1793 in science

Events

• August 8 – The French Academy of Sciences is among the academies suppressed by the National Convention.
• October 24 – The French Republican Calendar, devised by Gilbert Romme, is adopted by the National Convention.

  Exploration

• July 20 – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie's 1792–1793 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean reaches its goal at Bella Coola, British Columbia, making him the first known person to complete a transcontinental crossing of northern North America.

  Biology

• June 10 – Muséum national d'histoire naturelle formally established in Paris by the National Convention of the French First Republic.
• Christian Konrad Sprengel publishes Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen in Berlin, pioneering the study of pollination ecology.

  Chemistry

• Scottish chemist Thomas Charles Hope confirms the existence of the alkaline earth metal which he names strontites; later isolated as strontium.

  Medicine

• Matthew Baillie publishes The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, considered the first systematic study of pathology and the first publication in English on it as a separate subject. He is credited with first identifying transposition of the great vessels and situs inversus.
• John Bell begins publication in Edinburgh of The Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles & Joints and Discourses on the Nature and Cure of Wounds with illustrations by himself and his brother Charles.
• Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia in the United States.
• Dominique Jean Larrey, chief surgeon of the French Revolutionary Army, creates the first battlefield "flying ambulance" service.

  Metrology

• The grave, the original name for the kilogram, is defined by the Commission of Weights and Measures of the French Academy of Sciences.

  Technology

• May 15 – Spanish inventor Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for about 360 m.
• October 28 – Eli Whitney applies for a United States patent for his cotton gin.
• Hannah Slater applies for a United States patent for her new method of producing sewing thread from cotton.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Not awarded

  Births

• April 15 – Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, Baltic astronomer
• April – Thomas Addison, English physician and scientist
• May 6 – William Dick, Scottish veterinarian
• July 13 – George Green, English mathematician

  Deaths

• April 21 – John Michell, English geologist
• May 20 – Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist
• May 26 – Eliza Lucas, American agronomist
• May 28 – Anton Friedrich Büsching, German geographer
• June 26 – Gilbert White, English naturalist
• September 26 – Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard, French mycologist
• October 16 – John Hunter, Scottish surgeon, pathologist and comparative anatomist
• date unknown – James Small, Scottish inventor