biology

George Busk

George Busk is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand George Busk rather than just read about it. In short: George Busk FRS FRAI (12 August 1807 – 10 August 1886) was a British naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist. Early life, family and education Busk was born in St.

Key takeaways

George Busk belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect George Busk to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of George Busk from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

George Busk FRS FRAI (12 August 1807 – 10 August 1886) was a British naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist.

Early life, family and education Busk was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of the merchant Robert Busk and his wife Jane. Robert Busk was the son of Sir Wadsworth Busk, who was an Attorney General of the Isle of Man and grandfather of Anna Jane Busk (1813-1888) whose grandson, William George Lupton (1871-1911), was named in honour of George. Jane Busk's father, John Westly, was Customs House clerk in St. Petersburg. Busk studied at Dr. Hartley's School in Yorkshire. He studied surgery in London, at both St Thomas' Hospital and for one session at St Bartholomew's Hospital.

Career Busk was appointed assistant-surgeon to the Greenwich Hospital in 1832. He served as naval surgeon first in HMS Grampus. He later served for many years in HMS Dreadnought, which had fought at Trafalgar. In Busk's time it was used by the Seamen's Hospital Society as a hospital ship for ex-members of the Merchant Navy or fishing fleet and their dependants. During this period Busk made important observations on cholera and on scurvy. He founded the Greenwich Natural History Society in 1852, serving as its president until 1858. In 1855, he retired from service and from medicine and settled in London, where he devoted himself mainly to the study of zoology and palaeontology. As early as 1842, he assisted in editing the Microscopical Journal; and later he edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (1853–68) and the Natural History Review (1861–65). He was a member of the famous X-Club, founded by T. H. Huxley, which was active in revitalising science in the period 1865–1885. Busk and his wife Ellen were close friends of Huxley. Busk successfully nominated Charles Darwin for the Copley Medal, the highest award of the Royal Society, in 1864. From 1856 to 1859, he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons, and he became President of the college in 1871. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1850. Busk was an active member of the Linnean Society, the Geological Society and president of the Ethnological Society and then the Anthropological Institute (1873–74). He received the Royal Society's Royal Medal and the Geological Society's Wollaston and Lyell medals. Busk was the leading authority on the Polyzoa; and later the vertebrate remains from caverns and river deposits occupied his attention. In 1862, Busk was again in Gibraltar. He was responsible of bringing to England the Gibraltar skull (the second Neanderthal fossil ever found and the first known adult one) which was excavated at Gibraltar in 1848. The identification of the skull as belonging to a Neanderthal was not made until the 20th century.

Personal life and demise On 12 August 1843, George Busk married his cousin Ellen, youngest daughter of Jacob Hans Busk. They had two daughters. He died in London on 10 August 1886 and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London, in the northern section of the central circle.

Notes

References Aspland, Robert (1843). The Christian Reformer; or Unitarian Magazine and Review. p. 602. Keith, Arthur (1994). The Antiquity of Man. Anmol Publications. pp. 180–1. ISBN 978-81-7041-977-8. Woodward, Bernard B. (1901). "Busk, George" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). Vol. 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 357–358. Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Busk, George". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 874.

External links

Works by or about George Busk at Wikisource

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with George Busk

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what George Busk claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to George Busk before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about George Busk ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of George Busk

In research: George Busk appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses George Busk in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: George Busk is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1807 births, 1886 deaths, 19th-century British surgeons, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for George Busk outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study George Busk in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what George Busk means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain George Busk out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is George Busk in simple terms?

George Busk FRS FRAI (12 August 1807 – 10 August 1886) was a British naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist. Early life, family and education Busk was born in St.

Why does George Busk matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study George Busk?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on George Busk.