The forces which caused the germination of various cultures before the beginning of recorded history were discussed by Vere Gordon Childe, Professor of Prehistoric Archeology at the University of Edinburgh, in an address entitled "A Prehistorian's Interpretation of Diffusion." Although Professor Childe started out by saying: "Discussions of diffusion are apt to degenerate into combats where in only dust is diffused . . ." he made some very definite comments concerning the influence of environmental factors in aiding intercourse between the urban civilizations of the early Orient.
3 Prize Winners
Among the Nobel Prize winners speaking in the Biological and Physical Science symposia were Arthur Holly Compton in physics and Karl Landsteiner and Frederick Gowland Hopkins in medicine. Professor Compton, who is 44 years old, is one of the world's leading authorities on cosmic rays. After being a National Research Fellow in 1919, he became an instructor at Minnesota, research physicist with the Westinghouse Electric Co., and head of the Department of Physics at Washington University. Since 1923 he has been Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, and has traveled extensively around the world in pursuit of the elusive cosmic ray. He spoke on "Cosmic Rays as Electrical Particles" in the section of the Physical Science symposium entitled "Cosmic Radiation."
Dr. Landsteiner, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his discovery of the blood groups, is connected with the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. He has studied for many years the phenomena of immunity, and his address before the Physical Science session on "Parasitism" was entitled "Serological and Allergic Reactions with Simple Chemical Compounds," a subject closely allied with immunity. The specific contribition to the subject disclosed in the address was that "drug idiosyncrasy, in many cases at least, comes into the same category as anaphylaxis."
Chemical Thought
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who addressed the "Various Aspects of Biology" section of the Biological Sciences symposium on "The Influence of Chemical Thought on Biology," won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1929. He is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and is recognized as one of the very top rank of biochemists throughout the world.
His work has covered several phases of biochemistry; perhaps the most interesting was done in connection with vitamins. This was a feeding experiment carried out in 1906, in which Professor Hopkins observed the results of giving various diets to rats. The effects of different combinations of diet, the absence or presence of milk along with other foods, whether food is cooked or raw, and other factors enabled him to draw certain conclusions in regard to developing the theory of vitamins. He has also done very important work in collaboration with Sir Walter Fletcher on the chemical changes which accompany muscular contraction.