Essay Review: A Single Path to the Double Helix?: The Path to the Double Helix

Olby R. , The path to the double helix. Henceforth ‘Olby’.

Astbury W. T. Bell Florence O. , “X-ray study of thymonucleic acid”, Nature, cxli (1938), 747–8, p. 747.

Astbury W. T. Bell Florence O. , “Some recent developments in the X-ray study of proteins and related structures”, Cold Spring Harbor symposia on quantitative biology, vi (1938), 109–21, p. 113. Also quoted by Olby, 67.

See Olby , ibid.

Ibid., 68–69.

Ibid., 70.

Ibid., vi.

Ibid., 85.

Ibid., 246.

Ibid., 79.

Kossel A. , “The chemical composition of the cell nucleus”, Nobel Lectures: Physiology and medicine 1901–1921 (Amsterdam-London-New York, 1967), 394–5. See also idem, “Ueber die chemische Zusammensetzung der Zelle”, Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie (Physiologische Abtheilung) (1891), 181–6; Die Probleme der Biochemie (Heidelberg, 1908); “Über die Beziehung der Biochemie zu den morphologischen Wissenschaften”, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse Abteilung B. Biologische Wissenschaften), Jahrgang 1921. 1. Abhandlung, 1–21. Curiously, Olby presents a more comprehensive picture and deeper insight of Kossel's work in Dictionary of scientific biography , vii (ed. Gillispie C. C. , New York, 1973), 466–8. For instance, Olby stresses that “Kossel was dominated by the vision of a biological meaning for his chemical discoveries” (p. 467).

Levene P. A. Mandel J. A. , “Über die Konstitution der Thymo-nucleinsäure”, Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, xli (1908), 1905–9; Levene P. A. Jacobs W. A. , “Über die Hefe-Nucleinsäure”, ibid., xlii (1909), 2474–9.

Levene P. A. Bass L. W. , Nucleic acids (New York, 1931), 362.

Glass B. , “A century of biochemical genetics”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cix (1965), 229.

Olby , 82.

Ibid., 89.

Ibid., xxii.

Chargaff E. , Essays on nucleic acids (Amsterdam-London-New York, 1963), 2.

Olby , 94. Cf. also 207.

Levene Bass , op. cit. (ref. 13), 289.

Olby , 94.

Ibid., 74. See also 204.

Ibid., 119.

Wrinch D. M. , “On the molecular structure of chromosomes”, Protoplasma, xxv (1936), 550–69.

Ibid., 561.

Waddington C. H. , An introduction to modern genetics (London, 1939), 394, 401.

Olby , 204.

Fruton J. S. , “The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research: An essay review”, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, xxi (1966), 74.

Martin A. J. P. Synge R. L. M. , “A new form of chromatogram employing two liquid phases”, Biochemical journal, xxxv (1941), 1358–68; Gordon A. H. Martin A. J. P. Synge R. L. M. , “A study of the partial acid hydrolysis of some proteins, with a special reference to the mode of linkage of the basic amino-acids”, ibid., xxxv (1941), 1369–87; Consden R. Gordon A. H. Martin A. J. P. , “Qualitative analysis of proteins: A partition chromatographic method using paper”, ibid., xxxviii (1944), 224–32.

Olby , 214.

Ibid., 436.

See Report of Edwin J. Cohn to the Provost, quoted by Edsall J. T. in “A historical sketch of the Department of Physical Chemistry, Harvard Medical School: 1920–1950”, reprinted from American scientist, xxxviii (1950), 580–93, p. 590.

See Haldane J. B. S. , “The biochemistry of the individual”, in Needham J. Green D. E. (eds), Perspectives in biochemistry (Cambridge, 1937), 1–10, p. 10.

Waddington C. H. , “Some European contributions to the prehistory of molecular biology”, Nature, ccxxi (1969), 318–21, p. 318. See also Olby , 114.

Muller H. J. , “Résumé and perspectives of the symposium on genes and chromosomes”, Cold Spring Harbor symposia on quantitative biology, ix (1941), 290–308, p. 308.

Kendrew J. C. , “Some remarks on the history of molecular biology” in Godwin T. W. (ed.), British biochemistry past and present (London-New York, 1970), 6; see also, by the same, the review of Cairns J. Stent G. S. Watson J. D. (eds), Phage and the origins of molecular biology (Cold Spring Harbor, 1966) in Scientific American, ccxvi (1967), 141, 143–4.

Olby, 234.

Delbrück M. , “Preliminary write-up on the topic ‘Riddle of Life’ (Berlin, August 1937)”, in Les prix Nobel en 1969 (Stockholm, 1970), 153–6; pp. 153, 155.

Olby, 239.

Stent G. S. , “Introduction: Waiting for the paradox”, in Cairns J. , op. cit. (ref. 36), 3–8, p. 7.

Ibid.

Olby , 240.

Delbrück M. , “A physicist looks at biology”, in Cairns J. , op. cit. (ref. 36), 9–22, p. 22.

Olby , 227.

Stent , op. cit. (ref. 40), 3.

Haldane J. B. S. , “A physicist looks at genetics”, Nature, clv (1945), 375–6, p. 376.

Olby , 241.

Schrödinger E. , What is life? (Cambridge, 1945), 57.

Haldane , op. cit. (ref. 46), 375.

Schrödinger , op. cit. (ref. 48), 60–61.

Olby , 246.

Schrödinger , op. cit. (ref. 48), 61–62.

Olby , 246.

Schrödinger , op. cit. (ref. 48), 68–75.

Ibid., 76–86; Olby , 244–5.

Olby , 246.

Ibid., 252–4.

Bernal J. D. , “William Thomas Astbury”, Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, ix (1963), 1–35, p. 26.

Olby , 268.