Physicians and their contribution to the early history of earth sciences in Austria

Abstract

Abstract The propaedeutic character of academic studies at philosophical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy during the ‘Vormärz’-period, 1815–1848, prevented research-oriented scientific training at the universities. In 1849 the minister of education Leo Thun-Hohenstein initiated a comprehensive educational reform. The crucial improvement in the system of higher education was that the old Austrian philosophical faculties were transformed into genuine research faculties, thus facilitating scientific studies on a more progressive level. Before this fundamental reform, natural science subjects were offered only at the medical faculty at which the substantial scientific subjects, for example chemistry and natural history, were taught. Pioneers in Austrian geology therefore earned a medical degree before they changed to geology, a science in which they had to be autodidacts. Among these ‘pioneers’ were the famous bohemian balneologist Franz Ambros Reuss (1761–1830), his son August Emanuel Reuss (1811–1873), professor of mineralogy at the Universities of Prague (1849–1863) and Vienna (1863–1873), and Carl Ferdinand Peters (1825–1881), the first professor of mineralogy and geology at Graz University (1864–1881). Members of the succeeding generation include Conrad Clemens Clar (1844–1904) and Theodor Posewitz (1851–1917). These were all outstanding individuals with unique skills and expertise, successfully combining medical and earth sciences in their everyday lives.