159
was drawn to science and mathematics. After serving in
the revolutionary army (1792–1793), Biot entered the
newly formed École polytechnique in 1794. His wide
researches in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and sub-
fi elds like optics won him the recognition of the great
scientifi c leaders Laplace and Berthollet, who welcomed
him into the elite Société d’Arceuil around 1801. His
research and breadth of knowledge made him one of
the fi rst technical consultants in the emerging fi eld of
photography and as a member of the Académie des sci-
ences he was appointed to examine Daguerre’s, Talbot’s,
and Blanquart-Evrard’s photographic processes, among
others. A close friend of Sir John Herschel, Biot also
agreed to serve as the intermediary for Herschel’s as-
sociate William Henry Fox Talbot when Talbot brought
forward his claims of priority for a photographic process
before the Académie in 1839. It is not thought that Biot
made photographs except in an experimental capacity
and no works have been attributed to him. He died in
1862.
See Also: Herschel, Sir John Frederick William; and
Talbot, William Henry Fox.
Further Reading
Comptes rendus hebdomadaire des séances de l’Académie des
sciences, vol. VIII, 6, 170-171, 207, 302, 409-410; vol. X,
247, 288, 374, 483; vol. XI, 574; vol. XII, 182, 225, 306,
492, 1055.
Crosland, Maurice, Science Under Control, The French Académie
des sciences, 1795–1914. Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
Schaaf, Larry J., Out of the Shadows Herschel, Talbot and the
Invention of Photography. New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press, 1992.
BIOW, HERMANN (1804–1850)
German daguerreotypist
Hermann Biow was born in 1804, possibly in Hamburg.
Initially working as a painter, lithographer and writer,
he was one of the fi rst German daguerreotypists and
opened his studio in August 1841 in Hamburg, Altona.
From 1842 to 1843 Biow worked with the photographer
Carl Ferdinand Stelzner. He evolved into a specialist
portrait photographer. Biow is also well known for
making documentary daguerreotypes of the aftermath
of the 1842 fi re in Hamburg, although only three of the
supposed forty-six made at the time survived, now pre-
served in Hamburg, (Historical Museum and Museum of
Art and Design). In 1846 Biow began practising portrait
photography in Dresden, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main,
focussing on prominent politicians, artists and scientists,
including the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Al-
exander von Humboldt and the Brothers Grimm (1847)
which were later engraved and published as Deutsche
Zeitgenossen [German Contemporaries]. Between 1848
and 1849 he daguerrotyped the Parliamentarians of the
German National Assembly in Frankfurt am Main, later
edited in an album of lithographs, Männer des deutschen
Volks oder Deutsche National-Gallerie“ [Men of the
German Nation or German National Gallery]. Biow
opened a new studio in 1849 in Dresden, but died soon
after on 20 February 1850.
Stephanie KlammBÍRÓ, LAJOS (1856–1931)
Lajos Bíró was a Hungarian natural scientist and
ethnographer, born in Tusnád, Zilah county, currently
Tusnad, Romania, in 1856. As a recognized zoologist
he travelled to New Guinea, where he stayed from Janu-
ary 1896 to December 1901. During his six years of
zoological, ornithological and entomological research,
he collected over 200,000 animals, mainly insects and
more than 6,000 pieces of ethnographical objects. He
brought back several thousand pages of notes and more
than two hundred photographs to Hungary. And upon
returning home, he worked as a natural scientist. In 1926
he was awarded as an honorary doctor of the University
of Sciences of Szeged, Hungary. He died in 1931, and
more than two hundred animal species and eighteen
genera are named after him. In deed, he discovered six
new species, which can be found in his collection of
birds and one was even named after him.
During his travels, he took documentary photographs
for scientifi c, anthropological, and ethnographical pur-
poses. His recordings made it possible to learn about
a mostly undiscovered society of the tropical island
with documentation, notes and references that are still
referenced today.
In the course of his travels, Lajos Bíró went to several
places outside Europe, like India, Ceylon, South East
Asia, Anatolia, and North Africa. He took scientifi c
photographs in Singapore, Bombay, Tunis, and Tripoli,
but the six years spent in New Guinea were what es-
tablished international reputation amongst Hungarian
scientist.
His fi rst expedition for zoological research was on
7th November 1895 to the second biggest island of the
world to continue the work begun by the Hungarian
natural scientist Sámuel Fenichel. He worked in what
was the German New Guinea when the landscape was
almost unapproachable due to the tropical climate,
impenetrable jungle, high mountains reaching into the
heights of 40,000 meters, and deep valleys. Incurable
diseases like malaria, dysentery, and smallpox af-
fl icted not only Europeans but natives, too. Therefore,
several tribes fearing epidemics, mainly in mountain
areas, lived extraordinarily isolated from each other.