TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 9 SEPTEMBER
On 9 Sep 1917, Edward H. Johnson died, who was an American electrical engineer and inventor who spent many years in various business projects with Thomas Edison. Although he had more notable accomplishments in the electricty generating industry, he remains noteworthy for a more whimsical use of electric lighting. He is creditted with being the first to display electric lights on a Christmas tree (22 Dec 1882), which he displayed in the window of his New York home. The hand-wired string of bulbs had been made for him, with 80 walnut-sized lamps glowing in equal numbers of red, white and blue light. It caught the attention of a newspaper reporter, who wrote an article about The First Christmas Tree Lights, which was published in the Detroit Post and Tribune(1882).
For a more deadly serious event on this day, you can read about the work of Dr. Hermann M. Biggs. He made major contributions to public health in America, starting with his isolation of cholera vibrio from passengers on a ship of immigrants. Because of the scare of Asiatic cholera at the time, he successfully lobbied for a diagnostic public health laboratory. Thus on 9 Sep 1892, New York was the first city to establish such a laboratory. In 1893, the laboratory expanded its work to test for diptheria and tuberculosis. By early 1895, Biggs was supervising the production of diptheria antitoxin. Hermann Biggs described his work in an article on The New Treatment of Diptheria in The Century Magazine (Jan 1895). You can read how this provided an effective treatment, saving lives from one of the most dreaded and fatal diseases of the era.
On 9 Sep 1842, Elliott Coues was born, an American army surgeon and ornithologist whose pioneering Key to North American Birds (1872) was the first work of its kind to present a taxonomic classification of birds according to an artificial key and promoted the systematic study of North American bird life. As his army assignments took him to various locations throughout the West, he studyied the bird life in each new area, and found new species. He also did valuable work in mammalogy. Today's book pick is: Elliott Coues: NATURALIST AND FRONTIER HISTORIAN, by Paul Russell Cutright, Michael J Brodhead who introduces Coues as one of America's most renowned but least understood ornithologists and historians, as well as a naturalist, anatomist, taxonomist, writer and editor, frontier Army surgeon, occultist, and the youngest person ever to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Coues, a giant of the last half of the nineteenth century, was a fascinating, inquisitive, and exacting scientist. The author covers his travels, discoveries, brushes with the Indians, loves, feuds, failures, triumphs, honors. The context is a vivid account of American life from 1840 to the turn of the century. This book has been recommended as belonging on the reading list of anyone interested in the development of science and natural history of America.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $52.00. Used from $15.04. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
| no image | The sciences of Natural History and Botany require so much time to be devoted to them that, however pleasing, they may be justly considered as improper objects for the man of business to pursue scientifically, so as to enter into the exact arrangement and classification of the different bodies of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. But reading and personal observation will supply him with ample matter for reflection and admiration. — Thomas Henry, Welsh apothecary (born 9 Sep 1734).  |
| no image | A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty until found effective. — Edward Teller, Hungarian-American nuclear physicist (died 9 Sep 2003). |
 | The history of acceptance of new theories frequently shows the following steps: At first the new idea is treated as pure nonsense, not worth looking at. Then comes a time when a multitude of contradictory objections are raised, such as: the new theory is too fancy, or merely a new terminology; it is not fruitful, or simply wrong. Finally a state is reached when everyone seems to claim that he had always followed this theory. This usually marks the last state before general acceptance. — Kurt Lewin, German-American psychologist (born 9 Sep 1890). |
| 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 | |
 | John Henry Poynting, born 9 Sep 1852, was a British physicist who introduced a theorem that assigns a value known as the Poynting vector. What is measured by the Poynting vector? |
 | An Italian physicist and physician, born 9 Sep 1737 investigated the nature and effects of what he conceived to be electricity in animal tissue. Can you name this man? |
| Deaths | |
 | Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1856-1901) was a German botanist who made one of the first and finest mapping of the floral regions of the continents. In 1880, he proved the source of stored energy for plants. What is the source of stored energy for plants? |
 | Herbert Friedman (1916-2000) was an American astronomer who made signifcant contributions to the study of solar radiation. In 1949, he obtained the first scientific proof of a certain type of radiation emanates from the sun. What type of radiation from the sun did Friedman discover? |
| Events | |
 | On 9 Sep 1945, the first “bug” in a computer program was discovered by Grace Hopper, when an insect was removed with tweezers from a relay in a computer. She taped it into the log. What kind of insect was this? |
 | On 9 Sep 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created as a new broadcasting company in the U.S. shortly after a company bought (May 1926) the radio network operations of AT&T, which had decided to withdraw from radio. Which company bought the AT&T operations and created NBC? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 8: iron • (2 p - 1) • carbon-14 dating • stannous fluoride • decade of 1961 • to stop an outbreak of cholera, which by mapping cases of the epidemic, he traced to that area (the well water was contaminated with raw sewage from a leaking cesspool).
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