August David Krohn

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August David Krohn , Russian Август Давид Крон , (born August 11, 1803 in Saint Petersburg , † February 24, 1891 in Bonn ) was a German-Russian zoologist (marine biology), anatomist and embryologist.

Krohn was the son of a German immigrant in Russia from Rügen (Abraham Krohn, 1766-1827), who started as a baker's assistant in Saint Petersburg, received the favor of Catherine the Great, founded the first Russian brewery for English-style beer and very much became wealthy. His mother was Elisabeth Balzer (1770–1837). Krohn attended the Petri School in Saint Petersburg and studied at the University of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1826 with a dissertation on ophthalmology (De iridodialysis operatione instrumentisque in ea adhibendis). He then went back to Saint Petersburg and worked as a doctor, but returned to Bonn via Hamburg in 1835, where he worked at the university. He was a professor of medicine there. In the 1870s he went blind and had to give up his scientific work. In 1835 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

He collected in 1851 on the Adriatic Sea (Trieste) with Carl Gegenbaur and Michael Sars , whom he also visited in Norway. In 1855/56 and 1858 he was in Madeira. In 1832 he was in Naples for the first time and many other stays followed. From 1840 he regularly spent the winters in the south (Naples, Messina, Nice, Madeira, Tenerife), possibly for health reasons. The rest of the year he was in Paris or Bonn. In Italy he made friendly contacts with Rudolph Amandus Philippi and Franz Hermann Troschel, among others .

From 1834 Krohn published over 80 works in zoology, from 1839 mainly on anatomy, reproduction and development of marine invertebrates.

He made important works on tunicates and arrow worms (Chaetognathen). The arrowworm family Eukrohniidae is named after him and the free-swimming marine gastropod Cliopsis krohnii (oar snail ). He corresponded with Charles Darwin and corrected in 1859 some anatomical errors in barnacles of Darwin. He first described and classified Rhombozoa (pebbles).

He was Julius Krohn's uncle . Krohn was never married and had no children.

literature

  • Obituary in Zoologischer Anzeiger, Volume 14, 1891, 108
  • Christiane Groeben: Tourists in Science: 19th century research trips to the mediterranean, Proc. California Academy of Sciences, Vol. 59, 2008, pp. 139-154

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ February 24th according to the obituary in Der Naturforscher, February 1891. February 25th and 26th are also given
  2. ↑ It still exists today under the name Stepan Razin
  3. ^ Obituary in Der Naturforscher 1891
  4. ^ List of members Leopoldina, August David Krohn
personal data
SURNAME Krohn, August David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Russian zoologist (marine biology), anatomist and embryologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1891
Place of death Bonn