Marcus Elieser Bloch
Marcus Eliezer Bloch ( * 1723 in Ansbach; † August 6, 1799 in Karlsbad ) was a German naturalist and physician. His field was the Ichthyology, whose leading representatives in the 18th century he scored.
Life and work
In very modest Jewish relations grew up as the son of a poor Torah scribe, he was able to nineteen neither read nor write German. But he gained through his knowledge of Hebrew and rabbinical writings a job as a tutor in a Jewish surgeon in Hamburg. There he improved his knowledge of German, learned Latin and acquired first basic knowledge of anatomy. After giving up the private tutor, Bloch moved to Berlin, where he studied medicine with the support dortiger relatives. In Frankfurt (Oder), he earned his doctorate as a physician, then he settled in Berlin as a practical physician. There he dealt among other things, his friend Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and joined as a typical representative of the Haskalah a circle of enlightened Jews to him.
His first publication was 1774, the Medicinische comments In addition to a treatise from Pyrmont Sauerbrunnen. For that time unusually progressive it presented therein and others, that the soul lives an expectant mother would have great influence on the prosperity of the embryo. In addition to his medical career, he also dealt with zoological studies, primarily with fish. In 1782 he was elected a member of the Scholars Academy Leopoldina.
His main work is the general natural history of the fish, which until 1795 was published in 12 volumes in 1782. The engravings are contained not only of scientific but also of high artistic value. In the first three volumes, he treats the fish occurring in Germany and set up a special attention to their economic use. The remainder of the plant is concerned with the other well-known at this time fish of the world. He received the material lying in the descriptions of reason by several colleagues and collectors, including the missionary Samuel John Christopher. The first volumes financed Bloch even from its own resources, then had to look for donors, however, that he found in members of the nobility and scientists in Berlin. Bloch availed itself to an unusual form of " scientific sponsorship ": On the corresponding one of 432 hand-colored illustrations of the natural history of the fishes of the name of the respective conveyor was printed. The general natural history of the fish was Bloch's lifetime and far beyond the most important ichthyological work at all. His special value obtained it by the fact that Bloch took over little by other authors, but mainly on his own collection of fish fell back. In addition, Bloch also published papers on parasitic worms.
Together with Johann Gottlob Schneider Theaenus (1750-1822), he began work on a catalog, which should list all the fish in the world under the title Systema ichthyologiae iconibus CX illustratum, but was never completed. However, the fragmentary work includes 1519 species descriptions. Bloch's Fish Collection comprises some 1,500 copies and in 1810 the Berlin Zoological Museum, now the Museum of Natural History, incorporated. This world-famous Bloch Collection is now the oldest treasure of the museum. With the 800 remaining copies, it is the largest still existing ichthyological collection of the 18th century. His wife was Cheile Bloch, born Ephraim ( ca.1757 - 1780).
Works
- His principal work is the " Universal Natural History of Fishes " Berlin 1782-95, 12 vols with 432 colored engravings, long time the only comprehensive work on those animal class and even now valuable ( translated into French by Laveaux, das. 1785, 6 vols ). doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.63303 doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.46381
- "Natural History of the foreign fish. " Published " From the author's expense, and in Commission in the bookstore the Realschule ", Berlin 1786. Digitizing
- Unfinished he left the " Systema ichthyologiae iconibus CX illustratum " that issued JG Schneider ( Berlin 1801). doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.5750 doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.58288
- Treatise of the generation of intestinal worms and the means contradict the same. Sigismund Friedrich Hesse, Berlin 1782 doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.62139