Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg

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Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg

Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (April 19, 1795 – June 27, 1876), German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals....
, zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist

Geologist

For other uses, see Geologist .A geologist is a contributor to the science of geology, studying the physical structure and processes of the Earth and planets of the solar system ....
, and microscopist

Microscopy

Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples or objects. There are three well-known branches of microscopy, optical microscopy, electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy....
, was one of the most famous and productive scientist

Scientist

A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a system activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy....
s of his time.

Early collections
The son of a judge, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg was born in Delitzsch

Delitzsch

Delitzsch is a Germany city Saxony, near Leipzig. It is part of the district of Nordsachsen....
, near Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig is, with a population of over 511,252, the largest city in the States of Germany of Saxony, Germany....
. He first studied theology

Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest University in Europeand currently the List_of_universities_in_Germany#Universities_by_age university in Germany....
, then medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
and natural sciences in Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities....
and became a friend of the famous explorer

List of explorers

This list of explorers is sorted by surname. See also the links #See also.A B C D E F G ...
Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt

was a German people natural scientist and List of explorers, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt ....
.

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Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (April 19, 1795 – June 27, 1876), German

Germany

Natural history

Geologist

Microscopy

Scientist

Early collections

The son of a judge, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg was born in Delitzsch

Delitzsch

Delitzsch is a Germany city Saxony, near Leipzig. It is part of the district of Nordsachsen....
, near Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig is, with a population of over 511,252, the largest city in the States of Germany of Saxony, Germany....
. He first studied theology

Theology

University of Leipzig

Medicine

Humboldt University of Berlin

List of explorers

This list of explorers is sorted by surname. See also the links #See also.A B C D E F G ...
Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt

was a German people natural scientist and List of explorers, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt ....
. In 1818, he completed his doctoral dissertation on fungi, Sylvae mycologicae Berolinenses.

In 1820–1825, on a scientific expedition to the Middle East

Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
with his friend Wilhelm Hemprich

Wilhelm Hemprich

Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich was a Germany natural history and explorer.Hemprich was born in Klodzko, Prussian Silesia, and studied medicine at Breslau and Berlin....
, he collected thousands of specimens of plant

Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s and animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s. He investigated parts of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, the Libyan desert

Libyan Desert

The Libyan Desert is an African desert that is located in the northern and eastern part of the Sahara Desert and occupies western Egypt, eastern Libya and northwestern Sudan....
, the Nile valley

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....
and the northern coasts of the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a salt water inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden....
, where he made a special study of the corals. Subsequently parts of Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
, Arabia and Abyssinia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
were examined. Some results of these travels and of the important collections that had been made were reported on by Humboldt in 1826.

After his return, Ehrenberg published several papers on insect

Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s on coral

Coral

Corals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone?like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals....
s and two volumes Symbelae physicae (1828–1834), in which many particulars of the mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s, bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, insect

Insect

Focus on microscopic organisms

Ehrenberg was appointed professor of medicine

Medicine

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
to the Chinese

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
frontier. After his return he began to concentrate his studies on microscopic organisms, which until then had not been systematically studied.

For nearly 30 years Ehrenberg examined samples of water, soil, sediment, blowing dust and rock and described thousands of new species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
, among them well-known flagellate

Flagellate

Flagellates are cell s with one or more whip-like organelles called flagellum. Some cells in animals may be flagellate, for instance the spermatozoa of most phyla....
s such as Euglena

Euglena

Euglena are a common group of unicellular protists, of the class Euglenoidea of the phylum Euglenophyta. They are single-celled organisms. Currently, over 1000 species of Euglena have been described....
, ciliate

Ciliate

The ciliates are a group of protists characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilium, which are identical in structure to flagellum but typically shorter and present in much larger numbers with a different undulating pattern than flagella....
s such as Paramecium
Paramecium

Paramecia, also known as Lady Slippers, due to their appearance, are a group of unicellular ciliate protozoa, which are commonly studied as a representative of the ciliate group, and range from about 50 to 350 micrometre in length, Simple cilia cover the body, which allow the cell to move with a synchronous motion ....
aurelia and Paramecium caudatum, and many fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s, in nearly 400 scientific publications. He was particularly interested in a unicellular group of protist

Protist

Protists ; eukaryote microorganisms. Historically, protists were treated as the kingdom Protista but this group is no longer recognized in modern taxonomy....
s called diatom

Diatom

Diatoms are a major group of eukaryote algae, and are one of the most common types of phytoplankton. Most diatoms are unicellular, although they can exist as Colony in the shape of filaments or ribbons , fans , zigzags , or stellate colonies ....
s, but he also studied, and named, many species of radiolaria.

These researches had an important bearing on some of the infusorial earths used for polishing and other economic purposes; they added, moreover, largely to our knowledge of the microorganism

Microorganism

A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is microscopic . The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design....
s of certain geological formations, especially of the chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
, and of the marine and freshwater accumulations. Until Ehrenberg took up the study it was not known that considerable masses of rock

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock....
were composed of minute forms of animals or plants. He also demonstrated that the phosphorescence

Phosphorescence

File:Phosphorescence.jpgFile:Phosphorescent.jpgPhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescent. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs....
of the sea was due to organisms.

He was a foreign member of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
of London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
from 1837. In 1839, he won the Wollaston Medal

Wollaston Medal

The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831....
, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London

Geological Society of London

The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"....
. He continued until late in life to investigate the microscopic organisms of the deep sea and of various geological formations. He died in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
on June 27, 1876.

Legacy

After his death in 1876, his collections of microscopic organisms were deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde

Humboldt Museum

The Museum f?r Naturkunde , widely known as the Naturkundemuseum, occasionally as the Humboldt Museum of Berlin. It has a massive collection of more than 25 million zoological, paleontological, and minerological specimens, including more than ten thousand type specimens....
at the University of Berlin. The "Ehrenberg Collection" includes 40,000 microscope preparations, 5,000 raw samples, 3,000 pencil and ink drawings, and nearly 1,000 letters of correspondence.

He was also the first winner of the Leeuwenhoek Medal

Leeuwenhoek Medal

The Leeuwenhoek Medal, established in 1877 by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, , in honor of the 17th- and 18th-century microscopeist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, is granted every ten years to the scientist judged to have made the most significant contribution to microbiology during the preceding decade....
in 1877.

In his hometown, Delitzsch, the highest A-Level school, the "Ehrenberg-Gymnasium" is named after him. The best student of the school year receives the Ehrenberg Prize and a scholarship.

Publications

The Ehrenberg Collection (including plates from Mikrogeologie, 1854) is available for download from Museum für Naturkunde, Humboldt-Universität
Die Infusionsthierchen als vollkommene Organismen (2 vols., Leipzig, 1838)
Mikrogeologie (2 vols., Leipzig, 1854)
"Fortsetzung der mikrogeologischen Studien", in Abhandlungen der königlichen Akadademie der Wissenschaft (Berlin, 1875).

External links

Entomologists of the World Reference List and Portrait.