The bust represents a young scientist with a clear vision in his face. On the sides of the pedestal are the inscriptions FOUNDER OF MODERN PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. HE WORKED IN PRAGUE 1851-1859 / BEGRÜNDER DER MODERNEN PFLANZEN PHYSIOLOGIE. ER WIRKTE IN PRAG 1851-1859. There is also a sign with a Czech-English description at the foot of the monument.
The founder of plant physiology, Julius Sachs, found himself completely destitute as a seventeen-year-old student at a grammar school after the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of both parents. Thanks to his family’s contacts in Wrocław with the world-famous naturalist Jan Evangelista Purkyně, who soon offered him help and full support by employing him as his assistant, Sachs was able to concentrate on experimental botany. But he did not neglect his drawing talent and skills either. Purkyně left the University of Wrocław for the University of Prague in 1850. But as of the winter of 1851 we can also find Sachs at the Prague address at 74 Spálená Street, where not only the Institute of Physiology but also the Purkyněs’ flat was. As Purkyně’s assistant, he prepared and drew microscopic slides and painted wall boards as teaching aids. But he participated in the experimental work of his employer and mentor at the same time.
In 1853 he also joined the first authors of the journal Živa and gradually became a renowned scholar. By 1856, we can count more than 20 of his contributions here. At the same time, he also published in the German-language journal Lotus. After defending his dissertation in 1856 and his habilitation in plant physiology in 1857, which was the first and fundamental in the field, he became completely independent. In Prague’s Myslíkova Street he devoted himself to his focused research, which won him worldwide acclaim, namely the introduction of hydroponic culture - during his observations he discovered that plants could grow well not only in soil but also in a nutrient water solution.
After leaving Prague in 1859, Sachs held scientific posts at the forestry academies in Tharandt and Bonn, as well as at the polytechnic in Chemnitz and at the University of Freiburg. From 1868 until his death he was a professor and director of the Botanical Institute of the University of Würzburg. In 1875, after three years of effort, he also published his ambitious History of Botany from the 16th Century to 1860 (Geschichte der Botanik vom 16. Jahrhundert bis 1860), which was soon translated in both English (1890) and French (1892). It is also worth mentioning that part of Sachs’s scientific estate is administered by the Archives of the National Museum in Prague.
The bust of the prominent German biologist and pioneer of experimental plant physiology was ceremonially unveiled on 6 May 2014 by the then Dean of the Faculty of Science of Charles University Bohuslav Gaš. The programme of the Sachs celebrations was prepared by Jan Krekule from the Institute of Experimental Botany of the CAS and Jana Albrechtová, President of the Czech Society of Experimental Plant Biology, in cooperation with the Department of Experimental Plant Biology of the Charles University. The afternoon programme of the festive day was complemented by an expert colloquium and the opening of the exhibition Julius von Sachs and the beginnings of plant physiology in the building of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague (6 - 28 May 2014), under the auspices of the President of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Jiří Drahoš.
Čermáková, L. – Hermann, T.: Julius Sachs jako historik botaniky. Živa, 4/2014, s. LXXVII–LXXVIII.
