Marcus Élieser Bloch
Marcus Élieser Bloch (* 1723 in Ansbach ; † August 6, 1799 in Karlsbad ) was a German naturalist and doctor . His specialty was ichthyology ( ichthyology ), of which he was one of the leading representatives in the 18th century.
Live and act
Growing up in very modest Jewish circumstances as the son of a poor Torah writer , he could neither read nor write German until he was nineteen . However, through his knowledge of Hebrew and the rabbinical scriptures , he got a job as a private tutor for a Jewish surgeon in Hamburg . There he improved his knowledge of German, learned Latin and acquired his first basic knowledge of anatomy . After he had given up the position of private tutor, Bloch moved to Berlin , where he studied medicine with the support of relatives there . He did his doctorate in medicine in Frankfurt (Oder) and then settled in Berlin as a general practitioner. There he treated, among other things, his friend Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) and, as a typical representative of the Haskala, joined a group of enlightened Jews around him.
His first publication in 1774 was the Medicinal Notes, along with a treatise from the Pyrmonter Sauerbrunnen . Unusually progressive for the time, he presented A. states that the psychological life of an expectant mother would have a great influence on the flourishing of the embryo . In addition to his medical work, he also dealt with zoological studies, primarily with fish. He was elected a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences in 1781 and a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy in 1782 .
Bloch's main work is the general natural history of fish , which appeared in 12 volumes from 1782 to 1795. The copper engravings contained are not only of scientific, but also of high artistic value. In the first three volumes he deals with the fish found in Germany and paid special attention to their economic use. The rest of the work deals with the rest of the world's known fish at the time. He received the material on which the descriptions are based from several specialist colleagues and collectors, including the missionary Christoph Samuel John . Bloch still financed the first volumes from his own resources, but then had to look around for donors, which he found in members of the nobility and scholars in Berlin. Bloch used an unusual form of “science sponsorship”: the name of the sponsor was printed on the corresponding of the 432 hand-colored panels of the natural history of fish. The General Natural History of Fish was the most important ichthyological work of all during Bloch's lifetime and far beyond. It gained its special value from the fact that Bloch took over little from other authors, but mainly relied on his own collection of fish. In addition, Bloch published work on parasitic worms .
Together with Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (1750–1822), he began work on a catalog which, under the title Systema ichthyologiae iconibus CX illustratum, was supposed to list all the fish species in the world, but was never completed. However, the fragmentary work includes 1519 species descriptions. Bloch's fish collection comprised around 1500 specimens and was incorporated into the Berlin Zoological Museum, now the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin , in 1810 . This world-famous Bloch collection is now the museum's oldest treasure. With the 800 remaining copies, it is the largest ichthyological collection still in existence from the 18th century.
His wife was Cheile Bloch, née Ephraim (approx. 1757–1780).
Works
- His main work is the “General Natural History of Fish” Berlin 1782–95, 12 vols. With 432 colored coppers, for a long time the only comprehensive work on that class of animals and still valuable (translated into French by Laveaux, das. 1785, 6 vols. ). doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.63303 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.46381
- "Natural history of foreign fish." Published "At the expense of the author, and in commission in the bookstore of the Realschule", Berlin 1786. Digitization
- Unfinished, he left the “Systema ichthyologiae iconibus CX illustratum” published by JG Schneider (Berlin 1801). doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.5750 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.58288
- Treatise on the production of intestinal worms and the means against them . Siegismund Friedrich Hesse, Berlin 1782 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.62139
literature
- Hans-Joachim Paepke: Bloch's fish collection in the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - An illustrated catalog and historical account . ARG Gantner Verlag KG, Czech Republic, 1999. ISBN 3-904144-16-2
- Hans-Joachim Paepke: Marcus Elieser Bloch, his importance as an ichthyologist and his famous fish collection. In: Negotiations of the Society for Ichthyology. Volume 2. Verlag Natur & Wissenschaft, Solingen 2001, pp. 69–85.
- Richard Lesser: Marcus Elieser Bloch. The life of an unusual man and a respected fish researcher. In: Negotiations of the Society for Ichthyology. Volume 2, Verlag Natur & Wissenschaft, Solingen, 2001, pp. 59–68.
- Richard Lesser: Dr. Marcus Elieser Bloch. A Jew founds modern ichthyology. "The eighteenth century", magazine of the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century, Haskala. The Jewish Enlightenment in Germany 1769-1812, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 238–246, Wallstein Verlag, Wolfenbüttel 1999.
- Christine Karrer: Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723-1799), His life and the history of his fish collection , meeting reports of the Society of Friends of Natural Sciences in Berlin (NF) 18 (1978) pp. 129-149
- Julius Victor Carus : Bloch, Marcus Elieser . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 707 f.
- F. Damaschun, S. Hackethal, H. Landsberg, R. Leinfelder (Eds.): "Class, Order, Art - 200 Years Museum für Naturkunde", Basiliken-Presse published by Verlag Natur und Text Brandenburg GmbH, 2010, p. 14 . ISBN 978-3-941365-10-0
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Max Grunwald: Hamburg's German Jews up to the dissolution of the Dreiergemeinden in 1812 , Alfred Janssen Verlag, Hamburg, 1904, p. 349 and Max Grunwald: Contributions to Jewish cultural history, From the history of families, Jellinek, Bloch, ... , communications on Jewish folklore 20, Vienna, 1917, p. 28
- ↑ Richard Lesser: The life of an unusual man ... , p. 60
- ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 42.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bloch, Marcus Élieser |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bloch, Markus Elieser |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German ichthyologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1723 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ansbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 6, 1799 |
| Place of death | Carlsbad |