TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 13 SEPTEMBER
On 13 Sep 1851, Walter Reed was born, the American military surgeon, pathologist and bacteriologist who led the experiments that proved that disease was transmitted by the bite of a mosquito. Thereafter sanitary efforts to eradicate mosquitos, and protection from their bite, eliminated epidemics. Of Walter Reed's 51-year life, only twelve were spent in the study which made him famous. His name remains known today, because of the major hospital named for him.
In Walter Reed: A Memoir (1904), you can read more of his accomplishments. He died from appendicitis in 1902. When Major William C. Borden operated on Reed, but could not save him, Borden worked to have a hospital named for Walter Reed. In 1951, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Walter Reed, the yet larger installation was given its present name—the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It serves the nation as a monument to a long tradition of patient care.
On 13 Sep 1833, Boston entrepreneur Frederic Tudor delivered the first imported ice to Calcutta from the USA, harvested from ponds frozen in winter. Today's book pick is: The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story, by Gavin Weightman who describes Tudor's fascinating enterprise before the time of refrigeration. This unknown part of history makes a rivetting read. Tudor created an industry and made a fortune. It began on 13 Feb 1806, when the brig Favorite left Boston harbor bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique with a cargo that few imagined would survive the month-long voyage. Packed in hay in the hold were large chunks of ice cut from a frozen Massachusetts lake. With this first venture, Frederic Tudor believed he could profit from selling ice to people in the tropics. Ridiculed at the outset, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfill his dream. Over the years, he and his rivals extended the frozen-water trade to Havana, Charleston, New Orleans, London, and finally to Calcutta, where in 1833 more than one hundred tons of ice survived a four-month journey of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the equator. The author provides a fascinating account of the birth of this unusual industry that ultimately revolutionized domestic life for millions of people.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $9.70. Used from $1.50. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
| no image | It is the business of science to offer rational explanations for all the events in the real world, and any scientist who calls on God to explain something is falling down on his job. This applies as much to the start of the expansion as to any other event. If the explanation is not forthcoming at once, the scientist must suspend judgment: but if he is worth his salt he will always maintain that a rational explanation will eventually be found. This is the one piece of dogmatism that a scientist can allow himself—and without it science would be in danger of giving way to superstition every time that a problem defied solution for a few years. — William Bowen Bonnor, British physicist and mathematician (born 13 Sep 1920).  |
| no image | Remarking about Frederick Sanger who used the new technique of paper chromotography: They are not chemists there, just a lot of paper hangers. — Sir Robert Robinson, English chemist (born 13 Sep 1886). |
 | We may fondly imagine that we are impartial seekers after truth, but with a few exceptions, to which I know that I do not belong, we are influenced—and sometimes strongly—by our personal bias; and we give our best thoughts to those ideas which we have to defend. — August Krogh, Danish physiologist and zoologist (died 13 Sep 1949). |
| 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 | |
 | An American manufacturer was born 13 Sep 1857 who in 1903 began building what became the world's largest chocolate manufacturing plant. He used his fortune philathropically. Can you name this man? |
| | Hans Christian Joachim Gram, a Danish pharmacologist and pathologist, born 13 Sep 1853, invented the Gram stain. What is the Gram stain's use? |
| | Walter Reed, born 13 Sep 1851, was a US Army pathologist and bacteriologist. In Jun 1900, Reed headed a board to investigate the infectious diseases of Cuba, and one in particular. The same disease invaded the U.S. ninety times, sweeping large and small towns. His work overcame further epidemics of that fatal disease. He died in 1902. Combatting which disease is regarded as his great achievement? What was its cause? |
| Deaths | |
 | Robert Hope-Jones (1859-1914) was a British-American organ builder whose innovations created the theatre organ and its orchestral sounds. He also patent a device still in use at lighthouses today. Which device used at lighthouses did he invent? |
| Events | |
 | On 13 Sep 1826, the first animal of its kind to be exhibited in the U.S. was shown at Peale's Museum and gallery of the Fine Arts in New York City. An advertisement described, “its body and limbs are covered with a skin so hard and impervious that ... it will turn the edge of a scimitar and even resist the force of a musket ball.” Which animal was this? |
 | In 1900, physician Jesse Lazear, at age 34, was bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito. He was in Quemados, Cuba, researching the transmission of that disease. His death, two weeks later, proved that the mosquito was the carrier of that disease. What disease caused the death of Lazear? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 12: polio • discovery of artificially produced radioactive elements • Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1852) • Mae C. Jemison • prehistoric art depicting animals which dated back to 15,000 BC.
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