[109] Lazaro Spallanzani was born at Scandiano in Modena, and died at Pavia in 1799, where he was for a long time Professor of Natural History. He made researches in very various questions of natural science, and especially in animal physiology; but they seem to have been conducted with the same want of care and deliberation which appears in his experiments on sexuality in plants. A long article in the ‘Biographie Universelle’ gives a detailed account of his scientific labours.
[110] August Henschel was a practising physician and a University teacher in Breslau.
[111] Karl Friedrich Gärtner, son of Joseph Gärtner, was born at Calw in 1772, and died there in 1850. He attended lectures on natural science at the Carlsacademie at Stuttgart, and then went first to Jena for medical instruction, and in 1795 to Göttingen, where he was a pupil of Lichtenberg. He took a degree in 1796 and settled as a physician in his native town. Here he occupied himself at first with questions of human physiology, and afterwards worked at the supplement to his father’s ‘Carpologia.’ He collected notices and extracts for a complete work on vegetable physiology. This design was never fulfilled, but it led to his taking up the question of sexuality in plants, to which he devoted twenty-five years (‘Jahresheft des Vereins für vaterl. Naturkunde in Würtemberg,’ 1852, vol. viii, p. 16).
[112] See also Sachs, ‘Lehrbuch der Botanik,’ Leipzig, 1874.
[113] The more important works referred to in this section are Robert Brown’s ‘Miscellaneous Writings,’ edited by Bennett, 1866-67; von Mohl on G. Amici, in the ‘Botanische Zeitung,’ 1863, Beilage, p. 7; Schleiden, ‘Ueber die Bildung des Lichens und Entsichung des Embryos,’ in ‘Nova Acta Academiae Leopoldinensis,’ 1839, vol. xi, Abtheilung, 1; Hofmeister, ‘Zur Uebersicht der Geschichte von der Lehre der Pflanzenbefruchtung,’ in ‘Flora’ of 1867, p. 119.
[114] The authorities for these statements are collected by Hofmeister in ‘Flora,’ 1857, p. 120, etc.
[115] W. P. Schimper, in his ‘Recherches anatomiques et morphologiques sur les Mousses’ of 1850, had made some important statements respecting the sterility of female moss-plants growing at a distance from male specimens, and proved that the presence of male plants among females that are otherwise barren renders them fruitful.
[116] See the Fragments of Aristotelian phytology in Meyer’s ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. p. 120.
[117] J. B. van Helmont was born at Brussels in 1577, and died at Villvorde near Brussels in 1644. He was a leading representative of the chemistry of his day. Kopp, in his ‘Geschichte der Chemie,’ 1843, i. p. 117, has given a full account of his life and labours.
[118] J. D. Major, who was born at Breslau in 1639, and died at Stockholm in 1693, is quoted by Christian Wolff, as well as by Reichel (‘De vasis plantarum.’ 1758, p. 4) and others, as the founder of the theory of circulation, which he propounded in 1665 in his ‘Dissertatio Botanica de planta monstrosa Gottorpiensi,’ etc. Kurt Sprengel (‘Geschichte der Botanik, ii. p. 7) classes him also among the defenders of the doctrine of palingenesia, a superstitious belief in the reproduction of plants and animals from their ashes, which was used to prove the resurrection of the dead.