Nobel Prize Winners in Physics, 1901-1950 by Niels H. de V. Heathcote; Nobel Prize Winnersin Medicine and Physiology, 1901-1950 by Lloyd G. Stevenson; Nobel Prize Winners inChemistry, 1901-1950 by Eduard FarberReview by: I. Bernard CohenIsis, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp. 407-408Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226800 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 407

The editor has placed Liebig's words on the left-hand pages and those of his contempo- raries on the right-hand pages. Approximately one pair of pages is devoted to each year of his adult life. Attention seems to have been directed more toward keeping corresponding pages in balance than toward the content of the pages. Rarely do the quotations on op- posite pages pertain to one another, and never does the reader deduce a logical order to be followed in perusing the book.

Those already familiar with Liebig's life and work should enjoy, as I did, the occa- sional gems revealing his own temperamental outbursts, the stable good sense and earthy humor of his lifelong friend W6hler, the friendly relations with the Gay-Lussac fam- ily, the exasperation with the authorities at Giessen for their slow pace in providing ade- quate facilities for his work, and the cooling of his respect for Berzelius. On the other hand, those not already familiar with Liebig will find it difficult to piece together a co- herent picture from the short, unconnected quotations in the book. University of Wisconsin AARON J. IHDE

NrELS H. de V. HEATHCOTE: Nobel Prize winners in physics, 1901-1950. With a foreword by Prof. Herbert Dingle. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. 473 pages. Price $8.50. (Pathbreakers in 20th cen- tury science. Life of Science Library, no. 30.) LLoYD G. STEVENSON: Nobel Prize win- ners in medicine and physiology, IgoI- 1950. 291 pages. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. Price $6.50. (Path- breakers in 20th century science. Life of Science Library, no. 29.)

EDUARD FARBER: Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, 1901-1950. 2 19 pages. New York: Henry Schuman, 1953. Price $5.00. (Pathbreakers in 20th cen- tury science. Life of Science Library, no. 31.)

One of the creative aspects of publishing is the recognition of a need for a certain type of book and the selection of the proper individual to produce it. Although various

lists of winners of the Nobel Prize have been published from time to time, never before has an attempt been made to write the history of science in terms of these awards. The three volumes under review are con- structed in conformity to a common pattern. The prize-winning work is presented year by year. First appears a biographical sketch of the prize winner, then a description of the prize-winning work, including a selec- tion from the writings in which that work was presented, and then a short section called "Consequences in theory and practice." In most cases the description of the work is taken from the Nobel Address delivered at the Presentation Ceremony, since these addresses seemed admirably suited to serve the needs of scientists and historians of science because they were delivered in non- technical language. Those not delivered in English have been translated by the editor of each volume.

Each of the three volumes begins with the first award in the year I9OI, and ends with the awards for I950. In each field there were years in which no award was made, and others in which several were made. Dr. Far- ber's book describes the work of fifty-one chemists. In a compass of little more than two hundred pages, each biographical sketch, with its accompanying description of the work, and its evaluation of the contribution, is limited to four pages. While Dr. Farber's book is accurate and based upon sound judgment, it serves more as a reference book than as a history of twentieth-century chemistry written in terms of the Nobel awards.

Dr. Stevenson's book on the Nobel Prize winners in medicine and physiology also covers a span of fifty years. For nine of these fifty years no award was made, but in others multiple awards were more frequent than in chemistry. The result is that Dr. Stevenson has the task of dealing with fifty- nine. Since his book is a little less than three hundred pages long, it does not allow him very much more space for each prize winner than Dr. Farber's. Dr. Stevenson has pre- pared his book with scholarly care, and each extract presented, even if taken from the annual publication of the Nobel Prize ad- dresses, is carefully identified as to source in a footnote. At the end of almost every section there is a reference to a major general work by the same author, or in some cases

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408 BOOK REVIEWS

to one or more books or articles that deal with the subject in a general way.

For six of the fifty years no physics award was made, but with multiple awards in other years, a total of fifty-four were given. Dr. Heathcote apparently decided that he could not limit himself to the small compass chosen by those who had prepared the other two volumes, and his book is a little more than twice the size of theirs. The result is that, instead of from four to five pages for each award, Dr. Heathcote has allowed about nine. Dr. Heathcote has also made the sum- maries following the presentation of each Nobel Prize winner and his work more suc- cinct, so that he has allowed much more space for a description of the prize-winning work. The extracts from each Nobel Prize winner are presented by Dr. Heathcote with an interpolated commentary of his own, so that the job of understanding what each man has accomplished is greatly facilitated. The result is that Dr. Heathcote's book, despite the limitations imposed by the nature of the subject, is one of the best histories of con- temporary physics yet written.

The only feature that the critical reader will find lacking in any of these volumes is an analysis of the actual awards themselves. It would have been interesting to know their distribution by nationality and subject. Some estimate might have been given as to whether the awards adequately represented all of the major fields of scientific research within the given area, and the like. Finally, the material presented might have afforded some basis for an evaluation of the net effect, if any, that the Nobel Prize awards have had on the progress of science.

Harvard University I. BERNARD COHEN

RUTH G. CHRISTMAN (editor): Soviet Science. A symposium presented on 27 December I95i at the Philadelphia meet- ing of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Arranged by Conway Zirkle and Howard A. Meyer- hoff. vii + io8 pp. Washington: for the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science, I952.

Seven papers in this symposium deal with specific fields of Soviet science: genetics, physiology and pathology, psychology and

psychiatry, social science, physics and chem- istry, and mathematics. Two additional papers attempt a general appraisal of the condition of science and the scientist in the U.S.S.R. The picture given varies from field to field, but in one respect almost all the contributors agree. As Professor Zirkle puts it in his summary: "Soviet science remains sound only where the commissars have not meddled. . ." (p. ioo). Soviet mathematics, physics, and chemistry are described as flour- ishing because, allegedly, no effort has been made to establish a Marxist-Leninist line in those fields. (In actual fact such efforts have been and are being made.) Dr. Gantt, how- ever, feels that "the real tragedy of the Rus- sian purges in science comes . . . not so much from its effect on science -here errors will in time correct themselves - as from the effect on the individual scientist" (p. 34). Unfortunately, there were no papers on his- tory (if it may be considered a science), logic, or linguistics, where the consensus of non-Soviet scholarship is that Central Com- mittee intervention has had some positive results.

Some of the authors draw a distinction between the planning of science and political interference with science, arguing or implying that the former can be beneficial if it is care- ful to avoid the latter. Other authors in the present symposium argue that the planning of science, even without ideological controls, warps the development of science in a nar- rowly practical direction. The reader would of course like to know for a fact whether Soviet science has suffered such warping and, if so, to what degree. He will find widely differ- ing answers in these papers. He will also find various estimates of the causes of the Com- munist Party's interventions in questions of scientific theory. The basic cause is given by various contributors as the requirements of Communist ideology, or Russian nationalism, or forced industrialization and the collectivi- zation of agriculture, or the rise in social significance of science and its practical re- sults. The last-named factor is of course not unique to Soviet science, and some contrib- utors touched on the question of similarities as well as differences between Soviet and non- Soviet science in the matter of ideological control of the scientist and his theories.

A perennial problem of the history of sci- ence is felt with special force in this as in any

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