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In 1542, A Dyetary of Health by Andrew Borde, one of the first publications in English, described factors affecting the health of man and the part played by diet. (82)
In 1554 the Spanish grow hemp in Peru. (89)
In 1600 the East India Company was granted a charter by the Queen of England. (6) Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to certain London-based merchants to trade in the East, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. (49)
In 1601 lemon juice, as a protective against scurvy, is recorded by sea captain James Lancaster. (82)
In 1610 the microscope was invented by Galileo. (82)
In 1612, Woodall, in Surgeon's Mate, recommended citrus fruit for protection against scurvy on sea voyages. (82)
In 1620, the chemical role of gastric juice and bile in digestion was stressed by Van Helmont. (82)
By 1621 marijuana was suggested in England as a therapy for depression. (88), (89) The English clergyman Robert Burton, in his famous work, The anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621, suggested the use of cannabis in the treatment of depression. (123)
By 1630 half of the winter clothing worn by Americans, and all of their summer clothing, contained hemp fiber. (88)
In 1637 the General Court at Hartford, Connecticut ordered that all families plant one teaspoon of cannabis seeds. (89)
In 1642 Beriberi was described by Jacob Bontius, in posthumous publication of his notebooks. (82)
In 1645 Rickets was described by Daniel Whistler; Inaugural Medical Disputation on the Children's Disease of the English which the inhabitants idiomatically call The Rickets, published in Latin in Leyden. (82)
In 1652 a garden for vegetables and a hospital is established at the Cape of Good Hope for protection of sailors from scurvy. (82)
In 1655, the French lawyer and theologian Isaac de la Peyrère (1596-1676) departed from Christian consensus with his "pre-Adamite" thesis. Taking a cue from earlier Jewish discourse, de la Peyrère reasoned that a race of humans had existed long before Adam and the "creation of the world" as narrated in Genesis really concerned only the latest episode in a continuous cycle of cosmic destruction and creation. (425)
In 1662 the Royal Society (London) was chartered by Charles I[I]. (82) This "secret society cult" was first organized under the direction of a crypto-Jesuit, Sir William Petty, the grandfather of the Second Earl of Shelburne controlling the Essex Junto. (49)
In 1665 red blood cells in man were discovered by Malpighi. (82)
In 1668 Merck begins an apothecary shop in Darmstadt Germany. (6)
In 1675 protozoa were observed and described by Leeuwenhoek. (82)
In 1683 bacteria were described and sketched by Leeuwenhoek. (82)
In 1684, the Anglican clergyman Thomas Burnet published The Sacred Theory of the Earth which stirred up a debate in England about the Earth's natural history. (426) Burnet argued that the earth's rotational axis had originally been perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, producing a uniform season and climate on Earth, until the deluge precipitated the tilting of the axis: "... the position of the primeval Earth was strait, its axis being always placed and retained in a parallel line to the axis of the ecliptick, whence all the motions of the Heavens were uniform, and the course of the year was pure and unmixed, without differences of seasons." (425)
In 1694 the Bank of England is founded. (6)
In 1695, the English vicar William Whiston published New Theory of the Earth in which he explained the Great Deluge as the Earth's collision with a comet — a theory praised by Isaac Newton. (426)
In 1695, Dr. John Woodward — provincial secretary of the Royal Society and professor of physic at Gresham College — published his Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth in which he claimed that fossils buried in the Earth's crust were the "real spoils of once living animals" which had been dispersed among the various strata by the Great Deluge. (426)
From 1700 to 1830 the East India Company would gain control of India and wrestle control of the opium monopoly. (6)
In 1705, the mystery of the mastodon begins with the discovery of a giant tooth along the banks of the Hudson River, not far from where American naturalists dug up the first complete mastodon skeleton nearly a century later. (426) [See Peale, 1801]
In 1713 iron was demonstrated to be present in the ash of blood. (82)
In 1715 the British East India Company opens its first trading office in Canton; China begins trading in opium. (6)
In 1715 Thomas Fairchild announced the production of the first artificial hybrid plant. (105)
In 1727 the famous seed-breeding establishment Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie was founded. It was through the work of this concern that the sugar beet was developed during the Napoleonic era. (105)
In 1729 importing opium into China was prohibited by Manchu Emperor Yung-Cheng as a measure to decrease 'immoral' opium smoking. (122)
In 1730 pellagra was described by Gaspar Casal and called "mal de la rosa." (82)
In 1734 Backstrom coined the term "antiscorbutic", meaning "efficacious against scurvy". (82)
In 1739 about 500,000 people died in Ireland due to widespread crop failure of potatoes. (87) [See 1845]
From 1740 to 1744 British Admiral George A. Anson undertook a voyage around the world in the ship Centurion. He started with six ships and nearly 2,000 men, yet only the main flagship returned. Well over one thousand sailors died from scurvy. (99)
In 1743 Benjamin Franklin founds the American Philosophical Society (APS). (167) Naturalist John Bartram (1699-1777) was a co-founder. (49) Future members would include Louis Agassiz, Alexander Dallas Bache, Hans Bethe, Vannevar Bush, Anton J. Carlson, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Cronkite, T. G. Dobzhansky, Paul R. Ehrlich, Milton Friedman, Albert Gallatin, Jane Goodall, Alan Greenspan, Ernst Haeckel, Fred Hoyle, Edwin Hubble, Paul Kennedy, Samuel P. Langley, Barbara McClintock, Sandra Day O'Connor, Louis Pasteur, Linus Pauling, Raymond Pearl, Colin Powell, Oscar Riddle, David Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Carl Sagan, B. F. Skinner, William Howard Taft, James Van Allen, Paul Volcker, Edward O. Wilson, Sewall Wright… (221)
In 1746 Menghini found iron content of blood could be increased by feeding iron-containing foods. (82)
In 1747 the first controlled human dietary experiment by James Lind showed citrus fruits cured scurvy. (82)
By 1750 the Dutch are shipping more than 100 tons of opium per year to Indonesia. (6)
In 1752 Reaumur published his experiments on digestion in birds. (82)
In 1753 plants are classified by Linnaeus. (82) Including Cannabis Sativa. (89)
In 1753 James Lind published A Treatise on the Scurvy (London: A. Millar) which portrays Lind's classical experiment on-board the ship Salisbury in 1747, (99), (82)
In 1753, the Linonian Society was founded as Yale University's second literary and debating society. Its members have included: Noah Porter, Eli Whitney, Josiah Dwight Whitney, Andrew Dickson White (S&B1853), Timothy Dwight V (S&B1849), Daniel Coit Gilman (S&B1852), Chauncey Mitchell Depew (S&B1856), Francis Miles Finch (S&B1849), Walter Camp (S&B1880), William Howard Taft (S&B1878), F. Trubee Davison (S&B1918). (292)
In 1754 "Fixed air" (carbon dioxide) was discovered by Joseph Black. (82)
In 1758 Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) published Systema Naturae in which he introduced many of the concepts and conventions that are still used by taxonomists today. (105)
From 1760 to 1790 British livestock breeds were improved by a thirty-year program of selection and inbreeding undertaken by Robert Bakewell, Collings, Bates and others. (105)
In 1760 John Hunter established museums of natural history. (105)
From 1761 to 1766 a systematic study of plant hybrids was made by Kölreuter. (82) Kölreuter, (Koelreuter) published reports describing 136 experiments in artificial hybridization. His discovery of quantitative inheritance foreshadowed the work of Mendel. (105)
In 1764 the New English Dispensary stated that boiling marijuana roots and applying them to the skin reduced inflammation. This had been accepted practice in eastern Europe for centuries. In addition, this type of poultice was used to dissolve deposits in people's joints as well as to dry up tumors. (88), (89), (123) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Next)]
In 1765 George Washington grew hemp on his farm. (88)
In 1766 "inflammable air" (hydrogen) was discovered by Cavendish. (82)
From 1768 to 1775 Captain James Cook, close friend of the British naval surgeon James Lind, voyages twice without incident of scurvy. (99)
In 1770 William Stark died as a result of dietary experiments on himself. (82)
In 1771 Frapolli described and named pellagra. (82)
In 1771 Spallanzani began experiments of digestion in animals and man. (82)
From 1772 to 1775 sailors on historic voyages with Captain James Cook remained free from scurvy. (82)
In 1772 Substitutes for Ordinary Foods in Time of Scarcity was published as a memoir by Parmentier and expanded to a book in 1781. (82)
In 1773 oxygen was discovered by Scheele (not published until 1775). (82)
In 1774 "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen) was discovered by Priestley. (82)
In 1775 hemp production started in Kentucky. (106) [See 1810]
On May 1, 1776 the Illuminati was founded by Professor Adam Weishaupt of the University of Ingostadt. (26)
On December 5, 1776 the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa is founded at the College of William and Mary. (394)
In 1777 Adair Crawford published the first experiments on animal calorimetry, comparing heat production in a guinea pig with combustion. (105)
In 1778 Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated the nature of animal respiration. (105)
In 1779 oxygen was the name given by Lavoisier to "dephlogisticated air". (82)
In 1779 the respiratory process in plants was described by Ingenhousz. (82)
In 1780 Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre Laplace published their memoir on heat, in which they reached the conclusion that respiration is a form of combustion. (105)
In 1780 Spallanzani provided experimental evidence that digestion was not fermentation but was chemical action of gastric juice. (82)
In 1781 the Massachusetts Medical Society is incorporated. (6)
On July 16, 1782 the Congress of Wilhemsbad was convened and attended by members of secret societies from around the globe (though mostly from Europe). The Congress was held at Meyer Amschel Rothschild's castle in Wilhelmsbad. Among its goals was the death of the King of France and the joining of the orders of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. (423) "At the grand convention of Masonry held at Wilhelmsbad in 1782 the Order of the Strict Observance was suspended, and Von Knigge disclosed the scheme of Weishaupt to the assembled representatives of the masonic and mystical fraternities. Then and there disciples of Saint-Martin and of Willermooz, as well as the statesmen, scientists, magicians, and magistrates of all countries, were converted to Illuminism." (424)
By 1783 Baring Brothers become the premier merchant of the opium trade. (6)
In 1783 Cannabis Indica is classified by Lamarck. (124)
In 1785 Scottish geologist James Hutton published his book, Theory of the Earth. Later in 1830, Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology will popularize Hutton's doctrine of uniformitarianism. [See Lyell, 1830]
In 1785 Jeremy Bentham penned his essay on the subject of pederasty—arguing against any sanctions against homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and bestiality. Bentham dismissed the harsh penalties then in force against pederasty as the result of irrational religious fears born of the Old Testament destruction of Sodom and perpetuated by society's "irrational antipathy" to pleasure in general and to sexual pleasure in particular. (437), (438)
In 1789 the first measurements of human energy metabolism by respiration made by Lavoisier and Seguin. (82)
In 1789 the French Revolution began. (100) It lasts until 1799. (6)
In 1789 Antoine Lavoisier and Armand Séguin made the first measurements of human metabolic rate. (105)
From 1794 to 1796 Erasmus Darwin's Zoönomia was published; advanced the idea that environmental influences transformed species. (105)
In 1794 the Edinburgh New Dispensary included a long description of the effects of hemp and stated that the oil was useful in the treatment of coughs, venereal disease, and urinary incontinence. A few years later Nicholas Culpeper summarized all the conditions for which cannabis was supposed to be medically useful. (123)
In 1795 the science of nutrition was used by Count Rumford in an essay on feeding poor people. (82)
In 1796 Jan Ingenhousz concluded that plants utilize carbon dioxide in their nutrition. He understood that plants carry on respiration concomitantly with photosynthesis. (105)
In 1796 lemon juice was officially introduced in the British Navy as a prophylactic against scurvy. (82)
In 1796 Baron Georges Cuvier attributed the succession of fossil forms to a series of simultaneous extinctions caused by natural catastrophies. (105)
In 1796 Jenner introduced vaccination against smallpox. (82)
In 1798 Rev. Malthus published his Essay on the Principles of Population. (363) Malthus argues that because "all animated life [tends] to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it," there can never be real progress or happiness for humankind. Humanity is doomed to procreate itself into destitution. (100) His recommendation was to "increase the mortality rate of the poor." (77) "Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor," Malthus declared, "we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased from 1 in 36 or 40, to 1 in 18 or 20, we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty, and yet few be absolutely starved.…" (363) Malthus also wrote: "All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room may be made for them by the deaths of grown persons…Therefore…we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality …" (363), (137) [See 1818]
In 1798 a law in India went into effect that placed a tax on hemp drugs: bhang, ganja and charas. … The governor general believed that "drugs such as charas and ganja, along with opium and alcohol, are of so noxious a guality, and produce a species of intoxication so extremely violent," he warned, "that they cannot be used without imminent danger to the individual as well as to the public." The sale of all such drugs, he urged, ought to be totally prohibited in India." (106) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt. (106)
On July 16, 1798 the Marine Hospital Service was established with the signing by President John Adams of an act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen. (80)
From 1799 to 1804 Alexander von Humboldt made his famous scientific exploration of parts of South America. From these travels he authored Equinoctial Regions of America. (192) [See note note 149]
From 1800 to 1840 organic chemistry is gradually separated from general chemistry. (82)
In 1800 the cotton gin makes cheaper fibre than hemp. (89)
In 1800 Napoleon prohibits his men in Egypt from using cannabis, but to little effect. (89) In October of 1800 Napoleon issued this ordinance: "It is forbidden in all of Egypt to use certain Moslem beverages made with hashish or likewise to inhale the smoke from seeds of hashish. Habitual drinkers and smokers of this plant lose their reason and are victims of violent delirium which is the lot of those who give themselves full to excesses of all sorts." (106) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1800 Karl Friedrich Burdach coined the term "biology" to denote the study of human morphology, physiology and psychology. (105)
In 1801 John Wedgwood (son of Josiah Wedgwood, uncle to Charles Darwin) wrote William Forsyth (George III's gardener) and Joseph about starting the Royal Horticultural Society—which quickly came into being. (87)
In 1801 Jean Baptiste de Lamarck elaborated a theory of evolution based on heritable modification of organs through continued use and loss through disuse. (105)
In the summer of 1801, the Philadelphia painter and museum owner Charles Willson Peale and his son Rembrandt excavated the first complete skeleton of the American incognitum, or mastodon. (426)
In 1802 Gottfried Treviranus and Jean Baptiste de Lamarck independently broadened the meaning of biology to include the study of all living things. (105)
In 1803 gastric digestion was shown to be a chemical process by J.R. Young (Pennsylvania). (82)
In 1804, James Moultrie was elected president of the South Carolina Medical Society. He is the son of John Moultrie, who was "a leading British official in the South during the Revolution, the British lieutenant governor of Florida and the head of the Royalist party of that province. It was from his base in Moultrie's Florida that General Augustine Prevost launched his invasion of Georgia and South Carolina." (49)
In 1804, soon after the reprinting of Ezra L'Hommedieu's 1792 article (reprinted in 1801) in which he speaks of the virtues of using menhaden as "manure" to fertilize farmer's crops, Yale President, Timothy Dwight, grandfather of namesake and Skull & Bones member, Timothy Dwight (S&B 1849), upon visiting Eastern Long Island to witness the phenomenon for himself, wrote of his amazement at how farmers had managed to revitalize their exhausted soil through the application of menhaden. (215:52) L'Hommedieu's reprinted article would later be cited by George Brown Goode in his A History of the Menhaden, published in 1877. (215:230)
In 1804, the religious sect called Harmonites immigrated from the Kingdom of Wirtemberg, in Germany and settled at Harmony, Pennsylvania. It's ecclesiastical head is Rev. Frederick Rappe. (372:223), (373) [See 1814]
In 1805 medical science first leaned to extract morphine, the poppy sap's active chemical ingredient. (44) This was done by Sarturner. (6) German pharmacist, F.W. Serturner, isolated morphine from opium latex. (87) [See note 103]
In 1805 the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society was founded from many members who left the Medical Society of London. (1)
In 1805, Benjamin Silliman traveled to Europe for training in London and Edinburgh, etc. "To fit himself for the work before him,"—as he had recently in 1802 been called on by Yale President Timothy Dwight "to occupy the newly-made chair of chemistry, mineralogy (and later geology)"—Benjamin Silliman spent the year "in travels and study at London and Edinburgh, and also on the Continent." According to James Dwight Dana, "to the mines, quarries, and cliffs of England, the crags of Scotland, and the meadows of Holland he looked for knowledge, and from these and the teachings of Murray, Jameson, Hall, Hope, and Playfair, at Edinburgh, Professor Silliman returned, equipped for duty,—albeit a great duty,—that of laying the foundation, and creating almost out of nothing a department not before recognized in any institution in America." (453)
In 1806 Napoleon offered 100,000 francs to anyone who could create sugar from a native plant. Russian chemist K.S. Kirchhof later discovered that sulfuric acid added to potato starch would make the conversion. (87)
In 1806 Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet first isolated an amino acid, asparagine, from asparagus. (105)
By 1807, California was producing 12,500 pounds of hemp; 40% came from Santa Barbara, and good harvest were also reported around San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. By 1810, California was producing over 220,000 pounds of dressed hemp. In 1810, however, Mexico broke from Spain, and California was cut off from the subsidies that had stimulated hemp growth. Commercial production ceased and was never restarted. (106)
In 1807 Napoleon signs the Treaty of Tilset with Czar Alexander of Russia which cuts off all legal trade with Britain. (124)
In 1807 Survey of the Coast is established by President Thomas Jefferson. (136)
In 1807 the French abolish the slave trade by law. (6) England also prohibits slave trade. (6)
In 1807 sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur and boron are isolated by Sir Humphrey Davy. (82)
In 1809 Massachusetts encourages its towns to make provision for the vaccination of inhabitants with cow pox vaccine. (6)
In 1809 Silvestre de Sacy, one of the three French scientists brought with Napoleon to Egypt to study Egyptian cannabis culture, claimed that "assassin" was a word derived from "hashish". The link between hashish and the Assassins became firmly soldered in cannabis folklore from that time on. (106) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1809 Jean Baptiste de lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique emphasized the fundamental unity of life and the capacity of species to vary; environmental influences stressed. (105)
From 1810 to 1823 the chemistry of animal fats was investigated by Chevreul. (82) [See (EFAs Next)]
By 1810 hemp had become "the grand staple of Kentucky." (106) [See 1775, 1849]
In 1810 cystic oxide, (later named cystine) was isolated from urinary calculus by Wollaston; first amino acid discovered. (82) William Hyde Wollaston isolated the second amino acid, cystine, from a bladderstone. (105)
In 1810 [Christian] Hahnemann founds homeopathy. (6)
In 1811 the elementary composition of cane sugar was determined by Gay-Lussac and Thenard. (82)
In 1812 Vaquelin extracted phosphorus from brain tissue and showed it associated with fatty material (phospholipids). (82)
On June 19th, 1812 America declares war on Britain. (124)
In 1812 the Société Médicale de la Nouvell Orléans was founded. (1)
In 1812 the death rate from tuberculosis in New York was 700 per 100,000. (48), (6)
In 1812 Napoleon awards Legion of Honor to Benjamin Dellesert for discovering how to process the beet into sugar (which replaces dependence on the sugar cane). (6) France has mass planting of sugar beets and 500 refineries open. Over 8 million pounds of sugar are produced in one year. (6)
In 1813 margaric acid, a fatty acid is isolated in 1813 by the Frenchman, Michael Chevreul. (9) [See (EFAs Previous, Next)]
In 1814 fats were shown by Chevreul to be composed of fatty acids and glycerol. (???) [See (EFAs Previous, Next)]
In 1814 the Harmonites of Harmony, Pennsylvania resettle on the banks of the Wabash River in the Indiana territory and create the settlement of Harmony, Indiana (later renamed to New Harmony). (372:223), (373) The members of this religious commune "were remarkable for their simple manners, their industry, and their frugality... The property of the society of Harmony was, it seems, owned by the members of the association in common; but the authority to govern the community, and to manage its affairs, temporal and spriritual, was vested in Frederick Rappe, the elder, who was regarded as the founder of the society." (373) [See 1804, 1816, 1824]
On December 8, 1814, the first meeting of the New England Society for the Promotion of Natural History is held "at the room of Dr. Jacob Bigelow." (297) In attendance were: "W.S. Shaw and Octavius Pickering, Esqs., Drs. Channing, Cushing, Perkins, Bigelow, and Hayward, and Messrs. Tucker, Dana, Webster, and Ware. Dr. Channing was chosen chairman, and Dr. Bigelow secretary, for the evening. Drs. Bigelow and Hayward, and Mr. Pickering, were chosen a committee to frame a Constitution, which was duly adopted at a meeting two evenings afterward. … Hon. John Davis was chosen President; William S. Shaw, Vice-President; Jacob Bigelow, Corresponding Secretary; George Hayward, Recording Secretary; Octavius Pickering, Treasurer; John W. Webster, Cabinet-keeper." (297) The following year, (1815), the society was renamed the Linnaean Society of New England. In 1822 meetings of the society were suspended and a new home for its collections was sought. With the eventual founding of the Boston Society of Natural History in 1830, some of these old collections were reclaimed and taken in by the new Society.
in 1815 the monarchies of Russia, Austria, England, and Prussia, victorious over Napoleon, launched the Holy Alliance. (49)
In 1816 nitrogen-containing compounds were shown by Magendie to be essential in the diet of dogs. (82)
About 1816, Rev. Frederick Rappe, founder of the religious settlement at Harmony, Indiana, (later known as New Harmony) quarried a slab of limestone containing two purported human footprints from the West bank of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri. (372) According to David Dale Owen, when the "New Harmony estate" was sold to his father (Robert Owen), included in the sale was this slab of limestone which ended up in his (David Dale Owen's) own museum at New Harmony. (374) Around this time, David Dale Owen's museum at New Harmony was considered the largest natural history museum west of the Allegheny mountains containing some 85,000 items. (376), (377) [See note 179, note 180]
In 1817 the Owen family was visited by Charles Pictet, the Envoy Extraordinaire of Switzerland to the Congress of Vienna which had set up the Holy Alliance. Pictet took Robert Owen on a tour of London, Paris and Geneva. On their return to Scotland, Pictet took charge of the education of Robert Owen's children, who would soon be sent to Switzerland. Charles Pictet, it seems, was the Historian and spokesman for a unique educational enterprise on the Howfyl estate of Emanual Von Fellenberg near Berne. This school was a special project of the Holy Alliance. It had been made famous in Europe after a lengthy memo singing its praises was sent to Czar Alexander by Count Capo D'Istria, the Czar's advisor and envoy to the Congress of Vienna. The Count, a Venetian nobleman, had written the new Swiss constitution after the defeat of Napoleon; he and Pictet were bound closely together as "insiders" among the policymakers of Europe's reborn feudalism. (49) [See 1815]
From 1818 to 1822 Jeremy Bentham, East India Company intelligence officer James Mill, pamphleteer Richard Carlile and others of the self-styled "infidels of Chapel Yard" were engaged in intensive strategy sessions on how to popularize the anti-population dogmas of Thomas Malthus among the working classes, especially, as Richard Carlile put it, the "filthy Irish." (49) [See note 150]
In 1818, young Robert Dale Owen and his brother William entered the Fellenberg college-level school. (49) [See 1817]
In 1818 the American Journal of Science and Arts is founded by Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry at Yale. (378)
In 1819 leucine was discovered by Proust. (82)
In 1819 the Medical Society of the District of Columbia was formed. (1)
In 1819 Adelbert de Chamisso introduced the concept of alternation of generations. (105)
In 1819 J.J.E. Poutet isomerized oleic acid to elaidic acid. (1)
In 1819 the American Geological Society is founded by Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry at Yale. Geologist William Maclure (who will soon join Robert Owen at New Harmony) is elected president of the society. (378) [See 1824]
In 1820 the Medical Society of Virginia was formed. (1)
In 1820 the first U.S. Pharmacopeia was published. (82)
In 1820 glycine was discovered by Braconnot. (82)
In 1820 the Michigan State Medical Society was formed. (1)
In 1820 Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer commissioned Amos Eaton to conduct agricultural-geological surveys of both Albany and Rensselaer counties, NY—considered to be the first such surveys conducted in the U.S. Eaton's assistant during the latter survey was none other than Joseph Henry who will later become first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Thus, as pointed out by James Hall's biographer, John Mason Clarke, "Henry was a geologist first; the rest followed." (278), (277)
On September 4, 1820 Alden Partridge, former superintendent of the miliary academy at West Point, established the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont. There, "pupils or their parents had their choice of studies, out of a course as extensive as that of any academy and college in New England combined—in which military training formed a prominent feature, and the mathematics, especially as applied to surveying and engineering, received special attention. During the four years and half of its continuance in Norwich the Academy was attended by 480 pupils, representing twenty-one out of the twenty-four states" (359) [See 1825]
In 1821 the first state hospitals for the insane are opened in Kentucky and in South Carolina. (116)
In 1821 the first chemical analysis of an American food, (Indian corn, maize) was published by John Gorham of Harvard University. (82)
From 1822 to 1852 a stream of Americans go to Prussia (Germany) and bring the educational system back to the United States. (6)
In 1822 the British government advances Edward Jenner another 20,000 pounds for "smallpox vaccine" experimentation. Jenner suppresses reports which indicate his concept is causing more death than saving lives. (6)
In 1822 John Goss observed segregation of a recessive trait in peas, but failed to note numerical ratios. In the same year, Alexander Seton published similar observations. (105)
In 1822 De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater focuses attention on opium addiction as never before. (86)
In 1823 the Lancet of Great Britain began publication. (82)
In 1823 Thomas Andrew Knight confirmed reports of dominance, recessivity, and segregation in peas, but did not detect regularities. (105)
In 1823 Michael Chevreul published his treatise on lipids. (82) The classical work was called Recherches chimiques sur les corps gras d'origine animale. It was later reprinted in 1889. (1) [See (EFAs Previous, Next)]
In 1823 Russell and Company is founded by Samuel Russell, second cousin to Skull & Bones founder William H. Russell. Its business is to acquire opium from Turkey and, under the armed protection of the British Empire, smuggle it into China, where it is strictly prohibited. Russell and Company is the largest U.S. criminal organization of the nineteenth century, a.k.a. "the great opium syndicate". (3) [See 1832]
In 1823 George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell founded the Round Hill School for boys in Northampton, Massachusetts. The school was in operation until 1834. "The conductors of Round Hill put into practice ideas they had gathered in Germany, England and Switzerland. In Switzerland, Cogswell had studied the schools of the two educators, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi at Yverdon, and Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg at the estate of Hofwyl near Bern." (459) "The Round Hill School secured German scholar Charles Beck in February 1824 shortly after he arrived with Charles Follen on the same ship the previous Christmas. Beck was appointed teacher of Latin, and he soon established at Round Hill the first gym and the first school gymnastics program in the United States." (459) "Benjamin Peirce, Timothy Walker and Stiles French served in succession as the school's teacher of mathematics." (459) [See 1828]
In 1824 Prout shows that hydrochloric acid is the free acid in gastric juice. (82)
In 1824 Justus von Liebig discovers properties of bitter almond (laetrile) and benzaldehyde. (6)
In 1824 the Owen family moved from Britain to Indiana, where Robert Owen and his Scottish friend William Maclure had purchased the buildings and land of a religious commune called Harmony. New Harmony, the communist mini-society which Robert Owen established there became famous as an intended precedent for a new Rousseauvian world order, a world without cities, a human race broken up into agrarian communities of 1200 or so. Though the commune was a failure and dissolved within two years, the Owen establishment was more than simply a cult-farm. It was in fact an educational institution. Owen and Maclure brought into this frontier setting a collection of European scientists, nearly all geologists, who taught at the settlement, published articles and initiated others in Owenite science. One such being [Robert Dale] Owen's brother, David Dale Owen, trained by Fellenberg in Switzerland and Lord Brougham's London University and who was hired in 1837 and 1847 to carry out midwestern geological surveys and was the state geologist of both Kentucky and of Arkansas just before the Civil War. The teaching at New Harmony was supervised by the Swiss, Joseph Neef, who had been previously appointed assistant to Holy Alliance educational experimenter Johann Pestalozzi by the Swiss government. (49) New Harmony was the original headquarters of the U.S. Geological Survey which was formally established by Congress in 1879. (247), (248), (249) Furthermore, from 1851 to 1854, the Illinois State Geological Survey was headquartered in New Harmony. (376) [See 1814, 1816]
In 1824 Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton created the Rensselaer Institute at Troy, New York. (267) "It will be remembered that the Rensselaer Institute, at Troy, was established … to train persons in science and its applications 'to the common purposes of life,' so that they might go out and instruct farmers and others by lectures in towns and school districts. This plan was suggested by the success of the courses of popular lectures of this character given by Amos Eaton in different places in New England and New York." (268) [See the "farmers high school" 1855]
From 1825 to 1850 the temperance movement undergoes a period of major flux and transition. Demands increase for voluntary total abstinence from all intoxicants, not just temperance in the use of spirits. (86)
In 1825 Lymon Beecher writes Six Sermons on Intemperance. (86)
On September 1, 1825 Alden Partridge completed the move of his American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont to Middletown, Connecticut. (359) It is here that Skull & Bones founder, William Huntington Russell obtained his academy training from 1826 to 1828. (355), (357) [See 1820, 1832, 1836]
In 1826, "an anti-masonic explosion erupted... after the murder of one Captain William Morgan, of Batavia, New York. Morgan was killed by Masons shortly after obtaining a copyright for an expose on Masonry. Morgan's crime was that he was the first to publish the complete rituals, including the oaths and secret passwords of the first three degrees of Masonry, known as the Blue Lodge." (364) "The precise details of the murder were not known until 1848 when one of the three Masons involved in the crime [Henry L. Valance] confessed to his doctor from his deathbed in hopes of religious absolution. The story broke in early 1849 in the press under the headline Confession. The Murder of William Morgan, confessed by the man who, with his own hands, pushed him out of the boat into the Niagara River." (364) "The conspirators kidnapped Captain Morgan and his publisher in Batavia, New York, but the publisher was later rescued after outraged citizens of Batavia pursued the kidnappers. (364) Captain Morgan paid for his exposures with his life, but the affect of his revelations on American Masonry was profound. In 1826, when Morgan published his book, there were estimated to be 50,000 Freemasons in the United States. It is said that as a result of the book, 45,000 of these left the order, and as many as 2,000 lodges closed. (364) [See 1828, note 178]
In 1826 the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance is founded. (86)
In 1826 M. Taveau in France invents mercury amalgam fillings. (6)
In 1826 a Cholera epidemic begins in India. (6)
In 1827 E. Merck & Company of Darmstadt, Germany began commercial manufacture of morphine. (44) In the 1830s the powerful active ingredient of opium, (morphine) was produced, for the first time, on a large scale. (91)
In 1827 aluminum is isolated by Wohler. (82)
In 1827 food constituents are classified as saccharine, oily and albuminous (sugars, fats and proteins) by Prout. (82)
In 1828, the Anti-Masonic Party was formed as a result of the murder, by freemasons, of Captain William Morgan in 1826. (364) The principle organizer of the party was Thurlow Weed, a New York politician and newspaper publisher. (365) A notable member of the party was William H. Seward, who later became Secretary of State under Lincoln (and was also a target of assassination in 1862 along with Lincoln). (365) The Anti-Masonic Party "... polled 128,000 votes in the 1830 election and carried Vermont in the 1832 presidential election. Rhode Island and Vermont passed laws against blood oaths. Thousands of Masons burned their aprons. In a few years time, membership in the New York lodges dropped from 30,000 to 300 as a direct result of the Morgan incident." (364) [See 1826, 1832]
In 1828 the New Haven Gymnasium, a boarding school for boys, was established in New Haven, Connecticut. (460) The school operated until 1831. (460) It was "founded on the German plan by two sons of Timothy Dwight [IV], Sereno Edwards Dwight (1786-1850) and Henry Edwin Dwight (1797-1832)." (460) "Stiles French was employed there as a mathematics instructor, and following its closure joined the Round Hill School, which was also operating on the German model. He later returned to New Haven to found the New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute." [See 1823, 1834, note 187, note 189]
From 1830 to 1840 Justus von Liebig developed techniques of quantitative analysis and applied them to biological systems. The idea that vital activity could be explained in physicochemical terms was an important one for investigators interested in the nature of life. (105) [See note 50]
By the 1830s the Russell family had bought out the Perkins syndicate and made Connecticut the primary center of the U.S. opium racket. (3)
During the 1830s, the Swiss naturalist J.J. von Tschudi published an account of coca leaf chewing among the Andean Indians in his book Travels in Peru, claiming that his porters could travel for five nights on no food and little sleep while chewing this leaf. (44)
In 1830 Great Britain exports 18,956 chests of opium to China. Opium becomes the largest commodity in world trade. (6)
In 1830 Karl Ernst von Vaer enunciated the biogenetic law. (105)
In 1830 Pierre-Jean Robiquet and Boutron, also Chalard, discovered the hydrolytic splitting of amygdalin by an extract of defatted bitter almonds. The agent was named "emulsin" by Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler in 1837. (105)
In 1830, shortly before he was named U.S. Secretary of State by President Jackson, Edward Livingston was installed as Grand High Priest of Masonry, in the tradition that had been left in the United States by the evacuating British forces at the end of the Revolution. It was to Secretary of State Edward Livingston, then, that ex-President John Quincy Adams addressed his famous Letters on the Subject of Masonry, in which he demonstrated the incompatibility of the Masonic oaths of secrecy with the public trusts and the public office which Livingston held. (49)
In 1830, the Boston Society of Natural History is founded. Founders include: Amos Binney Jr.; Edward Brooks; Walter Channing; Henry Codman; George B. Emerson; Joshua B. Flint; Benjamin D. Greene; Simon E. Greene; William Grigg; George Hayward; D. Humphreys Storer and John Ware. (296) Among the many scholars and curators affiliated with the society was Alexander Emanuel Agassiz; T.T. Bouve; Thomas Mayo Brewer; George Emerson; A.A. Gould; F.W.P. Greenwood; Charles Thomas Jackson; Charles Sedgwick Minot; Albert Ordway; Samuel Hubbard Scudder; Charles J. Sprague; and Jeffries Wyman. (296) Louis Agassiz took an active part in the affairs of the society. (162) D. Humphreys Storer, Amos Binney, and Augustus A. Gould, all accomplished zoologists, were active in the affairs of the Boston Society of Natural History. (162) Alpheus Hyatt, a student of Louis Agassiz, was curator of the Society's museum. (176) [See 1814, For the society's annual of membership up to 1868, see (298)]
In 1830 British geologist Charles Lyell published the first of his three volume set, Principles of Geology. The remaining two volumes followed quickly with the last one being published in 1833. Principles of Geology succeeded in popularizing the doctrine of uniformitarianism which was first proposed by Scottish geologist James Hutton in his Theory of the Earth which was published in 1785. [See Hutton, 1785]
From 1831 to 1836 the voyage of the Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard as naturalist. (105)
In 1831 nuclei in cells is reported by Brown. (82)
In 1831 a Cholera epidemic spreads from Russia to Central Europe. (6)
In 1831 a smallpox epidemic breaks out in Wurtemberg, Germany where 995 vaccinated people succumb to the disease. (6)
In 1831, in Marseilles, France 2,000 vaccinated people are stricken with smallpox. (6)
In 1831 George Hegel dies. He is the German philosopher who gave rise to the Hegelian Dialectic: Thesis (create the crisis) Anti-thesis (Offer the Solution) which is the basis of globalist elite manipulation paradigms. (6)
In 1831 at the instigation of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its first meeting at York. (1)
In 1831, John Jacob Astor created the National Bank of New York, and made Albert Gallatin its President. From that post, Gallatin was the leader of the free trade movement in this country [U.S.] while his and Aaron Burr's cousins, the Mallets, led that movement in England. (49)
In 1831, Robert Dale Owen published his book, Moral Physiology; or, a Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question, the first important defense of Malthusian population concepts in the U.S as well as the first book in the U.S. to advocate birth control. (1), (49), (246)
In 1832 the Skull & Bones secret society is founded at Yale University by General William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft. (26), (3) [See 1828, 1854, 1856, note 22]
In 1832 the British Medical Association was chartered; this became the impetus for the forming of a similar association, the American Medical Association, in the United States. (48) [See 1846]
In 1832 creatine was isolated by Chevreul. (82) According to Websters Dictionary, creatine is an amino acid which is a constituent of the muscles of vertebrates and is phosphorylated to store energy used for muscular contraction.
In 1832 the Provincial Medical and Surgical Society was founded by Charles Hastings. (1)
In 1832 Christian Hahnemann creates the school of homeopathy. (6)
In 1832 Massachusetts enacts a law requiring those acquitted by reason of insanity be committed. (116)
In 1832 Dumortier observed the process of cell division in algae. (105)
In 1832 Chloral was first prepared by J. von Liebig. (1)
From 1832 to 1833 Louis Agassiz studied in France, working closely with Cuvier on fossil fish at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. While there, he became friends with Alexander von Humboldt, who in 1845 assisted in obtaining a large cash gift to help Agassiz continue in his work. (196) [See note 149]
In 1833 mercury amalgam fillings are introduced into New York City. Dentists rebelled. (6)
In 1833 an essay was written in China entitled Essay on Eradicating the Disaster, which described the disaster not as the use of opium, but rather the loss of silver. (122)
In 1833 the Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts is opened marking the beginning of extensive asylum building in the U.S. (as opposed to poorhouses, jails, workhouses). (116)
In 1834 Stiles French founded the New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute at Wooster Square in New Haven, Connecticut. (458) The institute was founded following the break-up of Round Hill School, where Stiles had been a faculty member. (458) "Although Stiles French and his son Truman French continued to be involved with the school for many years, it was taken over in September 1836 by William Huntington Russell, a recent Yale graduate and school teacher who later became a well-known citizen of Connecticut as a non-practicing graduate of the Yale Medical School and as a representative of New Haven in the state legislature of Connecticut. Russell at first leased the school from the Frenches and eventually bought it outright." (458) [See 1828, 1836, note 188]
In 1835 Adolphe Quetelet publishes On Man. He coins the word "statistics" and develops a system for defining an "average man" based on characteristics at the center of the normal curve for all human traits. (116)
In 1835, Benjamin Silliman, Yale University chemist, geologist, and editor of the American Journal of Science, received complimentary copies of the early parts of Poissons fossiles from Louis Agassiz. Silliman became Agassiz's publicist in the United States prior to Agassiz's arrival there in 1846. (162) Silliman's son, Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (S&B 1837), was a member of Skull & Bones. Likewise, his daughter Julia married Edward Whiting Gilman who was the brother of Daniel Coit Gilman (S&B 1852). (271) [See 1847]
On December 17, 1835, President Jackson delivered a message to Congress in which he announced the proposed Smithson gift that will later result in the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution. "The President's message was referred in the Senate to the Committee on the Judiciary, which promptly reported in favor of accepting the legacy. Its recommendations were strongly antagonized by Senators Calhoun and Preston, of South Carolina, ... Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Senator Leigh, of Virginia, took strong ground on the other side, and their counsel finally prevailed after the report had lain upon the table for several months." (370) [See 1845]
In 1836 Great Britain exports 30,000 chests of opium to China. (6)
In 1836 beriberi was described in a treatise by John Grant Malcolmson. (82)
In 1836 pepsin action and properties were described by Schwann. (82)
In 1836 Survey of the Coast is renamed to the U.S. Coast Survey. (136)
In 1836 Louis Agassiz visits with his friend, Jean de Charpentier in the Rhone Valley. Charpentier advocates the glacial concept as an explanation for the presence of such unexplained phenomena as moraines and erratic blocks in the Alpine regions of Switzerland. Agassiz came to Bex a skeptic of Charpentier's ideas but later left a convert to them. (162)
In 1836 Albert Gallatin published A Synopsis of the Indians within the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America. (49)
In 1836, the Patent Act establishes the U.S. Patent Office. The patent office was created primarily because of the inefficiency of the two patent-related acts created previously. Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was mostly responsible for establishing this act. He was also appointed the first commissioner of patents. (317) [See 1839, note 168]
In 1836 William Huntington Russell, the co-founder of Skull & Bones took over a "family school for boys" in New Haven, Connecticut which "developed into the Collegiate and Commercial Institute, having at times as many as 160 pupils, and educating in the aggregate some four thousand young men." (358) This school which Russell had assumed control of was established just two years earlier by Stiles French. (458) French had been professor of mathematics at both the Round Hill School as well as the New Haven Gymnasium -- the latter a product of the Dwight family whose own Timothy Dwight V was a member of Skull & Bones as well as one of its incorporators in 1856. (458) "As early as 1853, it assumed the character of a military school, and was able during the late war to furnish about three hundred officers to the Union army, as well as many drill-masters to the volunteer companies in southern Connecticut." (358) "In about 1840, Russell introduced a very thorough military drill and discipline into his school. He foresaw a Civil War in the future, and wanted to make sure his boys were prepared to fight for the Union. His students were so well schooled in military affairs that on the outbreak of Civil War some were enlisted as drill instructors." (357) "Believing civil war to be inevitable, he introduced, about 1840, very thorough military drill and discipline into his school to fit every pupil to serve his country in war as well as to furnish a sound education for times of peace. In 1861, at the outbreak of the Rebellion, military instructors were so difficult to obtain that even the younger boys from his school were in demand at the encampment as drill instructors for the new recruits for army service." (454) Referring to Russell's military academy, Daniel C. Gilman (S&B1852), was quoted in 1862 as saying, "the scholars were of great service in drilling the recruits of Connecticut at the outset of the war, and many of them now hold important posts in the army. The scholars formerly trained as infantry and are now at artillery practices." (359) According to a letter from one of the academy's students (John Magee, Jr.) written in 1861 just a few days after the shelling of Ft. Sumter, some of the students of the academy -- granted, only six at the time -- were apparently secessionists (pro Confederacy). (457) Wikipedia's article on Russell's school confirms that there were indeed students of the academy that planned to fight for the South. (458) [See note 177, note 189, 1825, 1832, 1834]
In 1837, in an address before the Swiss Society of Natural History, Louis Agassiz announced his discovery that in a prehistoric Ice Age in the Pleistocene epoch ice had covered the world from the North Pole to the borders of the Mediterranean and Caspian seas. (162)
In 1837, Louis Agassiz's growing fame resulted in his election as a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, a leading scientific institution. (162)
In 1837, during the initial session of the legislature just after Michigan achieved statehood, a Cabinet of Natural History was authorized, the first such authorization in a U.S. public university, (University of Michigan). (145)
In 1837 cystine was shown to contain sulfur. (82) [See note 21]
In 1837 Jons Jacob Baron Berzelius classified fermentation as a catalyzed reaction. He later identified lactic acid as a product of muscle activity. (105)
In 1838 there is a smallpox epidemic in England. (6)
In 1838 the Battle of Blood River took place at which Zulu warriors attacked the Dutch. Some historians have suggested that the Zulus were intoxicated with dagga [cannabis] during the attack. (106)
In October 1838, Charles Darwin wrote in his autobiography, "I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed." (100) "As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive," he writes with apparent sincerity, "there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdom…" (100)
In 1838 Charles M. Hovey introduced a strawberry grown from seed produced by hybridization. This "Hovey" strawberry is considered the first fruit variety that originated through breeding on the North American continent. (87)
In 1838 the word "protein" was introduced as a term by Mulder, (at the suggestion of Berzelius). (82) Gerardus Johannes Mulder carried out the first systematic studies of proteins. Mulder coined the term "protein". (105)
In 1838, a survey was conducted [in India] and the official in charge "noted that despite the taxes on ganja, it was still used daily by the natives… perhaps India's hemp drugs ought to be banned outright." The Parliament decided that the real problem was that they weren't getting enough taxes out of it. They switched from taxing on potency to taxing solely on weight, then later boosted the tax again. (106) [See note 91, (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1838 the United States Exploring Expedition, otherwise known as the Wilkes Expedition after its leader Charles Wilkes, departs. The expedition, which lasts four years and collects flora and fauna from around the world, was originally authorized in 1828 by President John Quincy Adams. The specimens collected form the basis for the first federally supported museum, located originally in the National Gallery of the Patent Office. Later these specimens were moved to the Smithsonian Institution under the direction of Joseph Henry and became a part of the National Museum of Natural History. (163) James Dwight Dana was one of the members of the expedition. (162)
In 1838 Secretary of War Joel Poinsett sent a government-sponsored expedition inspired by Charles Reynolds to explore Antarctica (as well as other parts of the world) for four years. (49)
From 1839—1842 the "Westerners" engage in the first of the Opium Wars which was fought in order to crush Chinese resistance to opium traffic exploitation. (1) Mid-way through 1839, the Chinese introduced a determined new program to eliminate the use of opium. The subsequent destruction of a large amount of Indian opium by the Chinese led directly to the conflict. (122) [See also 1856]
In 1839 the Chinese burn 3,000 tons of opium, to the relief of oversupplied British traders. (6)
In 1839, for the first time a disease is traced to a parasitic organism. (Schoenlein, fungal infection of scalp). (6)
In 1839 Peirre-François Verhulst developed the logistic model of population growth. (105)
In 1839 the homeopathy journal American Provers Union publishes first report on effects of cannabis. (89), (124)
In 1839, Congress established the Agricultural Division within the U.S. Patent Office and allotted $1,000 for "the collection of agricultural statistics and other agricultural purposes." (315) Such other purposes also included conducting agricultural investigations, and distributing seeds. (94) Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale educated attorney, was originally appointed the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office in 1837. (315) By 1845 Ellsworth's patent office was performing the functions of a full-fledged agricultural bureau. For this accomplishment Ellsworth earned the sobriquet "Father of the United States Department of Agriculture" (316) Ellsworth's efforts in collecting and distributing seed to farmers at his own expense, his report to Congress, and requests for support for agriculture were major factors in the 1839 appropriation. Additional appropriations of $1,000 in 1842, $2,000 each in 1843 and 1844, and $3,000 in 1845 were a result of Ellsworth's continuing efforts. (318) [See 1836, 1852]
In 1839 Robert Owen's son, David Dale Owen is appointed United States Geologist. (247), (248)
By 1840 the opium trade was causing serious economic problems for China, as a large portion of its silver reserve was being drained to buy Indian opium. (122)
From 1840 to 1900, during cannabis' heyday, more than one hundred papers were published in the Western medical literature recommending it for various illnesses and discomforts. (123)
From 1840 to 1880 organic chemistry was linked to physiology; led to development of physiological chemistry. (82)
In the 1840s American's annual consumption of opium was 12 grains per person. (44)
During the 1840s Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh warns of the destructive impact of human activity on the land, and advocates a conservationist approach to forest management. (95) [See 1864]
In 1840 Louis Agassiz publishes "an epoch-making work", Etudes sur les glaciers, which expanded on assertions made in his address given in 1837. Another important work, Systeme glaciaire follows in 1847. (162)
In 1840, after the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science during which Louis Agassiz first meets Charles Darwin, Darwin wrote Agassiz: "I have enjoyed reading your work on glaciers, which has filled me with admiration". (162)
In 1840 the federal government develops the earliest known system for classifying mental illness, the U.S. census, which has one category: idiocy, which includes insanity. By 1880, there are seven categories: mania, melancholia, monomania, paresis, dementia, dipsomania and epilepsy. (116)
In 1840 Justus von Liebig's Thierchemie was published. It united the fields of chemistry and physiology. (105) Translated as Organic Chemistry and its Application to Agriculture and Physiology. (110) [See 1842]
In 1840 the Baltimore Dental College graduates swore not to use mercury amalgam. (6)
In 1840 roughly 70% of citizens in the U.S. have independent livelihoods. (6)
In 1840 the National Institution for the Promotion of Science is established in Washington, DC. Its Officers include: Directors Secretary of War, Joel R. Poinsett and Secretary of the Navy, Jas K. Paulding, Councillors John Q. Adams, J. J. Abert, Joseph G. Totten, A. McWilliams, M.D., A. O. Dayton, W. J. Stone, F. Markoe, Jr. and Pishey Thompson. Benjamin Silliman is an honorary member. Other members included: David Dale Owen, Albert Gallatin, Alexander Dallas Bache and Joseph Henry. (275)
In 1840 the Association of American Geologists was founded in Philadelphia as "… the first professional scientific society in the Country. Among the prime movers were Edward Hitchcock and Henry Darwin Rogers, a geologist from Pennsylvania, as well as his brother, William Barton Rogers of the University of Virginia, who later became the first president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." (276) Present at the meeting which took place on April 2nd at the Franklin Institute were the following: Edward Hitchcock (chairman), Lewis C. Beck (secretary), Henry D. Rogers, Lardner Vanuxem, William W. Mather, Walter R. Johnson, Timothy A. Conrad, Ebenezer Emmons, James Hall, Charles B. Trego, James C. Booth, M. H. Boye, R. E. Rogers, Alexander McKinley, C. B. Hayden, Richard C. Taylor, Douglass Houghton and Bela Hubbard. It was unanimously voted that Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale would serve as chairman of the next meeting to be held in 1841. In 1842 the association's name is changed to the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in order to accommodate a wider membership and in 1848 it is changed once again to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In 1841 the Reading Pathological Society is formed as the oldest society in Great Britain devoted to pathology. (1) [See note 8]
In 1841 the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was formed. In order to retail, dispense, or compound "poisons," or to assume the title of chemist, druggist, pharmacist, or dispensing druggist or chemist, the individual had to be registered by the Pharmaceutical Society. As well as being the testing and registering body, the Society was also given the initial responsibility for adding new drugs to the poison list. (91)
In 1841 Clinton Roosevelt writes The Science of Government Founded on Natural Law, outlining the Illuminati plans for the regimentation of mankind under the control of the "enlightened ones" and the destruction of the Constitution. (6)
In 1841 Dr. W.B. O'Shaughnessy's On the Preparation of the Indian Hemp or Ganja introduces cannabis to western science. (89) This introduced cannabis into the Western pharmacopoeia. (104) In a report published in 1839 [likely the same one] he wrote that he had found tincture of hemp, (a solution of cannabis in alcohol, taken orally) to be an effective analgesic. He was also impressed with its muscle relaxant properties and called it "an anticonvulsive remedy of the greatest value" (123) [See note 64]
On July 30, 1841 Richard Owen, England's foremost expert on the saurian species, presented a historic paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science formally classifying for the first time a new group of fossil reptiles—the dinosaurs, or "terrible lizards." (426)
On December 15, 1841 the Agricultural Society of the United States was organized, having for its objects "to improve the condition of American husbandry and from its central position to serve as a medium of communication and of action with other agricultural societies throughout the Union." Among other things, the society was to make efforts to obtain funds for the establishment of an agricultural school in the District of Columbia with a course of public lectures on agriculture and the sciences, and an experimental farm. For this purpose the society made an attempt to secure the fund which was finally used for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, but was unsuccessful. [Patent Office] Commissioner [Henry Leavitt] Ellsworth took an active part in the formation and work of this society, the movement for which had been instituted under the leadership of Solon Robinson, of Indiana. Though a number of men prominent in agricultural affairs took part in its organization, the society did not receive substantial support and came to its end after the second meeting, held at Washingon, May 4 and 5, 1842. (441) This convention was called in 1840 by Solon Robinson, agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, and others. Henry Leavitt Ellsworth presented the petition for securing the funds to Congress. (302)
From 1842 - 1890 extracts and derivatives of the hemp plant are the second and third most prescribed medicines in the U.S.A. Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Squibb, Brothers Smith and other firms produce these medicines through 1930. During this time, not one death or severe side-effect is attributed to use. (28) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1842, as a result of China's defeat in the Opium War of 1839-1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed by the Chinese and the British which opened Chinese trading ports, including Hong Kong, and ended the Chinese anti-opium crusade. (122)
In 1842 Matthias J. Schleiden and in 1847, Theodor Schwann synthesized their own observations along with known information to reach a reasonable understanding of plant and animal cell structure. Their work established the theory that the cell is the basic unit of all life, helping to create the new general study of biology. (87)
In 1842 Justus von Liebig published Organic Chemistry in its Application to Physiology and Pathology. He died in 1873 having left an extensive legacy to the chemical world. He was one of the most influential chemists of the nineteenth century, and he laid the groundwork for the extensive research in organic chemistry that was to characterize the latter half of the nineteenth century. (110) Justus von Liebig along with Pflueger ( 1875), Hoppe-Seyler ( 1876), and Lebedow ( 1888) in succession showed the important relationship between the essential fatty acids present in unrefined linseed oil, and the amino acids. What they found was that laboratory animals inevitably died on a high protein diet devoid of fats, and died on a high fat diet devoid of proteins. But when the animals were fed unrefined linseed oil and protein together, they quickly recovered robust health and vitality. (42) He and the other men showed a clear connection between oil and protein on one hand, and oxygen uptake and biological oxidation in tissues on the other hand. (13) [See 1840, (EFAs Previous, Next)]
In 1842 Johann Japetus Steenstrup described the alternation of sexual and asexual generations in plants and animals. (105)
In 1842 Louis Agassiz's idea of visiting America came closer to realization when his "Alpine companion" and naturalist friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, prince of Canino proposed that the two men journey to the United States together to study the flora and fauna of the New World. Bonaparte had offered to pay all of Agassiz's expenses; however, due to illness he was unable to make the journey. (162)
In 1842 Albert Gallatin created and became the first president of the American Ethnological Society. (49)
In 1843 a systematic study of starvation on the body was made by Chossat, using pigeons. (82)
In 1843 William Sweetzer of the University of Vermont writes a book titled, Mental Hygiene. (116)
In 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes observed the contagiousness of septicemia. (105)
In 1843 Justus von Liebig speculated that organic acids such as oxalic, tartaric or malic were intermediates in the production of carbohydrates by plants. (105)
In 1843 the Port of Shanghai is opened to foreign trade. The first lot in the port is rented by Britain's Jardine Mathieson & Co. Other lots are rented by Samuel Russell, an American representing Baring Brothers. Captain Warren Delano, (FDR's grandfather) becomes a member of the Canton Regatta Club, and enters into dealings with the Hong Society. Delano founds his fortune on opium trafficking into China, and later becomes the first vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. (6)
In 1843 O'Shaughnessy discovered that patients using marijuana reported a reduction in the pain of rheumatism, a "remarkable increase of appetite," "great mental cheerfulness," and a feeling of aphrodisia. The doctor also found that marijuana reduced the agony associated with rabies and reported that his patients experienced relief from the symptoms of cholera, tetanus, and epilepsy. (88) [See (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
In 1843 begins the origin of the "right and wrong" test in insanity defenses. In the McNaghten case in England it is decided "the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it that he did not know he was doing what was wrong." Daniel McNaghten is thus found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. This is the genesis of the "McNaghten Rule"—a person is innocent by reason of insanity if, as a result of a defect in his reasoning ability, he was unable to tell right from wrong. (116)
In 1844 the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane founded. (1), (6), (352) In 1844 the first meeting is held of 13 U.S. hospital superintendents, (Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane) whose association will later become the American Psychiatric Association. They immediately adopt a resolution against abolishment of restraint. (116) The American Psychiatric Association was founded (in 1844). (1)
In 1844 Charles Darwin made his first sketch of the theory of natural selection. (105)
From 1845 to 1848 it was demonstrated that fats are formed in the body from carbohydrates. (82)
From 1845 to 1850 the Irish "Potato Famine" takes place. (115) [See note 62]
In 1845 Dr. Nathan Smith Davis had demanded that the Medical Society of the State of New York correct the more flagrant abuses in medical education, insisting that the four months of instruction then in vogue be increased to a period of six months. (48)
In 1845 the Lunatics Act of 1845 requires all counties and principle boroughs of England and Wales to establish procedures for the care of the insane. In two years, 36 out of 52 counties have public asylumns. (By the 1850s, women were the majority of the inmate population.) (116)
In 1845 the Oakes case in Massachusetts sets an involuntary commitment standard of "dangerous to self or others." (116)
In 1845 Psychologist and inventor of modern psychopharmacology and psychotimimetric drug treatment, Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours documents physical and mental benefits of cannabis. (89), (124) The French psychiatrist Moreau de Tours published his investigation of Hashish in a fundamental scientific monograph Du hachishch et de l'alienation mentale. … He explored the use of this hallucinogen in Egypt and the Near East and experimented personally with it and other psychoactive plant substances. (127)
In 1845 Humboldt informs Louis Agassiz that Frederick William IV of Prussia, continuing the interest of the monarchy in Agassiz's career, would grant him the sum of three thousand dollars to undertake a journey to the United States, where he would study the natural history of the New World. (162)
In 1845 Alexander von Humboldt published the first of five volumes of his encyclopedic Cosmos: Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe. The final volume will be published in 1861. [See note 149]
In 1845 Spencer F. Baird is chosen Professor of Natural History at Dickinson College and the following year he became Professor of Chemistry as well. (272)
In December 1845, a bill to establish the Smithsonian Institution was introduced in the house of representatives by Robert Dale Owen of Indiana. On the 19th, the bill was referred to a select committee consisting of Robert Dale Owen, John Q. Adams, Timothy Jenkins, George Perkins Marsh, Alexander D. Sims, Jefferson Davis and David Wilmot. "These names are all prominent in American history. Mr. Adams had been President of the United States, Mr. Davis was afterward Senator from Mississippi and Secretary of War in Buchanan's cabinet and finally president of the southern confederacy, Mr. Wilmot became the author of the Wilmot Proviso, one of the landmarks in antebellum slavery agitation, in which agitation [sic] Robert Dale Owen was one of the leading figures on the abolition side." (257) [See 1835, 1846]
In 1846 the Ohio State Medical Society was formed. (1)
In 1846 tyrosine was discovered by Liebig. (82)
In 1846 the Smithsonian Institution was founded with money bequeathed to the United States by the Englishman James Smithson for the express purpose of the "increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." (1:20-698c) On the recommendation of famous physicist Henry Cavendish and others, James Smithson became a fellow of the British Royal Society. (1:20-698c) The Smithsonian Institution was established by Congress after ten years of debate. (1:20-698c) As an "establishment" the Smithsonian Institution consisted of the president of the United States, the vice president, the chief justice and the members of the president's cabinet. The act of Congress that created the institution provided that it should be governed by a board of regents composed of the vice-president and chief justice, three members of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives and six private citizens. The institution has a secretary who is its executive officer. The act also provided for a library and for a museum to contain "objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and objects of natural history, etc.," belonging to the United States. (1:20-698d) Robert Dale Owen was appointed a Regent of the new institution and a member of the executive committee. He took charge of the architectural planning and he selected the first supervisor of the Smithsonian, executive secretary Joseph Henry. (49) The bill that established the Smithsonian Institution was drafted and introduced by Robert Dale Owen. (246) Congressman and later Fish Commissioner of Vermont, George Perkins Marsh, who wrote Man and Nature—called "the fountain-head" of the conservation movement—helped to establish the Smithsonian Institution and was also appointed a Regent. (258) Some interesting persons who were regents include Benjamin Silliman, Alexander Dallas Bache, Louis Agassiz, George Perkins Marsh, Rober Dale Owen, James Dwight Dana, George Franklin Edmunds, Justin S. Morrill, Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy), Alexander H. Stevens (Vice President of the Confederacy), Lafayette Sabine Foster (who stood to become President had Lincoln's Vice President, Andrew Jonhson also been assassinated), Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Noah Porter, Asa Gray (165), (283), (448), (449) [See 1845]
In 1846 the EdinBurgh Obstetrical Society was founded in Great Britain. (1)
In 1846 the Royal Microscopical Society was founded in Great Britain. (1)
In 1846 the Pathological Society of London was founded. (1)
In 1846 the Port Phillip Medical Association, Australia, was founded. It lasted only five years. (1)
On May 11, 1846 Dr. Nathan Smith Davis convened a group of physicians in New York to form the nucleus of the American Medical Association. (48) [See 1832, 1847]
In 1846 an independent U.S. Treasury is established. (6)
In October of 1846, Louis Agassiz is welcomed to Boston by John Amory Lowell, a prominent member of the Corporation of Harvard University. Lowell was a Trustee of the Lowell Institute where Agassiz would later give numerous lectures. Agassiz's journey to the United States is made possible through "careful advance preparation." (162) [See 1835]
In April of 1846 Spencer F. Baird—soon to be Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution—travels to New Haven, Connecticut and visits with Benjamin Silliman Sr., his son, Benjamin Silliman Jr. (S&B 1837) and the elder Silliman's son-in-law, James Dwight Dana. (348) Just a year later, yet another naturalist luminary, Louis Agassiz, will likewise call on the Silliman family of New Haven. [See Agassiz 1847, note 174]
In May of 1847 Louis Agassiz makes a trip to New Haven and visits with Benjamin Silliman, his son Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (S&B 1837) and Silliman's son-in-law, James Dwight Dana. Agassiz "could not help reflecting,…on the kind treatment received from the Dana and Silliman families, attention that he had not enjoyed even in his own family environment in Neuchatel." (162) [See Silliman 1835, Baird 1846, note 174]
In September of 1847 the convention of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists is held in Boston. There, Louis Agassiz presents details of his recent research. "The assembled scientists asked him to transform their organization into one representing all phases of scientific study, and Agassiz, wise in the ways of European scolarly organization, was happy to be of service in founding the American Association for the Advancement of Science." (162) A resolution is adopted by the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists to transform itself into the American Association for the Advancement of Science. (352) [See 1849]
In 1847 the American Medical Association is founded in Philadelphia. (1), (352) [See 1846]
In 1847 George Perkins Marsh, then a U.S. Congressman from Vermont, delivers a seminal speech to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, calling attention to the destructive impact of human activity on the land, especially through deforestation, and advocating a conservationist approach to the management of forested lands. (142)
In 1847 homeopaths outnumbered allopaths, the AMA-type of doctors, by more than two to one. (48)
From 1847 to 1852 1,875,000 immigrants had entered the United States. Of this total, 920,000 escaped from the Irish famine and 487,000 were German refugees from revolutionary chaos. (49)
In January of 1847 James Dwight Dana of Yale wrote Spencer F. Baird regarding the Smithsonian Institution's upcoming need of a museum curator. In the letter, Dana informs Baird that: "I have just written Dr. Pickering that you would make a good curator for the Smithsonian Institution. What do you say to it? Salary, $1500.00, with house rent, as I understand. If you wish such a situation you should write at once and send your credentials to Professor Henry, and enclose a copy also to Hon. R. D. Owen, who is one of the Regents. I would give you all of my influence and the best recommendation..." (348) [See Baird 1850]
On May 1, 1847 the cornerstone of the Smithsonian Institution is laid by Benjamin B. French, the Grand Master of the District, assisted by the officers of the Grand Lodge, and having present with him as aides the Grand Master of Pennsylvania and the Grand Master of Maryland. The procession preceding the event was a notable one, and embraced a large concourse of distinguished Masonic individuals and delegations from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Among those present at the ceremonies were the President of the United States, Brother James K. Polk; the Vice President of the United States, Brother George M. Dallas; the Regents of the Institute, Past Grand Masters, and others. (444)
In 1848 Rockefeller interests establish prime goal of control of U.S. medical system. (6)
In 1848 volunteer weather observers are recruited through the Smithsonian Institution. (136)
In 1848 Dr. Semmelweis at the University of Vienna Medical School cuts infant deaths by requiring doctors to wash their hands. He is subsequently fired. (6)
In 1848 Carl Theodor Ernst von Siebold established protozoa as the basic phylum of the animal kingdom. (105)
In 1848 John Brown—of Harpers Ferry fame—came to live on Gerrit Smith's one million acres which had been inherited from the days of his partnership with John Jacob Astor. (49)
In 1848 the Oneida Community is founded in Oneida, New York by John Humphrey Noyes. (194)
In 1848 Spencer F. Baird "obtained from the Smithsonian Institution one of its first grants for the promotion of original research, which was to be applied to the exploration of bone caves in Pennsylvania. These caves, and especially some in the vicinity of Carlisle, always had a great attraction for Professor Baird, and he often spoke of his desire to go back and take a rest from routine work by continuing their exploration." (272) "The first grant made by the (Smithsonian) Institution for scientific exploration and field research was in 1848 to Spencer F. Baird, of Carlisle, for the exploration of the bone caves and the local natural history of Southeastern Pennsylvania." (273)
From 1849 to 1856 Claude Bernard clarified digestive action of pancreatic juices. (82)
From 1849 to 1857 Claude Bernard demonstrated the glycogenic function of the liver. (82)
In 1849 William A. Rockefeller bills himself as a "cancer specialist" and sells petroleum based products as cure for cancer. (6)
In 1849 the American Association for the Advancement of Science was founded. (82) [see 1847]
In 1849 the U.S. Department of the Interior was established. (95) The U.S. Patent Office, with its Agricultural Division, became a part of the newly established department. (318)
In 1849 pernicious anemia was described by Addison. (82)
In 1849 Henri Victor Regnault and Jules Reiset published extensive comparative studies of respiration and calorimetry. (105)
In 1849 the Smithsonian Institution supplies weather instruments to telegraph companies and establishes extensive weather observation network. (136)
In 1849, during the Constitutional Convention, William C. Bullitt, a delegate to the convention stated "Take away slaves and you destroy the production of that valuable article [hemp], which is bound to make the rich lands of Kentucky and Missouri still more valuable." (106) J.F. Hopkins wrote in History of the Hemp Industry in Kentucky, "Without hemp, slavery might not have flourished in Kentucky, since other agricultural products of the state were not conducive to the extensive use of bondsmen. On the hemp farm and in the hemp factories the need for laborers was filled to a large extent by the use of Negro slaves, and it is a significant fact that the heaviest concentration of slavery was in the hemp producing area." (106) "Although working in the hemp fields was backbreaking toil, many slaves preferred it to other kinds of labor since it was task work. Under the task system, the slave was given a fixed amount of work for the day. If he finished his work, he could spend his remaining time as he wanted. A slave could even earn money on the task system… For every pound of hemp over the 100 pounds he was required to break per day, the slave was paid once cent. A good worker could break about 300 pounds, so it was possible to earn about two dollars a day. Some slaves earned enough money in this way to buy their freedom." Cotton was grown under the gang system, "under the watchful eye of a driver whose job it was to get as much work out of each field hand as possible." Hemp factory labor was also task work. (106) [See 1810, 1850, (Cannabis Prohibition Previous, Next)]
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