1881 in science

• 22 May – John Tebbutt discover the long-period comet, C/1881 K1 (also known as the Great Comet of 1881, Comet Tebbutt, 1881 III, 1881b).{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30816656|title=THE GREAT COMET OF 1881|newspaper=The South Australian Advertiser ( Adelaide, South Australia)|date=8 June 1881}} letter from C. Todd

• October – Charles Darwin publishes his last scientific book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
• L. S. Poliakov describes the wild horse discovered by Nikolai Przhevalsky in Mongolia in 1879 as a new species, Przewalski's horse (Equus przewalski poliakov).{{cite web|title=Przewalski's horse|url=http://www.takh.org/Przewalski_horse.html|publisher=TAKH|year=2009|access-date=2011-11-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302021718/http://www.takh.org/Przewalski_horse.html|archive-date=2012-03-02|url-status=dead}}{{The Timetables of Science|page=304}}
• The first systematic study in forensic entomology is conducted by physician and entomologist Hermann Reinhard in Germany.{{cite journal | last1 = with | author-link2 = Friedrich Moritz Brauer | last2 = Moritz Brauer | first2 = Friedrich | year = 1882 | title = Beiträge zur Gräberfauna" ["Contributions on the fauna of graves"]. | journal = Verh. k. & k. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien | volume = 31 | pages = 207–210 }}

• Friedrich Beilstein publishes the first edition of his Handbuch der organischen Chemie.

• The birch bark Bakhshali manuscript, incorporating perhaps the earliest known use of mathematical zero, is unearthed near Bakhshali in British India.
• Publication in England of a pioneering study in industrial archaeology, H. A. Fletcher's "The archaeology of the west Cumberland iron trade".Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Archaeological Society 5:5–21.

• Simon Newcomb makes the first statement of Benford's law.{{cite journal|first=Simon|last=Newcomb|title=Note on the frequency of use of the different digits in natural numbers|journal=American Journal of Mathematics|volume=4|year=1881|pages=39–40|doi=10.2307/2369148|jstor=2369148}}

• July 13 – Dr. George Goodfellow performs the first laparotomy to remove a bullet.
• September 25 – The first modern Caesarean section is performed successfully by German gynecologist Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in Meckesheim using the transverse incision technique.
• December – Eduard von Hofmann carries out autopsy studies of the nearly 400 victims of the Vienna Ringtheater fire, carbon monoxide poisoning being held an underlying cause of death.
• Louis Pasteur discovers a vaccine for anthrax.
• Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor, first proposes that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct human contact.{{cite journal|last=Chaves|first=Carballo E.|title=Carlos Finlay and yellow fever: triumph over adversity|journal=Military Medicine|year=2005|pages=881–5|volume=170|pmid=16435764|doi=10.7205/milmed.170.10.881|doi-access=free}}
• French obstetrician Étienne Stéphane Tarnier introduces a form of neonatal incubator (couveuse) for routine care of premature infants at the Paris Maternité.{{cite journal|pmid=11882561|pmc=1721389|year=2002|last=Dunn|first=P. M.|title=Stéphane Tarnier (1828–1897), the architect of perinatology in France|volume=86|issue=2|pages=F137–9|journal=Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition|doi=10.1136/fn.86.2.f137}}
• English ophthalmologist Waren Tay publishes the first description of the genetic disorder which will become known as Tay–Sachs disease.{{cite journal|first=Waren|last=Tay|year=1881|volume=1|journal=Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society|title=Symmetrical changes in the region of the yellow spot in each eye of an infant|pages=55–57}}
• approx. date – The non-invasive sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch.{{cite journal|title=A short history of blood pressure measurement|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine|year=1977|first=Jeremy|last=Booth|volume=70|issue=11|pages=793–9|pmid=341169|pmc=1543468|doi=10.1177/003591577707001112}}

• The International Congress of Electricians, meeting in Paris, makes significant progress in definition of the International System of Units.{{cite web|first=Gérard|last=Borvon|title=Dans les coulisses du Congrès international des électriciens de 1881|url=http://www.ampere.cnrs.fr/histoire/parcours-historique/unites-electriques/congres1881|work=Histoire de l'électricité et du magnetisme|date=March 2008|access-date=2024-08-30}}

• March 1 – The Cunard Line's {{SS|Servia}}, the first steel transatlantic liner, is launched at J. & G. Thomson's yard at Clydebank in Scotland.{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|url=https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/434|url-access=registration|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/434 434–435]}}
• May 16 – The Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, the world's first electric tramway, is opened in Berlin by Siemens & Halske.{{cite web|url=http://www.siemens.pl/upload/images/TS-Siemens_lekkie%20pojazdy_historia.pdf|title=The Siemens tram from past to present|publisher=Siemens|access-date=2011-06-16|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725013704/http://www.siemens.pl/upload/images/TS-Siemens_lekkie%20pojazdy_historia.pdf|archive-date=2011-07-25}}
• June – The positive-buoyancy powered submarine "Fenian Ram" (Holland Boat No. II), designed by John Philip Holland, is first submersion-tested in New York City.
• August 30 – French inventor Clément Ader demonstrates his théâtrophone system which delivers the first example of transmitted binaural 2-channel stereophonic sound, delivered over telephone wires from the operatic stage of the Palais Garnier to the International Exposition of Electricity in Paris.{{cite web|url=http://www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/1880-1884.htm#Ader|title=Chronomedia: 1880-1884|publisher=Terra Media|date=2005-11-20|accessdate=2024-08-30}}{{cite web|first=A.|last=Lange|url=http://histv2.free.fr/theatrophone/theatrophone.htm|title=Le Premier Medium Electrique De Diffusion Culturelle: Le Theatrophone De Clement Ader (1881)|work=Histoire de la télévision|date=2002-03-31|accessdate=2007-11-21|archive-date=2015-12-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151220001913/http://histv2.free.fr/theatrophone/theatrophone.htm|url-status=dead}}{{cite journal|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024538491;view=1up;seq=428|title=The Telephone at the Paris Opera|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225174255/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024538491;view=1up;seq=428|archive-date=2021-02-25|journal=Scientific American|date=1881-12-31|pages=422–23}}{{cite book|pages=15–16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6AxqhT2f1lYC&pg=PA15|title=Radio drama: Theory and practice|isbn=978-0-415-21603-6|last=Crook|first=Tim|year=1999|publisher=Psychology Press}}
• September 26 – Godalming becomes the first town in England to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).{{cite web|title=Godalming Power Station|url=http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=744|work=Engineering Timelines|access-date=2010-07-06|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716111833/http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=744|archive-date=2011-07-16}}
• October 10 – Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre opens in London, the world's first public building to be fully lit by electricity, using Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs.{{cite news|title=The Savoy Theatre|newspaper=The Times|location=London|date=1881-10-03|page=7}}{{cite journal|last=Burgess|first=Michael|title=Richard D'Oyly Carte|journal=The Savoyard|pages=7–11|date=January 1975}} The stage is first lit electrically on December 28.{{cite news|url=https://www.gsarchive.net/carte/savoy/electric.html|title=Savoy Theatre|newspaper=The Times|date=1881-12-29|page=4|access-date=2012-01-30}}
• December 21 – {{SS|Aberdeen|1881|6}}, the first oceangoing ship successfully powered by a triple expansion steam engine, designed by Alexander Carnegie Kirk, is launched at Robert Napier and Sons' yard at Govan in Scotland.
• Nikolay Benardos introduces carbon arc welding, the first practical arc welding method.{{cite web|title=Beginnings of submerged arc welding|url=http://bulletin.is.gliwice.pl/PDF/2014/03/02_Turyk_Grobosz_Beginnings_of_submerged_arc_welding.pdf|url-status= dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070057/http://bulletin.is.gliwice.pl/PDF/2014/03/02_Turyk_Grobosz_Beginnings_of_submerged_arc_welding.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-04}}
• Peter Herdic patents the Herdic horse-drawn cab in the United States.

• Copley Medal: Karl Adolph Wurtz{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=23 July 2020 }}
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Peter Martin Duncan

• January 29 – Alice Catherine Evans (died 1975), American microbiologist.
• January 31 – Irving Langmuir (died 1957), American chemist.
• March 17 – Walter Rudolf Hess (died 1973), Swiss physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• April 28 – Edith A. Roberts (died 1977), American plant ecologist.
• May 1 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (died 1955), French paleontologist and philosopher.
• August 6 – Alexander Fleming (died 1955), British bacteriologist.
• September 18 – Vera Lebedeva (died 1968), Soviet Russian pediatrician.
• October 4 – George Constantinescu (died 1965), Romanian engineer.
• October 11 – Lewis Fry Richardson (died 1953), British mathematical physicist.
• October 22 – Clinton Davisson (died 1958), American physicist.
• November 9 – Margaret Reed Lewis (died 1970), American cell biologist.
• November 13 – Ludwig Koch (died 1974), German Jewish animal sound recordist.

• February 3 – John Gould (born 1804), English zoologist.
• March 26 – Lovisa Åhrberg (born 1801), Swedish surgeon.
• May 14 – Mary Seacole (born 1805), Jamaican-born nurse.
• May 19 – Joseph Barnard Davis (born 1801), English craniologist, physician and anthropologist.
• May 26 – Jakob Bernays (born 1824), German philologist.
• June 16 – George Rolleston (born 1829), English physician and zoologist.
• June 23 – Matthias Jakob Schleiden (born 1804), German biologist.
• June 29 – Maurice Raynaud (born 1834), French physician.
• July 27 – Hewett Watson (born 1804), English biologist.
• October 31 – George W. DeLong (born 1844), American Arctic explorer.
• November 30 – Jean-Alfred Gautier (born 1793), Swiss astronomer{{HDS|028831|Alfred Gautier|author=Marcel Golay}}

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1880s in science