1752 in science

Biology

• Establishment of Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, the world's oldest zoo.

  Chemistry

• Thomas Melvill delivers a lecture entitled Observations on light and colours to the Medical Society of Edinburgh, a precursor of flame emission spectroscopy.
• Dmitry Ivanovich Vinogradov and Mikhail Lomonosov advertise the first hard-paste porcelain to be produced in Russia.

  Electricity

• Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment determines that lightning is an electrical phenomenon.

  Mathematics

• Euler gives his formula for the number of faces, edges and vertices in a polyhedron.

  Medicine

• Foundation of what will become the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a cottage hospital in Garden Street, Manchester, England, by Charles White.
• John Pringle publishes Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison in London, a pioneering text in modern military medicine.
• Approximate date – James Ayscough begins experimenting with tinted lenses in spectacles.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: John Pringle

  Births

• May 9 – Antonio Scarpa, Italian anatomist
• May 11 – Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German physiologist and anthropologist
• July 6 – John Sheldon, English anatomist
• July 7 – Joseph Marie Jacquard, French inventor
• July 23 – Marc-Auguste Pictet, Swiss physicist
• September 18 – Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician
• Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre, French naturalist

  Deaths

• January 4 – Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician
• February 9 – Frederik Hasselquist, Swedish traveller and naturalist
• April 10 – William Cheselden, surgeon