Research Catalog

Title

Félix d'Herelle and the origins of molecular biology / William C. Summers.

Author

Summers, William C.

Publication

New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 230 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• A self-taught scientist determined to bring science out of the laboratory and into the practical arena, French-Canadian Felix d'Herelle (1873-1949) made history in two different fields of biology. Not only was he first to demonstrate the use and application of bacteria for biological control of insect pests, he also became a seminal figure in the history of molecular biology.
• This book is the first full biography of d'Herelle, a complex figure who emulated Louis Pasteur and influenced the course of twentieth-century biology, yet remained a controversial outsider to the scientific community.

Subjects

• D'Herelle, Félix
• Microbiologists > Canada > Biography
• Molecular biology > History > 20th century

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-224) and index.

Contents

1. Peregrinations of Youth -- 2. Fermentations: Guatemala and Mexico -- 3. Epizootics: Locusts in Argentina and Algeria -- 4. Bacteriophage Discovered -- 5. Reaction and Controversy -- 6. The Nature of Phage: Microbe or Enzyme? -- 7. The Origin of Life: Colloids and Protobes -- 8. The Hope of Phage Therapy -- 9. Fighting Cholera and Plague in India -- 10. Bacterial Mutations and Phage Research at Yale -- 11. To Tiflis and Back -- 12. Reflections and Legacies -- Appendix. "On an Invisible Microbe Antagonistic to the Dysentery Bacillus" ("Sur un microbe invisible antagoniste des bacilles dysenteriques") by Felix d'Herelle (1917).

ISBN

0300071272 (alk. paper)

LCCN

98044302

OCLC

• 39849581
• ocm39849581

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries