SCIENTISTS 



derived from meeting people who are interested in the same things 

 as ourselves, and subjects become more interesting when we see 

 how interested others are in them. Indeed few of us are sufficiently 

 strong-minded and independent to be enthusiastic about a subject 

 which does not interest others. 



Nevertheless there are the rare individuals who have sufficient 

 internal drive and enthusiasm not to stagnate when alone and 

 even perhaps to benefit from the forced independence and wider 

 interests that the isolated worker is obliged to take up. Most of 

 the great pioneers had to work out their ideas independently and 

 some — Mendel in his monastery and Darwin during the voyage 

 of the Beagle — worked in scientific isolation. A present-day 

 example is H. W. Bennetts who has worked in comparative 

 scientific isolation in Western Austraha. He has to his credit the 

 discovery of the cause of entero-toxaemia of sheep and copper 

 deficiency as a cause of disease in sheep and cattle as well as other 

 important pioneer contributions to knowledge. 



Lehman has collected some interesting data about man's most 

 creative time of life.^^ He extracted data from sources such as 

 A Series of Primers of the History of Medicine and An Intro- 

 duction to the History of Medicine, and found that the maximum 

 output of people bom between 1750 and 1850 was during the 

 decade of life 30 to 39 years. Taking this as 100 per cent, the 

 output for the decade 20—29 years was 30—40 per cent; for 40-49 

 years, 75 per cent; 50-59 years, about 30 per cent. Probably 

 man's inventiveness and originality begins to decrease at an early 

 age, possibly even in the 20s, but this is offset by increased 

 experience, knowledge and wisdom. 



Cannon says that Long and Morton began the use of ether as 

 an anaesthetic when they were both 27 years of age; Banting 

 was 31 when he discovered insulin; Semmelweis recognised the 

 infectiousness of puerperal fever when he was 29 ; Claude Bernard 

 had started his researches on the glycogenic function of the liver 

 when he was 30 ; van Grafe devised the operation for cleft palate 

 and founded modem plastic surgery when he was 29. When 

 von Helmholtz was only 22, barely emerged as an undergraduate 

 medical student, he published an important paper suggesting 

 that fermentation and putrefaction were vital phenomena and 

 thus paved the way for Pasteur.^* Robinson considers 28 is a 



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