Ferdinand Cohn

Biography[edit]

Ferdinand Julius Cohn was born in the Jewish quarter of Breslau in the Prussian Province of Silesia (modern-day Wrocław, Poland).^[2][3] His father, Issak Cohn, was a successful merchant and manufacturer who for some time held the post of Austro-Hungarian consul.^[1] He was the elder brother of humorist and playwright Oskar Justinus Cohn and of historian and jurist Max Conrat.^[1]


He was considered a child prodigy, and could read at the age of two. He also suffered hearing impairment from a young age. He entered the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in 1835 at the age or 6 or 7, and the University of Breslau in 1842 or 1844.^[4][3] There he studied botany under Heinrich Göppert and Christian Nees von Esenbeck.


Cohn was refused admission to the University of Breslau's doctoral program because of his Jewish background.^[3] He thus continued his studies at the University of Berlin, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1847 with a dissertation on the physiology of seeds. In it he advocated for the establishment of botanical gardens dedicated to the study of plant physiology, a vision that he later played a significant role in realizing.


He returned to Breslau in 1848 and, after a delay due to his Jewish heritage, was appointed as a privat-docent in 1850.^[1] He remained at that university for the rest of his career, obtaining the titled of professor in 1857 and, following the death of his mentor Göppert, was promoted to a full professorship in 1872.