Hermann August Hagen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hermann August Hagen
The Hagen couple before emigrating to the USA

Hermann August Hagen (born May 30, 1817 in Königsberg i.Pr .; † November 9, 1893 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) , USA ) was a German doctor , zoologist and entomologist. At Harvard University , he became the first professor of entomology at an American university.

Life

Hagen comes from the Hagen family of scholars in Königsberg. He is the son of the economist Carl Heinrich Hagen , grandson of Karl Gottfried Hagen , the last polymath at the Albertus University in Königsberg , and nephew of Ernst August Hagen , the first professor of art history and aesthetics in the Kingdom of Prussia .

After graduating from high school in 1836, Hagen initially studied medicine in Königsberg at the request of his father . He later integrated zoology with study visits to Berlin, Vienna and Paris. After the medical state examination in Königsberg, he worked here for a few years as an assistant at the surgical university clinic , and finally as a general practitioner . 1840 doctorate he became Dr. phil.

The Russian entomologist Karl Robert von der Osten-Sacken became aware of him through a lecture he had given to the Physico-Economic Society on March 19, 1852 under the title Termite Way of Life . After the two-volume Bibliotheca Entomologica (1862) had been published, Osten-Sacken recommended Hagen to the University of Cambridge / Massachusetts. At the instigation of Louis Agassiz , he received in 1867 the reputation there and worked first as a curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University , where he became the famous insect collection. He soon gained such a reputation that people like the future Professor John Henry Comstock (1849–1931) were among his students. In 1870 he became the first professor of entomology at an American university at Harvard.

He was a specialist in netwings and dragonflies . In 1845 he began to work with Edmond de Sélys Longchamps , which then culminated in 1850 in the comprehensive European major work Revue des Odonates . Hagen also supported Selys' work, which led to Selys being named in William Forsell Kirby's catalog as the first descriptor of some species that can actually be traced back to Hagen. The amber collection he brought with him from Königsberg with organic inclusions still forms the core of this museum's important inclusion collection. Some of the terms Hagen used were not yet properly defined. This was corrected in 1857 by the Irish entomologist Alexander Henry Haliday .

Hagen was influenced by his grandfather, Karl Gottfried Hagen, who, after handing over the court pharmacy to his son Johann Friedrich in 1816, moved to Ziegelstrasse on Burgkirchenplatz. The “auditorium” in which KG Hagen had set up its amber and herbaria collection also contained an entomological collection. Hagen had caught the insects himself and kept them in glass boxes he had made himself. This collection fascinated Hermann August, who was 10 years old, so much that he decided early on to become a zoologist. This entomological collection of Karl Gottfried Hagens may later have become the basis for that of Hermann August Hagen, on which his Bibliotheca Entomologica 1862 was based. He was married to Elise Johanna Marie Gerhards (July 18, 1832 - August 17, 1917). The marriage remained childless. He kept in close contact with his five brothers, in particular with Adolf Hermann Wilhelm Hagen , city councilor, treasurer and liberal politician. Hermann August Hagen's wife moved back to Königsberg after the death of her husband. Before his death, Hagen suffered from a peripheral nervous disease. He was buried in Mount Auburn University Cemetery in Cambridge (Massachusetts) .

Honors and Dedication Names

Hagen was a member of the Physical-Economic Society in Königsberg, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1868), the American Philosophical Society (1886) and the "American Society for Entomology". He founded the "Cambridge Entomological Club". In 1863 he received an honorary doctorate from the Albertus University of Königsberg . In 1884 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

In 1860 the Austrian entomologist Friedrich Moritz Brauer named the beaked fly species Hagens Mückenhaft ( Bittacus hageni ) in honor of Hermann August Hagen, in 1863 the American dragonfly species Enallagma hageni was named after him by Benjamin Dann Walsh .

Publications

literature

  • Hagen, Hermann August . In: JL Capinera (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Entomology (2nd edition). P. 1762, 2008
  • D. Hagen, E. Neumann-Redlin von Meding: Work and life of Hermann August Hagen . Königsberg Citizen Letter 2011; 78: 48-49
  • Hermann August Hagen. In: Psyche, Journal of Entomology , Volume 1894, Issue 1, p. 35
  • Samuel Henshaw: Hermann August Hagen. In: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 21 (1893/94), pp. 419-423.
  • S. Hagen: Three hundred years of Hagen's family history . Self-print (available in the university libraries in Münster, Berlin, Göttingen, Munich), 1938
  • E. Neumann-Redlin von Meding, J. von Meding: Karl Gottfried Hagen . Supplement to the Deutsche Apotheker Zeitung: History of Pharmacy vol. 51, no. 3/4. Stuttgart 1999
  • Ursula Scheiding:  Hagen, Hermann August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 472 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Wikisource: Hermann August Hagen  - Sources and full texts

References and comments

  1. ↑ Dissertation: Synonymia Libellarum Europaearum
  2. ↑ Explanation of terms used by Dr Hagen in his synopsis of the British Dragon-flies . In: Entomologists' Annual . Pp. 164-215. Fig.
  3. ↑ Member History: Hermann A. Hagen. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 19, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Hermann August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entomologist and professor at Harvard
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1893
Place of death Cambridge, Massachusetts