Everything about Ernst Dieffenbach totally explained
Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach (
Gießen January 27,
1811 - Gießen
January 10,
1855) was a
German physician, geologist and
naturalist, the first trained scientist to live and work in
New Zealand, where he travelled widely under the auspices of the
New Zealand Company, returning in 1841–42 and publishing in English his
Travels in New Zealand in 1843.
Dieffenbach had gained a degree at the university of Giessen and then, accused by authorities in the
Grand Duchy of Hesse of being subversive, he fled, first to
Zurich, where he received a degree in medicine before being expelled in 1836 for politics and
duelling; in 1837 he arrived in London, where he eked out a living teaching German, but gained a reputation by his contributions to medical and scientific journals and made friendships with geologists
Charles Lyell and
Richard Owen among others. Recommendations put him aboard the
Tory bound for New Zealand, travelling in the capacity of surgeon, surveyor and naturalist.
During the 1840s he was a correspondent of
Charles Darwin, whose
Journal of Researches Dieffenbach translated into German and published, with Darwin's notes and corrections, as
Naturwissenschaftlichen Reisen (Brunswick, 1853). Darwin knew Dieffenbach's paper on the
Chatham Islands, contributed to the journal of the
Royal Geographical Society, and he particularly noted Dieffenbach's commentary on the differences between the species of birds there and in New Zealand. Dieffenbach also translated the
Geological Manual of
Henry De la Beche. Partly as a result of these efforts, in 1850 he was named adjunct professor of geology at
Gießen, a post he held until his death.
The extinct Dieffenbach's Rail,
Gallirallus dieffenbachii, a flightless
rail formerly endemic to the Chatham Islands, was named after him. The plant genus
Dieffenbachia also commemorates him.
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