engleski

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE WOMEN IN MICROSCOPY SCIENCES IN CROATIA…

It was not easy to be a scientist a century ago, it was certainly even more challenging to be a woman scientist. There are just a few Doctors of Philosophy from early years of the 20th century. One of those is Vjera Petaj, a passionate botanist who achieved a PhD degree with a thesis based on microscopy science. She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Royal University of Francis Joseph I in Zagreb as one of the first female students, and in her Doctoral Thesis entitled „Extrafloral nectaries on the leaves of Tree oh Heaven (Ailanthus glandulosa Desf.)“ she used microscopy techniques for the investigation of morphology, anatomy, microchemistry and biology of extrafloral nectaries of this ornamental tree. All her results were later confirmed by modern microscopy techniques and this topic is still actual, since Tree of Heaven, A. altissima (Mill.) Swingle, is a highly invasive tree, present on the IUCN list of 100 worst invasive species, and today widespread on all continents, with the highest abundancy in Europe and North America. Its allelopatic, as well as medicinal effects are widely investigated. In this presentation results of this early microscopic work will be presented, moreover an insight into a social element, particularly on the status of women in the Croatian academic community in the early 20th century will be given. In fact, legal rights of men and women in Croatia became equal only after 1905, but many years and efforts were needed to lessen differences between men and women scientific career opportunities. This paper is also a tribute to Vjera Petaj and other highly educated female scientists through an overview of their achievements a century ago. Through dr. Petaj’s research special emphasis on the relevancy of microscopic analysis and achieved results as well as on the actuality of this topic in modern science will be given.

Ailanthus altissima; history of microscopy; Vjera Petaj; extrafloral nectaries

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