January 25, 2021

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #11:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

Adolf von Baeyer  (1835-1917). b. Berlin, Germany.  Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1905. The jeans chemist. 

Jeans, you may be surprised to learn, are not naturally blue. No, that’s in fact thanks to Adolph von Baeyer, who synthesized in 1880 indigo, a blue dye. This little known scientist made some other invaluable contributions, including his discovery of barbituric acid (which led to the manufacture of types of sedatives and anesthetics), and fluorescein, which forensic investigators use to find blood and other stains. 

Adolph Frank  (1834-1916). b. Klotze, Germany. Putting food on the table.

Every year globally, more than 30 million tons of potash are produced. The main ingredient of which is potassium, potash is one of the most crucial artificial nutrients in agriculture. Who do we have to thank for discovering that potash could be a fertilizer that could help feed humanity? Adolph Frank, another unheralded but hugely impactful German Jewish scientist. Additionally, Frank also invented a way to extract bromine from salt mines. Bromine has served humanity well—as a flame retardant, a pesticide, and a sedative.

Richard Willstatter (1872-1942). b. Karlsruhe, Germany. Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1915. How light turns into energy.

A protégé of Adolph von Baeyer at the University of Munich, Willstatter was the first ever scientist to determine the chemical formula of chlorophyll, a vital chemical in photosynthesis (the process by which sunlight is converted into energy). This was the main contribution for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1917, when his friend Fritz Haber (see below) asked him to develop poison gas to advance Germany’s interest in World War I, Willstatter declined—and instead offered to help develop a defensive filter to poison gas, which led to the first gas masks.

Fritz Haber (1868-1934). b. Wroclaw, Poland. Nobel Prize in Chemistry—1918. The master of chemicals, for good and bad.

Haber sits in the center of what was truly a golden age of Jewish chemists. He and Adolph Frank are responsible for feeding much of humanity—the Haber Process, which produced ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, is responsible for the creation of agricultural fertilizers (500 million tons are produced annually) that now help feed a substantial portion of humanity. Haber’s creation of ammonia has even been credited with “detonating” the population explosion from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to more than 7 billion today. Why? Well, to feed the increasing world population would have been impossible if the relatively inefficient methods of agriculture in that era didn’t improve. Ammonia-based fertilizers allow for farms to grow far more food than they could have grown in the past. Haber, though, must also be remembered as the head of the German military’s chemistry wing during World War I. He supervised the first use of chemical weapons (chlorine gas) in military history and also of chemical defense (gas masks) in modern warfare. His legacy is a mixed one—greatness for his role in agricultural chemistry; controversy for his part in the chemistry of warfare.

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #10:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

August von Wassermann (1866-1925). b. Bamberg, Germany.  The immunologist. 

In 1906, bacteriologist and immunologist August von Wassermann created the first reliable test for detecting syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease. The Wasserman test, which was developed at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases identifies an antibody that’s unique to syphilis, lupus, malaria, and tuberculosis. This test formed the basis for subsequent tests used in the detection of these diseases. In 1921 Wasserman became the first recipient of the Aronson Prize for his immunological achievements.

Bela Schick (1877-1967). b. Balatonboglár, Hungary. Sticking it to diphtheria.

Raised in Hungary but spending most of his clinical career in New York City, Bela Schick created the Schick test to identify diphtheria, a potentially fatal disease that originates in the throat and still kills thousands of people per year. Schick created the test in 1910, when diphtheria was a feared disease and vaccinations for it were in low supply, making it crucial to only vaccinate children with preexistent susceptibility, and not those who were naturally immune from diphtheria. Schick’s test identified at-risk children by injecting a tiny amount of diluted diphtheria into their arm. In susceptible children, the injection site would become red and swollen. He led a massive and successful five-year public relations campaign to persuade as many parents as possible to test their children for susceptibility.

Gertrude Elion (1918-1999). b. New York City. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1988. A pharmaceutical genius. 

Spurred by the death of her grandfather from cancer, Gertrude Elion, at 15, decided to devote her career to making people healthier. In her 20s she began research at what is now the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, eschewing a PhD so that she could continue her lab work full-time. By the time her career ended, she was responsible for the creation of Purinethol, the first Leukemia treatment, Imuran, a crucial drug for organ transplants, Daraprim, a crucial malaria treatment, Septra, vital in treating infections of the urinary and respiratory tracts, Zovirax, which is used to treat herpes, and AZT, the first ever drug approved by the U.S. government in treatment of HIV. Several of the drugs she helped create are on the WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines, which is a list of drugs that any society must have readily accessible in order to maintain basic standards of health. 

Jewish Contributions to Humanity #9:
Original research by Walter L. Field.
Sponsored by Irwin S. Field.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991). b. Leoncin, Poland.  1978 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Yiddish storyteller. 

He is accepted as one of the greatest contemporary Yiddish short story writers and novelists, whose tales wove fantasy, mysticism and eroticism into much of his fiction. Born to a family of Chassidic rabbis, Singer attended a rabbinical seminary, but instead chose the path of the writer. He began his career as a journalist in Warsaw, publishing his first novel, “Satan in Goray,” in 1935, the same year he emigrated to America. In the United States, he continued working as a journalist for The Jewish Daily Forward and he published his first major novel, “The Family Moskat,” in 1950, which was almost shut down by his boss because of its controversial themes (including adultery on Yom Kippur). Several stories of his were adapted into film, including “Yentl” and “Enemies, a Love Story.” In all, Singer published at least 18 novels, 14 children’s books, and many more articles, essays, and memoirs. He wrote everything in Yiddish and his works were later translated into English and other languages. His work gave millions of people insight into the richness of Yiddish language and culture and into the world of East European Jewry—both the shtetl world and the urban world. His writing was very much a product of the environment of his Polish upbringing. If history books will give the world a window into the macro history of Polish and Yiddish Jewry, Singer has given us a window into the Yiddish soul.

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). b. Brooklyn, NY. 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  The late-blooming novelist.

For someone who burned the manuscript of his first novel, “The Light Sleeper,” at the age of 34, Bernard Malamud certainly produced a writing career that, if not prolific in terms of how much he wrote, was remarkable for what he wrote. He struck gold with his first published novel, “The Natural,” one of the greatest sports and baseball fantasies ever written, which was turned into a movie starring Robert Redford in 1984. He also wrote seven other novels, including “The Fixer,” about anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia, which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1967. The former urban factory worker, store clerk and high school teacher took up his pen largely in outrage against the Holocaust, and gave a modern voice to fables and parables as vehicles for moral lessons. Many of his short stories and other writings tackle issues germane to so many urban settings—class conflict, poverty and, particularly in New York, life for immigrant communities. One of the great American novelists, Mary Flannery O’Connor, said of Malamud, “I have discovered a short-story writer who is better than any of them, including myself.”