Hermann von Nathusius

Hermann Engelhard of Nathusius ( born December 9, 1809 in Magdeburg, † June 29, 1879 in Berlin) was since 1831 the owner and administrator of the manor Hundisburg in present-day Saxony -Anhalt and is the same as co-founder of modern animal breeding. He was raised to the peerage in 1840.

Life and work

He is the son of the merchant Gottlob Nathusius. Hermann Engelhard Nathusius studied zoology in Berlin. He later became a successful breeder - particularly of sheep, cattle, pigs and horses - he also wrote works on zoology and breeding beings who methodically based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Nathusius ' writings were evaluated by Charles Darwin, which she quoted in Origin of Species and Descent of Man, as well as in various letters. Nathusius had a critical relationship to Darwin, whose work was sound enough for him by real observations (see preface to the preliminary studies, see publications). His work preliminary studies on the history and breeding of domestic animals. First, the pigs skull has been explicitly written as a discussion of Darwin's nature and concept of race. It is quoted in today's editions of the Origin of Species, though it appeared five years later, and refers to this work.

In the preliminary studies Nathusius describes Schädelumbildungen in domesticated pigs, which point to an environmental neoteny, which forms the transition from the wild to the domesticated breeds, but no own style brings forth, would like to suggest to Darwin.

Nathusius was involved as a politician on the grounds of the higher agricultural educational institute in Halle an der Saale and was from 1870 a member of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture and director of the agricultural teaching institution in Berlin. In the peristyle of Landscaped - Agricultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin in the disability road Nathusius is remembered with a marble bust of.

In his honor, in 1928 donated to the Hermann -von- Nathusius Medal of the German Society for e Züchtungskunde V. ( DGfZ ). One of his sons was Poznań police chief Gottlob Engelhard of Nathusius, another Dillenburger equerry Hans von Nathusius. A grandson was Karl Gottlob von Nathusius.

Writings (selection )

• About constancy in the animal breeding. ( First published in the Journal of German agriculturists ). Berlin 1860
• Preliminary studies on the history and breeding of domestic animals. First, the pigs skull. Berlin 1864 ( Extracts from the document in the journal elements of natural science. No. 85, 2006).
• Lectures on animal breeding. Berlin 1872 ff
• About the so-called leporidae. Berlin 1876 ( digitized )