OBITUARIES. 



RUDOLF LEUCKART. 



Born October 7, 1822; Died February 6, 1898. 



It has been a matter of regret to us that no obituary of this great zoologist has 

 previously appeared in our pages, — an omission mainly due to the busy pre- 

 occupation of those best qualified to write such a notice. Yet we are not very 

 far behind some of our contemporaries, for the May number of the Zoologi&ches 

 Centralblatt furnishes us with the material on which this note is based. 



Rudolf Leuckart was the son of a senator and printer at Helmstedt, and 

 nephew of the zoologist Fr. Sigismund Leuckart. He studied at Gtittingen, 

 graduating as Doctor of Medicine in 1845, and was brought much under the 

 influence of Rudolf Wagner, whose assistant he became. After a period of 

 activity as privat docent he was called in 1850 to Giessen as Professor of 

 Zoology in succession to Carl Vogt. 



Even in Gottingen he had defined the characteristics of his future work : — 

 (1) by numerous detailed researches, (2) by his generalising essay " Ueber 

 Morphologie unci Verwandtschafts-verhaltnisse der wirbellosen Thiere," and (3) 

 by helping H. Frey in preparing a second edition of Wagner's " Comparative 

 Anatomy." 



Soon after he had settled down in Giessen, where he remained till 1869, he 

 published along with C. Bergmann a treatise which was at the time and still 

 remains a remarkably strong piece of work — the " Anatomisch-physiologische 

 Uebersicht des Thierreichs" (1852). His subsequent essays on polymorphism, 

 division of labour, alternation of generations, parthenogenesis, and especially, 

 perhaps, his article "Zeugung" in Wagner's Dictionary of Physiology (1855), 

 were also notable contributions to the more general problems of Zoology. 



In his detailed researches he ranged from Protozoa to Cephalopods, from 

 Siphonophora to Pteropods, from the development of insects to that of the 

 vertebrate eye, — indeed, over the whole animal kingdom, — but the department 

 of study which seems to have fascinated him most, and in connection with which 

 he is best known, was parasitology. To what is now known of the structure and 

 life-history of Trematodes, Cestocles, Nematodes, Acanthocephala, Linguatulidae, 

 etc., Leuckart made very important contributions, many of which were summed 

 up in his famous work, " Die menschlichen Parasiten unci die von ihnen herruh- 

 renden Krankheiten " (1863-1875). A second edition of this indispensable com- 

 pendium was begun but, unfortunately, never completed. The first part is well 

 known to students in this country by Mr. Hoyle's translation (1886, Pentland, 

 Edinburgh). 



In 1869 Leuckart was called to the professorship of zoology in Leipzig, and 

 there he had wider scope for his enthusiasm and skill as a teacher. To name his 

 students who have become famous would fill a page, and the splendid Festschrift 



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