Gustavus A. Eisen

Gustavus Augustus Eisen (August 2, 1847 − October 29, 1940) was a Swedish-American polymath. He became a member of California Academy of Sciences in 1874 and a Life Member in 1883. In 1893, he became the 'Curator of Archaeology, Ethnology, and Lower Animals' at the Academy. He later changed titles to 'Curator of Marine Invertebrates'. In 1938, he was appointed as an 'Honorary Member', which is considered the highest honor from the Academy.

Biography

Eisen was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 2, 1847. He attended school at Visby and later graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1873. He came to
California that same year to participate in a biotic survey sponsored by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He decided to make California his home and joined the California Academy of Sciences the following year.

He was known to have diverse interests, including "art and art history, archeology and anthropology, agronomy and horticulture, history of science, geography and cartography, cytology, and protozoology, as well as marine invertebrate zoology"

A 2012 article in the San Francisco Chronicle describes him as, "One of those 19th century polymaths, Eisen also studied malaria-vector mosquitoes, founded a vineyard in Fresno, introduced avocados and Smyrna figs to California, campaigned to save the giant sequoias, and wrote a multivolume book about the Holy Grail."

He is perhaps best known for his studies of oligochete worms and many species were named after him including those in the genus '' Eisenia''. In addition, he is considered to have been responsible for the introduction of the avocado and the smyrna fig to California and he wrote a detailed history of figs

He was a correspondent of Charles Darwin and his work was referenced twice by Darwin in ''The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms {{R from other capitalisation ...