Hermann Engelhard by Nathusius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hermann Engelhard von Nathusius, around 1855
Advertisement for Merino sheep from the Hundisburger line, which was founded in 1853 by Hermann von Nathusius, around 1900

Hermann Engelhard Nathusius , from 1840 by Nathusius , (born December 9, 1809 in Magdeburg , † June 29, 1879 in Berlin ) has been the owner and administrator of the Hundisburg manor in what is now Saxony-Anhalt since 1831 and is also a co-founder of modern animal breeding . He was raised to the nobility in 1840.

Live and act

He is the son of the merchant Gottlob Nathusius and his wife Luise Engelhard . Hermann Engelhard Nathusius studied zoology in Berlin . Later he became a successful animal breeder - especially of sheep, cattle, pigs and horses - he also wrote works on zoology and breeding, which were methodically based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

Nathusius' writings were evaluated by Charles Darwin , who quoted them in the origin of the species and in the origin of man , as well as in various letters. Nathusius had a critical relationship with Darwin, whose work was for him insufficiently founded on real observations (see foreword to the preliminary studies ; see writings). His work preliminary studies on the history and breeding of domestic animals. First of all, the pig skull was explicitly written as a discussion of Darwin's concept of species and race. It is quoted in today's editions of The Origin of Species , although it appeared five years later, and refers to this work.

In the preliminary studies , Nathusius describes skull reshuffles in domesticated pigs, which indicate an environmental neoteny that forms the transition from the wild to the domesticated breeds, but does not produce a species of its own, as Darwin would suggest.

As a politician, Nathusius was involved in the establishment of the higher agricultural training institute in Halle an der Saale and from 1870 was a member of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture and head of the agricultural training institute in Berlin. In the colonnade of the horticultural and agricultural faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin on Invalidenstrasse, Nathusius is remembered with a marble bust .

In his honor the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Züchtungskunde e. V. (DGfZ) donated the Hermann von Nathusius Medal in 1928 .

family

Nathusius married Louise Bartels (1810–1906) in Giebichenstein in 1835 , a daughter of the Prussian councilor August Ludwig Remigius Bartels . The couple had three sons and two daughters:

Fonts (selection)

  • About Constanz in animal breeding. (First published in the magazine for German farmers) . Berlin 1860.
  • Preliminary studies on the history and breeding of domestic animals. First on the pig skull . Berlin 1864 (reprinted in excerpts in the journal Elements of Natural Science . No. 85, 2006).
  • Lectures on animal breeding . Berlin 1872 ff.
  • About the so-called leporides . Berlin 1876 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive , digitized ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Photograph by H. Schnäbeli, published by Wiegandt and Hempel Verlag, Berlin.
  2. ↑ a b Nathusius (1840, 1861), 1st line, Hermann Engelhard v. Nathusius (Prussian nobility Berlin, October 15, 1840). In: Genealogical manual of the nobility . Volume 57 of the complete series, Noble Houses B Volume XI, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg ad Lahn 1974, p. 308.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermann von Nathusius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Nathusius, Hermann Engelhard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nathusius, Hermann Engelhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist and animal breeder
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1879
Place of death Berlin , Kingdom of Prussia , German Empire