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In the guest blog, geologist and librarian Thomas Hofmann looks at natural scientists whose lives were in the service of research and ended dramatically during their scientific work.
Philipp Oberländer, born in 1875, was a passionate big game hunter. As co-owner of a cotton mill in Hronow (today the Czech Republic), the industrialist had the necessary financial resources for numerous, expensive and dangerous journeys from the far north to the tropics. His rich hunting prey and trophies gave him satisfaction and respect among others. As a patron, he donated many of the animals he killed to the Natural History Museum. "It is to his zeal that this collection owes the most additions to rare and valuable animals in the last three years," says the museum's annals (1912). Oberländer's gift list is long. A database query by Frank Zachos and Alexander Bibl from the museum's mammal collection results in 422 hits, of which 32 animals can be seen on the first floor in the rooms of the mammal collection. These include red deer, okapi, giant forest hog, gorilla, giant pangolin, ringed seal, giant eland and a polar bear.
Journalistically - he also wrote as Karl Refuß - "Through Norwegian Hunting Grounds" (1899) and "Hunting Trips in North America" (1911) are mentioned from his pen. In the latter book we see him as a cowboy with a double-barreled rifle.
Another picture shows him with three killed polar bears. The caption "Three bears in one minute" makes him seem unlikable. The martial impression is reinforced by his ambition when hunting. "I have no sympathy for repeating rifles. I have never had to regret that I only have two, albeit absolutely safe, shots at my disposal, as I only use them more carefully." But people worked differently back then; his generous donations and services to the creation of welfare institutions were the reason for him to be awarded the title of nobility in the fall of 1910.
His death on March 3, 1911 in Africa was tragic, although closely linked to his passion for hunting. According to the Neue Freie Presse on March 7, 1911, the "well-known Austrian sportsman and natural scientist Philipp v. Oberländer" was "gored and killed while hunting buffalo by a buffalo that he missed when he shot it." It sounds like an irony of fate that his body was buried south of Khartoum in Sudan, but the buffalo trophy found its way to Vienna. Hans Berko comments: "The enormous horns of the African Cape buffalo, which weigh over 30 kilograms (...) are also zoologically interesting (...) The buffalo that bore these horns killed the well-known Viennese African traveler Max [sic!] v. Oberländer."
In the Natural History Museum there are brief notes on the said Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) with the inventory number 5520. "Ph.v.O., who was hunting from Lawalla (n.lok.) 3 hours S Mongalla, shot the buffalo on March 3rd & was killed in a surprise attack; about 3 days later the buffalo was speared near G.." If he had spoken out against repeating rifles in the fall of 1910, one might have saved his life in March 1911.
Some tragic researcher deaths also have a mysterious component. Such cases leave many questions unanswered, have no answers, and at best provide material for speculation. Ernst Priesner, Viennese of the year 1934, had studied at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate here in 1959 on giant crane flies - "Food selection and food processing in the larva of Tipula maxima". The entomologist's professional positions were in Göttingen, Munich and Seewiesen in Bavaria, where he researched glass-winged birds at the Max Planck Institute there. His specialty was synthetically produced pheromones, i.e. scents to attract insects. In this field he was one of the greats.
He carefully checked the pheromone traps set up in nature to test their effectiveness. This was also the case on July 19, 1994, when he was traveling around the Pflegersee in the mountains near Garmisch-Partenkirchen - but he never came back. "Despite an intensive search by the police, mountain rescue service and friends, Ernst Priesner could not be found. All that was found was his car and around 200 pheromone traps at two sloping locations. All subsequent searches were also unsuccessful." But these lines in his obituary written by Ernst-Gerhard Burmeister in no way answer the question: What happened?
His memory remains alive with his friends and researchers, who created a befitting memorial for him: the naming of a species of glass-winged winged bird newly discovered in Anatolia, which has borne his name since 1998: Bembecia priesneri.
Telegrams rarely bring good news. Nobody had expected the message that was quickly delivered from Drenkova in Banat to the Geological Institute in Vienna on August 13, 1870. "Painful news of Schloenbach's [sic!] sudden death early this morning from a lung attack in Bersaska." Who was the deceased and what happened? The Neue Freie Presse had more detailed information on August 17th: "An apparently slight cold he suffered during an excursion about eight days ago had caused his sudden death."
Georg Justin Carl Urban Schloenbach was born on March 10, 1841 in Liebenhall near Salzgitter in Lower Saxony. His father was a senior salt mine inspector - Urban's career path was already mapped out. He began his studies in Göttingen, then moved to Tübingen, "and here he first got a taste for geological and paleontological studies both through F. A. v. Quenstedt's lively and witty lectures and through numerous excursions." In 1861 he went to Munich and in 1862 to Berlin before receiving his doctorate in 1863. A trip to France followed in 1864.
The young Schloenbach attended international conferences, matured into a promising paleontologist and came to Vienna in the spring of 1867. Here his mentor Franz von Hauer, director at the k. k. Geological Institute, a permanent position and captivated his colleagues with his scientific competence and "the most amiable demeanor". Schloenbach liked it in Vienna. The 26-year-old scientist turned down an offer to head a new mining academy in Peru. Schloenbach wanted to make a career in Vienna.
In the spring of 1870 he received an appointment to teach mineralogy, geology and paleontology at the German Polytechnicum in Prague. He accepted it and wanted to start lectures in October. But before that he went to Banat, where he wanted to finalize the previous year's geological field work in midsummer 1870. He must have overexerted himself in the “inhospitable mountains covered in primeval forests” – as his friend Emil Tietze writes. He slept outdoors, which subsequently led to "severe articular rheumatism", then "the patient's condition deteriorated rapidly and, after apparent improvement, pulmonary edema" ultimately ended fatally.
The general practitioner Richard Edl provides a contemporary interpretation of the historical findings: "It appears to have been an infection that started with severe pain in the limbs ('joint rheumatism') and then probably developed into pneumonia. I would see 'walking almost impossible' as a feverish state in the course of the inflammation, which leads to massive circulatory problems and causes a pronounced state of weakness. Pneumonia resulting in death would be plausible and easy to treat with today's medications, including antibiotics. That 'Pulmonary edema' could be interpreted as terminal heart failure, which, among other things, leads to water retention in the lungs." Urban Schloenbach lives on in the ammonite genus Schloenbachia – ad multos annos! (Thomas Hofmann, December 22, 2022)