Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn also known in Russia as
Karl Maksimovich Baer was an
EstonianThe Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...
naturalistNaturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
,
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
,
geologistA geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
, meteorologist,
geographerA geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
, a founding father of
embryologyEmbryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...
, explorer of
European RussiaEuropean Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...
and
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, a member of the
Russian Academy of SciencesThe Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
, a co-founder of the
Russian Geographical SocietyThe Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Imperial Geographical Society:Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was known as the Imperial Russian Geographical Society....
and the first President of the
Russian Entomological SocietyThe Russian Entomological Society is a Russian scientific society devoted to entomology.The Society was founded in 1859 in St. Petersburg by Karl Ernst von Baer , Johann Friedrich von Brandt who was then the director of the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Science , Ya. A...
.
Life
Karl Ernst von Baer was born into a
Baltic German noble familyThe Baltic nobility was the privileged social class in the territories of today's Estonia and Latvia. It existed continuously since the medieval foundation of Terra Mariana...
in the
PiipPiibe is a village in Rakke Parish, Lääne-Viru County, in northeastern Estonia....
estate,
WierlandVirumaa is a former independent county in Ancient Estonia. Now it is divided into Ida-Viru County or Eastern Vironia and Lääne-Viru County or Western Vironia...
,
EstoniaThe Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...
, as a
KnightRitter is a designation used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas. Traditionally it denotes the second lowest rank within the nobility, standing above "Edler" and below "Freiherr"...
by
birthrightBirthright is a term that refers to something that is acquired or inherited at birth. It may further refer to:- Ancient and modern Law :* primogeniture, rights of the firstborn* birthright citizenship- Literature :...
. Many of his ancestors had come from
WestphaliaWestphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
. He was educated at the Knight and Cathedral School in Reval (Tallinn) and the Imperial University of Dorpat (
TartuTartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...
), each of which he found lacking in quality education. In 1812, during his tenure at the university, he was sent to
RigaRiga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
to aid the city after
Napoleon's armiesThe French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. It reduced the French and allied invasion forces to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe...
had laid siege to it. As he attempted to help the sick and wounded, he realized that his education at Dorpat had been inadequate, and upon his graduation he notified his father that he would need to go abroad to "finish" his education. In his autobiography his discontent with his education at Dorpat inspired him to write a lengthy appraisal of education in general, a summary that dominated the content of the book. After leaving Tartu, he continued his education in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and
WürzburgWürzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
where Döllinger introduced him to the new field of
embryologyEmbryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...
.
In 1817, he became a professor at Königsberg University (
KaliningradKaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea...
) and full professor of
zoologyZoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
in 1821, and of
anatomyAnatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
in 1826. In 1829 he taught briefly in St. Petersburg, but returned to Königsberg. In 1834 Baer moved back to St Petersburg and joined the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, first in zoology (1834–46) and then in
comparative anatomyComparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...
and
physiologyPhysiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
(1846–62). His interests while there were anatomy,
ichthyologyIchthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
,
ethnographyEthnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
,
anthropologyAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and
geographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
. While embryology had kept his attention in Königsbert, then in Russia von Baer engaged in a large deal of field research, including the exploration of the island
Novaya ZemlyaNovaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
. The last years of his life (1867–76) were spent in Dorpat, where he became a leading critic of
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
.
In 1849, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
. He was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
in 1850. He was the president of the
Estonian Naturalists' SocietyEstonian Naturalists' Society is the oldest Estonia-based society of naturalists. It was founded in 1853, and since establishing has been the major scientific organisation focusing on natural history of Estonia....
in 1869–1876.
A statue honouring him can be found on Toome Hill in Tartu. The
two kroonsThe Estonian 2 Krooni bill is a denomination of the Estonian currency. Karl Ernst von Baer, who was an Estonian anthropologist, naturalist and geographer , is featured with a portrait on the front side of the bill...
Estonian banknote bears his portrait.
Embryology
He studied the embryonal development of animals, discovering the blastula stage of development and the
notochordThe notochord is a flexible, rod-shaped body found in embryos of all chordates. It is composed of cells derived from the mesoderm and defines the primitive axis of the embryo. In some chordates, it persists throughout life as the main axial support of the body, while in most vertebrates it becomes...
. Together with
Heinz Christian PanderHeinz Christian Pander, aka Christian Heinrich Pander was a Baltic German biologist and embryologist who was born in Riga. In 1817 he received his doctorate from the University of Würzburg, and spent several years , performing scientific research from his estate in Carnikava on the banks of the...
and based on the work by
Caspar Friedrich WolffCaspar Friedrich Wolff was a German physiologist and one of the founders of embryology.-Life:Wolff was born in Berlin, Brandenburg. In 1230 he graduated as an M.D...
he described the
germ layerA germ layer, occasionally referred to as a germinal epithelium, is a group of cells, formed during animal embryogenesis. Germ layers are particularly pronounced in the vertebrates; however, all animals more complex than sponges produce two or three primary tissue layers...
theory of development (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm) as a principle in a variety of species laying the foundation for comparative embryology in the book
Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (1828). In 1826 Baer discovered the mammalian
ovumAn ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
. The first human ovum was described by Allen in 1928.(1) In 1827 he completed research "Ovi Mammalium et Hominis genesi" for Saint-Petersburg's Academy of Science (published at Leipzig) and established that mammals develop from eggs.
Baer's laws (embryology)
He formulated what would later be called
Baer's laws of embryology:
- General characteristics of the group to which an embryo belongs develop before special characteristics.
- General structural relations are likewise formed before the most specific appear.
- The form of any given embryo does not converge upon other definite forms but, on the contrary, separates itself from them.
- Fundamentally, the embryo of a higher animal form never resembles the adult of another animal form, such as one less evolved, but only its embryo.
Baer's law (geology)
The term
Baer's lawIn geology, Baer's law, named after Karl Ernst von Baer, says that, because of the rotation of the earth, in the Northern Hemisphere, erosion occurs mostly on the right banks of rivers and in the Southern Hemisphere on the left banks...
also refers to the proposition that in the
northern hemisphereThe Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
,
erosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
occurs mostly on the right banks of rivers, and in the
southern hemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
on the left banks.
Explorer
Baer was interested in the Northern part of Russia and explored
Novaya ZemlyaNovaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
in 1837 collecting biologic specimen. Other travels led him to the
Caspian SeaThe Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
, the
North CapeNorth Cape is a cape on the island of Magerøya in Northern Norway, in the municipality of Nordkapp. Its 307 m high, steep cliff is often referred to as the northernmost point of Europe, located at , 2102.3 km from the North Pole. However, the neighbouring point Knivskjellodden is actually...
, and Lapland. He was a one of the founders of the
Russian Geographical SocietyThe Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Imperial Geographical Society:Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was known as the Imperial Russian Geographical Society....
.
Entomology
Baer contributed to studies in
entomologyEntomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
and was a cofounder as well as the first President of the
Russian Entomological SocietyThe Russian Entomological Society is a Russian scientific society devoted to entomology.The Society was founded in 1859 in St. Petersburg by Karl Ernst von Baer , Johann Friedrich von Brandt who was then the director of the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Science , Ya. A...
.
Meteorology
Baer IslandThe Taymyr Gulf is a gulf in the Kara Sea that includes the estuary of the Lower Taymyr River. The estuary opens roughly northwestwise from the western coast of the Taymyr Peninsula into the eastern expanses of the Kara Sea, widening from about 4 km at the river's mouth to about 20 km...
in the Kara Sea was named after Karl Ernst von Baer for his important contributions to the research of Arctic meteorology between 1830 and 1840.
Subjective biology
Baer was a pioneer in studying biological time – the
perception of timeTime perception is a field of study within psychology and neuroscience. It refers to the sense of time, which differs from other senses since time cannot be directly perceived but must be reconstructed by the brain. Humans can perceive relatively short periods of time, in the order of milliseconds,...
in different organisms. This approach was further developed by
Jakob von UexküllJakob Johann von Uexküll was a Estonian biologist who worked in the fields of muscular physiology, animal behaviour studies, and the cybernetics of life. However, his most notable contribution is the notion of umwelt, used by semiotician Thomas Sebeok...
.
Works
- Karl Ernst von Baer, Grigoriĭ Petrovich Gelʹmersen. "Beiträge zur Kenntniss des russischen Reiches und der angränzenden Länder Asiens". Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1839. On Google Books
External links