OBTTUARTES. 
RUDOLF LEUCKART. 
Born Ocroser 7, 1822; Diep Frepruary 6, 1898. 
Ir 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 Zoologisches 
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 Gdéttingen, 
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 und Verwandtschafts-verhiltnisse 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, Cestodes, Nematodes, Acanthocephala, Linguatulidae, 
etc., Leuckart made very important contributions, many of which were summed 
up in his famous work, ‘ Die menschlichen Parasiten und die von ihnen herriih- 
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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