The Zoologist/4th series, vol 1 (1897)/Issue 673/Obituary: Johann Japetus Simon Steenstrup
OBITUARY.
Johann Japetus Simon Steenstrup.
The death is announced at Copenhagen of Dr. Steenstrup, formerly Professor of Zoology at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Museum of that city. Dr. Steenstrup was born in 1813, and had thus reached the eighty-fifth year of his life. He published much on Natural History, but he will be principally remembered by his work on the subject of "Alternation of Generations." Our best course is to quote Geddes and Thomson on this point. "The progress of marine zoology and the study of parasitic worms gave naturalists like Sars, Dalyell, Loven, Von Siebold, and Leuckart early glimpses of many alternations in life-history, but Steenstrup was the first to generalise the results. This he did (1842) some twenty years after Chamisso, in a work entitled 'On the Alternation of Generations; or, the Propagation and Development of Animals through Alternate Generations, a peculiar form of fostering the young in the lower classes of animals." In 1849, Owen submitted this essay to stern criticism, and subsequently "the labours of some of the foremost naturalists have both extended Steenstrup's observations and rendered them more precise."
The late Professor also studied the prehistoric remains found in his own country, both as regards fauna and flora, and in 1866, in conjunction with Sir John Lubbock, contributed a memoir to the Ethnological Society of London "On the Flint Implements recently discovered at Persigny-le-Grand." He was appointed to his zoological Professorship and Museum Directorship in 1845, previous to which he had acted as Lecturer on Mineralogy at Soröe. In 1885 he retired into private life.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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