KLUYVER AS PROFESSOR; CHRONICLES OF THE LABORATORY 



ner similar to that which he adopted when he had come to Delft as 

 Beijerinck's successor. Once again he chose not to follow the road of 

 narrowing and restricting his attention to some specialized topics; 

 once again he set himself the task of assimilating the new knowledge 

 in its entirety, frequently consolidating his critical conclusions in 

 papers in which the recently opened fields were reviewed. 



Already at a relatively early date, in 1949, Kluyver found an oppor- 

 tunity personally to re-establish some of the broken contacts when he 

 made a trip to the U.S.A. on behalf of the yeast factory. Building on 

 the experience gathered during the war in the manufacture of penicil- 

 lin, this concern had greatly expanded its activities in the pharmaceu- 

 tical area, a development which had led to the appointment of a group 

 of medical advisers, and Kluyver naturally became president of this 

 advisory board. 



Meanwhile an entirely new methodology for the study of microbial 

 morphology had begun to take shape in Delft. Just before the war, 

 electron-optical developments abroad had led to the appearance on 

 the market of the first electron-microscope. Surmising its great poten- 

 tialities for biology, Kluyver and Mr. F. G. Waller of the yeast fac- 

 tory joined forces and obtained the necessary material aid to enable 

 Professor Dorgelo from the Department of Technological Physics to 

 push his investigations in this field. During the war one of the students 

 in that laboratory succeeded in constructing clandestinely an electron 

 microscope that was regarded as the best in existence ; and soon after- 

 wards this instrument was in use every hour of the day, for the exam- 

 ination of diverse objects, including many biological preparations. Be- 

 fore long it became feasible to set aside a portion of the available time 

 for microbiological studies, and eventually the microbiological labor- 

 atory acquired its own electron microscope. Thus Kluyver's strategic 

 outlook had promoted, and in a particularly satisfying manner, a 

 development that resulted in important pioneering work in the field 

 of microbial morphology. 



As is evident from the bibliography and the list of dissertations, the 

 scientific investigations in Kluyver's institute were rapidly resumed. 

 The study of inorganic hydrogen acceptors was expanded by further 

 work on the reduction of carbonate and nitrate. Moreover, the results 

 of studies on cellulose decomposition in the rumen of cows attracted 



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