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Darwin Correspondence Project

Ferdinand Julius Cohn

1828–98

German botanist and bacteriologist. Professor extraordinarius, University of Breslau, 1859; professor, 1872. Founded the first institute for plant physiology, at Breslau, in 1866. In 1870, founded the journal Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen, in which the earliest articles on bacteriology appeared. Worked on unicellular algae, and attempted to devise a system of classification for lower plants based on Darwinian transmutation theory. Foreign member, Royal Society of London, 1897.

Sources

DSB

NDB.

Bibliography

DSB: Dictionary of scientific biography. Edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie and Frederic L. Holmes. 18 vols. including index and supplements. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970–90.

NDB: Neue deutsche Biographie. Under the auspices of the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 27 vols. (A–Wettiner) to date. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 1953–.

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