The case of Heinrich Wilhelm Poll (1877-1939): A German-Jewish geneticist, eugenicist, twin researcher, and victim of the Nazis

This paper uses a reconstruction of the life and career of Heinrich Poll as a window into developments and professional relationships in the biological sciences in Germany in the period from the beginning of the twentieth century to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. Poll's intellectual work involved an early transition from morphometric physical anthropology to comparative evolutionary studies, and also found expression in twin research - a field in which he was an acknowledged early pioneer. His advocacy of eugenics led to participation in state-sponsored committees convened to advise on social policy, one of which debated sterilisation and made recommendations that led eventually to the establishment of the notorious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. However, his status as a prominent geneticist and, in particular, as a eugenicist had an ironic and ultimately tragic dimension. Heinrich Poll was of Jewish birth, and this resulted in his career being destroyed by an application of the population policies he had helped put in place

American Botany and the Great War

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Discussion and Correspondence

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The Earliest Name for Steller\u27s Sea Cow and Dugong

In 1811, Illiger published a number of new genera, proposing among others, Rytina for the sea cow of Bering Island and Halicore for the dugong of the Indian Ocean. Nearly all recent writers on mammals have adopted these genera, apparently overlook ing the fact that both animals had been named before 1811. As early as 1794 Retzius described the sea cow in the \u27Handlingar\u27 of the Stockholm Academy of Science, placing it in a new genus which he called Hydrodamalis, and the species, based on the Vacca marina of Steller, Hydrodamalis stelleri. The generic description is sufficient to identify the animal even if the species and the vernacular name used by Steller had not been given. As Hydrodamalis has 17 years priority over Rytina it should be adopted as the generic name of the northern sea cow. The earliest specific name is that given by Zimmermann in 1780, and the species should stand Hydrodamalis gigas (Zimm.). The abandonment of Rytina necessitates a change in the name of the family (Rytinidæ), which may be called Hydrodamalidæ, there being no other genus in the group. Lacépède, in 1801, used Dugong as a generic name for the sirenian afterwards called Halicore by Illiger, but not being a classical word it did not come into general use. As it is the first name for the genus there seems to be no good reason for not adopting it. The specific name was first proposed by Müller in 1776, who spelled it dugon --without the final g. This was evidently not a misprint, as the same spelling occurs twice. The name for the dugong will, therefore, be Dugong dugon (Müller), while the unfortunate compound Dugongidæ becomes necessary for the family, instead of the more euphonious Halicoridæ

The Evolution of Herbs

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Frank Burnett Dains and his History of Chemistry Collections at the University of Kansas

This paper was presented at the Bolton Society Symposium, Notable Antiquarian Chemistry Book Collectors and their Public Collections, at the 222nd American Chemical Society National Meeting, Division of the History of Chemistry in Chicago, Illinois, August 28, 2001.The history of chemistry collections that Frank Burnett Dains (1869-1948) amassed before and during his thirty plus years as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Kansas have and continue to influence the faculty, students and staff at there. As a member of the American Chemical Society for more than fifty years, Dains was particularly active in the divisions of Chemical Education and the History of Chemistry. Chemists and historians of chemistry throughout the world have also benefited by Dains's collections and will continue to into the future in ways in which this paper will explain. Special emphasis will be placed on Dains's image collection, which is located in University Archives at the University of Kansas

"Observations of the Planet Mars.'

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The Humanization of the Teaching of Mathematics

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Avogadro\u27s Law and the Absorption of Water by Animal Tissues in Crystalloid and Colloid Solutions

Jacques Loeb. Avogadro\u27s law and the absorption of water by animal tissues in crystalloid and colloid solutions Reprinted from Science, 1913, vol. 37(951): 427-439https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/collection-of-reprints-loeb/1046/thumbnail.jp

Dr. J. M. Bell, FRGS: A Canadian Auxiliary Geographer in New Zealand

Using Hodder’s notion of “biography as method,” this paper examines the geographical endeavours of James Mackintosh Bell, Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey from 1905 to 1911, in New Zealand and Canada. Canadian born, Harvard trained, Bell has a significant place in the history of geology in New Zealand and mining geology in Canada, yet much of his writing was explicitly geographical in orientation. This essay analyses this body of work and its significance and limitations in adding to and disseminating knowledge of the geography of NZ, particularly. Bell credentialed himself geographically as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). The FRGS were important builders of geographical knowledge in NZ from the 1850s up to the establishment of university geography in the 1930s when formal geographical research commenced. Geologists were a numerically significant group amongst the NZ FRGS, distinctive in that they held university qualifications, and Bell was particularly wide ranging in his geographical interests