1858 in science

The year 1858 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

AstronomyEdit

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

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.<ref name="Pocket On This Day">Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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August 3 – John Hanning Speke discovers Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile.<ref name="Pocket On This Day"/>

The Möbius strip is discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Arthur Cayley publishes "A memoir on the theory of matrices", introducing the modern concept of the matrix in mathematics.<ref>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 148 (1858). Repr. Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
French pediatrician Eugène Bouchut develops a new technique for non-surgical orotracheal intubation to bypass laryngeal obstruction resulting from a diphtheria-related pseudomembrane.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

First treatise on postpartum psychiatric disturbances, by Louis-Victor Marcé, MD.<ref name="pmid19373623">Template:Cite journal</ref>

January 31 – I. K. Brunel's Template:SS, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames using Tangye hydraulic rams.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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August – The first aerial photography is carried out by Nadar from a moored balloon in France using the collodion process.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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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.

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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.