1st November
Today in 1899 Sir Gavin de
Beer an English zoologist and
morphologist was born. He
developed the concept of
paedomorphism (the retention
of juvenile characteristics of
ancestors in mature adults)
which helped to explain the
sudden changes in the fossil
record which were apparently
at odds with Darwin's
gradualist theory of evolution.

2nd November
Today in 1955 American investigators
Carlton Schwerdt and F.L. Schaffer
crystallised the polio virus. Each virus
crystal is composed of many
thousands of virus particles. Virus
preparations pure enough to
crystallise usually provide the best
material for chemical studies. This was
used to split the polio virus into
infectious and non-infectious parts.
Their research laid the groundwork for
the polio vaccine.

3rd November
Today in 1664 Robert Hooke’s
‘Micrographia’ was published. It
contained spectacular
copperplate engravings of the
miniature world. The text
reinforced the power of the new
microscope. Hooke famously
describes a plant cell (coining the
term for the first time. As they
reminded him of walled Monk’s
quarters).

4th November
Today marks the death
of the American
Physician Howard A.
Rusk in 1989. He is
considered to be the
founder of
rehabilitative medicine,
which he established
through efforts to
rehabilitate wounded
soldiers during and

5th November
Today marks the death of the
French scientist Alexis Carrel
died in 1944. He received the
1912 Nobel Prize for
Physiology or Medicine
developing a method of
suturing blood vessels.
Techniques developed by
Carrel have made possible the
surgical transplantation of
blood vessels and body

6th November
Today in 1956, the British
colonial government in Rhodesia
began the construction of the
Kariba High Dam across the
Zambezi river between North and
South Rhodesia (now Zambia and
Zimbabwe). Completed in June
1959, it was the largest dam of its
time and provides electricity to
the region. During construction
"Operation Noah" ensured the
rescue of over 5,000 animals
comprising 35 different mammal
species and thousands of reptiles.

7th November
Today marks the death of the Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz in 1903. He was
the founder of modern ethnology (the study of animal behaviour by means of
comparative zoological methods). He was known affectionately by his pupils as
the "father of the grey geese" which he studied. His ideas revealed how
behavioural patterns may be traced to an evolutionary past, and he was also
known for his work on the roots of aggression. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize
for Physiology and Medicine, for developing a unified, evolutionary theory of
animal and human behaviour.

8th November
On this day in 1895, physicist Wilhelm
Conrad Rontgen becomes the first person
to observe X-rays, a significant scientific
advancement that would ultimately
benefit a variety of fields, most of all
medicine, by making the invisible visible.
Rontgen's discovery occurred
accidentally in his Wurzburg, Germany,
lab, where he was testing whether
cathode rays could pass through glass
when he noticed a glow coming from a
nearby chemically coated screen. He
dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-
rays because of their unknown nature.

9th November
On this day in 1864 the Russian
microbiologist Dimitri Iosifovich
Ivanovsky who, from his study of mosaic
disease in tobacco, first reported the
characteristics of the organisms that were
later called viruses. Ivanovsky had been
commissioned in 1890 to study a
mysterious disease that was killing
tobacco crops in the Crimea. He
determined that some agent in sap could
transfer disease from plant to plant.
Through detailed filtering and microscope
work, he concluded that some invisible
parasite, much smaller than any known
bacterium, was the culprit. In fact, his
super-small bacterium was a new life
form - the virus.

10th November
Today marks the death of the Swiss cardiologist Wilhelm His in 1934. He
fully described a group of modified muscle fibres (known as the bundle
of His) forming part of the impulse-conducting system of the heart. It runs
as a single bundle from the atrioventricular node (between the atria and
ventricles) then branches into pathways to the right and left ventricles. It
relays an electrical impulse, establishing a single rhythm of contraction
through the heart. He was among the first to recognise that the heartbeat
originates in the individual cells of heart muscle.

11th November
Today in 1938 Typhoid Mary died. Mary Mallon was the famous typhoid
carrier in the New York City area in the early 20th century. Fifty-one
original cases of typhoid and three deaths were directly attributed to her
(countless more were indirectly attributed), although she herself was
immune to the typhoid bacillus (Salmonella typhi). The outbreak of
Typhus in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in 1904 puzzled the scientists of the
time because they thought they had wiped out the deadly disease.
Mallon's case showed that a person could be a carrier without showing
any outward signs of being sick.

12th November
Today in 1935 the first modern
surgery on the frontal lobes for
treatment of mental disorders was
performed by Egas Moniz at Santa
Marta Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal.
Moniz injected absolute alcohol
into the frontal lobes of a mental
patient through two holes drilled
in the skull. Moniz later used a
technique that severed neurones
and led to the prefrontal lobotomy
techniques of the 1940s. Moniz
was later awarded a Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine for
1949.

13th November
Today in 1893 the American biochemist Edward
A. Doisy was born. He shared the 1943 Nobel
Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Henrik
Dam) for his isolation and synthesis of vitamin K,
a substance that encourages blood clotting used
in medicine and surgery.

14th November
Today in 1666 the English physician, Samuel Pepys, made an record in
his diary describing Richard Lower making the first documented blood
transfusion. "Dr. Croone told me ... there was a pretty experiment of the
blood of one dog let out, till he had died, into the body of another on
one side, while all his own run out on the other side. The first died
upon the place, and the other very well and likely to do well. This did
give occasion to many pretty wishes, as of the blood of a Quaker to be
let into an Archbishop and such like; but, as Dr. Croon says, may, if it
takes, be of mighty use to man's health, for the amending of bad blood
by borrowing from a better body."

15th November
Today marks the death of the American biochemist Elmer McCollumin in
1967. He originated the letter system of naming vitamins. He discovered
vitamins A, B and worked with others on vitamin D. He performed
extensive research work in nutrition and growth. In the 1910's, he
recognised that a healthy diet required certain fats, and he named the
essential component "fat-soluble A," as distinct from another he named
"water-soluble B." Although at first he thought each was a single
compound, he later showed that they were in fact complexes. He
researched how certain minerals were as important as nutrients,
including calcium, phosphorus, fluorine, manganese and zinc.

16th November
Today marks the death of in
the Austrian physiologist
Maximilian Ruppert Franz
von Frey in 1852. He
studied the sense of touch,
providing the first
comprehensive information
about the cutaneous senses.
He confirmed the existence
of locations for heat, cold,
pressure, and pain
reception. He is credited
with developing an early
prototype of a heart-lung

17th November
Today marks the death of the American
zoologist Raymond Pearl in 1940. He
was one of the founders of biometry,
the application of statistics to biology
and medicine. He pioneered studies in
longevity, changes in world population,
and genetics. He reported in the May
1938 Scientific American that "the
smoking of tobacco was associated
definitely with an impairment of life
duration and the amount or degree of
this impairment increased as the
habitual amount of smoking increased."
In 1926, he first reported health benefits
of moderate alcohol consumption (as
opposed to both abstinence and heavy
drinking) in a modern medical light.

18th November
Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling declared on this day in 1970 that large doses of
Vitamin C could ward off the common cold. He proposed that regular intake of
vitamin C in amounts far higher than the officially sanctioned RDA (Recommended
Daily Allowance) could help prevent and shorten the duration of the common cold.
He concluded that the optimal daily intake of vitamin C for most people is 2.3
grams to 10 grams daily. Although the medical establishment immediately voiced
their strong opposition to this idea, many ordinary people believed Dr. Pauling and
began taking large amounts of vitamin C. He wrote a book on the subject Vitamin C
and the Common Cold which became a best-seller..

19th November
Today marks the death of the American pharmacologist and biochemist Earl Wilbur
Sutherland Jr. in 1915. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1971
for isolating cyclic adenosine mono-phosphate (cyclic AMP) and demonstrating its
involvement in numerous metabolic processes that occur in animals.

20th November
Today marks the death
of James Bertram Collip
the Canadian
biochemist in 1892. He
co-discovered insulin.
Working with the
bovine pancreas, Collip
produced insulin in a
form which permitted
clinical use.

21st November
Today marks the death of the American geneticist Alfred Henry Sturtevant in 1970.
In 1913 developed a technique for mapping the location of specific genes of the
chromosomes in the fruit fly Drosophila. Sturtevant's method for "chromosome
mapping", relies on the analysis of groups of linked genes. In a classic paper in
genetics (1913), he described the location of six sex-linked genes as deduced by
the way in which they associate with each other. Sturtevant later discovered the so-
called 'position effect', in which the expression of a gene depends on its position in
relation to other genes. He also demonstrated that crossing over between
chromosomes is prevented in regions where a part of the chromosome material is
inserted the wrong way round.

22nd November
Today in 1917 the
English physiologist and
biophysicist Sir Andrew
Fielding Huxley was
born. He who was a co-
winner the 1963 Nobel
Peace Prize in
Physiology or Medicine
with Alan Hodgkin in
elucidating the
chemical phenomena-
the ‘sodium pump’
mechanism-by which
nerve impulses are
transmitted.

23rd November
Today in 1553 the Italian physician
and botanist Prospero Alpini was
born. He is credited with the
introduction to Europe of coffee and
bananas. He made an extensive
study of Egyptian and Mediterranean
flora. He spent three years in Egypt,
and from a practice in the
management of date-trees, which he
observed in that country, he seems
to have deduced the doctrine of the
sexual difference of plants, which
was adopted as the foundation of
the Linnaean system.

24th November
Today in 1859 Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’
was released. It sold out the same day. The word
'evolution' is used for the first time only in the
sixth edition of the book. The term 'descent with
modification' is the forerunner for evolution.

25th November
Today marks the death of Nikolai Vavilov the Russian plant geneticist in
1887. He devoted his life to the study and and improvement of wheat,
corn and other cereal crops that sustain the global population. While
developing his theory on the centres of origin of cultivated plants, Vavilov
organised a series of botanical-agronomic expeditions, collected seeds
from every corner of the globe, and created in Leningrad the world's
largest collection of plant seeds. This seed-bank was diligently preserved
even throughout the 28-month Siege of Leningrad. Despite starvation,
one of Nikolai's assistants starved to death surrounded by edible seeds.

26th November
Today in 1937 the Soviet
physician Boris Borisovich
Yegorov was born. He travelled
on Voskhod 1 ("Sunrise 1"),
12-13 Oct 1964 the first space
flight with a crew of more than
one man. He was an expert in
the sense-of-balance
mechanism of the inner ear. He
collected medical information,
including the effects of
radiation, confinement and
weightlessness on the crew.

27th November
Today in 2005 the first
partial face transplant
was carried out in
Amiens, France. In the
controversial operation,
tissues, muscles, arteries
and veins were taken
from a brain-dead donor
and attached to the
patient's lower face.

28th November
Today in 1876 the the
Prussian-Estonian
embryologist who discovered
the mammalian egg and
notochord was born. He
showed that mammalian eggs
were not the follicles of the
ovary but microscopic
particles inside the follicles.
He described the
development of the embryo
from layers of tissue, which he
called germ layers, and
demonstrated similarities in
the embryos of different
species of vertebrates.

29th November
Today in 1627 the English
naturalist John Ray
sometimes referred to as the
father of English Natural
history died. He contributed
significantly to progress in
taxonomy and was the first to
classify flowering plants into
monocotyledons and
dicotyledons. Ray
established the species as the
basic taxonomic unit - his
enduring legacy to botany.

30th November
Today marks the death of
the German botanist
Nathanael Pringsheim in
1893. He was one of the
founders of the science
of algology (study of
algae).He made
important discoveries in
the morphology and
physiology of plants,
especially in the fields of
reproduction and
evolution.