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PRINGSHEIM, NATHANAEL (1823-1894)

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 350 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PRINGSHEIM, See also:NATHANAEL (1823-1894) , See also:German botanist, was See also:born at Wziesko in See also:Silesia, on the 3oth of See also:November 1823. He studied at the See also:universities of See also:Breslau, See also:Leipzig, and See also:Berlin successively. He graduated in 1848 as See also:doctor of See also:philosophy with the thesis De forma et incremento stratorum crassiorum in plantarum cellula, and rapidly became a See also:leader in the See also:great botanical See also:renaissance of the 19th See also:century. His contributions to scientific algology were of striking See also:interest. Pringsheim was among the very first to demonstrate the occurrence of a sexual See also:process in this class of See also:plants, and he See also:drew from his observations weighty conclusions as to the nature of sexuality. Together with the See also:French investigators G. See also:Thuret and E. Bornet, Pringsheim ranks as the founder of our scientific knowledge of the See also:algae. Among his researches in this See also:field may be mentioned those on Vaucheria (1855), the Oedogoniaceae (1855-1858), the Coleochaeteae (186o), Hydrodictyon (1861), and Pandorina (1869); the last-mentioned memoir See also:bore the See also:title Beobachlungen fiber See also:die Paarung de Zoosporen. This was a See also:discovery of fundamental importance; the conjugation of zoospores was regarded by Pringsheim, with See also:good See also:reason, as the See also:primitive See also:form of sexual See also:reproduction. A See also:work on the course of morphological differentiation in the Sphacelariaceae (1873), a See also:family of marine algae, is of great interest, inasmuch as it treats of evolutionary questions; the author's point of view is that of See also:Naegeli rather than See also:Darwin. Closely connected with Pringsheim's algological work was his See also:long-continued investigation of the Saprolegniaceae, a family of algoid See also:fungi, some of which have become notorious as the causes of disease in See also:fish.

Among his contributions to our knowledge of the higher plants, his exhaustive monograph on the curious genus of See also:

water-ferns, Savinia, deserves See also:special mention. His career as a morphologist culminated in 1876 with the publication of a memoir on the See also:alternation of generations in thallophytes and mosses. From 1894 to the See also:close of his See also:life Pringsheim's activity was chiefly directed to physiological questions: he published, in a long See also:series of See also:memoirs, a theory of the See also:carbon-assimilation of See also:green plants, the central point of which is the conception of the See also:chlorophyll-pigment as a See also:screen, with the See also:main See also:function of protecting the See also:protoplasm from See also:light-rays which would neutralize its assimilative activity by stimulating too active respiration. This view has not been accepted as offering an adequate explanation of the phenomena. Pringsheim founded in 1858, and edited till his See also:death, the classical Jahrbuch See also:fur wissenschaftliche Botanik, which still bears his name. He was also founder, in 1882, and first See also:president, of the German Botanical Society. His work was for the most See also:part carried on in his private laboratory in Berlin; he only held a teaching See also:post of importance for four years, 1864-1868, when he was See also:professor at See also:Jena. In See also:early life he was a keen politician on the Liberal See also:side. He died in Berlin on the 6th of See also:October 1894. A See also:fuller See also:account of Pringsheim's career will be found in Nature, (r 895) vol. li., and in the Berichte der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, 1895) vol. xiii. The latter is by his friend and colleague, See also:Ferdinand ohn. (D.

H.

End of Article: PRINGSHEIM, NATHANAEL (1823-1894)

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