The year 1798 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Caroline Herschel's index and updating of Flamsteed's star catalogue is published by the Royal Society of London.[1]

Chemistry

The element beryllium is discovered by Louis Vauquelin as the oxide in beryl and in emeralds. Friedrich Wöhler and A. A. Bussy independently isolate the metal in 1828 by reacting potassium and beryllium chloride.

Demography

Thomas Robert Malthus publishes the first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population (anonymously) in London.

Mathematics

Lagrange publishes his Résolution des équations numériques, including the method of approximating to the real roots of an equation by means of continued fractions.

Medicine

Edward Jenner publishes An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae.
Charles Bell publishes A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body in collaboration with his brother John.[2]
John Dalton publishes "Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colours", describing colour blindness for the first time.[3]
Philippe Pinel publishes Nosographie philosophique, ou méthode de l'analyse appliquée à la médecine, emphasising the importance of nosology (classification of diseases) to medicine. It goes through six editions in the next ten years.[4]
Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring publishes Tabula sceleti feminini in Frankfurt am Main, the first accurate representation of the female skeleton.

Physics

Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, publishes An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction.

Technology

James Sadler introduces the table engine at the Portsmouth Block Mills in England.

Publications

The Philosophical Magazine is initiated by Alexander Tilloch to cover the field of natural philosophy; it will still be published more than two centuries later.[5]

Awards

Copley Medal: Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn, 6th Baronet; Evelyn Charles Hatchett

Births

19 January 1798 Birth of Auguste Comte in Montpellier, France

April 3 - Charles Wilkes, American navigator (d. 1877)

May 1798 Birth of Edward Joshua Cooper in Dublin ? Ireland

5 August 1798, Birth of John, Lord Wrottesley near Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England

August 17 - Thomas Hodgkin, English physician (d. 1866)
November 4 - Karl Kreil, Austrian astronomer (d. 1862)
December 28 - Thomas Henderson, Scottish astronomer (d. 1844)

Deaths

May 10 - George Vancouver, English explorer (b. 1757)
May 2 - Erland Samuel Bring, Swedish mathematician (b. 1736)
December 4 - Luigi Galvani, Italian physicist (b. 1737)

References

^ Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986). Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 0-262-65038-X.
^ Jacyna, L. S. (2004). "Bell, Sir Charles (1774–1842)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1999. Retrieved 2011-04-06. subscription or UK public library membership required
^ Dalton, J. (1798). "Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours; with observations". Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester 5: 28–45.
^ Burke, James (1985). The Day the Universe Changed. London: BBC. p. 207. ISBN 0-563-20192-4.
^ Burnett, John (2004). "Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2010-02-17.