Samuel Friedrich Stein

Samuel Friedrich Nathanael (knight von) Stein (1818–1885), German zoologist and entomologist who lived and worked in Prague from 1855. He is one of 72 important personalities whose names are written under the windows of the National Museum in Prague. Samuel Friedrich Nathaniel Ritter von Stein (November 3, 1818 – January 9, 1885) was a German zoologist who worked in the field of protozoology and entomology. He was Professor at the Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry in Tharandt from 1850–55; and Professor, and later Rector, at the Charles University in Prague, from 1855–76. His scientific work focused mainly on the ciliates (then called infusoria) and he later contributed to studies on some arthropods.

Life and work Stein was born in Niemegk, near Potsdam, Brandenburg, where his father Karl Wilhelm was a pastor. He went to the local public school and also learned from his father. He aimed to study theology and was sent to high school in Wittenberg where he became interested in natural history, publishing notes in Oken's Isis as a high-school student in the period between 1834 and 1837. This included the description of a new species - Alucita pelidnodactyla (now Stenoptilia) in 1837. His father let him shift to natural sciences due to the interest he showed and he finished his Matura exam and moved to the University of Berlin in 1838. He attended the lectures of Johannes Müller and Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann, receiving support from Hinrich Lichtenstein at the museum as well. He received a doctorate in 1841 with a dissertation “De Myriapodum partibus genitalibus cum 3 tab. aeneis". He worked at the museum until 1843 when he began to teach at the municipal trade school. Here he wrote a book on plant anatomy and also on insects. He received his habilitation at the University of Berlin in 1848. Following the death of Wilhelm Ferdinand Erichson, he was made first custodian at the zoological museum in Berlin in 1849. In 1850 he was appointed as a full professor at the Royal Saxon Academy for Forestry and Agriculture in Tharandt. Here he worked mainly on insects. In 1855 he was invited by Leo Count Thun to the Imperial Austrian civil service and he moved to Charles University in Prague, where he worked until retirement. Among his students was the Archduke Ludwig Salvator. He served as the first Protestant rector Rector of the university in the 1875–76 academic year.

On May 24, 1844, in Berlin, he married Emma Johanne Couard Ottilie (December 30, 1823, Berlin – 2 September 1903, Asch), daughter of Berlin pastor Christian L. Couard. in 1854 while most others considered acinetid zoospores as parasites of the vorticellids. Stein would later be proved wrong. He also created a classification of the ciliates based on the distribution of cilia. He described some European isopods, sawflies and neuroptera.

Honors Stein was made corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1857. He received a Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order in 1869. In 1877 he was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown III class. He was ennobled on April 27, 1878, in Vienna by Emperor Franz Josef I and also appointed as a government councilor.

Works , Berlin: Brandes et Klewert, 1841 , Berlin: Reimer, 1850 , Leipzig: Engelmann, 1854 , Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann , 1859 , 1867

, 1878 , 1883 , Vienna: Staatsdruckerei, 1863