Emil Werth

Emil Werth (born March 11, 1869 in Münster ; † July 8, 1958 ibid) was a German botanist , phenologist , ethnologist , geographer and agricultural scientist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Werth ".

Live and act

Emil Werth comes from an old farming family in Wuppertal . He learned the profession of pharmacy and studied from 1893 to 1895 Pharmacy at the University of Muenster . Then he was drawn to distant lands. In 1896 and 1897, as administrator of the German pharmacy on the island of Zanzibar, he had the opportunity to study the flora of this tropical island. Some of the newly discovered plant species bear his name. In 1897 and 1898 he traveled to East Africa and carried out geological, botanical, zoological and cultural-historical studies.

1899 stayed Werth for one semester at the University of Berlin , then at the University of Bern , where he in 1901 with the thesis The vegetation of the island of Zanzibar Dr. phil. received his doctorate. From 1901 to 1903 he was a participant in the German South Pole expedition led by Erich von Drygalski and headed the Kerguelen station, where he stayed with Karl Luyken and Josef Enzensperger while Drygalski traveled on to the South Pole. Inspired by the geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen , who worked at the University of Berlin , Werth undertook research trips to Australia and India in 1904 . From 1906 to 1907 he worked in the German office of the International Bibliography of Natural Sciences in Berlin.

In 1908, Werth became an employee of the Imperial Biological Institute for Agriculture and Forestry , which later became the Imperial Biological Institute in Berlin. Here he dealt with the biology of parasitic fungi, but at the same time published a large number of geomorphological and cultural-geographic works. His work The German-East African Coast and the Offshore Islands , published in 1915 and awarded by the German Colonial Society, deserves special mention . In 1917 he was given the title of professor.

In 1920 Werth took over the management of the laboratory for meteorology and phenology of the Biological Reichsanstalt. In 1921 he founded the Reich Phenological Service with over a thousand volunteer observers. He published pioneering work on the influence of weather on the growth and development of cultivated plants as well as on the importance of phenology for plant protection. His most important achievement during this phase of his life was the writing on the climate and vegetation structure in Germany (1927).

In 1934 Werth was retired . From then on, his scientific interest was mainly the history of agriculture and the history of cultivated plants . Even in old age, Werth published numerous articles in specialist journals and several books. The book Grabstock, Hacke und Pflug , published in 1954, is considered to be his significant late work . An attempt at a history of the origins of agriculture . The bibliography listed there includes 64 of his own essays that he has contributed to this topic. His complete scientific work comprises around 500 publications .

As a scientist, Werth placed particular emphasis on interdisciplinary thinking and acting. He was an honorary member of the Association for Applied Botany . In 1954 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Major works

• The vegetation of the island of Zanzibar . Diss. Phil. Univ. Bern 1901.
• The ice age . Verlag Göschen Leipzig 1909 = Göschen Collection No. 431; 2. verb. Edition ibid. Berlin and Leipzig 1917; Reprint of the 2nd edition, ibid. 1920.
• The German-East African coastal country and the offshore islands . Award-winning typeface. 2 volumes, Verlag D. Reimer Berlin 1915.
• The fossil human. Basics of a paleanthropology . Publishing house Gebr. Borntraeger Berlin. 3 volumes. Part 1: 1921; Part 2: 1922; Part 3: 1928.
• Classification of climate and vegetation in Germany . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin 1927 = messages from the Biological Reich Institute for Agriculture and Forestry, Berlin Dahlem H. 33.
• Introduction to the theory of double inheritance . Bergen I, No. 72, Upper Bavaria, Biological-cultural-historical research center Alpenland, 1949.
• South Asia as the cradle of agriculture . Verlag W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart 1950.
• The eustatic movements of the sea level during the Ice Age and the formation of coral reefs . Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz 1953 = Treatises of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, born 1952, No. 8.
• Digging stick, hoe and plow. An attempt at a history of the origins of agriculture . Publisher E. Ulmer Ludwigsburg 1954.
• The littoral subsidence and the Stone Age cultures in the context of the isostatic sea level fluctuations of the Northern European postglacial . Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz 1955 = Treatises of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, born 1954, no. 8.
• Construction and life of flowers. The flowering biological types in development and adaptation . Verlag Enke Stuttgart 1956.

literature

• Emil Werth 80 years old. Short curriculum vitae and bibliography compiled by GJ - Privatdruck Eilenburg 1949, (28 pages, with picture).
• Hermann Morstatt: Emil Werth on his 80th birthday . In: Research and Progress Vol. 25, 1949, pp. 189–190.
• Hubert Ehrhard: Professor Dr. Emil Werth's contribution to agriculture . In: Chiemgau-Blätter Jg. 1949, No. 11, pp. 4–5 (with picture).
• Hans Findeleisen: Emil Werth 81 years old and encounters on the path of a naturalist. Memories of Emil Werth's life . In: The Research Service . A series of publications from the natural sciences and the humanities, Augsburg, volume 1, 1950/54, pp. 3–11 (with picture).
• H. Voelkel: Professor Dr. Emil Werth 85 years . In: Newsletter of the German Plant Protection Service vol. 6, 1954, p. 47 (with picture).
• In memoriam of Prof. Dr. Emil Werth . In: Applied Botany Vol. 32, 1958, p. 205.

Web links

• Literature by and about Emil Werth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Emil Werth at the IPNI
• Report from Karl Luyken about the stay on the Kerguelen during the Gauss expedition