1976
Eradication of Smallpox
“Smallpox, the most devastating and feared pestilence in human history, is making its last stand in two remote areas of Ethiopia, one in the desert and one in the mountains. As of the end of August, only five villages had experienced cases in the preceding eight weeks. More important, the onset of the last known case was on August 9. Because man is the only known reservoir for the smallpox virus, the disease should be eliminated forever when the last infected person recovers.”
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This article was written by Donald A. Henderson, who was chief medical officer in charge of smallpox eradication at the World Health Organization. Smallpox remains the only infectious disease in humans to be globally eradicated.
1926
Wonder of the Commonplace
“There is nothing in all of nature more wonderful than anything else when we stop to think about it. For not even the most trivial happening can we as yet give any ultimate explanation. It is true that there are many things which we have come to regard as commonplace, but they have lost for us their real wonder only by reason of familiarity; for familiarity, like slowly settling dust, gradually masks everything under a uniform, uninteresting gray. The child has the advantage of us, for to him everything is wonderful because everything is new.
“There have been those who have not lost this perspective. Newton did not, as the story of the falling apple bears witness. [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson, although not professedly a scientific man, showed us that the scientist and the poet are blood brothers when he said of the flower in the crannied wall: ‘... if I could understand/What you are/root and all/and all in all/I should know what God and man is.’”
Motordom Guinea Pigs
“No one would think of the automobile racetrack as a practical laboratory, yet that is what it has become. Primarily the race is a test of the engineers, the people whose ideas are being tried out. It will tell each whether their years of research and labor have been worthwhile, or whether there have already been later developments which will render them useless. As such, no one watches the races with keener interest than these engineers. They are all at the race, for some brainchild of theirs is ‘strutting its stuff’ before the automotive world.”
Solid Rock Excavation
“Within a few months, the new tenants of offices in the 45th story of the New York Life Insurance Building will have an unrivaled view of a metropolitan panorama. This they will see from directly above the place where once stood the exquisite figure of Diana that dominated the Madison Square Garden Building. This historical structure has been ruthlessly demolished, and great quantities of the ground beneath its foundation have been removed to make way for the substructure extending four stories below street level, of the new skyscraper.
“This involved the excavation of nearly 150,000 cubic yards of earth and stone from a pit 72 feet deep. Its safe and rapid excavation without injury or danger to life or property was a worthy engineering feat.”
1876
Most Remarkable Fish Dinner
“The fish culturists showcasing their breeding and other aquatic breakthroughs at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia treated themselves to an extraordinary fish dinner. The bill of fare embraced 58 kinds of fish. Under the head of hors d’oeuvres we find Norwegian pluck fish, Portuguese conger eel, Spanish conger eel with tomatoes, Turkish botargoes or mullet roes, Japanese shake or dried salmon, crayfish from the Cape of Good Hope, French tunny fish, and, most astonishing, ‘desiccated octopus eggs.’
“Noted scientists are honored by having their names applied to the various sauces, such as bisque of lobster, Seth Green style. One particular dish puzzled even the most ingenious chefs, and that was kanten (Japanese seaweed) à la Sekizawa Akekio [a pioneer in agriculture and fisheries].”
Infusorial Earth
“It is one of the paradoxes of nature that the smallest creatures contribute most to the structure of the earth. The higher forms of life are barely traceable in the rocky strata; the lowest make up the bulk of vast formations, thousands of miles in area, thousands of feet in depth. The gigantic labors of the minute but multitudinous coral polyps are proverbial. But these are surpassed by the remains of still more microscopic creatures [or microplankton] which swarm in all waters, and whose cast-off shells fall like a ceaseless rain of solid matter on every part of the ocean’s bed.”
