Christian Conrad Sprengel^). 



Speaking of Christian Conrad Sprengel's discoveries, Dr. H. A. Hagen says 

 (Nature, vol. xxix. p. 2 g): — "In Germany these discoveries were well known to 

 every naturalist during the whole Century. Certainly between 1830 and 1870 at 

 every university in Prussia the same facts were taught as well-known facts of 

 the highest importance, and of course known by every Student." From the com- 

 plete want of papers relating to the facts observed, and the theories proposed by 

 Sprengel in the German botanical and entomological periodicals published before 

 the time of Darwin, strangely contrasting with the profusion of such papers in 

 modern botanical literature, one might have been led to a very different con- 

 clusion, viz. that Sprengel had fallen into almost complete oblivion in Germany 

 also, and that hardly any professor in any of the universities of Prussia and of 

 Germany in general duly appreciated and taught his discoveries before Darwin's 

 time. And this, I think, is really the case. Certainly at the University of Berlin 

 in 1841, neither Lichtenstein, in his lectures on zoology, nor Kunth in those on 

 botany, ever spoke of Sprengel and his work, nor did Erichson in his course on 

 entomology. At the University of Greifswald, in 1842, the professor of natural 

 history, Hornschuch, never mentioned Sprengel's discoveries. In 1848 my brother, 

 Hermann Müller, began the study of zoology and botany at the University of 

 Haue, where he never heard of Sprengel, with whose work he became acquainted 

 only much later through Darwin's books. Thus it appears that between 1840 

 and 1850, in three at least of the six universities of Prussia, Sprengel's work had 

 fallen into the most complete oblivion. Now it is improbable in the highest degree 

 that the several professors of natural history in these universities should have 

 ceased, unanimously and at the very same time (1841) to teach what, between 

 1830 and 1840, they had taught "as well known facts of the highest importance." 

 Hagen's Statement, therefore, needs some further proof before it can be accepted. 



If in Germany Sprengel's discoveries had been "well known to every natu- 

 ralist during the whole Century," the opinion that his treatise had been unduly 

 neglected until it was, as it were, re-discovered by Darwin, could never have 

 prevailed, as it appears to do, among German botanists, and Prof. Eduard Stras- 

 burger could never have written the following lines, with which I may appro- 



1) Nature 1883/84. Vol. XXIX. p. 334, 335. Vol. XXX. p. 240, 241. 



