Las láminas zootómicas del profesor Paul Pfurtscheller de Viena: un material científico renovador en las aulas españolas en el primer tercio de siglo XX

Abstract

Paul Pfurtscheller was one of the most widely recognized creators of didactic material in the teaching of Natural History. His zoology wall charts had an international presence in secondary schools, teacher training colleges, and even in laboratories at universities. He studied at the University of Vienna and obtained his Ph. D with a thesis on Botany. He subsequently had a prominent career as a secondary school teacher of natural history at the Franz Josef Gymnasium (High School) in Vienna, where he initially created 39 zootomic wall charts to support his teaching. Publication of his charts by the prestigious Viennese publishing house A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn and later by the Dutch publishers MartinusNijhoff spread his work throughout Europe and, via Spain and Portugal, to Latin America. After a biographical approach based on the archives found in the Austrian National Library and the University of Vienna, we have researched his role as a teacher, the genesis of his collection in relation to his pedagogical success, and its influence on Spanish classrooms of the early 20th century. The sources consulted include commercial catalogs, explanatory texts, class manuals, annual reports of researched centers, and photographs of the classrooms. These images are not merely illustrations but also objects for study and analysis of the physical space of the classrooms and the didactic role of the wall charts.