John Hutton Balfour

John Hutton Balfour (1878)

John Hutton Balfour (born September 15, 1808 in Edinburgh , † February 11, 1884 Edinburgh) was a Scottish, British doctor and botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Balf. "

biography

Born in Edinburgh in 1808 , John Hutton Balfour attended Royal High School in his hometown. He then studied at the University of St Andrews and at the University of Edinburgh , which he shares with graduation as a Master of Arts and in 1832 as Doctor of Medicine graduated. In the same year he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh). Although he originally aspired to ecclesiastical office, he opened a medical practice in Edinburgh in 1834 .

His interest in botany and his growing botanical knowledge made him one of the co-founders of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in 1836 and the Botanical Club in 1838. After giving lectures in botany from 1840 , he was appointed Regius Professorship for Botany at the University of Glasgow in 1841 . In 1845 he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Edinburgh, head of the Royal Botanic Garden (Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) and the Royal Botanist for Scotland (Queen's botanist for Scotland). Under his care, the Royal Botanical Garden was enlarged and a palm garden , a rock garden , an arboretum and a museum were built.

Balfour was known as a gifted teacher and experimenter who liked to take up knowledge from other scientific disciplines. So he responded to James Young Simpson's experiments with anesthetics for humans by studying the reaction of plants to anesthetics with his students . Because of his energetic leadership on botanical excursions , he was nicknamed "Woody Fiber".

Balfour was 30 years dean of the medical faculty in Edinburgh and taught as the first professor of medicine his students in microscopy . It was there that he discovered a disease that was later named after him, "Balfour's disease", a special form of leukemia associated with multiple bone tumors . His numerous publications between 1862 and 1875, however, concern exclusively botanical subjects.

Balfour maintained a lively correspondence with many contemporary scientists, including Charles Darwin , for whom he wrote an obituary after his death . In addition to many of his own publications, he also contributed to the botany chapter of the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica . After his retirement in 1879, he withdrew into private life.

John Hutton Balfour's son, Isaac Bayley Balfour (1853-1922), also studied botany. When he also became director of the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh, he continued his father's work and turned the botanical garden into one of the largest botanical gardens in the world.

Honors

• John Hutton Balfour was awarded honorary doctorates in law (LLD) by all three universities with which he had been in contact, St Andrews University, Glasgow University and Edinburgh University .
• The University of Edinburgh awards a prize for botany named after John Hutton Balfour (The Hutton Balfour Prize for Botany).
• One of his students, James Hector , named a 3272 m high mountain in the Canadian Rockies ( Yoho National Park , British Columbia ) after John Hutton Balfour in 1859 : Mount Balfour.

In 1835 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1856 of the Royal Society of London .

Activity as a botanist

The plants first described by Balfour include Cephalocroton socotranus , the calabar bean ( Physostigma venenosum ) and the Jeffrey pine ( Pinus jeffreyi ).

Dedication names

The genus Balfourodendron Mello ex Oliv was named in his honor . named from the plant family of the diamond plants (Rutaceae).

The species epithet was named after Balfour for the following species :

• Foxtail Pine ( Pinus balfouriana ) S.Watson
• Salix balfouriana C.K. Schneid.
• Tinus balfouriana Kuntze

Fonts (selection)

• Manual of Botany. Being an Introduction to the Study of the Structure, Physiology and Classification of Plants. John Joseph Griffin, London 1849.
• Phyto-Theology. Or, Botanical Sketches, Intended to Illustrate the Works of God in the Structure, Functions, and General Distribution of Plants. Johnstone & Hunter, London et al. 1851, (From the third edition, 1859, as: Botany and Religion. ).
• Class Book of Botany. Being an Introduction to the Study of the Vegetable Kingdom. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh 1852, ( digitized version ).
• Outlines of Botany. Being an Introduction to the Study of the Structure, Functions, Classification and Distribution of Plants. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh 1854.
• The Plants of the Bible. Trees and Shrubs. T. Nelson and Sons, London et al. 1857.
• The Elements of Botany for the Use of Schools. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh 1869.
• Introduction to the Study of Palæontological Botany. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh 1872, ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for John Hutton Balfour at the IPNI
• Entry to Balfour; John Hutton (1808-1884) in the Royal Society Archives , London

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Hutton Balfour. In: The University of Glasgow Story. Retrieved September 15, 2018 .  
2. ↑ John Hutton Balfour. In: The Scottish Science Hall of Fame . 2005, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; accessed on September 15, 2018 (English).  
3. ^ From John Hutton Balfour. (No longer available online.) In: Darwin Correspondence Project at Cambridge University . January 14, 1862, archived from the original on September 15, 2018 ; accessed on September 15, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
4. ^ John Hutton Balfour: Obituary Notice of Charles Robert Darwin. In: Transactions & Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh May 14 , 1882, pp. 284–288 , accessed on September 15, 2018 (English, reproduced on darwin-online.org).  
5. ↑ Mount Balfour. In: Peakfinder: Peaks of the Canadian Rockies. Archived from the original on May 18, 2008 ; accessed on September 15, 2018 (English). Mount Balfour. In: Peakware.com. Retrieved September 15, 2018 .  
    
   
6. ^ Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 7, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]