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| Friedrich Albert Fallou & the Founding of Soil Science |
F.A. Fallou
(1794-1877) has been considered by several authors as the Father of Soil
Science. This was the subject of an article I posted earlier on this blog.
Unfortunately, this distinction has been wrongly attributed to the Russian V.V.
Dokuchaev. For this reason, the prominent Russian historian Jarilow wrote in 1904 that
"Fallou is one of humanity's forgotten best sons".
The book provides clear and strong evidence that
Fallou founded the scientific study of soil. It was authored by two retired
prominent professors, Prof. Dr. Heiner Kaden (Chemistry, Technical University
Freiberg) and Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Fiedler (Soil Science, Technical
University of Dresden). Prof. Fiedler has published numerous books and articles
on soil science and has in fact written articles on Fallou. He is thus highly
qualified to write about Fallou's works.
This is the first
publication that presents a complete picture of Fallou: his origin, childhood,
education, and professional activities particularly in the field of geology and
of course his pioneering contribution to soil science. Some of the interesting
revelations in the book include the following: a) Fallou finished his Bachelor
of Law studies from the University of Leipzig,
b) he contributed rock samples (e.g. serpentinite) to a museum of natural
history, c) he won a scientific prize for a paper he authored, d) he was
awarded a Knight's Cross First Class medal by Saxony in 1870 for his works in
geology and soil science, and e) Fallou was an introvert who lived a solitary
life.
This is a very
important book and it deserves to be translated into English so it would be
useful to students of soil science in different parts of the world.
I thank Prof. Dr.
Kaden for sending me a copy of the book. It will be an important addition to my personal collection of soil science history.
3 comments:
Great piece of information. All I thought that it was Dukuchaiv who started soil science based on what I read from textbooks by American authors. I pity Fallou. His case is closely similar to some hardworking professors who do not get the recognition they deserve. Instead, some other less hardworking and less productive get all the accolades and promotions. Ito kasi sila ay sobrang wise at saka malakas ang kapit siempre.
Monica.
Thanks for your interesting comment.
Thank you for posting the news. There is a nice article about Fallou on German wikipedia. I would love to see this book. Warm regards, Phil
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