Holmes, Frederic Lawrence 1932-2003

PERSONAL:

Born February 6, 1932, in Cincinnati, OH; died of stomach cancer, March 27, 2003, in New Haven, CT; son of Frederic Everett (a clinical biochemist) and Florence Holmes; married Harriet Vann (a university teacher of English), December 29, 1959; children: Catherine, Susan, Rebecca. Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S., 1954; Harvard University, M.A., 1958, Ph.D., 1962. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Protestant. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis, playing the clarinet.

CAREER:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor of humanities and history of science, 1962-64; Yale University, New Haven, CT, assistant professor, 1964-70, associate professor, 1970-72, professor of the history of medicine, beginning 1972, head of department, 1972-79; University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, professor of the history of medicine and science and head of department, 1972-79; member of Hamden Human Relations Area Council, 1970-72. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1955-57; became first lieutenant.

MEMBER:

History of Science Society (vice president, 1978-80; president, 1981-83), American Association for the History of Medicine, Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science (second vice president, 1977-79).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Schumann Prize, History of Science Society, 1961; Pfizer Prize, History of Science Society, 1975, and William Welch Medal, American Association for the History of Medicine, 1978, both for Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry.

WRITINGS:

Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1974.

(Editor) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Volumes 17-18, Scribner (New York, NY), 1981.

Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life: An Exploration of Scientific Creativity, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1985.

(Editor, with William Coleman) The Investigative Enterprise: Experimental Physiology in Nineteenth-Century Medicine, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1988.

Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1989.

Hans Krebs, two volumes, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), Volume 1: The Formation of a Scientific Life, 1900-1933, 1991, Volume 2: Architect of Intermediary Metabolism, 1933-1937, 1994.

Between Biology and Medicine: The Formation of Intermediary Metabolism, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1992.

Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year; or, The Sources of His Quantitative Method in Chemistry, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1998.

(Editor, with Trevor H. Levere) Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology," Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2001.

(Editor, with Jurgen Renn and Hans-Jorg Rheinberger) Reworking the Bench: Research Notebooks in the History of Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston, MA), 2003.

Investigative Pathways: Patterns and Stages in the Careers of Experimental Scientists, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

The Sickly Stuarts: The Medical Downfall of a Dynasty, Sutton (Thrupp, Stroud, England), 2005.

Reconceiving the Gene: Seymour Benzer's Adventures in Phage Genetics, edited by William C. Summers, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2006.

Contributor of articles and reviews to journals on the history of science and medicine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Frederic Lawrence Holmes once told CA: "For many years the normal patterns of education have continued to divide students sharply into scientists and humanists. Recently the growing sense that most public issues have at least some scientific component has renewed my hope that the history of science may still sometime play a mediating role.

"My first two teaching years gave me limited scope to develop my interest in the history of science, but by a fortunate chance I was asked to spend a year at Yale University. I stayed for eight years. There I had the opportunity to specialize in the history of the biological sciences and to benefit from a splendid library for the history of medicine.

"I left Yale in 1972 for the University of Western Ontario. I found it a rewarding experience to live in that very comfortable, attractive region of Canada, and came to recognize and appreciate the real differences between the outlook of Canadians and Americans, to feel a sense of rapport with the Canadian way of life, and at the same time to view our country from the perspective of those who live just beyond its borders.

"I had not considered myself to be a historian of medicine, since I am not medically trained, and my historical research has been principally in such areas as the history of biochemistry and physiology. The dean of medicine at Yale assured me, however, that at Yale they consider this to be a part of medicine."

Holmes's 1985 work, Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life: An Exploration of Scientific Creativity, is a biography of the eighteenth-century French chemist and physicist often credited as the founder of modern chemistry. Antoine Lavoisier won recognition at an early age with his introduction of quantitative methods in examining chemical reactions. The son of a wealthy Parisian lawyer, Lavoisier pursued a dual existence as scientist and leading public figure. He was actively involved in the French Revolution and is credited for developing many of its reforms, including the establishment of the metric system of weights and measures. He died tragically when he was executed at the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. Science magazine contributor Trevor H. Levere called Holmes's book "an important and penetrating study that … will repay careful reading by scientists, historians of science, and philosophers."

In Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year; or, The Sources of His Quantitative Method in Chemistry, Holmes provides an examination of the research methodology that led Lavoisier to the findings on respiration that helped him formulate his theories on the nature of perspiration. In his review of the book for the Quarterly Review of Biology, Arthur Donovan noted that "Holmes's contribution to the history of chemistry and biology are immense; his conclusions about how science advances deserve careful consideration."

In his two-volume biography on German physiologist Hans Krebs, Holmes offers the first comprehensive study of one of the twentieth century's leading scientists. Krebs, who was forced to immigrate to England in 1933, nonetheless continued to work at Cambridge and Oxford universities. In 1953, he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his study on the nature of metabolic processes, particularly the manner in which living organisms obtain energy from food. Krebs was knighted in 1958. In addition to discussing his scientific breakthroughs, Holmes also examines the man behind the work. According to John W. Servos of Science, "this magnificent biography demonstrates, as few books do, the intimate relations between personality and science."

Histories of science tend to focus on the hypothetical, technological, and human side of science, particularly those concerning the careers of scientists and their institutions. In his coediting of Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, Holmes diverges from this trend by taking as his focus the development of instruments used in experiments. In these essays, edited by Holmes and Trevor Levere, the emphasis is on the tools of the trade, tools that in turn guided theories. This proved to be a challenge as, unlike the case of scientific equipment from earlier periods, when tools tended to be cumbersome microscopes or other devices built to withstand the test of time, the items used in chemical studies tended more toward the delicate and the improvised, and were often thrown away when they outlived their usefulness or failed to serve the needs of the scientist. More durable, metal pieces of hardware were often broken down and reused for other purposes due to their valuable components. As a result, many of the essays work from surviving accounts of the experiments performed and the instruments that were used, rather than the instruments themselves. Arthur Greenberg of the American Scientist called the book "a must for all institutional libraries and for anyone even mildly interested in the history of chemistry."

Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology," takes a look at the experiment performed by Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl, the purpose of which was to determine whether or not an earlier experiment by James Watson and Francis Crick regarding the way in which DNA replicates could be considered valid. Holmes relates the history of both experiments, with his primary focus on Meselson and Stahl and the steps they took to solidify the earlier scientists' findings. He delved into the research notes and laboratory records kept by the scientist in order to recount their actions in detail, as well as interviewing numerous experts to gather the information required to offer a cohesive picture of the process. Nathaniel Comfort, in a review of the book for Science, dubbed Holmes's effort "a meticulous, masterly history" and went on to note that "his account is not light reading; the mountain of detail often obscures the thread of the story. But so it is in science. The persistent reader is rewarded with the sensation of beginning to think like a pioneering and brilliant molecular biologist." He concluded that the book offers readers "few revelations but scores of illuminating details."

Investigative Pathways: Patterns and Stages in the Careers of Experimental Scientists was published in 2004, following Holmes's death. In it, Holmes attempts to analyze the ways in which scientists are creative through an examination of a collection of notebooks and laboratory records kept by a number of prominent scientists between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. He focuses on a series of scientists who were known for some of the most acclaimed discoveries of the period and, instead of delving into those particular experiments exclusively, he traces the lives and thought processes of the scientists themselves in order to try to determine what made them able to enjoy such breakthroughs. Among other discoveries, he notes how the scientists learned as much, if not more, from failed attempts than they did from their more successful ones. Allan Franklin, in a review for the American Scientist, noted: "Although Holmes focuses on those who have made significant contributions, he suggests that his observations apply to almost all scientists."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, April, 1986, Colin A. Russell, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life: An Exploration of Scientific Creativity, p. 384; December, 1995, John E. Lesch, review of Hans Krebs, p. 1557; June, 1999, Mary Jo Nye, review of Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year; or, The Sources of His Quantitative Method in Chemistry, p. 1004.

American Scientist, January-February, 1990, W. Bruce Fye, review of The Investigative Enterprise: Experimental Physiology in Nineteenth-Century Medicine, p. 75; July, 2001, Arthur Greenberg, review of Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, p. 1372; January 1, 2005, Allan Franklin, "The Experimental Life," p. 86.

Animal Biology Teacher, November-December, 1992, Maura C. Flannery, review of Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry, p. 497.

British Journal for the History of Science, June, 1990, John V. Pickstone, review of The Investigative Enterprise, p. 207; March, 1991, Jan Golinski, review of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise, p. 102.

Cell, November 2, 2001, Horace Freeland Judson, review of Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology," p. 264.

Choice, October, 1985, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 318; September, 1992, A.D. Gounaris, review of Hans Krebs, Volume 1, p. 144; January, 1994, A.D. Gounaris, review of Hans Krebs, Volume 2, p. 810; July, 1998, H. Goldwhite, review of Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year, p. 1872; March, 2001, E.R. Webster, review of Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, p. 1300.

Endeavor, June, 1998, review of Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year, p. 85.

Isis, June, 1989, Steve Sturdy, review of The Investigative Enterprise, p. 289; June, 1991, John G. McEvoy, review of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise, p. 1382; December, 1995, review of Hans Krebs, p. 668; March, 1999, Marco Beretta, review of Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year, p. 123.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, autumn, 1987, John W. Servos, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 346.

Journal of the American Medical Association, December 16, 1992, Nathaniel Berlin, review of Hans Krebs, Volume 1, p. 3379.

Library Journal, March 1, 1986, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 45.

Nature, February 23, 1989, W.F. Bynum, review of The Investigative Enterprise, p. 697; December 2, 1993, review of Hans Krebs, Volume 1, p. 417.

New Technology Books, November, 1986, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 626.

Quarterly Review of Biology, March, 1994, review of Hans Krebs, p. 77; September, 1999, review of Antoine Lavoisier—The Next Crucial Year, p. 331.

Science, August 23, 1985, Trevor H. Levere, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 751; August 7, 1992, John W. Servos, review of Hans Krebs, Volume 1, p. 819; December 21, 2001, Nathaniel Comfort, review of Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA, p. 2483.

Science Books and Films, December, 1993, review of Hans Krebs, p. 267.

SciTech Book News, August, 1985, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 13.

Technology and Culture, October, 1991, Arthur Donovan, review of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise, p. 1106.

Times Higher Education Supplement, June 3, 1994, W.F. Bynum, review of Hans Krebs, p. 25.

Times Literary Supplement, October 18, 1985, review of Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life, p. 1166; January 11, 2002, Thomas L. Hankins, review of Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, p. 7.

Trends in Biochemical Sciences, June, 1994, review of Hans Krebs, p. 264.

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, April 7, 2003, p. A21.

Washington Post, April 10, 2003, p. B8.