1885 in science

The year 1885 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

AstronomyEdit

August 20 – Ernst Hartwig discovers S Andromedae, a supernova in the Andromeda Galaxy, the first supernova discovered beyond the Milky Way.

The genus Plasmodium is described by Ettore Marchiafava and Angelo Celli.
The bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) is discovered by Theodor Escherich.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The bacterium Salmonella enterica is discovered by Theobald Smith, working under Daniel Elmer Salmon.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Hans Driesch performs a form of artificial cloning on a sea urchin embryo.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Carl Auer von Welsbach patents his first incandescent gas mantle.
Eugen Goldstein names the cathode ray, later discovered to be composed of electrons, and the canal ray, later discovered to be positive hydrogen ions that have been stripped of their electrons in a cathode-ray tube; these will later be named protons.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Eduard Suess begins publication in Vienna of his Das Antlitz der Erde<ref>1885–1908, 3 vols in 4. Template:OCLC.</ref> setting out his theory of eustasy, the existence of the former supercontinent Gondwana, and his pioneering concepts in ecology.

January 4 – The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant on Mary Gartside.
July 6 – Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux successfully test their rabies vaccine. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy bitten by a rabid dog.
Georges Gilles de la Tourette publishes an account of nine patients with what will become known as Tourette syndrome.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

January 15 – American photographer Wilson Bentley takes the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a view camera to a microscope.

Johann Balmer publishes an empirical mathematical formula for the visible spectral lines of the hydrogen atom.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Hermann Ebbinghaus publishes Über das Gedächtnis ("On Memory", later translated as Memory: a Contribution to Experimental Psychology).

March 24 – George H. Pegram is granted a United States patent for the Pegram truss.<ref>Template:Cite patent</ref>
April 3 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his single-cylinder water-cooled engine design.
August 29 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle, which he has produced with Wilhelm Maybach.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 30 – Tolbert Lanston makes his first application for a United States patent on a typesetting system which includes the basic Monotype System keyboard.
Autumn – Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following January).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The first, not yet practical, form of gyrocompass is patented by Marinus Gerardus van den Bos.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Rufus Eastman patents the first known electric food mixer.<ref>{{#if:330829

Completion of the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, designed by William Le Baron Jenney. With ten floors and a fireproof weight-bearing metal frame, it is regarded as the first skyscraper.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Completion of Sway Tower in Hampshire, England, designed by Andrew Peterson using concrete made with Portland cement. It remains the world's tallest non-reinforced concrete structure.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The Nipkow disk is patented by German scientist Paul Gottlieb Nipkow.

October 13 – The Georgia Institute of Technology is established in Atlanta (United States) as the Georgia School of Technology to teach mechanical engineering.

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February 1 – Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (born 1850), British inventor
February 8 – Nikolai Severtzov (born 1827), Russian explorer and naturalist
March 14 – Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (born 1819), German medical pathologist
June 12 – Fleeming Jenkin (born 1833), English engineer
September 6 – Narcís Monturiol (born 1819), Catalan intellectual, artist and engineer, inventor of an early submarine
September 15 – Jumbo (born 1861), African elephant, killed in railroad accident
November 26 – Thomas Andrews (born 1813), Irish chemist