TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 14 SEPTEMBER
On 14 Sep 1811, William Budd was born, an English physician who followed his father and five of his brothers into the medical profession. From 1841, he practiced in Bristol. At a time before Pasteur's knowledge of microorganisms, Budd recognized that the contagious disease was related to unidentified poisons that multiplied in the intestines and were passed in excretions. In a pamphlet he published, On Malignant Cholera(1849), he warned that disease was transmitted when excretions contaminated drinking water. He was inspired by the similar work of John Snow in London. With a regimen to protect Bristol's water supply from such contamination, in 1866, Budd was able to curb the epidemic spread of cholera. He studied other communicable diseases, including diptheria, scarlet fever, rinderpest and tuberculosis.
Dr. John Snow had also published a pamplet, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, just a month earlier than Dr. Budd.
Later, a Letter to the Editor by Dr. John Snow, to The Edinburgh Medical Journal was published in the Jan 1856 issue, in which you can read how he compared their ideas.
On 14 Sep 1769, Alexander von Humboldt was born, a naturalist with Einsteinian fame in his era for his daring scientific explorations covering thousands of miles through Latin America that altered the course of science. Simon Bolivar called him the “the true discoverer of South America.” Stephen Jay Gould noted he “may well have been the world’s most famous and influential intellectual.” Humboldt cataloged more than 60,000 plants, set an altitude record climbing the volcano Chimborazo, and became the first to study the great cultures of the Aztecs and Incas. In the process, he revolutionized geology and laid the groundwork for a range of modern sciences including climatology, oceanography, and geography. His work largely inspired Charles Darwin. Today's book pick is: Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey that Changed the Way We See the World, by Gerard Helferich who pays a dramatic tribute to one of history’s most audacious adventurers. If you feel sad that his name may be only vaguely familiar to you, join the author as he carves a path through the Amazon and the Andes, with the flies and mosquitoes, the crocodiles, piranha and jaguars, as Humboldt and a small but changing group of assistants lug all manner of scientific instrumentation, boxes of botanical samples and provisions over thousands of miles, through uncharted territories and back again.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $12.18. Used from $1.25. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | I shall collect plants and fossils, and with the best of instruments make astronomic observations. Yet this is not the main purpose of my journey. I shall endeavor to find out how nature's forces act upon one another, and in what manner the geographic environment exerts its influence on animals and plants. In short, I must find out about the harmony in nature. — Baron Alexander von Humboldt, German natural scientist, archaeologist, explorer and geographer (born 14 Sep 1769).  |
 | Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems. — Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher (died 14 Sep 1970). |
 | Professor Ayrton said that we were gradually coming within thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had ventured to make four years before, of a time when, if a person wanted to call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a very loud electromagnetic voice, heard by him who had the electromagnetic ear, silent to him who had it not. “Where are you?” he would say. A small reply would come, “I am at the bottom of a coalmine, or crossing the Andes, or in the middle of the Atlantic.” Or, perhaps in spite of all the calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know that his friend was dead. Think of what this would mean ... a real communication from a distance based on true physical laws. [His prophecy of cell phones, as a comment on Marconi's paper, 'Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy,' read before the Society of Arts, 15 May 1901, about his early radio signal experiments.] — William Edward Ayrton, English physicist and inventor (born 14 Sep 1847). |
 | No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources. — Margaret Sanger, American birth-control activist (born 14 Sep 1879). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
 | Ferid Murat, born 14 Sep 1936, was a co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering that a gas acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. This was an entirely new mechanism for how blood vessels in the body relax and widen. What was this gas? |
 | Robert S. Dietz, born 14 Sep 1914, was an American geophysicist and oceanographer who presented a theory of seafloor spreading in which new crustal material continually upwells from the Earth's depths along the mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward. How much new seafloor is made each year by this spreading? |
 | Born on 14 Sep 1909, the son of an Antarctic explorer, this British Naturalist founded conservation groups. From 1953-1970, he hosted the BBC TV environmental series Look. Can you name this man? |
| Deaths | |
 | A French engineer (1839-1882) invented the precursor of the dry cell now providing electrical power for such uses as portable radios. His cell (1866) used a negative zinc terminal, a positive terminal of manganese dioxide in an electrolyte solution of ammonium chloride. It was adopted by the telegraph service of Belgium. Can you name this man? |
| Events | |
 | On 14 Sep 1716, the first lighthouse in America was lit for the first time. It is now the last lighthouse to be manned in the U.S. Which harbour does it mark? |
 | In 1959, the Soviet Luna 2 became the first world's space probe to strike the moon, when it crashed east of the Sea of Serenity. How much time was taken for its flight from launch to impact? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 13: Milton Snavely Hershey • for the identification of bacteria • yellow fever, transmitted by the bite of a mosquito • foghorn • rhinoceros • yellow fever.
If you enjoy this newsletter, the website, or wish to offer encouragement or ideas, please send feedback by using your mail reader Reply button. Your click on a Facebook, StumbleUpon, or other social button on the site webpages is also a welcome sign of appreciation. Thank you for using them.
© This newsletter is copyright 2020 by todayinsci.com. Please respect the Webmaster's wishes and do not put copies online of the Newsletter — or any Today in Science History webpage. (If you already have done so, please remove them. Thank you.) Offline use in education is encouraged such as a printout on a bulletin board, or projected for classroom viewing. Online, descriptive links to our pages are welcomed, as these will provide a reader with the most recent revisions, additions and/or corrections of a webpage. For any other copyright questions, please contact the Webmaster by using your mail reader Reply button.
--
If you do not want to receive any more newsletters, Unsubscribe
To update your preferences and to unsubscribe visit this link
Social Profiles
0 comments:
Post a Comment