1812 in science

The year 1812 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Humphry Davy publishes Elements of Chemical Philosophy in London.
• John Davy first describes the synthesis of phosgene.^[1]
• scale of mineral hardness
  .
• Heinrich Vogel (1778–1867) recognizes that glucose is a product of hydrolyzing lactose.^[2]

Geophysics

• February 7 – The last
  New Madrid earthquake strikes New Madrid, Missouri, with an estimated moment magnitude
  of over 8.
• March 26 – An earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.

Mathematics, statistics and metrology

• February 11 – Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry invents gerrymandering.
• February 12 –
  Metric System
  .
• Pierre-Simon Laplace publishes Théorie analytique des probabilités in which he lays down many fundamental results in statistics.

Medicine

• January – The New England Journal of Medicine is founded in Boston, by Dr John Collins Warren as the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Medical Science.^[3]
• January 21 – John Parkinson and his father James first describe appendicitis and resultant peritonitis in English.^[4]
• Benjamin Rush publishes Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind in Philadelphia, the first textbook on psychiatry issued in the United States.^[5]
• medical doctor at the University of Edinburgh; born Margaret Ann Bulkley, this makes her the first British woman with such a qualification.^[6]
• Jessore
  , India.
• Coffee is banned in Sweden.

Paleontology

• Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring publishes his description of Pterodactylus which he names Ornithocephalus antiquus.^[7]
• Georges Cuvier publishes Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes in Paris.

Technology

• February 27 – British
  Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire
  .
• March 15 –
  Luddites attack the wool factory of Frank Vickerman in West Yorkshire
  , England.
• May 25 –
  colliery near Jarrow
  , England – 96 dead.
• August – Henry Bell's PS Comet begins a passenger service on the River Clyde in Scotland, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe.^[8]
• August 12 – The
  cylinders and has a rack railway mechanism devised by John Blenkinsop and built by Matthew Murray.^[9]
• August 19 –
  Guerrière off the coast of Nova Scotia
  . British shot is said to have bounced off Constitution's sides, earning her the nickname "Old Ironsides".
• Philippe Girard invents a flax-spinning machine.^[10]
• The
  Labrot & Graham Distillery), the oldest Kentucky Bourbon whiskey distillery, is established along Glenn's Creek in Woodford County, Kentucky
  .

• Copley Medal: Not awarded^[11]
• knighthood

Births

• March 12 – Joseph Prestwich, English geologist (died 1896)
• March 20 –
  telegraph engineer (died 1882
  )
• March 24 –
  philologist (died 1888
  )
• May 10 – William Henry Barlow, English railway civil engineer (died 1902)
• June 9 – Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer (died 1910)
• October 27 –
  zoologist (died 1897
  )

• February 24 – Étienne-Louis Malus, French physicist (born 1775)
• April 7 –
  dermatologist (born 1757
  )
• May 9 –
  naturalist (born 1751
  )
• June 22 – Richard Kirwan, Irish scientist (born 1733)
• July 10 –
  botanist (born 1765
  )