Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Abstract

THE ceuvre and personality of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins have quite recently been appraised by the most outstanding representatives of his own and allied sciences. These articles appear in easily accessible periodicals. What, then, was the need the editors of this volume sought to satisfy? The answer may perhaps be found in the article by Dr. and Mrs. Needham: “Hopkins was a personality which drew from his colleagues not only intellectual admiration but deep affection and even veneration. . . . One never came across anybody at all like him, and now one is sure one never will.’ This book is a revolt against this final loss. So far as such an impossible aim can be attained, it brings Hopkins to life again. ”The matter of deep regret that he left behind no single book embodying his conception of the subject he brought to life’ (Dr. Marjory Stephen-son) is thus remedied. Indeed, through Dr. L. J. Harris's collection of addresses by Hopkins and the presentation of a classical catena of excerpts from his scientific papers, the book conveys to the reader not only the synopsis of Hopkins's conceptions, but also the entire process of their development, together with the development of the historical setting in which they occurred. It is by letting Hopkins himself speak and act—and not by speaking of him—by presenting his brain-wave mechanics that the book brings him to life.

Hopkins and Biochemistry 1861–1947

Papers concerning Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, O.M., P.R.S., with a Selection of his Addresses and a Bibliography of his Publications. Edited by Dr. Joseph Needham Dr. Ernest Baldwin; with a Foreword by Prof. A. C. Chibnall, and Contributions by Dr. Malcolm Dixon, Dr. Leslie J. Harris and Dr. Marjory Stephenson. A Commemoration Volume prepared on the occasion of the First International Congress of Biochemistry, Cambridge, 1949. Pp. ix + 361. (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1949.) 18s. net.