TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 11 NOVEMBER
In 1856, English inventor, Henry Bessemer was issued a US Patent for his steel-making process. He also held an earlier British patent for his “decarbonization process, utilizing a blast of air” that revolutionised steel manufacturing. However, the U.S. patent was shortly challenged in a dispute over priority. The American William Kelly—though filing after Bessemer—was recognized as the first to actually use a blast of air into molten pig iron to make steel.
An article in Scientific American (1857) gave the English Opinion of the United States Patent Office Management for what was regarded as an injustice for failing to protect Bessemer, who had a fully practical industrial process, and was clearly the first to file. The editor of the Scientific American made clear he held no sympathy for Bessemer in the matter. Thus, the “first to invent” legal concept was upheld, not the “first to file” (FTF).
The U.S. finally joined the rest of the world to give priority to FTF, only as recently as 16 Sep 2011, when President Barack Obama signed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The FTF provision came in to effect on 16 Mar 2013. That was over a century and a half too late to help Henry Bessemer's claim. You can read the clash of opinions expressed back then in the Scientific American article.
On 11 Nov 1938, Mary Mallon died, notoriously known as Typhoid Mary, carrier of deadly typhoid affecting many people while she remained immune, she transmitted the disease an others died. Today's book pick is: Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, by Judith Walzer Leavitt. This is a fascinating story of early 20th century epidemiology, her tragic personal story and finally her quarantine for life under new public health laws. Leavitt's readable account illuminates dilemmas that continue to haunt us.
Combining social history with biography, historian Judith Leavitt re-creates early-twentieth-century New York City, a world of strict class divisions and prejudice against immigrants and women. Leavitt engages the reader with the excitement of the early days of microbiology and brings to life the conflicting perspectives of journalists, public health officials, the law, and Mary Mallon herself.
To what degree are we willing to sacrifice individual liberty to protect the public's health? How far should we go in the age of AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and other diseases? For anyone who is concerned about the threats and quandaries posed by new epidemics, Typhoid Mary is a vivid reminder of the human side of disease and disease control.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $18.12. Used from $3.89. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species. — Gordon Allport, American humanistic psychologist and educator (born 11 Nov 1897).  |
 | The science of genetics is in a transition period, becoming an exact science just as the chemistry in the times of Lavoisier, who made the balance an indispensable implement in chemical research. — Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen, Danish botanist and geneticist (died 11 Nov 1927). |
 | The British Mathematical Colloquium consists of three days of mathematics with no dogs and no wives. — Henry Whitehead, British mathematician (born 11 Nov 1904). |
| 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 | |
 | Vesto Melvin Slipher, born 11 Nov 1875, was an astronomer whose systematic observations (1912-25) of the extraordinary radial velocities of spiral galaxies provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory. Slipher spectroscopically measured the displacement of their spectral lines by the Doppler effect by which the wavelength of light from an object moving away from an observer will shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. What was his nationality? |
 | George Washington Crile, born 11 Nov 1864, was an American surgeon who studied surgical shock, and recognized the important of monitoring blood pressure in surgical patients. He helped popularize the use of a familiar device for that purpose. What is the name of a device used to measure blood pressure? |
| Deaths | |
 | Mary Mallon (1870-1938) was a famous disease carrier in the early 20th century. Fifty-one original cases of the disease and three deaths were directly attributed to her (countless more were indirectly attributed), although she herself was immune to the infectious bacillus. In the area of which city did she spread this disease? |
 | Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (1895-1973) was a biochemist who was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the AIV method for storing green animal fodder, by using an acid medium (about pH 4) to prevent spoilage. When fed on this silage, cows provided milk indistinguishable in taste from that of cows fed on normal fodder, while as rich in vitamins A and C. Thus he solved the vital need for regions characterized by long, severe winters. What was his nationality? |
| Events | |
 | On 11 Nov 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe first observed a brilliant “new star,” (now called B Cassiopeiae, one of the few such objects recorded in the Milky Way Galaxy). From his precise measurements Brahe showed that it was not merely a nearby object, such as a comet, but was in fact at the great distance of the stars. Thus, he demonstrated that the stars were not unchangeable, and that real changes could indeed occur among them. What type of star had he observed? |
 | On 11 Nov 1887, construction began on the Manchester Ship Canal in north-west England, a 40-mile waterway to enable Manchester to be an inland port for ocean-going ships. To which coastal port city was the Manchester Ship Canal linked? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for November 10: iron • Proxima Centauri • dinosaurs • Cambodia • a leather belt • decade containing the year 1974.
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