1858 in science

• June 2 – Donati's Comet, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati; it remains visible for several months afterwards.

File:Charles Darwin by Maull and Polyblank, 1855-1.jpg]]

• Publication of Darwin's theory of evolution:
• June 18 – Charles Darwin receives papers from Alfred Russel Wallace setting out the latter's theory of natural selection which he forwards to Charles Lyell.
• July 1 – Darwin and Wallace's papers on their theories of evolution, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (submitted with the support of Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker) are read by John Joseph Bennett to a meeting of the Linnean Society of London. They are first published on August 20.
• William Herschel initiates fingerprinting as a means of identification, in Bengal.{{cite book|first=William J.|last=Herschel|title=The Origin of Finger-Printing|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1916|isbn=978-1-104-66225-7|url=http://galton.org/fingerprints/books/herschel/herschel-1916-origins-1up.pdf

| access-date=11 August 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725022215/http://galton.org/fingerprints/books/herschel/herschel-1916-origins-1up.pdf| archive-date=25 July 2011| url-status=live}}

• Rudolf Virchow publishes Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre: 20 Vorlesungen, gehalten während der Monate Februar, März und April 1858 im Pathologischen Institut zu Berlin.
• George Bentham's Handbook of the British flora is published. This will be in use (in editions edited by Joseph Dalton Hooker) for a century.

• May 28 – Erasmus Bond (owner of Pitt & Co. of London) patents tonic water, manufactured using quinine.{{cite web|last=Raustiala|first=Kal|title=The Imperial Cocktail|url= http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/foreigners/2013/08/gin_and_tonic_kept_the_british_empire_healthy_the_drink_s_quinine_powder.single.html|work= Slate|date=2013-08-28|publisher=The Slate Group|access-date=2024-05-14}}{{Cite web|first1=Kim|last1=Walker|first2=Mark|last2=Nesbitt |title=Just the tonic: A natural history of tonic water|url=https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/just-the-tonic-history|access-date=2024-05-14|publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew}}

• February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=978-0-14-102715-9|year=2006}}
• May 14 – Dr David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi Expedition, under the patronage of the Royal Geographical Society, arrives at the African coast with the prefabricated iron paddle steamer Ma Robert.{{cite web|title=The Zambesi Expedition |url=http://www.livingstoneonline.ucl.ac.uk/companion.php?id=HIST4 |work=Livingstone Online |access-date=2011-08-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302014847/https://www.livingstoneonline.ucl.ac.uk/companion.php?id=HIST4 |archive-date=2012-03-02 }}
• August 3 – John Hanning Speke discovers Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile.

• The Möbius strip is discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing.{{cite book|first=Clifford A.|last=Pickover|author-link=Clifford A. Pickover|year=2006|title=The Möbius Strip: Dr. August Möbius's Marvelous Band in Mathematics, Games, Literature, Art, Technology, and Cosmology|publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press|isbn=978-1-56025-826-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/mbiusstripdrau00pick}}{{cite journal|first=Rainer|last=Herges|title=Möbius, Escher, Bach – Das unendliche Band in Kunst und Wissenschaft|journal=Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau|year=2005|pages=301–310|issn=0028-1050}}{{cite book|editor=Rodley, Chris|title=Lynch on Lynch|location=London|year=1997|page=231}}
• Arthur Cayley publishes "A memoir on the theory of matrices", introducing the modern concept of the matrix in mathematics.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 148 (1858). Repr. {{cite book|last=Cayley|first=Arthur|title=The Collected Mathematical Papers|orig-year=1889|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=umhistmath;idno=ABS3153|publisher=Cambridge University Press|series=Cambridge Library Collection – Mathematics|isbn=978-1-108-00507-4|id=[https://archive.org/search.php?query=The_collected_mathematical_papers_of_Arthur_Cayley archive]|year=2009|volume=2|pages=475–96}}{{cite book|editor1-last=Dieudonné|editor1-first=Jean|editor1-link=Jean Dieudonné|title=Abrégé d'histoire des mathématiques 1700-1900|publisher=Hermann|location=Paris|year=1978|volume=1|chapter=III|page=96}}{{cite book|first=Tony|last=Crilly|title=50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know|location=London|publisher=Quercus|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84724-008-8|page=156}}
• In Luxor, Egypt, the Rhind papyrus is found (named for Alexander Henry Rhind, the discoverer; it is sometimes called the Ahmes papyrus for the scribe who wrote it around 1650 BC).

• August 2 – Medical Act 1858 passed "to Regulate the Qualifications of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery" in the United Kingdom.
• December 1 – The recently-formed Odontological Society of London opens the Dental Hospital of London in England.{{cite journal|last=Gelbier|first=Stanley|title=Dentistry and the University of London|journal=Medical History|date=2005-10-01|volume=49|issue=4|pages=445–462|doi=10.1017/s0025727300009157|pmid=16562330|pmc=1251639}}
• First publication of Gray's Anatomy.
• Publication in London of Thomas B. Peacock's On Malformations, &c., of the Human Heart, with original cases which becomes a standard cardiology textbook.{{cite journal|title=Thomas Bevill Peacock (1812-1882), 19th Century Cardiologist|url=http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/203/9/801.full.pdf+html|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|year=1968|volume=203|page=801|doi=10.1001/jama.1968.03140090185016|access-date=2011-03-30|issue=9|pmid=4865659 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302014903/http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/203/9/801.full.pdf+html|archive-date=2012-03-02|url-status=dead}}
• French pediatrician Eugène Bouchut develops a new technique for non-surgical orotracheal intubation to bypass laryngeal obstruction resulting from a diphtheria-related pseudomembrane.{{cite journal|last=Bouchut|first=E.|title=D'une nouvelle méthode de traitement du croup par le tubage du larynx|trans-title=On a new method of treatment for croup by larynx intubation|language=fr|journal=Bulletin de l'Académie Impériale de Médecine|volume=23|pages=1160–2|year=1858|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fb3jnv21y1cC&pg=PA86|access-date=2010-09-06}}

• First treatise on postpartum psychiatric disturbances, by Louis-Victor Marcé, MD.{{cite journal|vauthors=Trede K, Baldessarini RJ, Viguera AC, Bottero A|title=Treatise on insanity in pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women (1858) by Louis-Victor Marcé: a commentary|journal=Harvard Review of Psychiatry|volume=17|issue=2|pages=157–65|year=2009|pmid=19373623|doi=10.1080/10673220902891802|s2cid=8551341 }}

• January 31 – I. K. Brunel's {{SS|Great Eastern}}, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames using Tangye hydraulic rams.{{cite web|url=http://www.brunel200.com/ss_great_eastern.htm|title=ss Great Eastern|work=Brunel 200|year=2006|access-date=2011-06-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708101709/http://www.brunel200.com/ss_great_eastern.htm|archive-date=2011-07-08|url-status=live}}
• August – The first aerial photography is carried out by Nadar from a moored balloon in France using the collodion process.{{cite web|title=Brief history of aerial photography|url=http://findaerialphotography.com/history.php|publisher=www.findaerialphotography.com|year=2007|access-date=2015-01-02}}
• August 16 – Official inauguration of the transatlantic telegraph cable; however, it fails on September 1.
• Mirror galvanometer invented by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin.
• Hoffmann kiln patented in Germany by Friedrich Hoffmann for continuous production brickmaking.

• Copley Medal: Charles Lyell{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=23 July 2020 |language=en}}
• Wollaston Medal for geology: James Hall

• January 2 – Bernard Sachs (died 1944), American neurologist.
• January 9 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, née Knight (died 1934), American botanist.
• January 28 – Eugène Dubois (died 1940), Dutch paleoanthropologist.
• February 7 – Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate (died 1931), Dutch anthropologist.
• March 18 – Rudolf Diesel (died 1913), German mechanical engineer.
• March 27 – Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer (died 1945), German physician and bacteriologist.
• April 23 – Max Planck (died 1947), German theoretical physicist.
• May 19 – Thomas Allinson (died 1918), English physician and dietetic reformer.
• May 28 – T. H. E. C. Espin (died 1934), English astronomer, scientist and clergyman.
• July 9 – Franz Boas (died 1942), German-born anthropologist.
• August 11 – Christiaan Eijkman (died 1930), Dutch physiologist.
• August 19 – Ellen Willmott (died 1934), English horticulturist.
• August 27 – Giuseppe Peano (died 1932), Italian mathematician.
• October 4 – Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (died 1935), Banat-born physicist.
• November 1 – Ludwig Struve (died 1920), Russian astronomer.
• November 30 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (died 1937), Bengali physicist.
• Laura Forster (died 1917), Australian physician.

• January 4 – Amelia Griffiths (born 1768), British phycologist.
• April 28 – Johannes Peter Müller (born 1801), German physiologist.
• June 10 – Robert Brown (born 1773), Scottish botanist.
• June 28 – Jane Marcet (born 1769), British popular science writer.
• November 8 – George Peacock (born 1791), English mathematician.
• December 10 – Joseph Paul Gaimard (born 1793), French naval surgeon and naturalist.
• December 16 – Richard Bright (born 1789), English physician.

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1850s in science