Negeli, Carl Wilhelm von

After receiving his initial education at the Zurich gymnasium, Negeli entered the university in the same city in 1836, deciding to devote himself to medicine; soon, however, following an internal inclination, he devoted himself entirely to the study of the natural sciences and specifically botany .

In 1839, Negeli worked in Geneva with Alphonse Decandol and performed his first scientific work on the Swiss species of the genus Cirsium , for a doctoral dissertation (Zurich, 1840). After a short stay in Berlin, he spent a year and a half in Jena , made a number of valuable discoveries here and founded the magazine Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Botanik together with Schleiden . In 1842 and 1845 on the seashore in Italy, and later in England Negeli studied seaweed ; The result of these activities was the essay “Die neuern Algensysteme etc.” (1847), and two years later another valuable work on algology “Gattungen einzelliger Algen, physiologisch und systematisch bearbeitet” (1849). First privat-docent in Zurich (1842), Negeli was then an extraordinary professor there; from 1852 he is an ordinary professor in Freiburg ; Negeli here made very important studies on the anatomy and physiology of plants , studied, among other things, the structure of starch grains , which he dedicated in 1858 to an extensive monograph “Die Stärkekörner, morphologische, physiologische, chemisch-physikalische and systematisch-botanische Monographie”. Returning to Zurich in 1855, Negeli spent a short time there as a professor at a polytechnic institute and in 1857 he moved to Munich , where he remained until the end of his life as a professor and director of a botanical institute . The number of students of Negeli is comparatively very small, but some of them gained great fame and occupied a prominent place in science, like S. Shvendener , K. E. Kramer , O. Brefeld , A. Reman, and others.

Negeli was a versatile and well-educated researcher; his merits are great - and not only in botany, but in general in biology. He discovered and described a number of algae, studied their development and structure, developed the systematics of these plants; further, he discovered spermatozoa in land and water ferns , worked on the physiology of fungi and bacteria . More importantly, his research on anatomy in the physiology of cells and organs. Having studied the structure and method of growth of cell membranes, Negeli gave a new theory of the structure and growth of organized bodies in general (the theory of intussusception [introduction] and micellar structure). Science and he are obliged to him and his students important data on the method of growth of various plants, on the apical cell in spore plants and on the formation, through its division (the so-called segmentation), the stem and leaves , on the course and distribution of other plants in the vascular bundles , on the formation and root growth and much more. His book Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre (1884) contains a criticism of the Darwinian theory of natural selection , the analysis of conditions for the formation of hybrids and varieties , the theory of idioplasm as a carrier of heredity , and much more. In connection with this work, there are studies of Negeli on the systematics of the genus Hieracium (Nägeli und Peter, "Die Hieracien Mitteleuropas", 1885). Finally, Negeli’s last work concerns a very interesting, but still quite mysterious, field of phenomena that he called oligodynamic ; it was made public after his death (“Ueber Oligodynamische Erscheinungen in lebenden Zellen von C. v. Nägeli, mit einem Vorwort von S. Schwendener und einem Nachtrag von C. Cramer”, in “Denkschriften der Schweiz, naturf. Gesellschaft, . Negeli, who worked extensively on various difficult questions of science, was in some cases mistaken. Over time, some observations and considerations of Negeli were not completely or completely wrong (for example, starch grains), but much still remains the most valuable scientific asset. The desire for an exact mathematical treatment of the subject, a strictly logical sequence and clarity of thought, not limited to the narrow scope of the nearest appearance, but tending to a philosophical understanding of nature in the totality of its phenomena - these are the characteristic features of the spiritual appearance of Negeli, and his name will remain in the history of science, as the name of an outstanding botanist and thinker.

A brief but excellent sketch of his life and scientific work was presented by Schwendener (S. Schwendener, CW v. Nägeli, Berichte d. Deutschen Botan. Gesellschaft, vol. IX, 1891); his other student, Kramer, compiled a more detailed biography with a more detailed exposition of his works, especially Theorie der Abstammungslehre (v. Cramer, Leben und Wirken von CW von Nägeli, 1896). In these writings you can find a complete list of printed works of Negeli.

Negeli, Karl Wilhelm // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extra). - SPb. , 1890-1907.