Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: William Kingston

  • How a bishop unwittingly kick-started the DNA revolution

    William Kingston Dublin, Ireland   Ewald, Born, Heitler & Schrodinger 1943, outside 65 Merrion Square (then home of STP). Courtesy of DIAS. E. Schrodinger, 1955. Courtesy of the Irish Press. In 1943 a series of lectures was delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, which had profound scientific and medical consequences. Their title was What is Life?…

  • Chance in the origins of antibiotics

    William Kingston Dublin, Ireland   The discovery of antibiotics has been described as the “domestication of microorganisms” and ranks in importance with the domestication of animals as part of settled agriculture about 10,000 years ago. It depends upon antagonism between bacteria, which had been noticed as early as 1874, and Pasteur commented then that if…