Tomáš Hermann – Uwe Hoßfeld – Michal Šimůnek:
History of Biology and its Grande Dame Ilse Jahn (1922–2010)

Abstract

The article reviews the life and research contributions of historian of biology Ilse Jahn. It concentrates on her epochal work History of Biology: Theory, Methods, Institutions, Biographies (Geschichte der Biologie. Theorien, Methoden, Institutionen und Kurzbiographien), published 1982, and briefly evaluates the foundations of her prominent contributions to the twentieth-century history of biology. The beginning of the historiography of biology is found in the awareness of the crisis in the life sciences at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (represented by the work of Czech philosopher and biologist Emanuel Rádl). The work of Ilse Jahn crowns the process of the professionalizing the discipline.