FIRST CREDIT 5

This is the fifth and last in a multi-part blog on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences.

Sometimes, credit falls on the person who least understood the significance of his own work. In 1771, Charles Messier (1730 - 1817) , selected 103 heavenly objects that have captured the rapt attention of astronomers for nearly two and a half centuries. Messier selected regions of space that were nebulous, and obscured his view of comets (his sole interest). He made a point of categorizing the Messier objects as areas of space that should be avoided by serious astronomers. In 1771, his chosen spots might have been accurately called the Messier non-objects.


Charles Messier.
Source: Wikipedia, public domain.

Today, the Messier objects are credited with holding some of the most fascinating galaxies and cosmologic curiosities in the known universe. Though Messier was completely wrong, he has achieved scientific immortality, just the same.


Messier object 51.
Source: Wikipedia, public domain NASA image.

The first observation of a particular type of anemia associated with sickled red blood cells, was made by Ernest E. Irons (1). Dr. Irons was a young intern when he encountered a patient, Walter Clement Noel, and made his historic observation. He alerted his attending physician, James B. Herrick. Irons sketched the shaped of the cells directly into the patient's hospital record. Herrick wrote the 1910 case report as a single author submission, excluding Irons (2). To this day, the disease sickle cell anemia carries the eponym, Herrick's disease (not Irons disease).

Sometimes first credit goes to the wrong species. Salicylic acid has been used as a medicinal by several different ancient cultures. In the western tradition, Hippocrates (5th century BC) claimed that a bitter powder extracted from willow bark could ease aches and pains. How did the ancients know that willow bark would relieve pain? Bears were observed rubbing against the bark of willow trees when wounded. The humans stole credit for an ursine discovery.

[1] Savitt TL, Goldberg MF. Herrick's 1910 case report of sickle cell anemia: the rest of the story. JAMA 261: 266-271, 1989.

[2] Herrick JB. Peculiar elongated and sickle-shaped red blood corpuscles in a case of severe anemia. Arch Intern Med 6:517-521, 1910.


This is the last entry on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences. If you have read the five-part series, I'd appreciate reading your comments.

© 2010 Jules Berman

key words: history of science , specified life blog , Jules J Berman PhD, MD

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Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

FIRST CREDIT 4

This is the fourth in a multi-part blog on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences.

Johann Franz Encke (1791 - 1865) is given credit for the discovery of [Encke's] comet (1818), but Encke merely calculated the orbit, using a technique first developed more than a century earlier by Edmond Halley (1656-1742). In 1705, Halley applied Newton's laws of physics to correctly predict that a particular comet (known today as Halley's comet), observed in 1531, 1607, and 1682, would return in 1758. The comet known today as Encke's comet was named after a person who neither first-sighted the comet nor discovered the methodology to predict the comet's orbit. The person who made the first sight of the commet has descended into scientific obscurity.


Johann Franz Encke.
Source: Wikipedia (public domain).

When a new technology becomes available to the practitioners of a field, it often happens that a new discovery is made by multiple independent researchers, simultaneously. For example, sunspots were discovered by Thomas Harriot (England, 1610), Johannes and David Fabricius (Frisia, now parts of The Netherlands and Germany, 1611), Galileo Galilei (Italy, 1612), and Christoph Scheiner (Germany, 1612). First credit usually goes to the most influential of the discoverers.

© 2010 Jules Berman

key words: history of science , specified life blog , Jules J Berman PhD, MD

---

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

FIRST CREDIT 3

This is the third in a multi-part blog on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

- Carl Sagan

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742 - 1786) made some of the most important discoveries in the field of chemistry, but, through a series of bad breaks, lost first credit for all of them. Scheele discovered Oxygen a full two years before Priestley, but Scheele sent his manuscript to a publisher who held the work for several years, during which time Priestley got his discovery into print. Today, Joseph Priestley (1733 - 1804) is widely held to be the discoverer of Oxygen. In 1774, Scheele laid the groundwork for the discovery of Manganese, but Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745 - 1818) finished the task and received the credit. Also in 1774, Scheele isolated chlorine but failed to identify it as an element; credit eventually went to Humphry Davy (1778 - 1829). Scheele did great service to science during his 46 years on earth.


Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Source: Wikipedia, public domain

© 2010 Jules Berman

key words: history of science , specified life blog , Jules J Berman PhD, MD

---

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

FIRST CREDIT 2

This is the second in a multi-part blog on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences.

Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) is sometimes credited with inventing the modern microscope. Not so. Leeuwenhoek improved the microscope with his superb lens grinding technique, but he did not invent the microscope and did not make any particularly important modifications to the design of the microscope.


Source: Garrison FH. History of medicine.
WB Saunders, Philadelphia, 1921.

In 1595, fifteen-year old fledgling Dutch lens grinder (and part-time counterfeiter), Zacharias Jansen (1580 - 1638) placed two lenses in a tube, and created the first compound microscope.


Source: Wikipedia (public domain)

This amazing invention sat dormant until 1667, when Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703) studied insects and plant material, particularly cork, with this 72 year old invention. Hooke used the word "cell" to describe the complex, living structures that compose every organism. In 1675 (eight years after Hooke), with improved lenses, Leeuwenhoek studied micro-organisms in water and cells of the human body. Hooke and Leeuwenhoek kick-started modern microscopy, but Zacharias Jansen invented the microscope.

Smallpox was the first disease for which vaccination was successful. As early as 200 B.C.E. in China and 1000 B.C.E. in India, physicians knew that infection with smallpox conferred immunity against subsequent infection. Based on this observation, they were the first to develop a vaccination, administered nasally, of attenuated virus. Arabic doctors developed their own treatment, consisting of transferring material from an infected pox blister to another person via a small cut. Emmanuel Timoni (1670 - 1718) was a physician practicing in Constantinople. He introduced the Arabic vaccination process to West, in 1717. In 1796, Edward Jenner (1749 - 1823) developed a new vaccine, developed from a bovine pox virus (vaccinia) that seemed to confer cross-immunity against smallpox (variola). When you consider that the word, "vaccine", derives from Jenner's choice of inoculum (vaccinia), it seems reasonable to give Jenner the credit for developing the first effective vaccine. Incidentally, Jenner's paper describing his smallpox vaccine was rejected, in 1976, by a peer-reviewed journal (1).


Source: Garrison FH. History of medicine.
WB Saunders, Philadelphia, 1921.

If you want to give credit to the first person to save European lives by immunizing against smallpox, you would need to go 80 years earler than Jenner; to Timoni. To be really fair, you would need to go back many centuries, to the Chinese, Indian and Arabic physicians, to find the origin of human immune treatments.

[1] Altman LK. When peer review produces unsound science. The New York Times June 11, 2002.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

© 2010 Jules Berman

key words: history of science , specified life blog , Jules J Berman PhD, MD

---

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

FIRST CREDIT 1

This is the first in a multi-part blog on the topic of FIRST CREDIT in the sciences.

Stigler's law of eponymy, "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer."

- SM Stigler (1)

According to Stigler, credit always goes to the wrong person, and this is the essence of Stigler's law of eponymy (which, according to Stigler, must have been invented by someone other than Stigler). Stigler provides numerous examples of credit going to the wrong scientist (1). "Laplace employed Fourier Transforms in print before Fourier published on the topic, that Lagrange presented Laplace Transforms before Laplace began his scientific career, that Poisson published the Cauchy distribution in 1824, twenty-nine years before Cauchy touched on it in an incidental manner, and that Bienayme stated and proved the Chebychev Inequality a decade before and in greater generality than Chebychev's first work on the topic."

Yes, misleading eponymous terms are commonplace in the sciences. Marcello Malpighi (1628 - 1694) was an Italian physician who was one of the earliest scientists to use the microscope to describe tissues and their diseases. He was the first to describe lymphoadenoma, the lymphoma known today as Hodgkin's disease. More than a century later, Thomas Hodgkin (1798 - 1866) wrote a manuscript and credited Malpighi with the first description of the disease. Nonetheless, the eponym for the lymphoma went to Hodgkin.


Source: Garrison FH. History of medicine.
WB Saunders, Philadelphia, 1921.

Likewise, the Wheatstone bridge, introduced in 1843, was not invented by Charles Wheatstone (1802 - 1875). Wheatstone, working from the prototype, improved and popularized the device. The eponym was bestowed on Wheatstone, despite his protestations. The original bridge was invented by Samuel Hunter Christie (1784 - 1865), in 1833.

[1] Stigler SM. Statistics on the table: the history of statistical concepts and methods. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, p 277, 1999.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

© 2010 Jules Berman

key words: history of science , specified life blog , Jules J Berman PhD, MD

---

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.