Emil Adolf Rossmaessler

Emil Adolf Rossmaessler

Gravestone of Emil Adolf Roßmaessler

Emil Adolf Roßmaessler (also Emil Adolph Roßmaessler ; born March 3, 1806 in Leipzig ; † April 8, 1867 ibid) was a Saxon , German naturalist , politician and folk writer. He is one of the pioneers of science popularization in Germany and is considered the "father of German aquaristics ", as he made the care of fish and plants popular through numerous articles and books in the 1850s. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Rossm. "

Life

Roßäßler was the son of the copper engraver Johann Adolf Rossmaessler (1770–1821) and his wife Amalia nee Kluge. His father awakened an interest in nature and drawing in him. His parents died early, so that he had to rely on the support of his relatives and additional income from unskilled labor.

In 1825 he began to study theology at the University of Leipzig ; his preferred subject medicine seemed too expensive to his uncle and guardian. During his studies, he also dealt intensively with botany . This was possible because the professor in charge exempted him from the lecture costs. He was so successful in this subject that he was given the botanical training for apprentice pharmacists in his second year of study.

After completing his studies in 1827, he led botanical excursions for young pharmacists and then went to teach at a private school in Weida (Thuringia). Here he published some works on floristry in magazines .

Roßäßler moved to Tharandt in 1830 and became professor of zoology at the " Royal Academy for Forestry and Agriculture " headed by Heinrich Cotta . At first he dealt with the spruce weevil , which at that time destroyed the forests in the vicinity of Tharandt. Two years later he published his systematic overview of the animal kingdom with his own drawings. Furthermore, he dealt with land and freshwater molluscs (especially snails ). He presented the results of his research trips in technical papers.

In 1835 he went on a research trip to Trieste , the Karst Mountains and the Alps . In 1837 he met fellow researchers Alexander von Humboldt , Christian Leopold von Buch , Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and the brothers Gustav Rose and Heinrich Rose in Berlin . At the same time, he also took over the mineralogy department at the Forestry Academy in Tharandt . He soon presented work in this area as well, such as The Contributions to Petrification Studies in 1840 .

In 1845 Roßäßler converted from the Protestant to the German-Catholic faith. He used this free religious movement to popularize a so-called natural worldview based on Alexander von Humboldt.

Rossäßler was also politically active. In 1848 he was a member of the Fifties Committee . From May 20, 1848 until the end of the rump parliament on June 18, 1849 , he was a member of the National Assembly for Pirna in Frankfurt . There he belonged to the left-wing parliamentary groups, first the German court , later the Nuremberg court . Since July 1848 he was a member of the committee for church and school affairs. He was heavily criticized for religious reasons, which displeased the government at the time. Therefore, in the summer of 1849, he retired at his own request. He was acquitted of a charge of high treason . Later he got a place at the so-called criminal table (Leipzig) .

Illustration of an aquarium from Roßmaessler's article Der See im Glase (1856)

In 1850 Roßäßler returned to his hometown Leipzig. From then on he became involved as a popularizer of science and wrote numerous important books, for example, together with Alfred Brehm, The Animals of the Forest . Some of his lectures appeared in Microscopic Views . In 1854 he published the article The Ocean on the Table in the popular family magazine Die Gartenlaube . He was engaged in the care of marine animals, a hobby that was already popular in Great Britain. Rossmaessler's aim in publishing this article was to make science better known among the people. He soon realized, however, that this was easier to achieve with a freshwater aquarium . Therefore followed in the gazebo of the article very soon The lake in the glass , which led to so many questions about this form of animal husbandry that he in 1857 his book The freshwater aquarium published. In it he gave specific instructions on how to set up and maintain such an aquarium. In addition to the goldfish , he especially recommended the minnow and the mud whip . In 1862 he compiled the most important trees in Germany in his work Der Wald .

Together with Otto Ule and Karl Müller , he edited the journal Die Natur for three years before founding his own popular science journal, Aus der Heimath , in 1859 . In the same year he initiated Humboldt celebrations and Humboldt associations in memory of Alexander von Humboldt .

On April 8, 1867 Roßäßler died in Leipzig. He left four children, one of whom lived, at least temporarily, in Russia and the other in North America.

The foundation of the Natural History Museum in Leipzig can be traced back to his initiative . His malacological collection is in the Senckenberg Nature Museum .

Honors

• In memory of Roßäßler, the (Prof .-) Roßäßler-Strasse in Tharandt, Berlin, Dresden, Freital, Leipzig and Pirna are named after him.
• After the floods of 2002, an old "Roßäßler building" in Tharandt was demolished; a library and cafeteria building newly built in 2004/05 for the forest sciences department of the TU Dresden on Pienner Strasse in Tharandt now bears the name "Roßäßler-Bau".
• The plant genus Rossmaesslera Rchb is named after him . from the family of the pear plants (Polemoniaceae).

Works

• 1832: Systematic overview of the animal kingdom
• 1835–1839: Iconography of land and freshwater mollusks (3 volumes)
• 1840: The contributions to petrification science
• 1843: The most important of the inner structure and life of the plants
• 1849: The German National Assembly in Stuttgart. A diary from a member of the same . Georg Egersdorff, Hechingen 1849 digitized
• 1850–1853: Man in the mirror of nature (5 volumes)
• 1852: Popular lectures in the field of nature (2 volumes)
• 1854: Travel Memories from Spain (2 volumes)
• 1854: The ocean on the table , article in the magazine Die Gartenlaube
• 1854: Flora in winter clothes
• 1856: The four seasons with 24 vegetation views
• 1856: The History of the Earth
• 1857: The freshwater aquarium ( online ; digitized and full text in the German text archive ) (facsimile reprint 1995, ISBN 3-927889-23-7 )
• 1858: The water
• 1860: Natural history lessons
• 1862: The forest ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
• 1860: The natural history lesson - thoughts and suggestions for redesigning it
• 1863–1868: The Animals of the Forest (2 volumes, together with Alfred Brehm)
• 1856–1859: Die Natur (magazine with Otto Ule and Karl Müller)
• 1859–1866: From Home (own magazine)
• 1868: For free hours
• Microscopic views (collection of Rossmaessler's lectures)
• 1874: My life and striving (autobiography, edited by Karl Russ after the death of the author)

literature

• Burghard Burgemeister : Emil Adolf Roßäßler, a democratic educator, 1806–1867 . Humboldt University, Berlin 1958.
• Andreas Daum :  Roßäßler, Emil Adolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , pp. 95 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3-486-56337-5 .
• Peter E. Fäßler: Rossäßler, Emil Adolf (Adolph) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Karl Friedel, Reimar Gilsenbach (Hrsg.): The Roßäßlerbüchlein. Published on the 150th anniversary of Emil Adolf Roßmaessler's birthday on March 3, 1956 . Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany, Central Commission Friends of Nature and Homeland, Berlin 1956.
• Karl-Heinz Günther: Civil-democratic educators in Germany during the second half of the 19th century. Diesterweg, Rossmaessler, Dittes, Sack . VEB Verlag Volk und Wissen, Berlin 1963.
• Joachim Heimannsberg: Brehm's travel life. Between the Arctic Ocean and the Equator. On the go with the great animal researcher . Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 2010 (in it p. 188–193 the chapter "Auf Nordlandfahrt" also on the clear influence of Roßäßler on Alfred Brehm's journalistic work), ISBN 978-3-411-08390-9 .
• Ernst Ulrich Köpf: Emil Adolf Roßäßler (1806–1867) . In: Sächsische Heimatblätter . Vol. 51 (2006), Issue 3, pp. 234-244.
• A. Schmidt: Nekrolog, Malakozoologische Blätter, Volume 14, 1867, pp. 183-190
• Barbara Weiß (Hrsg.): The Stuttgart rump parliament 1849. Emil Adolph Roßmaessler's diary and the self-image of the members (= publications of the Stuttgart archive. Volume 80). Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-608-94191-6 .
• Ernst Wunschmann:  Roßäßler, Emil Adolph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 268-271.
• Rudolf Schlatter: On the 200th anniversary of his birthday: Emil Adolf Roßäßler (1806–1867), undated and J. (Leipzig 2006).
• Günther Hans Wenzel Death : Emil Adolf Roßäßler: On the 200th birthday of March 3, 2006 , in: Anniversaries 2006, ed. from the rector of Leipzig University, Leipzig 2006, pp. 39–44.
• Gottfried Zirnstein: Emil Adolf Roßmaessler (1806–1867) , in: Sächsische Lebensbilder , vol. 6 (sources and research on Saxon history, vol. 33), ed. by Gerald Wiemers, Stuttgart 2009, pp. 605-635.

Web links

Wikisource: Emil Adolf Roßäßler  - sources and full texts

Commons : Emil Adolf Roßäßler  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Emil Adolf Roßäßler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Author entry and list of the plant names described for Emil Adolf Roßäßler at the IPNI

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Bourgeois Culture, Scientific Education, and the German Public, 1848-1914. Oldenbourg, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3-486-56337-5 , pp. 203-209 .
2. ↑ A. Daum: Science popularization in Germany . 1998, p. 138-151, 355-356 .
3. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .