Bloch

Bloch is a surname.

List of people surnamed Bloch

Bloch (company)

Bloch is a manufacturer of pointe shoes and other types of dance shoes, dance costumes, and dance fashion accessories.

History

The Bloch company was founded by Jacob Bloch, a cobbler who emigrated from Eastern Europe to Australia in 1931. Bloch began making pointe shoes in a workshop in Paddington, Sydney in 1932, when he noticed a ballet dancer struggling to stay en pointe and offered to make her an improved pair of shoes. Later, he made custom ballet shoes for Tamara Toumanova, David Lichine, Helene Kirsova, and other visiting Russian ballet dancers. With the expanding popularity of his product, Bloch began selling his pointe shoes throughout Australia.

The company has since expanded its product line with the addition of dance and street apparel and accessories. Today, Bloch's corporate headquarters are located in Sydney, Australia, with a European head office in London. It operates one flagship store and 14 other stores across Australia, one store in London and one in Paris; all other sales are conducted through independent retailers.

Marcus Elieser Bloch

Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German medical doctor and naturalist. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century.

Life

Bloch was born at Ansbach in 1723. His Jewish parents, being very poor, gave him hardly any education, so that on arriving at manhood he was almost illiterate, and till the age of nineteen could not even read German. Some knowledge of Hebrew and rabbinical literature enabled him, however, to obtain a teacher's position in the house of a Jewish surgeon in Hamburg. Here he learned German thoroughly and mastered some Latin, taking up also the study of anatomy. Scientific enthusiasm being thus aroused, Bloch went to Berlin, where, with remarkable zeal, he devoted himself to the study of all branches of natural science and medicine, being supported by some relatives.

"After taking the degree of M.D. at Frankfort-on-the-Oder in 1747, he settled in Berlin, where he established himself as a physician. He found means to collect there a valuable museum of objects from all the kingdoms of nature, as well as an extensive library. His first work of importance was an essay on the different species of worms found in the bodies of other animals, which gained the prize offered by the Academy of Copenhagen. Many of his papers on different subjects of natural history, comparative anatomy, and physiology, were published in the collections of the various academies of Germany, Holland, and Russia, particularly in that of the Friendly Society of Naturalists at Berlin."