1870 in science
overview of natural science-related events during the year of 1870

The year 1870 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Biology
January 18 – Gerhardt Krefft first describes the Queensland lungfish, in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Charles Valentine Riley confirms Phylloxera as the cause of the Great French Wine Blight.
Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz postulates that the number of ova in the female is fixed.
Chemistry
Norman Lockyer and Edward Frankland propose that the gas detected in solar observations should be called 'helium'.
Mathematics
Felix Klein constructs a model for hyperbolic geometry establishing its self-consistency and the logical independence of Euclid's fifth postulate. (Note: Eugenio Beltrami had previously given such a model in 1868.)
W. Stanley Jevons publishes the popular textbook Elementary Lessons on Logic.
Medicine
Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease.
Henry Maudsley publishes his lectures on Body and Mind: an Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influence.
Frances Morgan becomes the first British woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from a European university, the University of Zurich.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1870 in science” as overview of natural science-related events during the year of 1870. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as overview of natural science-related events during the year of 1870. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 20, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2810451. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1870 and 1868.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1870 in science”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1870 in science primary sources, 1870 in science archive and science research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1870 in science”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1870 in science” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.