Natural Sciences Tripos Research Articles

Birbal Sahni, 1891-1949

Professor Birbal Shni, the eminent Indian palaeobotanist, was born on 14 November 1891 at Bhera, a small town in the Western Punjab. He was the second son of Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni, who was later Professor of Chemistry at the Government College, Lahore. His grandfather owned a flourishing banking business at Dera Ismail Khan and practised chemical experiments as a hobby. Sahni’s early days were spent in a family and a neighbourhood which were unusually enlightened, and where education was held in high esteem. Plis father, who has been described as a profound scholar and a pioneer in social reform, was responsible for his early education. He encouraged the boy to collect plants, rocks and fossils, and during his vacations took him on excursions to the Himalayas and other places. Even before coming to England for the first time, he had travelled widely in Northern India and had journeyed as far as the borders of Tibet. After attending the Central Model School in Lahore, he proceeded to the Government College, where he had the advantage of learning botany from Professor S. R. Kashyap, and he obtained the degree of B.Sc. of the University of the Punjab in 1911. Immediately after taking his degree he travelled to England and entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he worked until 1919. He obtained a First Class in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1913 and was subsequently elected to a Foundation Scholarship in his college, and afterwards to a Research Studentship. He was placed in the Second Class in Part II of the same Tripos in 1915, a year in which Professor G. E. Briggs was the only botanist to obtain a First. About this time he took the Degree of B.Sc. of the University of London

Rowland Harry Biffen 1874-1949

Genetic science owes to Biffen a contribution of central importance to its growth. His wheat breeding substantially benefited British agriculture and promoted the application of science to the art of breeding. In the teaching of agricultural botany he combined with expository power a width of knowledge that made him one of the founders of the subject in its modern form. R. H. Biffen was the eldest of the family, of two boys and three girls, of Henry John and Mary Biffen. He was born on 28 May 1874 at Cheltenham where his father was Headmaster of the Christ Church Higher Grade School. His boyhood pleasure was to roam the Cotswold countryside collecting plants, fossils and flint implements or, with equal zest, sketching its grey stone buildings. At Cheltenham Grammar School, which he attended from 1883 to 1893, chemistry was then the only science taught. In its laboratory, well equipped for the times, he was left largely to teach himself but with encouragement, always gratefully remembered, from the enthusiastic Science Master. This kind of schooling must have been well suited to his sturdily independent mind. It enabled him to enter Emmanuel College, Cambridge, at Michaelmas 1893 as an Exhibitioner. A year later he became a Scholar of his College and with a first class in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos he graduated in 1896. For his outstanding position in Part II of the Tripos he was at once awarded the Frank Smart Studentship in Botany at Gonville and Caius College which is devoted to the encouragement of botanical research. He became a member of this College during its tenure, as the regulations required. In those unhurried days, with no organized postgraduate preparation for a scientific career nor the trammel of research degrees, this coveted award gave grand opportunity to youthful enterprise and originality. Biffen, luckily, soon got his chance and, characteristically, seized it. Having become interested in rubber-producing plant-latexes he accepted an invitation to join a small expedition to Brazil, Mexico and the West Indies, for the study of sources of rubber. His travel journal, in keeping with his habitual economy of words and material, consisted of a very small pocket diary, now deposited in the Library of the Botany School. He set out intent on investigating coagulation of latex but his travel of several months in 1897-1898 was to awaken a wider interest.

Mr. Philip Lake

PHILIP LAKE, who died in Cambridge on June 12, was born on April 9, 1865, at Morpeth, where his father, George Lake, was headmaster of the Grammar School. On leaving school he became a student at the Durham College of Science, Newcastle upon Tyne, where his interest in geology was aroused by the teaching of Prof. G. A. L. Lebour. He gained a scholarship at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1883 and was placed in the first class of both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos (1886 and 1887) and was the first recipient of the newly founded Harkness Scholarship for geology. After taking his degree, Lake was appointed to the Geological Survey of India ; but for reasons of health resigned after three years and returned to Cambridge. In spite of his short period of service he was able to make some contributions to the geology of India.

Sir Thomas Hill Easterfield, K.B.E

SIR THOMAS HILL EASTERFIELD died at Nelson, New Zealand, on March 1, aged eighty-three, and on March 18 his ashes were scattered in a garden nook at the cawthron Institute. He was born at Doncaster, Yorkshire in 1866, received his primary education at thq Doncaster Grammar School, and entered the Yorkshire College (now University of Leeds), where he won a scholarship in geology and gained his first insight into chemical research, which inspired his life-work. From Leeds he proceeded to Cambridge as a foundation scholar of Clare College and gained first-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos ; this was followed by studies at the Zurich Polytechnic School and at Wiirzburg. In 1888 he returned to Cambridge as a junior demonstrator in the University Chemical Laboratory, becoming a University extension lecturer in 1891, and in 1894 lecturer on pharmaceutical chemistry and chemistry of sanitary science ; he was also a master at the Perse School.

University Education in Natural Science

THE problems education in science and of education though natural science were considered by scentific men and schoolmasters at the Dundee meeting of Bristish Association, and similar problems at the university level have now arisen in the University of Cambridge. A 'Syndicate' has been revieweing the regulations for the Natural Sciences Tripos, and the discussion of its report in the Regent House on February 22 showed that many in Cambridge have misgivings about the scientific education now being given to undergraduates. A number of tutors, directors of studies and college supervisors urged the need for drastic reforms. The position at Cambridge is probably similar to that at many other British universities, and merits the attention of all who are interested in the training of scientific men and citizens. Many of those who are closely in touch with the life and work of undergraduates are convinced that science students are being given so much formal factual teaching that they have no time for reading and reflexion. The study of the wider and more cultural aspects of their work is precluded and their intellectual development retarded. The courses of instruction seem generally designed for the production of specialist research workers ; and specialization seems on the increase, in spite of the fact that only a small percentage of the students who read science become professional scientific workers. It seems to be overlooked that many will become teachers in schools, some will go into the Civil Service, others will join the administrative staffs of business or manufacturing firms ; such students need a wider and more general training.

Dr. F. H. A. Marshall, C.B.E., F.R.S

BORN at High Wycombeton July 11, 1878, Francis Hugh Adam Marshall died suddenly after an operation in a Cambridge nursing home on February 5. He was the younger son of Thomas Marshall, and was educated it St. Mark's School, Windsor, and privately. After a short time at University College, London, ha went up to Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1896 and took the Natural Sciences Tripos. In-spired by tne work of Walter Heape in Cambridge on sex physiology, he then accepted an invitation to work in Edinburgh with Prof. Cossar Ewart, who at that time was conducting his well-known experiments on telegony in farm animals at Penicuik. Here he started his research career and worked in conjunction also with the distinguished group of research physiologists centred around Sir Edward Sharpey Shafer. During this time he published many valuable papers on the cestrous cycle in the sheep (1903), the ferret (1904) and the dog (1905) ; but perhaps one of the most important was that on Ovary as an Organ of Internal Secretion, for it led to large developments in this field later. The University of Edinburgh honoured him with a D.Sc. and later with an LL.D. degree, and he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Sydney Arthur Monckton Copeman 1862-1947

Sydney Arthur Monckton Copeman was born at Norwich on 21 February- 1862; he died at Hove, after a brief illness, on 11 April 1947. His career as an investigator and administrator lay in the field of public health and he spent thirty-four years in the service of the Local Government Board and the Ministry of Health, inheriting, almost in direct succession, the traditions with which Sir John Simon had established State Medicine in this country. He will be remembered especially for the important improvements in smallpox vaccination that developed out of his studies of the bacteriology of calf lymph. Copeman was the eldest son of the Rev. Canon Arthur Charles Copeman, Canon and Rural Dean of Norwich; preceding generations of the family were private bankers in Norwich. His mother’s maiden name was Metcalfe; she came of a Norfolk family residing at Ingoldesthorpe Hall. Copeman’s choice of medicine as a career may have been influenced by the fact that Canon Copeman, before taking holy orders, obtained the M.B. London in 1848, and was gold medallist of his year (1844) in Anatomy and Physiology. Copeman was educated at King Edward VI School, Norwich, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, of which he was successively scholar, exhibitioner and prizeman. He obtained a second class in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1882. He then went to St Thomas’s Hospital and took the M.B. of Cambridge in 1886. Copeman also acquired the diplomas of L.S.A., London (1885), L.R.C.P., London (1886), M.R.C.S., England (1887) and D.P.H., R.C.P.S. (1889). He proceeded to the M.D. of Cambridge in 1890 and was elected F.R.C.P. in 1899. In 1870, on Huxley’s recommendation, Trinity College had appointed Michael Foster of University College, London, as praelector and Fellow.

Edward Waymouth Reid, 1862-1948

E. Waymouth Reid, who retired from the Chair of Physiology at University College, Dundee, University of St Andrews, in 1935, after forty-six years’ service, died on 10 March 1948 at the age of eighty-five. He was born 11 October 1862 in Canterbury, the fourth son of a surgeon there, James Reid, F.R.C.S. He was educated at Sutton Vallance Grammar School, gaining eventually a Classical Scholarship to Cambridge. He matriculated at Cambridge University in 1879. In 1882 he gained a first class in Part I of the Natural Science Tripos and in 1883 a first class in Part II. During the period 1882-1883 he also acted as one of the demonstrators in the Department of Anatomy. He then decided to qualify in medicine and in 1883 he joined St Bartholomew’s Hospital, graduating in medicine in 1885. He early showed his interest in electrical reactions,, being appointed assistant ‘electrician’ at St Bartholomew’s in 1885. The same year he was elected to a Demonstratorship in Physiology at St Mary’s Hospital under A. D. Waller and in 1887 was promoted to the post of Assistant Lecturer in Physiology. Reid, during the period he was at St Mary’s, carried out in conjunction with Waller a most interesting investigation on the electrical activity of the excised mammalian heart. This investigation must have been one of the earliest pieces of research in electrocardiography in this country. His interest in physico-chemical reactions was also manifested early as in 1887 he devised a useful recording osmometer. In 1889 Reid was elected, at the early age of twenty-seven, as the first holder of the newly created Chair of Physiology at University College, Dundee, where he joined a stimulating and enthusiastic band of colleagues including Geddes, D’Arcy Thompson and Ewing. Reid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1898 and in 1904 gained the Sc.D. of his old University. The University of St Andrews conferred on him the degree of LL.D. when he retired from his Chair.

Sir Francis Darwin (1848–1925)

THE third son of Charles Darwin gave early-evidence of a scientific bent. Born at Down a century ago, on August 16, 1848, he took his degree at Cambridge in 1870 with a first class in the Natural Sciences Tripos. After studying medicine at St. George‘s Hospital, London, and obtaining the Cambridge M.B. in 1875, he acted as his father‘s secretary for eight years. In 1884 he was appointed lecturer, and four years later reader, in botany at Cambridge. At that time plant physiology was beginning to supersede the study of systematic botanical description. Francis Darwin‘s class-book "The Practical Physiology of Plants" (1894) went into several editions, for it was the first book of its kind in Britain. His researches on growth curvatures in plants and on the control of water-loss by plants attracted considerable attention. He was a popular lecturer, being engagingly simple and direct. Though possessed of strong prejudices and inclined to be intolerant, his was a lovable personality, charming, kindly and humorous. He was an accomplished musician and devoted to dogs, which, unlike human beings, never bored him. Many honours came his way. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1882, he was foreign secretary during 1903–9 and vice-president in 1907. In the following year he became president of the British Association, and he was knighted in 1913. He died at Cambridge on September 19, 1925. It is appropriate that his best and best-known book should be the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin" (1887).

Prof. E. Waymouth Reid, F.R.S

THE death of Prof. E. Waymouth Reid in Edinburgh on March 10 has taken from us one of the pioneers of British physiology. Born in 1863 in Canterbury, the son of a surgeon, he was educated in Sutton Valence Grammar School, and went as a classical scholar to the University of Cambridge. After taking a first-class in anatomy and physiology in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1883, Waymouth Reid worked in St. Bartholomew‘s Hospital, and graduated M.B. Thereafter he was for a time assistant electrician in St. Bartholomew‘s, but soon began his life‘s work as a physiologist, first as demonstrator and then as lecturer in St. Mary‘s Hospital Medical School. At the early age of twenty-seven he was appointed to the newly established chair of physiology in University College, Dundee, where he joined a body of highly gifted men who held teaching posts in the recently formed College affiliated to the University of St. Andrews. Waymouth Reid served the University for forty-six years, and after his retirement in 1935 the University of St. Andrews conferred upon him an honorary degree of LL.D.

Sir Albert Howard, C.I.E

Botanists, agriculturists and many others will learn with regret that Sir Albert Howard died in London on October 20. He was born in 1873 and educated at the Royal College of Science and at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was a foundation scholar. Here he worked under Marshall Ward, who was then attracting a brilliant group of students to some of the newer aspects of botanical science, and after taking first-class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1898, he proceeded in 1899 to the Imperial Agricultural Department for the West Indies, then newly established with the purpose of applying science to the difficult problems raised by the threatened collapse of the sugar-growing industry there. In 1903 he returned to England to succeed F. Escombe as head of the Botanical Department of the South Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, Kent. He was not, however, entirely happy at Wye, and left in 1905 to become Imperial Economic Botanist to the Government of India, where for the first time he found full scope.

Dr. S. H. Daukes, O.B.E

By the death of Sidney Herbert Daukes, the medical profession has lost its leading authority on the modern medical museum. Daukes died on September 3 after a short illness. The son of the Rev. S. Whitfield Daukes, vicar of Holy Trinity, Beckenham, he was born on April 20, 1879. He was educated at Lancing College where he distinguished himself in various sports, and at Caius College, Cambridge. He took a second class in the Natural Science Tripos in 1900 and then studied medicine at the London Hospital. He qualified M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. in 1905 and in the same year graduated M.B., B.Ch., Cambridge. After several years spent in hospital appointments and in general practice, he took his D.P.H. in 1912 and in 1913 the D.T.M. & H. By the outbreak of the First World War he had held a post as assistant school medical officer at Leeds and was chief assistant school medical officer for Norfolk.

THE GEOLOGICAL WORK OF HENRY CLIFTON SORBY

( Presidential Address, 17th November, 1945 ) In taking this subject for to-day’s address in Sheffield I have been prompted by two considerations; first that Henry Clifton Sorby was probably the most famous man of science that the city has produced, and second that for many years he was an illustrious member of this Society. He was an original investigator of the old spacious days when the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge consisted of one paper embracing all scientific subjects, and one man could be in the forefront, if not of all, at least of several branches of science at one and the same time. Even so, though Sorby made advances in many different fields, he could not devote himself to all his subjects at once, and his researches can be divided roughly into periods when one or other line of investigation was uppermost in his mind. His first published work was done in chemistry, but it was not long before he turned to geology, and our subject occupied most of his time for fifteen years or so between 1850 and 1865. It was during this period that he did his real geological work. Thereafter his geological communications were mainly confined to microscopical mineralogy and to presidential addresses to various societies, in which he summarised the results of his earlier work and sometimes added to or emended it. Though he later spent much time on marine biology, his approach to geology was essentially from the side of physics and chemistry. He hardly …

Agricultural Research Council: Prof. I. de Burgh Daly, F.R.S

Prof. Daly has held the chair of physiology in the University of Edinburgh since 1933. He was educated at Rossall School, at the University of Cambridge, where he took first-class honours in Part I of the Natural Science Tripos and was Thurston Medallist of Caius College, and at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In the First World War Prof. Daly was a fighter pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service. He was a member of the staff of the Department of Physiology, University College, London, during 1919–23, a Beit Memorial Fellow, and lecturer in experimental physiology in the University of Wales, Cardiff, in 1923, before being appointed professor of physiology in the University of Birmingham in 1927, where he worked until he was appointed to Edinburgh in 1933. During the Second World War, Prof. Daly carried out research on the physiology of high-altitude flying and on poison gases in Edinburgh during 1939–43. From 1943 until 1945 he was director of the Physiological Laboratory of the Medical Research Council at Lulworth, which was responsible for the investigation of the physiological factors determining the fighting efficiency of the crews in armoured fighting vehicles.

Dr. S. Monckton Copeman, F. R. S

SYDNEY ARTHUR MONCKTON COPEMAN, the eldest son of the Rev. Canon A. C. Copeman, was born at Norwich on February 21, 1862, and was educated at King Edward VI School, Norwich, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After obtaining a second class in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1882, he went to St. Thomas's Hospital and took the M. B. Cambridge in 1886. He proceeded to the M. D. in 1890 and was elected F. R. C. P. in 1899. For, a short time he was assistant lecturer on physiology and morbid histology at St. Thomas's. In 1891 he became a medical inspector of the Local Government Board, and all his active medical life was spent in the service of that Department and, afterwards, as a medical officer of the Ministry of Health. In the same year he was one of the founders of the Medical Research Club.

John William Watson Stephens, 1865-1946

John William Watson Stephens was born at Ferryside, near Carmarthen, on 2 March 1865, the second of three sons of John Stephens, barrister-at-law, and Martha, daughter of Captain David Davies, R.M., Transmawr, Carmarthenshire. The family was an old Carmarthenshire one with many branches living in the neighbourhood, and Stephens after retirement lived and died in the house in which he was born. His early boyhood was spent at Ferryside where he went to a small preparatory school. Later he was sent for a term to Christ’s College, Brecon, and then to Dulwich College, where he distinguished himself by winning prizes in successive years for mathematics and Greek in 1879, chemistry 1880-1882, as also two prizes in this subject in 1883, together with one in physics and one in physiology in the same year. Having decided to embark on a medical career, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in October 1884, taking his B.A. and Natural Science Tripos in 1887. He received his medical education at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, taking his M.B., B.C. in 1893, followed by the D.P.H. in 1894. After qualifying he continued to work during 1895 and 1896 at St Bartholomew’s as Sir Trevor Lawrence Research Student in Pathology and Bacteriology, publishing several papers on bacteriological Subjects. He was President of the Abernethian Society in 1896. His main recreation at this time was Rugby football and he played forward for Barts when they won the Hospital Cup. He also played at times for Carmarthen. In 1896-1897 he continued to work on pathology at Cambridge as John Lucas Walker Student in Pathology under A. A. Kanthack, then Professor of Pathology, Cambridge University. He used frequently to refer to Kanthack for whom he evidently had a high respect and affection, and whose influence in turning his attention to research he often acknowledged. At this time he was greatly interested in the study of snake venoms and on the testing of the isotonic point, now usually referred to as the fragility test, of the red blood corpuscles, a technique he later applied to the investigation of blackwater fever.

Dr. Alexander Scott, F. R. S

AT the great age of ninety-three, Dr. Alexander Scott died at Ringwood, Hampshire, on March 10. He was educated at Selkirk Grammar School, of which his father was rector, and at the University of Edinburgh, where he took first place in chemistry. In 1875 he became assistant to the Jacksonian professor at Cambridge, and having been awarded a Clothworkers' Exhibition in 1876 and a foundation scholarship of Trinity College in 1878, he gained a first class in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1879.

Bacteriology and Immunology in the University of London

DR. E. T. C. SPOONER, who has been appointed to the University of London chair of bacteriology and immunologytenable at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, went to Epsom College and to Clare College, Cambridge, where he obtained first classes in both parts 1 and 2 of the Natural Sciences Tripos. After the completionof clinical study at St. Bartholomew'sHospital, he was house-physician to the late Sir Walter Langdon-Brown ; hewas elected to a Commonwealth fellowship and worked for two years with Prof. Hans Zinsser in the Department of Bacteriology of Harvard University. On his return from America he was elected to a fellowship at Clare College, and a University demonstratorship in the Department of Pathology at Cambridge. He was later elected to a University lectureship and took charge of the teaching in bacteriology for both Part 1 and Part 2 of the Natural Sciences Tripos.

Botany at Hull: Prof. R. D. O. Good

MR. R. DVO., head of the Department of Botany at University College, Hull, since 1928, has been a pteirwed to the newly created chair of botany. After staving in the Army during the First World War. Good went to Downing College, Cambridge, botany in Part 2 of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1922. He was for a time an assistant in the Department of Botany at the British Museum, and while there he began the phytogeographical investigations for which he is widely known. Studies of the distribution of the Magnolieae, the Stylidiaceae, Empetrum and Coriaria, and a valuable summary of discontinuous generic distribution in the Angiosperms were followed by “A Theory of Plant Geography” (1931). This important analysis of the factors determining plant distribution continues after fifteen years to provide a basis for the discussion of phytogeographical principles. More recently Prof. Good has been making a detailed botanical survey of his native county, Dorset, and the publication of a small paper on the distribution of the primrose in Dorset gives cause to expect that the work, when completed, will set a new and far higher standard for county floras. All botanists will wish Prof. Good happiness and success in his new appointment.

Geology at Liverpool: Prof. F. Coles Phillips

DR. F. COLES PHILLIPS, University lecturer in mineralogy and petrology at Cambridge, has been appointed to the George Herdman chair of geology at the University of Liverpool. Entering Cambridge from Plymouth College, he graduated in 1923, being placed in the first class in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos and in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos, with geology and mineralogy as his chief subjects. His first researches included investigations on the serpentines and associated rocks of the Shet-lands: later, holding a research fellowship at Corpus Christi College, he was engaged in studies on progressive regional metamorphism in Cornwall and Scotland. Appointed demonstrator in mineralogy in 1928, he became University lecturer in the new Department of Mineralogy and Petrology in 1932.