S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science

Hanau, Dr Jacob (insect collection)
Born: 12 August 1846, Giessen, Hessen, Germany. Died: 9 September 1926, Wiesbaden, Hessen, Germany. Active in: SA.

Jacob Hanau was the son of Isaak Hanau and Bettie Wormns. He studied medicine at the universities of Giessen, Berlin and Vienna, and qualified as Doctor of Medicine (MD) at the University of Giessen in 1870. His inaugural dissertation was titled Ueber die Arten von Hernien, die durch ein Hinderniss in ihrem Verlaufe gezwungen eine abnorme Richtung einschlagen (Giessen, 1870, 65p). He served as a medical assistant in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and was awarded the Hessian Sanitary Cross.

In December 1880 Hanau was licensed to practice in the Cape Colony and settled in Carnarvon, where he became the town's first district surgeon in 1884. Soon he served also on the local Library Committee, and became one of the directors of the government-aided Undenominational School. By 1895 he was a member of the Cape of Good Hope Branch of the British Medical Association.

In 1891 Hanau donated a large collection of beetles to the Albany Museum, Grahamstown. He had by that time been collecting for several years. In 1899 he became a member of the South African Philosophical Society. However, by 1907 he had returned to Germany and was living in Wiesbaden.

List of sources:
Cape of Good Hope. Report of the committee of the Albany Museum, 1891.

Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette, 9 January 1885, pp. 41-45: List of licensed medical practitioners in the Cape Colony.

FamilySearch: Jacob Hanau. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G6TS-JHL AND https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK1V-2V3H

General directory and guide book to the Cape of Good Hope and its dependencies, 1886, pp. 240-241.

Medical and Pharmacy Register for the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1893, 1907.

National Union Catalogue, pre-1956 imprints. London: Mansell, 1968-1980.

South African Medical Directory for 1897. Cape Town: Cape Times, 1897.

South African Medical Journal, 2nd series, December 1895, Vol. 3, p. 235: CGH Branch of the BMA, list of members.

South African Philosophical Society. Transactions, 1900, Vol. 11, list of members.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2024-10-08 11:55:04

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