Beschreibung:

Polar Awards from the Collection of Glenn M Stein, F.R.G.S. A rare “Challenger Medal” awarded to Dr. George Busk, a noted scientist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, who successfully nominated the latter for the Royal Society’s coveted Copley Medal Medal for the Expedition of H.M.S. Challenger 1872-76 and the subsequent scientific reports 1886-95, Neptune, left hand holding a triangle and the right arm encircling a trident and resting on a wreath, below which, the helmeted bust of Britannia left, surrounded by dolphins and mermaids, with inscription on ribbon below, ‘Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger, 1872-76’, reverse, armoured medieval knight left with gauntlet at his feet, a ribbon in part entwined around a trident bears the inscription, ‘Report on the Scientific Results of the Challenger Expedition 1886-95’ (George Busk), 75mm., bronze, good very fine £400-500 Footnote Medallic References: B.H.M. 3487 and Eimer 1797; a total of 120 such awards were issued, The Challenger Medal Roll (1895), by Glenn M. Stein, F.R.G.S., recording only eight known examples, some of which are still in family hands, while others reside in institutions - Busk's example was issued posthumously on 23 December 1895. George Busk was born in St. Petersburg in August 1807, the second son of Robert Busk, a merchant in that city. After receiving his initial education at Dr. Hartley's School, Bingley, Yorkshire, Busk studied medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. Thereafter, he spent six years as an articled student with George Beaman, under the aegis of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Appointed to the Seamen's Hospital Society (S.H.S.) in 1831, having served briefly as Apothecary on the Society's first hospital ship, the Grampus, Busk joined the 104-gun ship Dreadnought as an Assistant Surgeon in the following year, aboard which ship he ‘worked out the pathology of cholera, and made important observations on scurvy’: he was to remain a Surgeon with the S.H.S. for nearly 25 years, until retiring from surgical practice in 1855, though he held the post of Consulting Surgeon from 1866 until his death 20 years later. In December 1843, Busk became one of the original 300 Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons. Besides his eventual Presidency of the same body in 1871, he subsequently occupied many influential positions in several learned scientific institutions, among them the Microscopial Society, Linnean Society, Zoological Society, and the Anthropological Institute, while in 1850 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Darwin connection Early in life he had established himself as a leading authority on Polyzoa, and as with all things he studied, was a patient and cautious investigator. The author of several works on varied scientific subjects, and a solid artist, he also wrote and drew about Polyzoa specimens brought back by Charles Darwin on the Beagle, the 1875-76 Arctic Expedition, and of course, Challenger. Indeed Busk was deeply involved in the debate on the theory of evolution and some sources state that he read the joint Darwin-Wallace paper at a meeting of the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858 - the paper was an important prelude to Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection (1859) - but more recent research suggests it was the Society’s Secretary who read out the paper. Be that as it may, Busk did translate into English Professor Schaaffhausen's detailed description of a cranium discovered in the Neander Valley in 1857, two years before publication of Darwin's Origin, a translation that duly appeared in The Natural History Review for April 1861. In his related publication, The Neander Valley, Robert Silverberg states: ‘[Busk] addressed a group of English scientists that same month, displaying a plaster cast of the Neanderthal skull and a skull of a chimpanzee. He said he had "no doubt of the enormous antiquity" of the Neanderthal bones, and called attention to the way the shape of the skull approached "that of some of