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Darwin Correspondence Project

Karl Ernst von Baer

1792–1876

Estonian zoologist and embryologist. Professor of anatomy at Königsberg University, 1819; professor of zoology, 1826–34. Professor of zoology at the Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, 1834–67. Demonstrated the existence of the mammalian egg, 1826. Propounded the influential view that embryological development proceeds from the general to the specific. Foreign member, Royal Society of London, 1854.

Sources

DSB

NDB

Record of the Royal Society of London.

Bibliography

DSB: Dictionary of scientific biography. Edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie and Frederic L. Holmes. 18 vols. including index and supplements. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970–90.

NDB: Neue deutsche Biographie. Under the auspices of the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 27 vols. (A–Wettiner) to date. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 1953–.

Record of the Royal Society of London: The record of the Royal Society of London for the promotion of natural knowledge. 4th edition. London: Royal Society. 1940.

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