Francis Maitland Balfour

Francis Maitland Balfour ( born November 10, 1851 in Edinburgh, Scotland, † July 19, 1882 at Mont Blanc, close to Martigny, Switzerland (mountain accident) ) was a Scottish zoologist. He was the younger brother of British politician Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour ( 1848-1930 ).

Life

Balfour was the son of James Maitland Balfour of Whittinghame, East Lothian, and his wife, Lady Blanche Cecil, who was a daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. He attended Harrow School, where he was an average student. However, he was supported by a his teachers, George Griffith, in the natural sciences. Especially for the geology he showed interest.

He studied from 1870 at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he then became a lecturer in 1876, later in 1882 professor of embryology. He was killed during a hiking tour in the Alps on the 18th or 19th Juli 1882. He had tried to climb the Mont Blanc.

Scientific performance

Balfour is one of the founders of modern embryology. In 1880, he made ​​the suggestion that all groups of animals that develop a notochord during their individual development, to unite Chordata in the trunk.

In 1876, Francis Maitland Balfour described ( 1851-1882 ), in his monograph on the Hai - development, with a known schema, the head segmentation (see also cephalization ). He ordered each segment to a cranial nerve, a gill arch and a head - somites. A total of eight main segments were defined.

In 1878 he was admitted as a member ( "Fellow" ) to the Royal Society, in 1881, the Royal Medal awarded him.

Works

  • Balfour, FM ( 1878) On the Development of Elasmobranch Fishes. London, Macmillan,
  • Balfour, FM: ( 1880-81 ) A treatise on comparative embryology. London, Macmillan and Co.
  • Foster, M.; Balfour, F. M.; Heape, W.; Sedgwick, A. (1883 ) The elements of embryology. London: Macmillan and Co.

Swell

  • Kurzbiographischer entry at the Royal Society (English )
  • Hall, Brian K.: Francis Maitland Balfour (1851-1882): A founder of evolutionary embryologyJournal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution

Volume 299B, Issue 1, pages 3-8, 15 October 2003

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