Samu Bartsch

* Igló, September 29, 1845 – † Baja, January 19, 1895 / zoologist, college teacher ; ; His father, Sámuel Bartsch, was a master locksmith. His son began his elementary school studies in his hometown, and as noted, he was not only a diligent but also a talented student. He also completed the first four grades of high school in Igló, one of his favorite teachers was Lajos Tavasi. He completed the four upper grades of high school in Prešov in 1863, where, at the urging of Frigyes Ákos Hazslinszky (Márk Kés), his interest turned to natural history, but he nevertheless graduated in theology in Prešov. He worked as a tutor for the Plachy family in Prešov for two years, while also studying natural sciences. In 1868, he enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin (the predecessor of today's Humboldt University), where he attended mathematics and natural science lectures. ; Later in Tübingen he primarily dealt with botany and zoology, and during his study trips to Western Europe he regularly made notes and kept a diary of his experiences. He was particularly interested in rotifers, and his first extensive work in German, written in 1870, which was also his doctoral dissertation, was also about rotifers (Hungarian title: A keresvérgek Tübingenben meszört fajai). After his return home, from 1870 he worked as the director of the Nyíregyháza ev. teacher training school. However, he resented the fact that he also had to teach education. In Nyíregyháza he made friends with his colleague Géza Emericzy, who later died in Igló, and who became known primarily as a pedagogical writer. In 1871 he was appointed a full professor at the Baja State Teacher Training Institute and together with his students he compiled a valuable plant and animal collection for educational and illustrative purposes, but this was later lost. In 1873, he also obtained a secondary school teaching certificate and got married: he married the 16-year-old daughter of the founder and president of the Hungarian Song and Music Association of Baja, Hengl Adolf, for whose sake he even learned to play the cello so that she could play in his father-in-law's string quartet. In the meantime, he studied the rotifers of the Lower Danube and Tisza rivers on behalf of the Natural History Society, and reported on this in 1876 in his paper Rotatoria Hungariae, A sodróállátták Magyarós megyert fajaik. In 1878, he was appointed director of the Baja teacher training school, so he had less time for scientific work. He regularly published articles on ornithology and education, and corresponded with Otto Hermann. Towards the end of his life, his eyesight also deteriorated, and this was accompanied by serious kidney disease. He suffered several strokes and was not even 50 years old when he passed away.