The year 1863 in science and technology involved
some significant events, listed below.
== Chemistry ==
Friedrich Bayer founds the chemical manufacturing
company of Bayer at Barmen in Germany.
Teerfarbenfabrik Meister, Lucius & Co. of
Höchst (Frankfurt) in Germany produce a green
dye from coal tar.
== Life sciences ==
Max Schultze advances cell theory with the
observation that animal and vegetable protoplasm
are identical.
The first outbreak of phylloxera on the European
mainland is observed, in the vineyards of
the southern Rhône region of France.
Henry Walter Bates publishes The Naturalist
on the River Amazons.
== Medicine ==
February 17 – First meeting of what will
become the International Committee of the
Red Cross is held in Geneva, Switzerland,
following the lead of humanitarian Henry Dunant.
William Banting publishes Letter on Corpulence,
Addressed to the Public in London, the first
popular low-carbohydrate diet.
Ivan Sechenov publishes Refleksy golovnogo
mozga ("Reflexes of the brain").
== Meteorology ==
The Paris Observatory begins to publish weather
maps.
== Paleontology ==
Richard Owen publishes the first description
of a fossilised bird, Archaeopteryx.
== Physics ==
January – John Tyndall first explains the
workings of the greenhouse effect.
== Technology ==
February 10 – Alanson Crane patents a fire
extinguisher.
July – The tiny Confederate States of America
hand-propelled submarine H. L. Hunley is first
tested successfully (although thirteen crew
– including her inventor Horace Lawson Hunley
– are lost in two sinkings later in the
year).
October 23 – The Ffestiniog Railway in North
Wales introduces steam locomotives into general
service, the first time this has been done
anywhere in the world on a public railway
of such a narrow gauge (2 ft (60 cm)).
December 19 – Linoleum patented in the United
Kingdom.
== Events and institutions ==
March 3 – National Academy of Sciences incorporated
in the United States.
Summer – The Chōshū Five leave Japan secretly
to study Western science and technology in
Britain, at University College London, part
of the ending of sakoku.
November 29 – Polytechnic University of
Milan founded as the Istituto Tecnico Superiore.
== Publications ==
January 31 – The first of Jules Verne's
scientifically inspired Voyages Extraordinaires,
the novel Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks
in a Balloon), is published in Paris.
== Awards ==
Copley Medal: Adam Sedgwick
Wollaston Medal for Geology: Gustav Bischof
== Births ==
March 25 – Simon Flexner (d. 1946), American
pathologist and bacteriologist.
April 29 – Signe Häggman (d. 1911), Finnish
pioneer of physical education of the disabled.
May 14 – John Charles Fields (d. 1932),
Canadian mathematician.
July 12 – Paul Drude (d. 1906), German physicist.
October 16 – Beverly Thomas Galloway (d.
1938), American plant pathologist.
Undated – Cuthbert Christy (d. 1932), English
medical investigator, zoologist and explorer.
== Deaths ==
March 7 – Charles Wilkins Short (b. 1794),
American botanist.
July 21 – Josephine Kablick (b. 1787), Czech
botanist and paleontologist
