TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 28 JUNE
On 28 Jun 1923, Herman M. Biggs died, an American physician who was New York City’s Public Health Officer and pioneered the use of bacteriological studies in the field of public health for the prevention and control of contagious diseases.
In his article, The New Treatment of Diphtheria, in The Century Magazine (1895), he described the value of a dipheria “anti-toxine” for the public treatment of that disease to reduce its death toll. It seemed entirely probable that through the influence of the anti-toxine on the prevention and cure of diphtheria, the disease could eventually be brought completely under control. His pioneering work helped make that possible.
On 28 Jun 1923, Hermann M. Biggs died, the American physician who pioneered the use of bacteriological studies in the field of public health for the prevention and control of contagious diseases. Today's book pick is: Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930, by Evelynn Maxine Hammonds, who describes diphtheria, the highly feared disease in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States. In New York City alone, thousands of cases were reported each year, with large numbers of deaths. Physicians and public health experts viewed diphtheria as one of the most difficult to treat and control of all childhood diseases. Due to work to which Biggs was an early contributor, by 1930, the successful immunization of thousands of preschool- and school-aged children made evident for the first time the promise and force of the laboratory in infectious disease control.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $26.32. Used from $24.91. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving, too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man. — Maria Goeppert-Mayer, German physicist (born 28 Jun 1906).  |
 | Man continues to be the only 150 pound nonlinear servomechanism that can be wholly mass-produced by unskilled labor. — Ashley Montagu, British anthropologist (born 28 Jun 1905). |
 | Long may Louis de Broglie continue to inspire those who suspect that what is proved by impossibility proofs is lack of imagination. — John Stewart Bell, II, Northern Irish physicist (born 28 Jun 1928). |
| 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 | |
 | F. Sherwood Rowland, born 28 Jun 1927, is an American chemist who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with chemists Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen for research on the depletion of the Earth's ozone layer. What was discovered as a culprit for ozone depletion? |
 | Alexis Carrel, born 28 Jun 1873, was a French scientist, surgeon, biologist, who received the 1912 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing a method of suturing blood vessels. He also did notable work on the problem of keeping tissue alive after removal from a living organism. The most famous example was a piece of tissue from the heart of a chicken embryo, which was kept for a certain number of years from 1912 until the experiment was deliberately ended. How long was the chicken embryo tissue kept alive? |
| Deaths | |
 | Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was an American electrical engineer, who at the age of 35 developed the differential analyzer, (1925) the world's first analog computer. It was capable of solving differential equations. This machine filled a room. What size room was used for this machine? |
 | On 28 Jun 1889, a certain lady died who was the first American professional woman astronomer. While pursuing an amateur interest, on 1 Oct 1847, she gained fame from the observation of a comet which she was first to report. She was also the first female member of the American Association of Arts and Sciences. Can you name this astronomer? |
| Events | |
 | In 1992, xenotransplant surgery by Dr John Fung and colleagues transplanted an animal’s liver into a 35-year-old man dying from hepatitis B. The operation was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The patient was the first recipient of an animal liver xenotransplant. He lived ten more weeks, but died from a brain hemorrhage. What kind of animal provided the liver? |
 | On 28 Jun of a certain year, the first virus in crystalline form was reported. Professor Wendell Stanley later received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the tobacco mosaic virus, which he crystallized. The demonstration of the molecular properties of the virus gave impetus to a new research approach in virology: the study of viruses as large molecules. This was a departure from the predominant view of viruses as infectious agents causing disease. In which decade was the first crystalline form of a virus reported? |
 | On 28 Jun 1958, the world’s longest suspension bridge at that time, was dedicated. It had been open to traffic since the previous November. Fulfilling a 70 year dream, the bridge provided an 8 km (5 mile) link between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas, reducing travel time from about 2 hours to just 10 minutes. Which bridge was this? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for June 27: the influence exercised by various parts of the embryo that directs the development of groups of cells into particular tissues and organs • the discovery of Neptune • birds • funds in his will for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution • 14 • the decade including the year 1954 • magnesium.
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