Hugo von Mohl
Hugo von Mohl | |
---|---|
Born | 8 April 1805 |
Died | 1 April 1872 | (aged 66)
Nationality | German |
Scientific career | |
Fields | botany |
Author abbrev. (botany) | Mohl |
Hugo von Mohl
Life
He was a son of the Württemberg statesman Benjamin Ferdinand von Mohl (1766–1845), the family being connected on both sides with the higher class of state officials of Württemberg. While a pupil at the gymnasium, he pursued botany and mineralogy in his leisure time, until in 1823 he entered the University of Tübingen. After graduating with distinction in medicine he went to Munich, where he met a distinguished circle of botanists, and found ample material for research.[2]
This seems to have determined his career as a botanist, and he started in 1828 those anatomical investigations which continued until his death. In 1832 he was appointed professor of botany in Tübingen, a post which he never left. Unmarried, his pleasures were in his laboratory and library, and in perfecting optical apparatus and microscopic preparations, for which he showed extraordinary manual skill. He was largely a self-taught botanist from boyhood, and, little influenced in his opinions even by his teachers, preserved always his independence of view on scientific questions. He received many honours during his lifetime, and was elected foreign fellow of the Royal Society in 1868.[2]
The process of cell division as observed under a microscope was first discovered by Hugo von Mohl in 1835 as he worked on green algae Cladophora glomerata.[3]
Mohl's writings cover a period of forty-four years; the most notable of them were republished in 1845 in a volume entitled Vermischte Schriften (For lists of his works see Botanische Zeitung, 1872, p. 576, and Royal Soc. Catalogue, 1870, vol. iv.) They dealt with a variety of subjects, but chiefly with the structure of the higher forms, including both rough anatomy and minute
He recognized under the name of primordial utricle the protoplasmic lining of the vacuolated cell, and first described the behaviour of the protoplasm in cell division. These and other observations led to the overthrow of Schleiden's theory of origin of cells by free-cell-formation. His contributions to knowledge of the cell-wall were no less remarkable; he held the view now generally adopted of growth of cell-wall by apposition. He first explained the true nature of pits, and showed the cellular origin of vessels and of fibrous cells; he was, in fact, the true founder of the cell theory. Clearly the author of such researches was the man to collect into one volume the theory of cell-formation, and this he did in his treatise Die vegetabilische Zelle (1851), a short work translated into English (Ray Society, 1852).[2]
Mohl's early investigations on the structure of palms, of
In 1843 he started the weekly Botanische Zeitung in conjunction with
References
- ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-10-06.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bower 1911.
- ^ Karl Mägdefrau (1994), "Mohl, Hugo von", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 17, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 690–691; (full text online)
- ^ International Plant Names Index. Mohl.
- Julius von Sachs (1890). History of Botany (1530-1860). Vol. A. Translated by Henry E. F. Garnsey, revised by Isaac Bayley Balfour. Oxford, Clarendon Press and Biodiversity Heritage Library. p. 292.
- Anton de Bary (1872). "Hugo von Mohl". Botanische Zeitung. 30 (31): 561–580.
- Proc. Roy. Soc., xxiii. 1;
- Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xxii. 55.
- public domain: Bower, Frederick Orpen (1911). "Mohl, Hugo von". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 648. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the