Christian Conrad Sprengel

Abstract

SPEAKING of Christian Conrad Sprengel's discoveries, Dr. H. A. Hagen says (NATURE, vol. xxix. p. 29):—“In Germany these discoveries were well known to every naturalist during the whole century. Certainly between 1830 and 1870 at every university in Prussia the same facts were taught as well-known facts of the highest importance, and of course known by every student.” From the complete want of papers relating to the facts observed, and the theories proposed by Sprengel in the German botanical and entomological periodicals published before the time of Darwin, strangely contrasting with the profusion of such papers in modern botanical literature, one might have been led to a very different conclusion, viz. that Sprengel had fallen into almost complete oblivion in Germany also, and that hardly any professor in any of the universities of Prussia and of Germany in general duly appreciated and taught his discoveries before Darwin's time. And this, I think, is really the case. Certainly at the University of Berlin in 1841, neither Lichtenstein, in his lectures on zoology, nor Kunth in those on botany, ever spoke of Sprengel and his work, nor did Erichson in his course on entomology. At the University of Greifswald, in 1842, the professor of natural history, Hornschuch, never mentioned Sprengel's discoveries. In 1848 my brother, Hermann Müller, began the study of zoology and botany at the University of Halle, where he never heard of Sprengel, with whose work he became acquainted only much later through Darwin's books. Thus it appears that between 1840 and 1850, in three at least of the six universities of Prussia, Sprengel's work had fallen into the most complete oblivion. Now it is improbable in the highest degree that the several professors of natural history in these universities should have ceased, unanimously and at the very same time (1841) to teach what, between 1830 and 1840, they had taught “as well known facts of the highest importance.” Hagen's statement, therefore, needs some further proof before it can be accepted.