| JULY 19 - BIRTHS | |
| Rosalyn S. Yalow | |
(source) |
 Born 19
July 1921
American medical physicist, who shared (with Andrew V. Schally and Roger Guillemin) the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, making her the second woman to win the Nobel Prize in medicine, "for the development of radioimmuno assays (RIA) of peptide hormone." RIA brought about a revolution in biological and medical research.With her coworkers, she applied RIA to study of the physiology of the peptide hormones insulin, ACTH, growth hormone, and also to throw light upon the pathogenesis of diseases caused by abnormal secretion of these hormones. This was pioneering work that opened diabetes research in new directions. She has been called the "Madame Curie of the Bronx."«  Rosalyn
Yalow, Nobel Laureate: Her Life and Work in Medicine,
by Eugene Straus. |
| Erland Nordenskiöld | |
 |
Born 19
July 1877; died 1932.
Erland Nordenskiöld was a Swedish ethnologist and archaeologist, and a foremost scholar of South American Indian culture in his time. From 1913, at the Gotebörg Ethnographic Museum, Sweden, he started a period of intensive acquisition. Exhibits and documentation increased and the collection grew more rapidly than before. During this time, he had made several expeditions to South America. In 1924 he became the first in Sweden to become a professor of American and comparative ethnology. He held this position at the University of Göteborg, 1924-32, where he had a marked influence on anthropology in Sweden and Denmark. |
| Georges Friedel | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1865; died 1933
French crystallographer who formulated basic laws concerning the external morphology and internal structure of crystals. He was the son of Charles Friedel (1832-99), French mineralogist and organic chemist. He recognized, in 1892, that liquid crystals had three types of organisation (mesophases). In 1893, he became professor at the National School of the Mines in Saint-Etienne. After the First World War, he moved to the University of Strasbourg. Illness caused his premature retirement in 1930. |
| Charles Mayo | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1865; died 26 May 1939
Charles Horace Mayo, born Rochester, Minn., was a surgeon and philanthropist, and co-founder of the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation. During the frontier practice of Dr. William Worrall Mayo his two sons, William J. and Charles H. Mayo began their medical training early, first by observing, and later by assisting their father on patient visits and with autopsies. After medical school, the family practiced together. In 1914 they built a clinic for the integrated group practice of medicine. In 1919, the brothers turned over the clinic, assets, and most of their life savings, to the charitable organization now known as Mayo Foundation. |
| Curtis Marbut | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1863; died 25 Aug 1935.
Curtis Fletcher Marbut was a U.S. geologist and cofounder of modern soil science, who worked closely with experts from many countries to develop international classification systems (1927) for soil materials. From 1895 Marbut taught geology at University of Missouri, while also working for the Missouri Geological Survey and directing the Missouri Soil Survey. In 1910 he left Missouri and was a soil scientist for the U.S. Bureau of Soils, for the rest of his life. Due to his exceptional service, his mandatory civil service retirement at 70 was twice waived by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He died during a field trip to China. |
| Edward Pickering | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1846; died 3 Feb 1919.
Edward Charles Pickering, was born Boston, Mass., U.S. physicist and astronomer. After graduating from Harvard, he taught physics for ten years at MIT where he built the first instructional physics laboratory in the United States. At age 30, he directed the Harvard College Observatory for 42 years. His observations were assisted by a staff of women, including Annie Jump Cannon. He introduced the use of the meridian photometer to measure the magnitude of stars, and established the Harvard Photometry (1884), the first great photometric catalog. By establishing a station in Peru (1891) to make the southern photographs, he published the first all-sky photographic map (1903). |
| Samuel Colt | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1814; died 10 Jan 1862.
Samuel Colt, born Hartford, Conn., was an American firearms manufacturer who popularized the Colt 45 revolver and other firearms. While an apprentice seaman, he made a wooden model of an automatically revolving breech pistol (perhaps inspired by the ship's wheel) and on returning to the U.S.A. he made metal models, filed for patents, and toured as "Dr. Coult," thus earning the money he needed to begin manufacturing. His factory was one of the most innovative in its use of mass-production technique. His Barnum-like salesmanship and self-promotion also popularized his product. |
| Alexander Bache | |
(source) |
Born 19
July 1806; died 1867.
Alexander (Dallas) Bache was Ben Franklin's great grandson. A West Point trained physicist, Bache became the second Superintendent of the Coast Survey (1844-65). He made an ingenious estimate of ocean depth in 1856. He studied records of a tidal wave that had taken 12 hours to cross the Pacific. Knowing that wave speeds depend on depth, he calculated a 2 1/5-mile average depth for the Pacific (within 15% of the right value). Bache created the National Academy of Sciences, securing greater government involvement in science. Through the Franklin Institute he instituted boiler tests to promote safety for steamboats. |
|
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| JULY 19 - DEATHS | |
| Alain Bombard | |
(source) |
 Died
19 Jul 2005 (born 27 Oct 1924).
French biologist and physician who made a single-handed voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat to test his theory that a shipwrecked person could survive without provisions. He was age 27 when he left the Canary Islands on 19 Oct 1952 with almost no provisions and only a sextant for navigation. He ate raw fish he speared with a home-made harpoon, netted surface plankton. and drank seawater, limited to occasional sips. His Zodiac inflatable boat, l'Hérétique, was just 4.5 m (15-ft) long and fitted with a sail. Bombard reached Barbados 65 days later on 23 Dec 1952, having lost about 25-kg (55-lb) in weight.« [Image right: l'Hérétique boat.] The
Voyage of the Heretique, by Alain Bombard. |
| Ludwig Gross | |
| Died
19 Jul 1999 (born 11 Sep 1904)
Austrian-born American physician and cancer researcher whose experiments with mice in the 1950s demonstrated that leukemia could have a viral cause; his work led other researchers to study the role of viruses in cancer. |
|
| Mervyn Hugh Cowie | |
| Died
19 Jul 1996 (born 13 Apr 1909)
British wildlife conservationist who was the founder and, for 20 years, director of Kenya's Royal National Parks; he also assisted in the development of parks and tourism throughout East Africa and was appointed CBE in 1960. |
|
| Geoffrey Bourne | |
 |
Died
19 July 1988 (born 17 Nov 1909)
Geoffrey (Howard) Bourne was an Australian-born American anatomist. His studies of the mammalian adrenal gland made him a pioneer in the chemistry of cells and tissues (histochemistry). Professor and Chairman of the Anatomy Department of the Emory University Medical School, Atlanta, Ga.; later became Director (1962-78) of the Yerkes Primate Research Center there. Bourne was a most articulate spokesman for nonhuman primate research. He fought vigorously to proceed with research involving all primates, especially the dwarf chimpanzee. His numerous books covered many facets of biology. |
| George Parker | |
(source) |
Died
19 July 1937 (born 1 Nov 1863)
George Safford Parker was an American inventor who perfected the fountain pen and founded the Parker Pen Company to manufacture it. He began in a teaching career which introduced him to the unreliability of existing fountain pens used by his students. Through selling and repairing them, he learned of their construction. He ceased teaching in 1888 to experiment with his own design. By 8 Mar 1892, he incorporated Parker Pen Company. He subsequently patented many improvements, and was particularly successful in creating a reliable ink-flow system. During WW I, his Trench Pen utilized a tablet of pigment to be inserted into the pen and turned to fluid ink by filling the barrel with water. |
| Francis Maitland Balfour | |
| Died
19 Jul 1882 (born 10 Nov 1851)
British zoologist, younger brother of the statesman Arthur James Balfour, and a founder of modern embryology. |
|
| Pierre-Joseph Pelletier | |
(source) |
Died
19 July 1842 (born 22 Mar 1788)
French chemist who is known for his research into vegetable bases and the resulting contributions of alkaloid chemistry to the field of medicine. Working with Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou (1795-1877), he helped found the chemistry of vegetable alkaloids. Pelletier and Caventou isolated chlorophyll (1817), and discovered strychnine (1818), brucine(1819), quinine (1820), caffeine (1821), cinchonine, and other alkaloids. In 1823, using elementary closed-tube analyses in which the alkaloids were combusted, they discovered nitrogen was present in the compounds. Alkaloids are organic compounds which form water-soluble salts that perform various functions in medicine. For example, some are analgesics (pain-killers), and others are respiratory stimulants. |
| JULY 19 - EVENTS | |
| Yarkon Water | |
(source) |
In 1955, Yarkon Water Project opens to supply water to Negev desert in
Israel. Water shortage is a severe problem in Israel. There is not much
water in this area and the existing sources lie partly in Syria and Jordan.
The Yarkon "flows" through the most densely populated areas of the country
to the Mediterranean. The river has deteriorated rapidly since the 1950's
due to excessive draining for irrigation by the National Water Carrier;
with marked decline in water quality, animal habitats, flora and fauna.
The National
Water Carrier (1964), which crosses Israel from north to south, is
the 81-mile main artery connecting all regional water projects in the State. |
| U.S. Parking Meters | |
(source) |
In 1935, the first parking
meters were installed in the Oklahoma City business district. Carl
C. Magee of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce traffic committee,
solved the parking problems in downtown Oklahoma City. Downtown workers
were parking on streets, staying all day, and leaving few spaces for shoppers
and visitors to the business district. Magee applied for a patent
on his parking meter on 13 May 1935 (issued 24 May 1938). His patent application
indicates that generating revenue was an important issue from the beginning.
It stated that his invention related to "meters for measuring the time
of occupancy or use of parking or other space, for the use of which it
is desirous an incidental charge be made upon a time basis." |
| Paris subway | |
(source) |
In 1900, the Métropolitan subway (Métro) in Paris opened
the first eight stations on its first line running east-west through the
centre of the city from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot. Within two
months the total number of stations became 18, as more were opened on 6
Aug and 1 Sep1900. Fulgence Bienvenüe was the engineer in charge of
construction. The line was built close to the surface using the "cut and
cover" method along existing streets. Its Art Nouveau entrances were designed
by architect Hector Guimard.With extensions built in the 1930's and 1992,
it now extends from La Défense high-rise district in the west to
the Château de Vincennes, a medieval castle in the east. Still known
as line number 1, it is the busiest route.« |
| Steamship Great Britain | |
(source) |
In 1843, the S.S. Great Britain, was launched
from Bristol, England, the world's first all-metal liner,
first single screw-propeller driven and with 322-ft overall length, the
biggest ship of the time. The six-masted, 3,270-ton vessel, designed by
I.
K. Brunel, became the world's first iron-hulled steamship to cross
the Atlantic (1845). Its crew of 130 included 30 stewards for the 360-seat
dining room. As a luxury liner, it carried passengers to New York and Melbourne.
Later it became a ferry carrying troops to the Crimea and India, then a
cargo ship, finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands following storm damage
(1886). On this day in 1970, it was towed
back to Bristol's Great Western Dock (where it was originally built) to
be restored
by volunteers.«
 Brunel's
Ships, by Denis Griffiths. |
| Steamship Great Western | |
(source) |
In 1837, Isambard Kingdom Brunel'sS.S.
Great Western, an oak-hulled steamship
propelled by paddle wheels powered by a two-cyclinder steam engine, was
launched at Bristol. The 2,300-ton vessel had an overall length of 236
feet. He began work in 1836 on the Great Western, the first of three
ships, each of them the largest in the world when launched. In 1838
the Great Western began regular transatlantic service and became
the first steamship to cross the Atlantic from Bristol to New York. The
15 day crossing, the first of 67, established steam-power as the norm.
He also built S.S. Great Britain (1943)
and S.S. Great Eastern (1858).
Brunel:
The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, by Angus
Buchanan |
|
