1891 in science

The year 1891 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

 * March 3 – Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, predecessor of Shoshone National Forest, in Wyoming is established as the first United States National Forest.
 * The New Zealand government sets aside Resolution Island in Fiordland as a nature reserve.
 * The New York Botanical Garden is founded in The Bronx largely due to the efforts of Nathaniel Lord Britton.
 * Jane Willis Kirkaldy and Catherine Pollard become the first women to sit final examinations in biology at the University of Oxford (and achieve first class honours).

Chemistry

 * Agnes Pockels first publishes the results of her researches into surface tension.
 * The Fischer projection is devised by German chemist Hermann Emil Fischer,

Geology

 * Hans Reusch describes what comes to be known as Reusch's Moraine in northern Norway; tillite from a Precambrian glaciation.

Environment

 * The Japan Meteorological Agency begins taking records of the global average temperature.

Mathematics

 * Fyodorov–Schoenflies theorem concluded by Yevgraf Fyodorov and Arthur Schoenflies from their work on crystallographic groups.
 * Édouard Lucas first formulates the ménage problem.

Paleontology

 * October – Eugène Dubois finds the first fragmentary bones of Pithecanthropus erectus (later redesignated Homo erectus), or 'Java Man', at Trinil on the Solo River.

Physiology and medicine

 * Julius Ludwig August Koch begins publication of Die psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten in Ravensburg, introducing the concept of psychopathology.
 * Arnold Pick first uses the term dementia praecox in this form.
 * Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz names the neuron.
 * Myxedema is first treated successfully, by George Redmayne Murray using thyroid extract.
 * The earliest recorded attempt at hip replacement is carried out by Themistocles Gluck in Berlin, using ivory to replace the femoral head.
 * Viennese pathologist Hans Chiari describes a form of Chiari malformation.

Technology

 * March 10 – Almon B. Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, is granted a patent in the United States for an automatic telephone exchange using the Strowger switch.
 * May 20 – First public demonstration of the Kinetograph moving picture system developed by W. K. L. Dickson under the direction of Thomas Alva Edison, a showing of the film known as Dickson Greeting. Edison files patents on the camera and peephole viewer on August 24.
 * Crompton & Co. introduce the electric kettle, in the United Kingdom.
 * Michelin patent the removable pneumatic bicycle tire.
 * Panhard et Levassor produce the first Système Panhard automobile layout, consisting of four wheels with front-engine, rear-wheel drive and a sliding-gear transmission, designed by Émile Levassor.
 * William Le Baron Jenney develops the construction of steel frame skyscrapers in Chicago with the Ludington, Manhattan and Second Leiter Buildings.
 * The modern taximeter is invented by Friedrich Wilhelm Gustav Bruhn in Germany.

Awards

 * Copley Medal: Stanislao Cannizzaro
 * Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Wesley Judd

Births

 * January 8 – Walther Bothe (died 1957), German physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1954).
 * January 26 – Wilder Penfield (died 1976), American-born neurosurgeon.
 * April 22 – Harold Jeffreys (died 1989), English mathematician.
 * May 15 – Fritz Feigl, (died 1971), Austrian-born Brazilian chemist
 * July 5 – John Howard Northrop (suicide 1987), American biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1946)
 * July 27 – Jacob van der Hoeden, Dutch-Israeli veterinary scientist (died 1968)
 * August 17 – Aly Tewfik Shousha (died 1964), Egyptian bacteriologist.
 * September 14 – Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov (died 1983), Russian mathematician.
 * September 24 – W. F. Friedman (died 1969), Bessarabian-born cryptanalyst.
 * October 24 – Ernest Melville DuPorte (died 1981), Caribbean-born Canadian insect morphologist.
 * November 14 – Frederick Banting (died 1941), Canadian discoverer of insulin, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1923).

Deaths

 * January 6 – Hugh Owen Thomas (born 1834), British orthopaedic surgeon.
 * February 10 – Sofia Kovalevskaya (born 1850), Russian mathematician.
 * March 9 – Amalie Dietrich (born 1821), German naturalist.
 * May 11 – Edmond Becquerel (born 1820), French physicist.
 * June 9 – Henry Edwards (born 1827), English-born American entomologist and actor.
 * June 23
 * Sir Norman Pogson (born 1829), English-born astronomer.
 * Wilhelm Eduard Weber (born 1804), German physicist.
 * August 30 – Emanoil Bacaloglu (born 1830), Romanian polymath.
 * September 18 – William Ferrel (born 1817), American meteorologist.
 * October 3 – Édouard Lucas (born 1842), French mathematician.
 * November 18 – Joseph Wolstenholme (born 1829), English mathematician.
 * December 21 – William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire (born 1808), English landowner and promoter of science.