Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold

Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold (1804 to 1885) was a German physician and zoologist, a comparative anatomist and physiologist best remembered for founding the scientific study of parthenogenesis. Born in Würzburg, he studied medicine at Berlin and Göttingen between 1823 and 1828, passed the state examination for public medical officers, and in 1831 became district physician at Heilsberg. In 1834 he was made director of the midwifery school at Danzig, where he wrote about forty zoological papers, among them work on the development of the moon jellyfish and of flukes that counted among the most important discoveries of its time. He was called to Erlangen in 1840 as professor of zoology, comparative anatomy and veterinary science, then to Freiburg in 1845, Breslau in 1850 and Munich in 1853, teaching physiology and human anatomy for a time before concentrating on comparative anatomy and zoology. His major works include a textbook of the comparative anatomy of invertebrates, a book on the freshwater fishes of central Europe, studies of intestinal worms, and his 1862 work on parthenogenesis. With Albert Kölliker he founded the Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie.