Wilhelm Henneberg

Johann Wilhelm Julius Henneberg (born September 10, 1825 in Wasserleben , † November 22, 1890 in Göttingen ) was a German animal nutrition physiologist.

Life

Henneberg, eldest son of the domain tenant Eduard Sylvester Henneberg (1797–1866), attended the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig , spent the summer of 1840 on an internship in metallurgy and machine technology at what would later become the Fürst-Stolberg-Hütte in Ilsenburg , and had studied since Easter 1845 Chemistry and botany at the University of Jena and went to Gießen in the fall of 1846 , where he carried out analytical work in the field of animal chemistry in Justus von Liebig's laboratory .

In 1849 he received his doctorate from the University of Jena. He found his first professional job in 1851 as second secretary in the Agricultural Association of the Duchy of Braunschweig . In 1852 he became secretary of the Royal Hanoverian Agricultural Society in Celle , where he was able to expand his sphere of activity considerably. He set up an agricultural chemistry laboratory and had been editing the " Journal für Landwirtschaft " ( Journal for Agriculture ) since 1853 , which he edited until his death - most recently together with Gustav Drechsler .

In 1857 Henneberg took over the management of the newly established agricultural research station Weende near Göttingen . Initially, he devoted himself to plant cultivation problems. He carried out fertilization tests on the nearby Weende monastery . However, the focus of his scientific work soon became the research of the laws governing the formation of substances in the animal body. With the support of numerous assistants, especially Friedrich Stohmann , he worked on the scientific principles of modern animal nutrition at this research station. Just by introducing the concept of digestible nutrients and their determination in animals, as well as by fixing a uniform analytical method in the later world-famous Weender analysis (Weender methods), he determined the direction of development of animal nutrition up to the present day. His contributions , published in 1860 and 1864, on the justification of rational feeding of ruminants, are now among the "classic works" of scientific agricultural literature.

In 1874 the Agricultural Research Station Weende was relocated to the premises of the newly founded Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen . Henneberg has described the history of this experimental station in detail in several overview articles in the "Journal für Landwirtschaft". The station, which in Henneberg's time was still the property of the Royal Hanoverian Agricultural Society, became the nucleus for today's Institute for Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition of the Göttingen Faculty of Agricultural Sciences.

Henneberg, associate professor since 1865 and full honorary professor since 1873, gave lectures on animal nutrition at the Agricultural Academy Weende and later at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen. He was an honorary member of a large number of scientific societies and since the summer semester of 1848 honorary member of the Hercynia Göttingen progress fraternity . In 1867 he received an honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty of the University of Halle . In 1872 the Board of Trustees of the Liebig Foundation awarded him the Golden Liebig Medal . In 1889 he was appointed a secret councilor. He found his final resting place in the cemetery in Weende .

The bacteriologist Wilhelm Hermann Henneberg (1871–1936) was his nephew.

In recognition of the scientific life's work of Wilhelm Henneberg and that of his successor in office Franz Lehmann (1860–1942), the Association of the Feed Industry donated a Henneberg-Lehmann Prize in 1955 . It is awarded by the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Göttingen to outstanding scientists in the field of animal nutrition and to people involved in agricultural practice. Young scientists are awarded a sponsorship award.

Fonts (selection)

• The agronomic chemical issues of the present in their most essential moments . In: Journal für Landwirtschaft Vol. 6, 1858, pp. 227–255.
• Contributions to the justification of rational feeding of ruminants. Practical, agricultural and physiological investigations (with F. Stohmann) Book 1 u. 2. Braunschweig 1860 a. 1864. - New contributions. Issue 1 u. 2. Göttingen 1870 a. 1872.
• The development of experimental farming . In: Journal für Landwirthschaft, vol. 26, 1878, pp. 3–16.
• On the history of the agricultural experimental station Weende-Göttingen. In: Journal für Landwirtschaft Vol. 30, 1882, pp. 547-572.

literature

• Franz Lehmann: Wilhelm Henneberg . In: Journal für Landwirthschaft Vol. 38, 1890, pp. 503-546 (with picture and list of publications).
• Carl Leisewitz :  Henneberg, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 50, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1905, pp. 193-195.
• Walter Lenkeit: In memory of Wilhelm Henneberg on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the current Institute for Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . In: Journal for Animal Nutrition and Feed Science Vol. 12, 1957, pp. 315–328 (with picture and list of publications).
• Walter Lenkeit:  Henneberg, Johann Wilhelm Julius. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , pp. 540 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Th. Pfeiffer : Wilhelm Henneberg † . In: The agricultural test stations, Vol. 39, 1891, pp. 1–16 (with picture and list of publications).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see paragraph 75

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Henneberg in the catalog of the German National Library