People

Wilhelm Kühne

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:27:06 +0100

WILLY KUHNE (1837-1900), German physiologist, was born at Hamburg on the 28th of March 1837. After attending the gymnasium at Luneburg, he went to Göttingen, where his master in chemistry was F. Wdhler and in physiology R. Wagner. Having graduated in 1856, he studied under various famous physiologists, including E. Du Bois-Reymond at Berlin, Claude Bernard in Paris, and K. F. W. Ludwig and E. W. Brucke in Vienna. At the end of 1863 he was put in charge of the chemical department of the pathological laboratory at Berlin, under R. von Virchow; in 1868 he was appointed professor of physiology at Amsterdam; and in 1871 he was chosen to succeed H. von Helmholtz in the same capacity at Heidelberg, where he died on the 10th of June 1900. His original work falls into two main groups - the physiology of muscle and nerve, which occupied the earlier years of his life, and the chemistry of digestion, which he began to investigate while at Berlin with Virchow. He was also known for his researches on vision and the chemical changes occurring in the retina under the influence of light. The visual purple, described by Franz Boll in 1876, he attempted to make the basis of a photochemical theory of vision, but though he was able to establish its importance in connexion with vision in light of low intensity, its absence from the retinal area of most distinct vision detracted from the completeness of the theory and precluded its general acceptance.

Dr. Med. Evangelos Alexandridis

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:14:48 +0100

Dr Evangelos Alexandridis worked at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology at the University of Heidelberg, Eye Clinic, Heidelberg, Germany and is now retired. In 1975 he was approached by the German police to re-examine the possibility of extracting an optogram to aid forensic investigations. He ‘fixed’ a number of retinal images from rabbits that appear in this book. He has authored and contributed to numerous Journals and books including The Pupil and Electro Diagnostic Ophthalmology.

Christopher Scheiner

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:14:22 +0100

A Jesuit Friar called Christopher Schiener made an amazing observation in the mid 17th Century whereby he had observed an image laid bare on the retina of a frog, a faint, fleeting record of what the eye had been fixed on at the moment its owner had died. It was rumoured it became possible to fix this image and create what is termed an Optogram. (Time-Life, 1970)

Franz Christian Boll

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:14:00 +0100

Franz Christian Boll (February 26, 1849, Neubrandenburg – December 19, 1879) was a German physiologist and histologist. He was the son of Lutheran theologian Franz Boll (1805–1875).
Boll studied medicine in Bonn, Heidelberg and Berlin, and in 1870 worked at the physiological institute of Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) in Berlin. Later he became a professor at the University of Genoa, and from 1873 to 1879 was a professor of physiology in Rome. He died in Rome on December 19, 1879 at the age of 30.
Franz Christian Boll is remembered for the discovery of rhodopsin, when he noticed that the light-sensitive pigment in the rods of the retina had a tendency to fade in the presence of illumination. He published his findings in an article titled Sull'anatomia e fistologia della retina, and reported his discovery to the Berlin Academy on November 12, 1876.
His name is associated with the eponymous "Boll cells", which are basal cells in the lacrimal gland, and as a student of Max Schultze (1825–1874) at Bonn he wrote an important histological treatise on dental pulp called Untersuchungen über die Zahnpulpa.

Hermann Von Helmholtz

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:54:40 +0100

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (August 31, 1821 – September 8, 1894) was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science. In physiology and psychology, he is known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone, perception of sound, and empiricism. In physics, he is known for his theories on the conservation of energy, work in electrodynamics, chemical thermodynamics, and on a mechanical foundation of thermodynamics. As a philosopher, he is known for his philosophy of science, ideas on the relation between the laws of perception and the laws of nature, the science of aesthetics, and ideas on the civilizing power of science. The largest German association of research institutions, the Helmholtz Association, is named after him.

Source
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George Wald

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:41:33 +0100

George Wald was born in New York City on November 18th, 1906, of immigrant parents, Isaac, who had come from a village near Przemysl, in what was then Austrian Poland, and Ernestine Rosenmann, from a small village near Munich, in Bavaria. After attending public primary and secondary I schools in Brooklyn, he received the degree of Bachelor of Science from Washington Square College of New York University in 1927; and then took graduate work in zoology at Columbia University, from which he received the Ph.D. in 1932. During this graduate period he was a student and research assistant of Professor Selig Hecht.  On receiving the Ph. D. he was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship in Biology (1932-1934). This was begun in the laboratory of Otto Warburg in Berlin-Dahlem and it was there that Dr.Wald first identified vitamin A in the retina. Vitamin A had just been isolated in the laboratory of Professor Paul Karrer in Zurich, and Dr. Wald went to Karrer's laboratory to complete the identification. That done, he spent a period in the laboratory of Otto Meyerhof, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Heidelberg. The second year of the fellowship was spent in the laboratories of the Department of Physiology at the University of Chicago.  Dr. Wald came to Harvard in the fall of 1934 as a tutor in Biochemical Sciences and has been there ever since; as Instructor and Tutor in Biology (1935-1939); Faculty Instructor (1939-1944); Associate Professor (1944-1948); and Professor of Biology (since 1948). He was visiting Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California for the summer term, 1956.  In 1939 Dr. Wald received the Eli Lilly Award for «Fundamental Research in Biochemistry» from the American Chemical Society. In 1952 he toured the Southwest as a National Sigma Xi lecturer. In 1953 he received the Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association «in recognition of his outstanding discoveries in biochemistry with special reference to the changes associated with vision and the function of vitamin A».In 1955 he was awarded the Proctor Medal of the Association for Research in Ophthalmology, and in 1959 the Rumford Medal by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1966 he was awarded the Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America; and in May, 1967, jointly with his wife Ruth Hubbard, the Paul Karrer Medal by the University of Zurich. In 1967 he was awarded the T. Duckett Jones Memorial Award from the Whitney Foundation.  Dr. Wald was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1950 and to the American Philosophical Society in 1958. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and of the Optical Society of America. In 1963-1964 he was a Guggenheim Fellow, spending the year at Cambridge University, England.  In 1957 Dr. Wald received the honorary degree of M. D. from the University of Berne; in 1958 an honorary D. Sc. from Yale University; in 1962 honorary D. Sc. from Wesleyan University; in 1965 honorary D. Sc. from New York University; in 1966 honorary D. Sc. from McGill Univ.; 1968 D. Sc. from Clark Univ. and from Amherst College.  Dr. Wald is a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists; the Optical Society of America; the Assoc. for Research in Ophthalmology; Sigma Xi; American Chemical Society; and the A.A.A.S.
From Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1963-1970, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

George Wald died on April 12, 1997.

Source: www.nobelprize.org

Dr. Richard Kremer

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:15:43 +0100

Associate Professor of History Office: 405 Carson Hall Office Phone: (603) 646-2228 Fax: (603) 646-3353 Email: Richard.Kremer@Dartmouth.edu
Address:
Department of History Dartmouth College 6107 Carson Hall Hanover, NH 03755
Courses
57: Scientific Revolutions and Modern Society
63: History of Recent Science and Technology
94.2: Science, Technology and Culture in the Nuclear Age
96: Science and Medicine in Germany, 1933-1945

Professor Kremer teaches courses in the history of science, medicine and technology. He earned his PhD in History of Science from Harvard and specializes in European science from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. His books include The Thermodynamics of Life and Experimental Physiology (Garland 1990), a study of experiment in nineteenth-century medicine; Letters of Hermann von Helmholtz to His Wife, 1849-1859 (Steiner 1990), an edition of early letters by a leading German physicist and cultural icon; and The Practice of Alfonsine Astronomy in the Fifteenth Century (forthcoming), an analysis of early printed almanacs. Kremer's current research examines responses to Copernican astronomy in astrological calendars printed between 1543-1630. His work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, Humboldt Foundation, and the Howard Foundation.

Dr. Arthur B. Evans

Tue, 9 Aug 2011 14:15:21 +0100

Dr. Arthur B. Evans is a professor of French at DePauw University, managing editor of the scholarly journal Science Fiction Studies, and general editor of Wesleyan University Press's "Early Classics of Science Fiction" book series. He has published numerous books and articles on Jules Verne and early French science fiction, including the award-winning Jules Verne Rediscovered (Greenwood, 1988). His personal website is located at: http://academic.depauw.edu/~aevans

Dr. Andrea Goulet

Mon, 8 Aug 2011 14:16:08 +0100

Associate Professor of Romance Languages Undergraduate Chair of Comparative Literature 

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century French Fiction, critical theory, science and literature, detective fiction, nouveau roman. She is the author of Optiques: the Science of the Eye and the Birth of Modern French Fiction (Penn, 2006) and has co-edited journal issues on “Visual Culture” (Contemporary French Civilization) and “Crime Fictions” (Yale French Studies). Her current book project explores scientific discourses of space (cartography, geology, geography) in modern French crime fiction from Gaboriau to Vargas. Her seminars and graduate courses include “Crime and the City in 19th -c. France,” “Science and Literature in France across the Ages,” “Hugo et Balzac,” and “Espaces littéraires: Spatial Theory and Modern French Fiction.”
• E-mail: agoulet@sas.upenn.edu
• Office: 545 Williams Hall
• Telephone: (215) 746-2190
• Fax: (215) 898-0933

Bill Jay

Sun, 7 Aug 2011 17:33:01 +0100

Bill Jay began his career is England where he was the first Director of Photography at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. In addition, he was first Editor/Director of Creative Camera and Album magazines. During this time, he earned a living picture editor of a large circulation news/feature magazine and as the European manager of an international picture agency.

After studying with Beaumont Newhall and Van Deren Coke at the University of New Mexico, he founded the program of photographic studies at Arizona State University, where he taught history and criticism classes for 25 years.

Bill Jay has published over 400 articles and is the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticsm of photography. Some of his recent titles include: Cyanide and Spirits: an inside-out view of early photography; Occam's razor: an outside-in view of contemporary photography; USA Photography Guide; Bernard Shaw: On Photography; Negative/Positive: a philosophy of photography; 61 Pimlico; Sun in the Blood of the Cat; Men Like Me, etc. He is frequently asked to contribute essays to monographs by well-known photographers, such as Jerry Uelsmann, Bill Brandt, Michael Kenna, and Bruce Barnbaum. He continues to write a regular column for the journal LensWork.

Until his retirement Bill Jay was a frequent guest lecturer at symposia and conferences and at colleges and universities in Britain and Europe as well as throughout the USA.

His own photographs have been widely published and exhibited, including a one-person show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His previous monograph, Photographers Photographed, included a selection of the thousands of portraits he has taken of prominent individuals if the medium of photography, a database of which is located at the Center of Creative Photography, which also houses his research archives.

A new selection of his portraits of photographers with extended commentaries and reminiscences, Bill Jay's Album (Volume 1) will be published by Nazraeli Press in the fall of 2006; other volumes will be published at intervals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/aug/05/bill-jay-obituary

August Ewald

Sat, 6 Aug 2011 15:46:38 +0100

August Ewald (* June 7 1849 in Darmstadt , † 1924 [1] ) was a German physiologist .
From 1867 he studied in Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin and received his doctorate 1873rd From 1874 he was an assistant at the Physiological Institute in Heidelberg Wilhelm Kühne , where he works on the photochemistry of the retina and the visual purple investigated. [2] In 1880 he qualified as Privatdozent and in 1883 in Heidelberg, an associate professor of physiology and histology .

Source: Wikipedia tranlation from the German

Margarida Medeiros

Fri, 5 Aug 2011 15:46:55 +0100

I met Margarida briefly a few years ago, it must have been 2007, she was preparing the paper below.

Click on image below to view