Dodel, Arnold, 1843-1908

Arnold Dodel-Port (16 October 1843, Affeltrangen – 11 April 1908, Zurich) was a Swiss botanist and forceful advocate of Darwin's evolutionary theory. He studied biology at the University of Geneva, at the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1869, he received his doctorate from the University of Freiburg. In 1870, he obtained his habilitation at the University of Zurich, where from 1883 to 1903, he served as a full professor of botany. At the University of Zurich, he founded a botanical microscopy laboratory. He was a freethinker and socialist, published works to further the cause of Darwinian evolution, and became one of the most prominent popularizers of science in the German-language realm. During his lifetime, he maintained correspondence with Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel. One of his students was Hugo Iltis.