August brewer

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August Brauer (1898)

August Bernhard Brauer (born April 3, 1863 in Oldenburg ; † September 10, 1917 in Berlin ) was a German zoologist and director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin from 1906 to 1917 .

Life

August Brauer was born as the youngest of nine children of Oldenburg businessman Theodor Brauer and his wife Marianne. He attended high school in his hometown and from 1882 studied natural sciences at the universities of Bonn , Berlin and Freiburg . Under the influence of August Weismann , Eduard von Martens , Richard von Hertwig and Franz von Leydig , he turned to zoology. He received his doctorate on October 30, 1885 in Bonn with a thesis on Bursaria truncatella taking into account other heterotriches and the vorticellins . On May 21, 1887, he passed the state examination .

After he had done his military service from 1887 to 1888, he studied another two semesters in Berlin, in particular geography with Ferdinand von Richthofen . From October 1, 1889, he taught chemistry and geography as a trial candidate at the Luisenstädtische Oberrealschule in Berlin , but on January 1, 1890, he switched to the Zoological Institute of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin as an intern. He gave up the assistant position at Franz Eilhard Schulze , which he had occupied since April 1, 1890, two years later to work with Artemia eggs at the Trieste zoological station . At the end of 1892 he completed his habilitation at the Philipps University of Marburg and stayed there as a private lecturer. He spent the period from May 1894 to January 1895 on the Seychelles island of Mahé studying sneak amphibians (Gymnophiona). He was a participant in the German deep-sea expedition led by Carl Chun , which traveled the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on the steamer Valdivia from 1898 to 1899 . From the collected material he took over the deep-sea fish for processing and published the results in 1906 and 1908 as the 15th volume in the series Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition .

In 1906, at Chun's suggestion, Brauer was appointed director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin and at the same time an associate professor. In 1909 he became a full honorary professor , in 1914 a full professor and in 1916 a privy councilor.

power

Brauer's outstanding scientific achievement was the processing of the deep-sea fish collected by the Valdivia expedition. In the first part of the work he described 209 species, 63 of which were previously unknown. In the second part he dealt in detail with the eyes and luminous organs of fish. The proof of his qualifications as a systematist and comparative anatomist, which was thus provided, ultimately led to his appointment as director of the Zoological Museum in Berlin. In addition, Brauer has made important contributions to the systematics of hyrax and geozoology .

As director he succeeded in greatly expanding the collections of the Zoological Museum through acquisitions, for which he successfully solicited private aid or even made his personal funds available if the museum's budget alone did not allow the purchase. In addition, he succeeded in ensuring that most of the collections from the expeditions with the Valdivia and the Gauß came to the Berlin Museum after processing, as did Fritz Schaudinn and Fritz Römer (1866–1909) from the Spitzbergen trip . Before his death, he made a will that his library and all of his property should go to the Zoological Museum. The new museum building in Dahlem that Brauer was aiming for did not materialize after the death of Friedrich Althoff . The existing museum was expanded considerably by an extension from 1914 to 1917.

Brauer emerged as the editor of important zoological works. After Chun's death he was in charge of the scientific results of the German Deep Sea Expedition from 1914 , as well as the Fauna Arctica after the early death of Schaudinn and Römer. A special concern of his was the publication of the series The Freshwater Fauna of Germany , which appeared in 19 issues from 1909 to 1912.

Brauer was on the board of the German Zoological Society from 1908 to 1917 , most of the time as secretary.

Deep sea fish according to brewer

Brauer 1906. The drawings are by Friedrich Winter

Honors

On May 17, 1899, immediately after the return of the Valdivia expedition, Brauer became a full member of the Society for the Advancement of All Natural Sciences in Marburg. Since July 1, 1915 he was a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences .

A genus of butterflies and numerous animal species were named after Brauer.

In 1912 he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, IV class, for his services .

Fonts (selection)

  • August Brauer: Bursaria truncatella taking into account other heterotriches and the vorticellins. Dissertation, Bonn 1885 ( archive.org ).
  • August Brauer: The deep sea fish. Systematic part. Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer "Valdivia" 1898–1899, Volume 15, Part 1, Fischer, Jena 1906.
  • August Brauer: The deep sea fish. Anatomical part. Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer “Valdivia” 1898–1899, Volume 15, Part 2, Fischer, Jena 1908.
  • August Brauer (Ed.): The fresh water fauna of Germany. An excursion fauna. 19 booklets, Fischer, Jena 1909–1912.

literature

Web links

Commons : August Brauer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Board of the German Zoological Society. Complete overview since 1890 , accessed on August 25, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Brewer, August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brauer, August Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldenburg
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1917
Place of death Berlin