Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876)

Estonian zoologist and embryologist. Professor of anatomy at Königsberg University, 1819; professor of zoology, 1826–34. Professor of zoology at the Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, 1834–67. Demonstrated the existence of the mammalian egg, 1826. Propounded the influential view that embryological development proceeds from the general to the specific. Foreign member, Royal Society of London, 1854.