This Week in Science and Medicine History – April 2025
by Leigh Ann Gardner, MSTP Senior Grants Manager
Week 1 (April 3): Doctor and epidemiologist Pierre-Fidèle Bretonneau, a pioneer of modern medicine, was born on April 3, 1778, in Saint-Georges-sur-Cher. The son of a surgeon, he began his medical studies in Paris at the age of 17; however, these studies were interrupted by ill health and he later failed one of his examinations (in botany). He continued pursuing medicine, working as a sanitary officer in Chenonceaux. He eventually completed his degree requirements to become a doctor in 1814 and became the chief physician of a hospital in Tours, France. It was during his practice of medicine that he was able to give a name and clinical distinction to diphtheria, and to note the difference between typhoid and typhus. In 1825, he performed the first successful tracheotomy, on a young child who was critically ill with diphtheria. He resigned from the hospital in Tours after 23 years, and continued to study infectious diseases, learning Greek in order to search manuscripts for descriptions of diphtheria. He also developed a germ theory approximately 20 years before Pasteur developed his germ theory. You can learn more about Bretonneau here and here.
Week 2 (April 7): Botanist and agricultural explorer David Fairchild was born in Lansing, Michigan, on April 7, 1869. After graduating from the Kansas State Agricultural College in 1888, of which his father was the president, he continued with studies at Iowa State and Rutgers University. In 1889, he joined the US Department of Agriculture section of plant pathology. Between 1893 and 1896, he studied plants in Italy, Germany, and Java. He helped organize the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction at the USDA, later serving as its administrative head from 1904-1928 and traveling to more than 50 countries while working for this unit. During his time at the USDA, he was responsible for introducing more than 200,000 kinds of plants in the United States. Plants he is credited with bringing to the United States include kale, mangoes, avocados, soybeans, pistachio, and quinoa. Additionally, he is responsible for introducing a cotton plant that could grow in the Southwest United States, the Pima cotton, of which he brought back several cultivars from Egypt. He wrote several books about his travels and his work. He died in 1954 in Miami, Florida. You can learn more about him here. You can read his book, The World Was My Garden, which won a National Book Award as the Bestseller Discovery of 1938 here.
Week 3 (April 13): Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, who catalogued over 350,000 stars in her lifetime, died on April 13, 1941. Born in Delaware in 1863, she was encouraged by her mother to study science, and they built a small observatory on the roof of their house so that they could study the stars together. With her mother’s encouragement, she attended Wellesley College, graduating with a degree in physics in 1884 and was named valedictorian of her class. Following college, she spent the next decade at home, where she developed her skills in photography. At some point, although sources differ on whether this happened in childhood or early adulthood, Cannon lost her hearing, possibly as an effect of scarlet fever. Following her mother’s death in 1894, Cannon returned as a teacher to Wellesley and also began taking graduate courses at Radcliffe College in astronomy. Edward Pickering hired her to work at the Harvard College Observatory, where she and other women, referred to as “computers” worked to catalogue stars. She went on to develop a system of cataloging still used known as the Harvard spectral classification system. In 1911, she became the curator of observational photographs at the observatory. In addition to her work in science, Cannon was also involved in the women’s suffrage battle and was a member of the National Women’s Party. Honors she received include becoming the first woman to receive a Doctor of Astronomy Degree from Groningen University, the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University, and the first woman to receive the Henry Draper Medal of Honor from the National Academy of Sciences. You can learn more about her life here and here.
Week 4 (April 21): Born on April 21, 1920, Arthur J. Galston began his career as a plant physiologist and became an outspoken bioethicist in his career, drawing attention to the dangers of the use of Agent Orange for humans and the environment. Born in New York, Galston attended Cornell University, where he received a B.S. in Botany in 1940. After graduation, he enrolled at the University of Illinois to study botany and biochemistry. As a graduate student, his research was the first to note that using 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) at high levels had a defoliant effect. His later plant research discovered that riboflavin, and not carotene, was the photoreceptor for phototropism. Galston was drafted into the US Naval Reserve and served from 1944-1946. After the war, he spent some years at Caltech before receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950. In 1955, he went to Yale University as a full professor. Unbeknownst to him, the US military had begun investigating defoliants due to his research in 1951. This military research led to the creation of Agent Orange, a fact that profoundly disturbed him. In 1972, he stated in “Science and Social Responsibility: A Case History,” “I used to think that one could avoid involvement in the antisocial consequences of science simply by not working on any project that might be turned to evil or destructive ends. I have learned that things are not all that simple . . . In my view, the only recourse for a scientist concerned about the social consequences of his work is to remain involved with it to the end. His responsibility to society does not cease with the publication of a definitive scientific paper.” Along with other scientists, Galston lobbied the Department of Defense to perform toxicology studies on Agent Orange, which led to findings that Agent Orange was linked to birth defects in laboratory rats, which led President Nixon to order a halt to the use of Agent Orange. Following the Vietnam conflict and his own initial retirement, he helped found Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. You can learn more about his life here.
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