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot dealt with, among other things, animal reproduction, mutation, eugenics, the mechanical system of the body, and the nervous system in “Le Rêve de D'Alembert”.(1) -
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Completed:
9 symphonies
32 piano sonatas
21 sets of variations for piano Audio of Ninth Sypmhony -
Henry Cavendish
Cavendish observed that a body can be both positively electrified and undercharged (have a positive potential, and a net negative charge) when explaining some of the principle phenomena of electricity by means of an Elastic Fluid. (1) -
Encyclopedia Britannica
First edition of Encyclopedia Britannica was released. -
Johann Elert Bode
Johann Elert Bode began publicizing Titius' insight, from 1766, to the extent that it became known as Bode' law (though it is not, being neither invariant nor universal). (1) -
Daniel Rutherford
Daniel Rutherford described nitrogen, which he called 'residual air.' (1) -
Karl Wilhelm Scheele
Karl Wilhelm Scheele isolated oxygen from silver carbonate, but did not publish his discovery until later than Joseph Priestly. He also showed that nitrogen was a constituent of air, and isolated glycerol and numerous acids including tartaric, lactic, uric, prussic, citric, malic, and gallic. (1) -
Otto Frederik Müller
Otto Frederik Müller distinguished two types of bacteria, bacillum and spirillum. (1) -
Joseph Priestley
Priestly discovered sulphur dioxide, ammonia, and 'dephlogisticated air,' later named oxygen by Lavoisier. (1) -
David Bushnell
David Bushnell designed and built the first submarine, the Turtle, a diving-bell-like craft, which seated one-man who propelled it with a hand-crank. (1) -
Pierre Simon Laplace
Pierre Simon Laplace, with "Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements," set out to establish 'probability' as the mathematical basis "for statistical inference, philosophic causality, estimation of scientific error, and quantification of the credibility of evidence, to use terms not then coined". (1) -
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
Lavoisier recognized that the gas 'fixed air,' or carbon dioxide, was a chemical and produced it by combining oxygen with carbon obtained from charred vegetables. In subsequent papers, the main idea was that combustion processes, including vegetative metabolism and fermentation, took place by the decomposition of water which supplied the oxygen. The addition of oxygen to the organic substances accounted for their weight increase. (1) -
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published De generis humani varietate nativa, which marked the beginnings of physical anthropology. (1) -
James Burnett Monboddo
James Burnett Monboddo published “on the origin and progress of language”, and wanted an evolutionary viewpoint of human origins. He also was the one who contemplated educating orangoutangs. (1) -
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History of the United States
Picture United States came out as an independent country during the period 1776 and 1789 where July 4, 1776 was declared independence day. The Americans allianced with the French military and captured the two invasion armies led by the British. -
Jan Ingelhousz
Jan Ingelhousz showed that plants use carbon dioxide and that they require light in order to produce oxygen. (1) -
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Lazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani demonstrated that contact between the sperm and egg is necessary for fertilization. (1) -
Lavoisier and Laplace
Lavoisier and Laplace developed a theory of chemical and thermal phenomena based on the assumption that heat is a substance, which they called 'caloric' and deduced the notion of 'specific heat,' which they expressed in terms of the heat absorbed in raising one pound of water one degree. They also concluded that respiration is a form of combustion. (1) -
Henry Cavendish
Cavendish synthesized water by exploding hydrogen in oxygen. (1) -
Peter Jacob Hjelm
Peter Jacob Hjelm discovered molybdenum. (1) -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
Spallanzani said that digestion is not merely chewing but is a chemical process. (1) -
Charles Augustin de Coulomb
In 1785, Charles Augustin de Coulomb, in "Oú l'on détermine suivant quelles lois le fluide magnétique ainsi que le fluide électrique agissent," said that "the reciprocal attraction of the electrical fluid called positive, on the electrical fluid ordinarily called negative, is in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances". (1) -
Immanuel Kant
In 1786, Kant, in Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science), suggested the doctrine of the unity and convertibility of forces. (1) -
The French Revolution
video of the French Revolution The French Revolution, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a major impact on France and indeed all of Europe. French society underwent an epic transformation. Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy - of monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority - were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights. -
Charles
In 1787, Charles determined by experiment that "the volume of a fixed mass of gas at constant pressure is proportional to its thermodynamic temperature" (Dictionary of Physics 2000:70). This was published by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1802. (1) -
John Fitch
1788 steamboat invented by John Fitch. (1) -
Jean Senebier
In 1788, Jean Senebier demonstrated that it is light, not heat, from the sun that is effective in photosynthesis. (1) -
George Washington elected as president
Video of George Washington George Washington was elected first president of the United States of America -
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who married Antoine Lavoisier at thirteen and became his assistant in his home laboratory in when he discovered oxygen. Mme. Lavoisier spoke English, and translated not only her husband's correspondence with English chemists, but also the entirety of Richard Kirwan's "Essay on Phlogiston". Mme Lavoisier also took drawing lessons from Jacques-Louis David, and drew the diagrams for her husband’s "Traite Elementaire de Chimie" -
Jeremy Bentham
In 1789, Jeremy Bentham reoriented semantics "whereby the primary vehicle of meaning came to be seen no longer in the term but in the statement, [that is,] as the unit accountable in the empiricist critique" (Quine 1953:39,42). (1) -
Lavoisier
In 1789, Lavoisier proved that mass is conserved in chemical reactions and created the first list of chemical elements. This classification is the basis of the modern distinction between elements and compounds. He also demonstrated that glucose itself could be fermented and was made up of ethanol and carbon dioxide. (1) -
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu
In 1789, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, in Genera Plantarium, stressed the significance of the internal organization of organisms. (1) -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In 1790, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in Metamorphose de Pflanzen, sought to discover the 'primal plant,' and coined 'morphology. (1) -
Kant
In 1790, Kant, in Kritik der Urtheilskraft, said that the analogy of animal forms implied a common original type and thus a common parent. (1) -
Pierre Prévost
In 1791, Pierre Prévost proposed the theory that when a body is not at the same temperature as its surroundings, heat will flow between them. (1) -
Franz Joseph Gall
In 1791, Franz Joseph Gall, in Untersuchungen über Natur und Kunst im kranken und gesunden Zustande des Mensch, described the nervous system as a series of separate but interrelated ganglia. "The inclusion of the cerebral cortex in this scheme was an important development away from lingering glandular and humoral conceptions" (R. M. Young 1978). (1) -
Goethe
In 1791, Goethe published "Zur Optik," which led, in 1810, to the publication of Farbenlehre, a compendium of chromatic phenomena. He sought a personalized relation to a holistic continuity of inorganic and organic nature which he opposed to Newtonian reductionism's dependence on theoretical constructs. (1) -
Eli Whitney
A cotton gin (short for cotton engine) is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job that otherwise must be performed painstakingly by hand, was invented by Eli Whitney, and patened a year after. -
Erasmus Darwin
In 1794, Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather, proposed that "warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament...possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering those improvements by generation to its posterity." He also suggested that the conflict between males over which "should propagate the species" had the final cause that the species "become improved" (E. Darwin 1794:505,503). (1) -
Edward Jenner
May 14, 1796: Jenner Tests Vaccination on Human SubjectJenner investigated the folk tale that milk maids were immune to small pox, the virus variola major, and in a brief series of experiments confirmed that exposure to cow pox, the virus vaccinia, rendered immunity. The principle that a survivor of a disease such as smallpox or the plague was usually able to resist a second infection had long been observed. By the late 18th century, vaccination was understood and employed in Turkey for smallpox. The method involved the inoculation of children. (1) -
Frederick Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
In 1797, Frederick Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, in Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, said that, while the difference between the forces of mind and nature must be only a matter of degree, nature is subordinate to mind and that knowledge is absorbed in the unity of mind and matter. (1) -
Thomas Robert Malthus
In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population, contended that population increases by a geometric ratio whereas the means of subsistence increase by an arithmetic ratio. (1) -
The Great Awakening
The term Great Awakening is used to refer to a period of religious revival in American religious history. These "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, a jump in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.
