ERNERBERG, CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED. — German physician and naturalist, born in Delitzsch (Leipzig) on 19 April 1795, died in Berlin on 27 June 1876. He undertook naturalistic mission journeys in Africa and Asia.
He was one of the most versatile and profound naturalists of the 19th century; he was the first to describe the nerve cell and the structure of the spinal cord; he discovered the causes of sea phosphorescence and drew attention to the prodigious reproductive power of diatoms and the spread of microscopic life.
He is regarded as a precursor of geochemistry. In his microgeological studies on the minute living forms of the ocean depths, he took a stance against evolution, which he considered an unfounded hypothesis.
Bibl.: Works: *Organisation, Systematik und geograph. Verhaltnis der Infusionstierchen*, Berlin 1830; *Mikrogeologische Studien über das Heimat Leben der Meeres Tiefgründe aller Zonen und dessen geologischen Einfluss*, in *Abhandlung der König-Akademie d. Wiss.*, 1878, pp. 131–399. Biographical data: E. Hanstein, *Allgem. deutsche Biographie*, V, 705 sq.; W. Wernadsky, *La geochimie*, Paris 1924, pp. 267–72. Luigi Scaramella.