1865 in science

• John Lubbock publishes Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, including his coinage of the term Palæolithic.{{cite web |title=Palaeolithic, adj. and n. |edition=3rd |work=Oxford English Dictionary online version |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/136182 |access-date=2012-02-24 |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/65kLYSVHL?url=http://www.oed.com/;jsessionid=6590B9B41357E72B72FD9A83C4130F30?authRejection=true&url=%2Fview%2FEntry%2F136182 |archive-date=2012-02-26 |url-status=live |date=December 2011 }} {{OEDsub}}

• Vassar College Observatory opens at Poughkeepsie, New York, with Maria Mitchell as its first director.

• Friedrich Kekulé proposes a ring structure for benzene.{{cite journal|first=F. A.|last=Kekulé|title=Sur la constitution des substances aromatiques|journal=Bulletin de la Société Chimique de Paris|volume=3|year=1865|pages=98–110}}
• Adolf von Baeyer begins work on indigo dye, a milestone in modern industrial organic chemistry which revolutionizes the dye industry.{{cite web | title = Adolf von Baeyer: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1905 | work = Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901–1921 |publisher = Elsevier Publishing Company | year = 1966 | url =http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1905/baeyer-bio.html | access-date = 2007-02-28}}
• Johann Josef Loschmidt indirectly determines the number of molecules in a mole, later named the Avogadro constant.{{cite episode|network=NPR|station=KUHF-FM Houston|title=Johann Josef Loschmidt|number=1858|series=The Engines of Our Ingenuity|series-link=The Engines of Our Ingenuity|credits=Lienhard, John H.|airdate=2003|transcript-url=http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1858.htm|transcript=Johann Josef Loschmidt }}

• William Stanley Jevons publishes his book The Coal Question, which will form the scientific basis for the Jevons paradox.

• Louis Pasteur shows that the air is full of bacteria.
• Joseph Lister begins to experiment with antiseptic surgery in Glasgow using carbolic acid.{{cite book|chapter=1865|title=The People's Chronology|editor=Everett, Jason M.|publisher=Thomson Gale|year=2006}}
• Max Schultze gives the first known description of the platelet.{{cite journal|last=Schultze|first=M.|title=Ein heizbarer Objecttisch und seine Verwendung bei Untersuchungen des Blutes|journal=Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie|year=1865|volume=1|pages=1–42|doi=10.1007/bf02961404|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1428432/files/article.pdf}}
• Claude Bernard publishes Principes de Médecine experimentale.
• February 8 & March 8 – Gregor Mendel reads his paper, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (Experiments on Plant Hybridization), at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia.{{cite journal|title=The "Rediscovery" of Mendel's Work|first=Randy|last=Moore|journal=Bioscene|volume=27|url=http://papa.indstate.edu/amcbt/volume_27/v27-2.pdf|access-date=2016-12-06|date=May 2001|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202002119/http://papa.indstate.edu/amcbt/volume_27/v27-2.pdf|archive-date=2017-02-02|url-status=dead}}
• May 17 – Father Armand David first observes Père David's Deer in China.{{cite web|url=http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Elaphurus_davidianus.html|work=Ultimate Ungulate|title=Elaphurus davidianus|year=2004|access-date=2011-05-05| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110605153301/http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Elaphurus_davidianus.html| archive-date= 5 June 2011 | url-status=live}}
• June–August – Francis Galton formulates eugenics.{{cite journal|first=Francis|last=Galton|url=http://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1860-1869/galton-1865-hereditary-talent.pdf|title=Hereditary talent and character|journal=Macmillan's Magazine|volume=12|year=1865|pages=157–166, 318–327|access-date=2016-12-06}}
• September – John Henry Walsh (writing as 'Stonehenge' in the magazine The Field) gives the first definition of a dog breed standard (for the pointer) based on physical form.{{cite web|title=First modern dog discovered|url=http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=9636|publisher=University of Manchester|date=2013-03-06|access-date=2013-03-07}}
• September 28 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson obtains a licence from the Society of Apothecaries in London to practice medicine, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the United Kingdom,Apart from the woman passing herself off as Dr James Barry. {{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}} and sets up in her own practice.

• Rudolf Clausius gives the first mathematical version of the concept of entropy, and also names it.{{cite journal|last=Clausius |first=R. |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k152107/f369.table |title=Über die Wärmeleitung gasförmiger Körper |journal=Annalen der Physik |volume=125 |pages=353–400 |year=1865 |access-date=26 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605212636/http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/bpt6k152107/f369.table |archive-date=5 June 2011 |url-status=live |doi=10.1002/andp.18652010702 |bibcode=1865AnP...201..353C }}{{cite book|last=Clausius|first=R.|year=1867|title=The Mechanical Theory of Heat – with its Applications to the Steam Engine and to Physical Properties of Bodies|location=London|publisher=John van Voorst}}
• James Clerk Maxwell publishes A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.

• Aveling and Porter produce the world's first steam roller at Rochester in England.{{cite web|title=Aveling and Porter|url=http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/wiki/Aveling_and_Porter|work=Grace's Guide|access-date=2011-05-25}}
• Hermann Sprengel produces the Sprengel pump which is capable of creating a significant vacuum.{{cite book|author-link=Silvanus P. Thompson|last=Thompson|first=Silvanus P.|title=The Development of the Mercurial Air-pump|year=1888|publisher=E. & F. N. Spon|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/developmentofmer00thom/page/14 14]–15|url=https://archive.org/details/developmentofmer00thom|quote=Hermann Sprengel.}}

• Copley Medal: Michel Chasles{{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 in Geology: Thomas Davidson

• January 22 – Friedrich Paschen (died 1947), German physicist.
• February 1 – Henry Luke Bolley (died 1956), American plant pathologist.
• March 19 – William Morton Wheeler (died 1937), American entomologist.
• March 31 – Anandi Gopal Joshi (died 1887), Indian physician.
• April 28 – Charles W. Woodworth (died 1940), American entomologist.
• June 27 – John Monash (died 1931), Australian civil engineer and General.
• August 10 – Charles Close (died 1952), Jersey-born cartographer.
• October 12 – Arthur Harden (died 1940), English biochemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient.
• November 4 – Chevalier Jackson (died 1958), American laryngologist and pioneer of endoscopy.

• January 14 – Marie-Anne Libert (born 1782), Belgian botanist.
• January 31 – Hugh Falconer (born 1808), British geologist, botanist, paleontologist and paleoanthropologist.
• April 23 – Diego de Argumosa (born 1792), Spanish surgeon.
• April 30 – Robert FitzRoy (born 1805), English admiral and meteorologist, suicide.
• May 27 – Charles Waterton (born 1782), English naturalist and explorer.
• June 5 – Sir John Richardson (born 1787), Scottish-born naturalist, explorer and naval surgeon.
• July 25 – Dr. James Barry (born 1789-1799), Irish-born military surgeon.
• August 12 – Sir William Jackson Hooker (born 1785), English botanist.
• August 13 – Ignaz Semmelweis (born 1818), Hungarian physician, following restraint in insane asylum.
• August 26 – Johann Franz Encke (born 1791), German astronomer.
• August 29 – Robert Remak (born 1815), Polish/Prussian Jewish embryologist.
• September 2 – Sir William Rowan Hamilton (born 1805), Irish mathematician, physicist and astronomer.
• October 17 – Joseph-François Malgaigne (born 1806), French surgeon.

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Category:1860s in science

Category:19th century in science