# 1858 in science

The year 1858 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Astronomy

* June 2 – Donati's Comet, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati; it remains visible for several months afterwards.

## Biology

* Publication of Darwin's theory of evolution:
** June 18 – Charles Darwin receives papers from Alfred Russel Wallace setting out the latter's theory of natural selection which he forwards to Charles Lyell.
** July 1 – Darwin and Wallace's papers on their theories of evolution, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (submitted with the support of Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker) are read by John Joseph Bennett to a meeting of the Linnean Society of London. They are first published on August 20.
* William Herschel initiates fingerprinting as a means of identification, in Bengal.
* Rudolf Virchow publishes Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre: 20 Vorlesungen, gehalten während der Monate Februar, März und April 1858 im Pathologischen Institut zu Berlin.
* George Bentham's Handbook of the British flora is published. This will be in use (in editions edited by Joseph Dalton Hooker) for a century.

## Chemistry

* May 28 – Erasmus Bond (owner of Pitt & Co. of London) patents tonic water, manufactured using quinine.

## Exploration

* February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.
* May 14 – Dr David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi Expedition, under the patronage of the Royal Geographical Society, arrives at the African coast with the prefabricated iron paddle steamer Ma Robert.
* August 3 – John Hanning Speke discovers Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile.

## Mathematics

* The Möbius strip is discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing.
* Arthur Cayley publishes "A memoir on the theory of matrices", introducing the modern concept of the matrix in mathematics.
* In Luxor, Egypt, the Rhind papyrus is found (named for Alexander Henry Rhind, the discoverer; it is sometimes called the Ahmes papyrus for the scribe who wrote it around 1650 BC).

## Physiology and medicine

* August 2 – Medical Act 1858 passed "to Regulate the Qualifications of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery" in the United Kingdom.
* December 1 – The recently-formed Odontological Society of London opens the Dental Hospital of London in England.
* First publication of Gray's Anatomy.
* Publication in London of Thomas B. Peacock's On Malformations, &c., of the Human Heart, with original cases which becomes a standard cardiology textbook.
* French pediatrician Eugène Bouchut develops a new technique for non-surgical orotracheal intubation to bypass laryngeal obstruction resulting from a diphtheria-related pseudomembrane.

## Psychiatry

* First treatise on postpartum psychiatric disturbances, by Louis-Victor Marcé, MD.

## Technology

* January 31 – I. K. Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames using Tangye hydraulic rams.
* August – The first aerial photography is carried out by Nadar from a moored balloon in France using the collodion process.
* August 16 – Official inauguration of the transatlantic telegraph cable; however, it fails on September 1.
* Mirror galvanometer invented by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin.
* Hoffmann kiln patented in Germany by Friedrich Hoffmann for continuous production brickmaking.

## Awards

* Copley Medal: Charles Lyell
* Wollaston Medal for geology: James Hall

## Births

* January 2 – Bernard Sachs (died 1944), American neurologist.
* January 9 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, née Knight (died 1934), American botanist.
* January 28 – Eugène Dubois (died 1940), Dutch paleoanthropologist.
* February 7 – Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate (died 1931), Dutch anthropologist.
* March 18 – Rudolf Diesel (died 1913), German mechanical engineer.
* March 27 – Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer (died 1945), German physician and bacteriologist.
* April 23 – Max Planck (died 1947), German theoretical physicist.
* May 19 – Thomas Allinson (died 1918), English physician and dietetic reformer.
* May 28 – T. H. E. C. Espin (died 1934), English astronomer, scientist and clergyman.
* July 9 – Franz Boas (died 1942), German-born anthropologist.
* August 11 – Christiaan Eijkman (died 1930), Dutch physiologist.
* August 19 – Ellen Willmott (died 1934), English horticulturist.
* August 27 – Giuseppe Peano (died 1932), Italian mathematician.
* October 4 – Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (died 1935), Banat-born physicist.
* November 1 – Ludwig Struve (died 1920), Russian astronomer.
* November 30 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (died 1937), Bengali physicist.
* Laura Forster (died 1917), Australian physician.

## Deaths

* January 4 – Amelia Griffiths (born 1768), British phycologist.
* April 28 – Johannes Peter Müller (born 1801), German physiologist.
* June 10 – Robert Brown (born 1773), Scottish botanist.
* June 28 – Jane Marcet (born 1769), British popular science writer.
* November 8 – George Peacock (born 1791), English mathematician.
* December 10 – Joseph Paul Gaimard (born 1793), French naval surgeon and naturalist.
* December 16 – Richard Bright (born 1789), English physician.