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Biochemistry

• October 5 – Josef Groll brews the first pilsner light lager beer in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic).

Botany

• Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward publishes On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases in London, promoting his concept of the Wardian case.¹

Exploration

• Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross charts the eastern side of James Ross Island and on January 23 reaches a Farthest South of 78°09'30"S.²

Medicine

• January – American medical student William E. Clarke of Berkshire Medical College becomes the first person to administer an inhaled anesthetic to facilitate a surgical procedure. After Clarke uses a towel and ether to anesthetize a patient identifed as "Miss Hobbie", Dr. Elijah Pope carries out a dental extraction.³
• March 30 – American physician and pharmacist Crawford Long administers an inhaled anesthetic (diethyl ether) to facilitate a surgical procedure (removal of a neck tumor).⁴⁵
• English surgeon William Bowman publishes On the Structure and Use of the Malpighian Bodies of the Kidney,⁶ identifying Bowman's capsule, a key component of the nephron.
• Edwin Chadwick's critical Report on an inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain is published by the Poor Law Commission.⁷

Paleontology

• British palaeontologist Richard Owen coins the name Dinosauria, hence the Anglicized dinosaur.⁸

Physics

• Christian Doppler proposes the Doppler effect.⁹
• Julius Robert von Mayer proposes that work and heat are equivalent.¹⁰ This is independently discovered in 1843 by James Prescott Joule, who names it "mechanical equivalent of heat".

Technology

• January 8 – Delft University of Technology established by William II of the Netherlands as a 'Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers'.¹¹
• February 21 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.¹²
• June – James Nasmyth patents his design of steam hammer in England and introduces an improved planing machine.¹³
• John Herschel discovers the cyanotype (blueprint) photographic process in England.¹⁴

Events

• September 14–17 – English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family settle at Down House in Kent.

Awards

• Copley Medal: James MacCullagh¹⁵
• Wollaston Medal: Leopold von Buch

Births

• February 2 – Julian Sochocki (died 1927), Polish mathematician.
• February 10 – Agnes Mary Clerke (died 1907) Irish astronomer and author.¹⁶
• February 22 – Camille Flammarion (died 1925), French astronomer.
• March 17 – Rosina Heikel (died 1929), Finnish physician.¹⁷
• March 23 – Susan Jane Cunningham (died 1921), American mathematician.
• April 4 – Édouard Lucas (died 1891, French mathematician.
• May 7 – Isala Van Diest (died 1916), Belgian physician.
• May 8 – Emil Christian Hansen (died 1909), Danish fermentation physiologist.
• June 11 – Carl von Linde (died 1934), German refrigeration engineer.
• August 23 – Osborne Reynolds (died 1912), Irish-born physicist.
• September 9 – Elliott Coues (died 1899), American ornithologist.
• September 20
  • James Dewar (died 1923), Scottish-born chemist.
  • Charles Lapworth (died 1920), English geologist.
• October 17 – Gustaf Retzius (died 1919), Swedish anatomist.
• October 24 (O.S. October 12) – Nikolai Menshutkin (died 1907), Russian chemist.
• November 12 – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (died 1919), English Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
• December 3 – Ellen Swallow Richards (d. 1911), American chemist.
• December 17 – Sophus Lie (died 1899), Norwegian mathematician.

Deaths

• February 15 – Archibald Menzies (born 1754), Scottish-born botanist.
• April 28 – Charles Bell (born 1774), Scottish-born anatomist.
• May 8 – Jules Dumont d'Urville (born 1790), French explorer.
• June 9 - Maria Dalle Donne (born 1778), Bolognese physician
• June 30 – Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester (born 1754), English agriculturalist and geneticist.
• July 19 – Pierre Joseph Pelletier (born 1788), French chemist.
• July 25 – Dominique Jean Larrey (born 1766), French military surgeon, pioneer of battlefield medicine.

References

1. Hershey, David (1996). "Doctor Ward's Accidental Terrarium". The American Biology Teacher. 58 (5): 276–281. doi:10.2307/4450151. JSTOR 4450151. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

2. Coleman, E. C. (2006). The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration, from Frobisher to Ross. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-7524-3660-9. 978-0-7524-3660-9 ↩

3. Lyman, H. M. (1881). "History of anaesthesia". Artificial anaesthesia and anaesthetics. New York: William Wood and Company. p. 6. Retrieved 2010-09-13. https://books.google.com/books?id=xNEIAQAAIAAJ&q=Artificial%20anaesthesia%20and%20anaesthetics&pg=PA68 ↩

4. Long, C. W. (1849). "An account of the first use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation as an Anæsthetic in Surgical Operations". Southern Medical and Surgical Journal. 5: 705–13. Retrieved 2012-06-12. http://journals.lww.com/surveyanesthesiology/Citation/1991/12000/An_Account_of_the_First_Use_of_Sulphuric_Ether_by.49.aspx ↩

5. Long, Tony (2007-03-30). "March 30, 1842: It's Lights Out, Thanks to Ether". Wired. Retrieved 2007-12-29. https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/03/dayintech_0330 ↩

6. Presented to the Royal Society of London. /wiki/Royal_Society ↩

7. "Icons, a portrait of England 1840–1860". Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. Retrieved 2007-09-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20070817165102/http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1840-1860 ↩

8. Owen, R. (1842). "Report on British Fossil Reptiles." Part II. Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Plymouth, England. ↩

9. "Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels – Versuch einer das Bradley'sche Theorem als integrirenden Theil in sich schliessenden allgemeineren Theorie" ("On the coloured light of the binary refracted stars and other celestial bodies – Attempt of a more general theory including Bradley's theorem as an integral part"). Abhandlungen der kaiserlichen bõhm. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Prag (Prague) V Folge 2. 25 May 1842. /wiki/%C3%9Cber_das_farbige_Licht_der_Doppelsterne_und_einiger_anderer_Gestirne_des_Himmels ↩

10. von Mayer, J. R. (1842). "Bemerkungen über die Kräfte der unbelebten Nature ("Remarks on the forces of inorganic nature")". Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie. 43 (2): 233–40. doi:10.1002/jlac.18420420212. hdl:2027/umn.319510020751527. /wiki/Liebigs_Annalen ↩

11. "History of the university". TU Delft. Archived from the original on 2008-02-28. Retrieved 2012-07-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20080228094426/http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=300c4edd-74f6-4f4d-a5cd-42a70682cb98&lang=en ↩

12. "Vacuum & Sewing Hall of Fame". Archived from the original on 12 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-29. See section: "Contributors to the invention of the sewing machine". http://www.vdta.com/hof-list.html ↩

13. Smiles, Samuel (1912). James Nasmyth Engineer: an Autobiography. John Murray. Retrieved 2009-11-14. /wiki/Samuel_Smiles ↩

14. Rosenthal, Richard T. (2000). "The Cyanotype". Vernacular Photography. Archived from the original on 2013-03-30. Retrieved 2021-11-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20130330080304/http://vernacularphotography.com/vpm/v1n1/the_cyanotype.htm ↩

15. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 22 July 2020. https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal ↩

16. Haines, Catharine M C; Stevens, Helen M (2001). International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-57607-090-1. 978-1-57607-090-1 ↩

17. Bernce, Arvid (1981). Efter 1809 en Krönika i ord och bild om Finlandssvenskarna (in Swedish). Helsingfors: Bernces förlag. p. 2003. ISBN 978-9-15000-408-3. 978-9-15000-408-3 ↩