Léo Errera

Léo Errera Abraham ( born September 4, 1858 in Laeken, † August 6, 1905 in Brussels) was a Belgian botanist. He looked at the Free University of Brussels in 1883 as an associate and in 1890 a full professor of Botany. In addition, he was actively involved in Jewish affairs.

Life

Léo Errera was born in 1858 as son of the banker and the Italian Consul-General Jacques Errera and his wife Marie Oppenheim. The ancestors of the family were Italian Sephardic Jews from Venice. Jacques Errera had come in the course of his work for the Bank Oppenheim to Brussels, where he married in 1857 Marie Oppenheim and settled permanently. Léo Erreras younger brother Paul was professor of constitutional and administrative law as well as Rector of the Free University of Brussels. His nephew Jacques was also later awarded Professor at the Free University of Brussels and for his research in biochemistry with the Francqui price.

Errera took in 1874 at the University of Brussels, a liberal arts degree, but then switched to the natural sciences. His studies took him to the universities of Strasbourg, Bonn and Würzburg. In 1879 he received his doctorate in botany in the subject and his habilitation in 1883. In the same year he was appointed Extraordinary and 1890 as full professor of botany at the Free University of Brussels. Errera campaigned for the creation of laboratories and founded a - initially modest - Laboratory of Botany, who moved to the present Rue Botanique / Kruidtuinstraat 1891. The Botanical Institute was renamed after his death in his honor at Institut Botanique Léo Errera. From 1898, Errera was a member of the Belgian Academy of Sciences.

The focus of his research was in the field of plant physiology and general biology. He dealt with the role of glycogen as a reserve carbohydrate of fungi, with the role of alkaloids in plants and with those responsible for cell shape physical laws. From 1902 he published the Recueil de l'Institut Botanique de Bruxelles.

Under the pseudonym "Un vieux Juif " (engl.: " an old Jew " ), he also published writings against anti-Semitism. In 1893 he published his book on the Jews in Russia " Les juifs russes: extermination ou Emancipation " (German title: " The Russian Jews: destruction or liberation" with a foreword by Theodor Mommsen ). He has participated in numerous international conferences on Jewish issues and the Alliance Israelite Universelle was connected. Politically, he was active in the Liberal Party.

Errera died in 1905 at the age of 46 years at a cerebral embolism.

Publications (selection )

• Sur le glycogens chez les Basidiomycetes. F. Hayez, Brussels 1886.
• Les Juifs Russes: extermination ou Emancipation? . With a foreword by Theodor Mommsen. C. Muquardt, Brussels 1893.
• Une leçon élémentaire sur le darwinisme. Lamertin, Brussels 1904.
• Recueil d' œuvres de Léo Errera. 4 vols H. Lamertin, Brussels from 1908 to 1910.