Adolph Eduard Grube, Ph.D.

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(18 May 1812–23 June 1880)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Eduard_Grube
His obituary published in Nature (v. 22, 9 Sept. 1880 issue) reads:
By the sudden death of Prof. Grube of Breslau on June 23, zoological science has been deprived of one of its enthusiastic and veteran cultivators. Born in Konigsberg on May 12, 1812, he entered the university of that city in I831, and graduated in medicine in 1837. Thereafter he became a private lecturer on zoology in Konigsberg. In I 844 he was appointed to the Professorship of Zoology in the University of Dorpat, and lastly was transferred, in 1857, to a similar post in the University of Breslau, where he laboured till his death. He chose for the subject of his inaugural dissertation (in 1837) the structure of Pleione caruncula/a, Pallas, and it is interesting that at this early age he selected one of the group in which his chief work in after-life was accomplished; for though he published various valuable researches in other departments (e.f·• those on the Branchiapod Crustaceans), still the Annelida most benefited by his labours during the subsequent forty-three years. Moreover, he observed so carefully, as wellas laboured so industriously, that he was facile princeps in the department at his death. The bare enumeration indeed of his zoological works and papers is formidable ; and their perusal bears imperishable witness to the well-directed energy and great ability of their author. He himself, with great modesty, used to state that his work fell far short of that of the late M. Claparède, who, with a delicate physique, nevertheless accomplished a marvellous amount of valuable work, both with pen and pencil. But though perhaps less of an artist than the talented Swiss, the greater tenacity of constitution in the stalwart German, combined with his indomitable energy and perseverance throughout a longer life, enabled him to overtake a much greater amount of work, especially in descriptive zoology. The conscient ious manner in which he carried on his scientific labours is well shown in his "Familien der Anneliden" (1851), a work which even now is of great value, and indispensable to workers in the department. The same may be said of his " Entwicklung der Anneliden" (1844) and his "Annula ta ffirstediana " (1857). In his original papers in the Archiv fur Naturgesc!tichte and in the recent admirable series in the Sitzung der Schlesischen Gesellschajt, on the families of the Annelida, he demonstrated the encyclopcedian and critical knowledge which he had of the whole group in a remarkable manner, just as his " Bemerkungen iiber Anneliden der Pariser Museums" showed his great experience in discriminating the species described by others. His last large publication (a work of 300 pp., 4to, and fifteen fine plates by his tried assistant Assma n) is devoted to the numerous Philippine annelids collected by Prof. Semper, and is a lasting memorial of his accuracy and patient industry. Nor was he a zoologist who confined his researches to a single group. He was an accomplished carcinologist, and his faunistic treatises, e.g., his "Actinien, Echinodermen u. Wurmer des Adriatischen u. Mittelmeers," his "Ausflug nach Triest u. dem Quarnero," as well as his special paper s on the Echinodermata, on Peripatus and other Arthropods, testify abundantly to the breadth of his information and his unwearing efforts to advance zoological science. He was no less a thoughtful student of the labours of others than a discover of new forms ancl. an accurate original inquirer. To one who hall worked at the fauna of Siberia, at the collections made during the Novara expedition and those of the German exploring ship Gazelle, at the varied stores in the "Museum Godeffroy" of Hamburg, who had made himself familiar with the shores of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, as well as those of France and Britain,
the splendid zoological series made by H. M.S. Challenger, under the direction of Sir Wyville Thomson and his colleagues, could not just prove an irresistible attraction ; and it was this which tempted him more than anything else to make his last visit to this country in 1876, when he attended the Meeting of the British Association in Glasgow. Privately Prof. Grube was one of the most amiable and accomplished of men. Of commanding presence (he was a cuirassier in his youth), and frank and manly bearing, his fund of general information, his musical tastes, and great geniality, endeared him to all his friends. Nor was he less beloved as a teacher by his students. Full of life and work, and with an industry that never seemed to flag, he was suddenly cut off in the midst of his labours, and just as he was organising fresh researches. A full biography of Prof. Grube will appear in the Leopoldina in IIalle, but, meanwhile, it is well to indicate in this country the sense of the great loss which zoological science has sustained by the death of this eminent investigator and teacher.
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