Frederic L. Holmes

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Frederic Lawrence Holmes (born February 6, 1932 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † March 27, 2003 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American historian of science specializing in chemistry, medicine and biology.

Holmes received his bachelor's degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 , spent two years with the US Air Force and then studied history at Harvard University with a master's degree in 1958 and a doctorate in 1962 ( Claude Bernard and the concept of internal environment ). For his dissertation, he reconstructed Claude Bernard's path of discovery of fundamental physiological functions, for example the liver, using his laboratory books from the 1840s, which Mirko Grmek had pointed out to him. He then spent two years at MIT before becoming an assistant professor at Yale University and an associate professor of the history of science in 1968. In 1972 he became a professor at the University of Western Ontario and head of its department. From 1979 he was again professor at Yale in the Faculty of Medicine and head of the Department of History of Medicine. From 1985 he was Avalon Professor and 1982 to 1987 Masters at Jonathan Edward College at Yale. He was instrumental in building the history of science curriculum at Yale.

Holmes wrote biographies of Claude Bernard, Antoine Lavoisier , Hans Adolf Krebs and the discovery of the citric acid cycle (for which he not only evaluated his laboratory books, but also conducted detailed interviews with Krebs), the Meselson-Stahl experiment , Seymour Benzer . His interest was in the history of basic experiments in biology, chemistry and biochemistry and their prehistory and the detailed reconstruction of experimenters in these fields. In addition to case studies, in 2004 he published a general study on the path of discovery in the experimental sciences. Most recently, he completed a study on Seymour Benzer when he was hospitalized with a terminal illness.

In 2000 he received the George Sarton Medal , in 1975 the Pfizer Award and in 1962 the Schumann Prize of the History of Science Society. In 1994 he received the Dexter Award and in 1978 the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine. 1981 to 1983 he was President of the History of Science Society. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994) and the American Philosophical Society (2000).

His wife Harriet Vann Holmes, with whom he had three daughters, died in 2000.

Fonts

  • Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry, Harvard University Press 1974
  • Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life: an exploration of scientific creativity, Princeton University Press 1985, Reprint University of Wisconsin Press 1987
  • Antoine Lavoisier - the next crucial year: or, the sources of his quantitative method in chemistry, Princeton University Press 1997
  • Hans Krebs: the formation of a scientific life 1900-1933, Oxford University Press 1991
  • Hans Krebs: Architect of intermediary metabolism 1933-1937, Oxford University Press 1993
  • Meselson, Stahl and the Replication of DNA: A history of the most beautiful experiment in biology, Yale University Press 2001
  • Investigative Pathways: pattern and stages in the careers of experimental scientists, Yale University Press 2004
  • with William C. Summers: Reconceiving the gene: Seymour Benzer's adventures in phage genetics, Yale University Press 2006
  • Historians and Contemporary Scientific Biography, Pauling Symposium 1995

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Holmes, Frederic L.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holmes, Frederic Lawrence (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 2003
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut