Wilhelm Behn

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Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn (born  December 25, 1808 in Kiel , †  May 14, 1878 in Dresden ) was a German anatomist and zoologist . He worked from 1833 to 1867 as a professor at the University of Kiel , where he also served as rector in 1865 . From 1870 to 1878 he was the successor to Carl Gustav Carus, the 14th President of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists .

Life

Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn was born in Kiel in 1808 and studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and Kiel from 1828 , where he also received his doctorate in 1832 . After his appointment as a private lecturer in 1833, he was appointed associate professor of anatomy and physiology and director of the Institute for Anatomy and the Zoological Museum in Kiel four years later. In 1834 he studied medicine in Paris . At that time, medicine in France was shaped by a scientific approach. He established a wide network of personal and correspondence contacts with Guillaume Dupuytren , Marie Jean Pierre Flourens , Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille and other members of the Académie des sciences de l'Institut de France .

With the Danish corvette Galathea he began a circumnavigation in 1845 , which he broke off in February 1847 in favor of a research trip through South America . After he returned to Kiel in 1848, he was promoted to full professor of anatomy and zoology in the same year. In 1860 he was a member of the University of Kiel for the Holstein Council of Estates , and five years later he was the rector of the university. After he withdrew from his professorship in October 1867 as an expression of his protest against the annexation of Holstein by Prussia and the formation of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein , he worked from 1870 to 1878 as President of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists, in which he had been admitted in 1848. He died in Dresden in 1878 , the scientific evaluation of his research expedition remained unfinished.

Its name is associated with the gray- winged ant hatchers ( Myrmotherula behni ).

Fonts (selection)

  • George Cuvier's letters to CH Pfaff from the years 1788 to 1792, natural historical, political and literary content. Kiel 1845 (as editor)
  • Prof. R. Owen's osteology of the Dronte (Didus ineptus, L.). Dresden 1868
  • Mr. Medicinalrath Dr. Friedrich Küchenmeister and the Leopoldine-Carolinian Academy of Natural Scientists. Hamburg 1869

literature

  • Behn, Wilhelm Friedrich Georg. In: Ludwig Gebhardt: The Ornithologists Central Europe: A reference work. Brühlscher Verlag, Gießen 1980, p. 29.
  • Behn, Wilhelm Friedrich Georg. In: Rudolf Bülck (ed.): Professors and lecturers at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, 1665–1954. Series: Publications of the Schleswig-Holstein University Society. Volume 7. Verlag Ferdinand Hirt, Kiel 1956, pp. 94/95.
  • Wieland Berg, Michael Kaasch: Hall as the seat of the Leopoldina. Coincidence or luck? In: Acta Historica Leopoldina. Lectures and treatises on the history of science. 55/2010. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 3-8047-2799-9 , pp. 293-330 ( PDF file , approx. 250 KB)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gérard Rudolph: Un médecin allemand à Paris: Wilhelm Behn (1808–1878). Rapport sur un journal inédit de 1834 In: Histoire des Sciences médicales. 29 (1 )/1995. Société française d'histoire de la médecine, pp. 71–80, ISSN  0440-8888 ( PDF file , approx. 5.3 MB)
  2. ^ Member entry of Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on March 8, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Behn, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Behn, Wilhelm Friedrich Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anatomist and zoology as well as President of the Leopoldina (1870–1878)
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1878
Place of death Dresden