Josef Honor Schneider

Josef Honor Schneider also Joseph Ignatz Schneider (born July 9, 1804 in Místek in Moravia ; † May 7, 1874 in Prestitz / Přeštice ) was a Moravian doctor, naturalist and author.

Life

Joseph Ignatz Schneider was born in Moravia on the border with Silesia , where his father Josef Wenzel Schneider lived as a flick cutter at Untergasse 5 for rent. Like his brother Jacob Eberhard, he was given the opportunity to study and in 1831 obtained the title of doctorate at the University of Vienna with a dissertation De organizatione cerebri, which was remarkable compared to the level of knowledge at the time . When the cholera epidemic reached Přeštice in 1832, he successfully fought this disease there and was able to settle here as a city physician. Before 1834 he still obtained his doctorate in philosophy, and in 1834 he married Anna Theresia Weis, a forester's daughter from the Upper Palatinate , in the nearby Dolní Lukavice / Unterlukawitz near Pilsen in western Bohemia . Ten children were born to both of them, all of whom survived childhood. As a town doctor, he mainly looked after the German-speaking population group in the region and the members of the noble family Schönborn-Wiesenthein, who lived in Unterlukawitz during the warmer months of the year . Schneider was able to sustainably push back cholera through preventive measures and introduced schoolchildren vaccinations.

Publications

Schneider's first publication was an obituary in verse for his brother Jacob, who died early, and which appeared in the Viennese magazine The Walker . Then he published about the successful healing of a rheumatoid from deaf dumbness . In 1843 he published Fr. Ed. Sandtner in Prague published an illustrated real lexicon of natural history with excellent illustrations by Franz A. Werner , an encyclopedia of animals, plants and minerals in the world, which is also interesting as a forerunner of “ Brehm ”, as it reflects the state of knowledge of biology in Central Europe at the time. The company was not economically successful, only two volumes appeared; Sandtner stopped such publications after getting into trouble as a supporter of the 1848 revolution. Schneider's most significant work is a treatise on Psylla solani tuberosi Schneider , a species of small cicadas that he described as the causative agent of potato rot . In the early 1840s this plant disease spread massively from the west in Central Europe. Within a few decades, the potato had become a staple food, especially for the rural population, ensured the winter survival of the broad masses and was also important for supplying the military. A failure of a few annual harvests and the subsequent return to beets in the crop rotation could have led to hunger and unrest, which is why the imperial court was very keen to combat potato rot. In addition to combating the pest, Schneider suggested keeping a wide strip of land free of potato fields year after year in order to counteract the spread of the rot. The important natural scientist Thomas de Bary was given Schneider's work for comment and he found out through microscope studies that the actual causative agent of the rot was a fungus and now opened up a perspective for combating the plant disease. Schneider initially still had the merit of being the first to describe the type of cycad and thus to be able to name it after himself. However, the Viennese entomologist Kollar described the species more precisely, which was possible for him by owning a microscope , and suggested naming the species by his name; so it prevailed in most countries, but Schneider's name remained in the Russian, Hungarian, Cuban and Serbian nomenclature.

Most of all Schneider's books were found in his Handbuch der Obstbaumschädlinge , which Schneider also published as a series of articles in specialist journals. On May 7, 1874, Schneider died in Přeštice 54 of paralysis . His grandson Rudolf Schneider , the Unterlukawitz-born founding director of the Prague Hydrometeorological Institute, left him a memorial in his memoirs, pointing out how the aging doctor was able to fascinate children with his devotion to science and precise timekeeping. Schneider left diary entries for the years 1840–1857 with precise daily weather records; these are among the oldest multi-year complete weather documentation in Central Europe and are the second oldest long-term weather data for the area of ​​today's Czech Republic. The diary also contains a list of the income of the country doctor's practice, which is of socio-historical interest.

Works

• Illustrated Real Lexicon of Natural History , Verlag Fr. Ed. Sandtner in Prague 1844 digitized
• Handbook of fruit tree pests
• The potato leaf sucker, Psylla solani tuberosi Schneider (Cycada [typhlocyba] solani tuberosi Kollar), an insect that causes potato rot: foresaw by Kollar (from the June issue. (Vol. IX.) Of 1852 of the seat reports the math.-naturw. Cl. the k. Ak. d. W. specially reprinted BSB

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Family tree and life data on www.myheritage.at
2. ↑ Lucie Heilandová, Kreslení nakomi, dissertation, Brno 2018 [1]