National Academies Press: OpenBook

Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44 (1974)

Chapter: 7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout

« Previous: 6. Robert Harry Lowie
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 217
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 218
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 219
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 220
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 221
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 222
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 223
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 224
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 225
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 226
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 227
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 228
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 229
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 230
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 231
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 232
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 233
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 234
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 235
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 236
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 237
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 238
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 239
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 240
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 241
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 242
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 243
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 244
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 245
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 246
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 247
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 248
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 249
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 250
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 251
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 252
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 253
Suggested Citation:"7. Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout." National Academy of Sciences. 1974. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/567.
×
Page 254

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

ROBERT HARRY LOWIE 207 A note on Lapp culture history. S.W. J. Anthropol., 1:447-54. Review. American Psychiatric Association, One Hundred Years of American Psychiatry. Am. J. Psychiatry, 102:138-41. With Clyde Kluckhohn. The psychiatry-anthropology relationship. Am. l. Psychiatry, 102:414-16. 1946 A case of bilingualism. Word, 1:249-59. Review. A Scientific Theory of Culture and O ther Essays, by Bronislaw Malinowski. Am. Anthropol., 48:118-19. Evolution in cultural anthronolo~v: a reolv to Leslie White. Am. Anthropol., 48:223-33. 1 C7' 1 J Translation. Social Organization and Beliefs of the Botocudo of Eastern iBrazil, by Curt Nimuendaju. S.W. l. Anthropol., 2:93- 115. Professor White and "anti-evolutionist" schools. 2:240-41. S.W. J. Anthropol., Eastern Brazil: an introduction. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Eth- nology Bulletin 143, Vol. 1, pp. 381-97. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print Off. The Bororo. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 1, pp. 419-34. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. The Northwestern and Central Ge. In: Handbook of South Amer- ican Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Sol. 1, pp. 477-517. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. The Southern Cayapo. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 1, pp. 519-20. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. The Tapuya; the Cariri; the Pancaruru; the Tarairiu; the Jeico; and the Guck. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 1, pp. 553-69. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. With Louis C. tones. New York Branch of the American Folklore Society. J. Am. Folklore, 59:489-91. Historia d e la Etnol~ogia. (Spanish translation of History of

208 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS Ethnological Theory, translated by Paul Kirchhoff.) Fondo de Cultura economica, Mexico. 358 pp. Translation. The Eastern Timbira, by Curt Nimuendaju. Calif. Publ. Am. Archaeol. Ethnol., 41:1-357. 1947 Franz Boas, 1858-1942. In: National Academy of Sciences, Bio- graphical Memoirs, 24:303-22. New York, Columbia University Press. Letters from Ernst Mach to Robert H. Lowie. Isis, 37:65-68. Some problems in Plains Indian folklore. i. Am. Folklore, 60:401-3. Primitive Society. 2d ed. New York, Liveright Publishing Corpora- tion. xii + 463 pp. 1948 Social Organization. New York, Rinehart & Co., Inc. 465 pp. Parochialism and historical instruction. In: Learning and World Peace, eighth symposium, ed. by Lyman Bryson and others, pp. 89-98. Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion to the Democratic Way of Life, Philadelphia, 1947. New York, The Conference. Some facts about Boas. S.W. i. Anthropol., 4:69-70. Some aspects of political organization among the American Indians. Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1948, Royal Anthropological In- stitute, London, pp. 1-14. The tropical rain forests: an introduction. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of Amer- ican Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 3, pp. 1-56. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. Review. Geschichte der Kultur: Eine allgemeine Ethnologie, by Kaj Birket-Smith. J. Am. Folklore, 61:401. Primitive Religion. (Rev. ea.) New York, Liveright Publishing Corporation. xxiii + 382 pp. 1949 Supplementary facts about Clark Wissler. Am. Anthropol., 51:528. ~ohn Montgomery Cooper, 1881-1949. Boletin bibliografico de Antropologia Americana, Mexico, D.F., 12:289-92. Review. Fatherland:~4 Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family, by Bertram Schaffner. Man, 48:131. Review. The American People, by Geoffrey Gorer. Man, 49:34.

ROBERT HARRY LOWIE 1950 209 Observations on the literary style of the Crow Indian. In: Beitrage zur Gesellungs- and Volkerwissenschaft (Thurnwald Festschrift), pp. 271-83. Social and political organization of the Tropical; Forest and Marginal tribes. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 5, pp. 313-50. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. Property among the Tropical Forest and Marginal tribes. In: Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by Julian H. Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Vol. 5, pp. 351-67. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. Review. Gegenwarts-Probleme Berliner Familien: Fine sozio- logische Untersuchung an 498 Familien, by Hilde Thurnwald. Am. Anthropol., 52:105-6. Review. Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, Vol. 9, by Wilhelm Schmidt. Am. Anthropol., 52:519-21. 1951 Some problems of geographical distribution. In: South Sea Stud ies, pp. 1 1-26. Basel, Museum fur Volkerkunde und Schweizerischen Museum fur Volkskunde. Beitrage zur Volkerkunde Nordamerikas. (Mitteilungen aus dem Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg.) Vol. XXIII, pp. 7-68, Hamburg. Some aspects of political organization among American aborigines. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 78: 1 1-24. Foreword. In: Reality and Dream: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian' by George Devereux, pp. xiii-xiv. New York, Interna- tional Universities Press. 1952 The heterogeneity of Marginal cultures. In: Selected Papers of the XXIXth International Congress of Americanists, ed. by Sol Tax, Vol. 3, pp. 1-7. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. The Wenner-Gren Foundation International Symposium on An- thropology. Sociologus, 2: 145-48. Review. Mythos und Cult bei Naturvolkern: Religions wissen-

210 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS schaftliche Betrachtungen, by A. E. Jensen. i. Am. Folklore, 65: 102~. Translation. The Tukuna, by Curt Nimuendaju. Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Archaeol. Ethnol., 45:1-207. Review. Des Menschengeistes erwachen, wachsen, und irren, by R. Thurnwald. Psyche, 4:50-52. The song"Frohe Botschaft." i. Am. Folklore, 65:187. Review. Mythe, Mensch, und Umwelt: Beitrage zur Religion, My- thologie, und Kulturgeschichte, ed. by A. E. Jensen. Am. An- thropol., 54:400-1. 1953 On historical and ethnographic techniques. Am. Anthropol., 55: 280. Review. Tupari, by Franz Caspar. Am. Anthropol., 55:441~2. Ethnography, cultural and social anthropology. Am. Anthropol., 55 :527-34. The relations between the Kiowa and the Crow Indians. Bulletin de la Societe Suisse des Americanistes, 7: 1-5. The Comanche, a sample of acculturation. Sociologus, 3:122-27. Alleged Kiowa-Crow amenities. S.W. i. Anthropol., 9: 357-68. Contemporary currents in American ethnology. Ethnological Re- search, 17:61-76. (Translated by I. Obayashi) Review. An A ppraisal of Anthropology Today, ed. by Sol Tax et al. Sociologus, 3:137-41. 1954 Indians of the Plains. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. 222 PP. A Crow tale. Anthropol. Quart., 2:1-22. Toward Understanding Germany. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. 396 pp. Field research in South America. Man, 54:100. Richard Thurnwald ( 1869-1954) . Am. Anthropol., 56: 863-67. Review. Allgemeine Volkerkunde: Formen und Entwicklung der Kultur, by Kunz Dittmer. Am. Anthropol., 56: 1114. Review. Miti e Leggende III: America Settentrionale, by Raf- faele Pettazzoni. Western Folklore, 13:218-20. Review. Franz Boas: The Science of Man in the Making, by M. l. Herskovits. Sci. Monthly, 78:47.

ROBERT HARRY LOWIE lg55 211 Reflections on the Plains Indians. Anthropol. Quart., 28:63-86. Contemporary trends in American cultural anthropology. Sociolo- gus, 5:113-21. The military societies of the Plains Creel Separata dos Anais do XXXI Congresso Internacional de Americanistes, pp. 1-9. Review. The Unwritten Law of A Ibania, by Margaret Hasluck. Am. Anthropol., 57: 1076. 1956 Boas once more. Am. Anthropol., 58:159-64. Choosing reviewers. Man, 55: 188. Supernormal experiences of American Indians. ~ . : ~o-morrow, 4: 9-16. Reminiscences of anthropological currents in America half a century ago. Am. Anthropol., 58: 995-1016. Notes on the Kiowa Indians. Tribus, 4:131-38. Review. The Hopi-Tewa of Arizona, by Edward P. Dozier. Soci- ologus, 6:189-91. Review. Marriage, Authority, and Final Causes: A Study of Uni- lateral Cross-Cousin Marriage, by George C. Homans and David M. Schneider. Am. Anthropol., 58:1144. 1957 Generalizations, field work, and materialism. Am. Anthropol., 59: 884-85. (L) Primitive messianism and an ethnological problem. Diogenes, 19:62-72. With Luella Winifred Cole. A Practical Handbook for Planning a Trip to Europe. New York, Vantage Press, Inc. 206 pp. POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS 1958 The culture-area concept as applied to North and South America. Proc. 32d Internat. Congr. Americanists, Copenhagen, 1956, pp. 73-78. Copenhagen, Einar Munksgaard Forlag. Individuum und Gesellschaft in der Religion der Naturvolker. Z. Ethnol., 83: 161-69.

212 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 1959 The oral literature of the Crow Indians. i. Am. Folklore, 72:97- 105. A note on Crow curses. i. Am. Folklore, 72:105. Robert H. Lowie, Ethnologist: A Personal Record. Berkeley, Uni- versity of California Press. 198 pp. Bemerkungen uber die Rolle der Religion in Alltagsleben der Crow Indianer. Z. Ethnol., 84: 1~. The development of ethnography as a science. In: Men and Moments in the History of Science, ed. by H. M. Evans, pp. 130-42. Seattle, University of Washington Press. 226 pp. 1960 Crow Texts: Collected, Translated and Edited by R. H. Lowie. Berkeley, University of California Press. 550 pp. Crow Word Lists: Crow-English and English-Crow Vocabularies. Berkeley, University of California Press. 411 pp. Empathy, or "seeing from within." In: Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, ed. by Stanley Diamond, pp. 145-59. New York, Columbia University Press. A few Assiniboine texts, collected and translated by R. H. Lowie. Anthropol. Linguistics, 2:1-30. My Crow interpreter. In: In the Company of Man, ed. by Joseph B. Casagrande, pp. 427-37. New York, Harper & Brothers. The oral literature of the Crow Indians. Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Brussels, 1948, p. 133. Tervuren, The Congress. 1963 Compromise in primitive society. (Le Compromis dans la societe primitive.) International Social Science journal (Revue in- ternationale des sciences sociales), 15: 188-238. Religion in human life. Am. Anthropol., 65:532~2. Washo texts. Anthropol. Linguistics, 5:1-30. 1966 With Fred Eggan. Kinship terminology. In: Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica, Vol. 13, pp. 377-81. Chicago, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

WINTHROP JOHN VAN LE UVEN OSTERH O UT August 2, 1871-April 9, 1964 BY L. R. BLINKS WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT was born in Brook- lyn, New York, on August 2, 1871, a little over a century ago. He died in New York, April 9, 1964. Elected to the Na- tional Academy of Sciences in 1919, he lived to be one of its older members (aged ninety-two). He greatly influenced the course of biology in the United States, as it turned from a largely descriptive into an experimental and analytical science. He was one of the founders of the new discipline of general physiology, through his own work and through his editorship of the Journal of General Physiology, which he founded, with Jacques Loeb, in 1918. He remained an editor for over forty-five years, and trained many students who contributed to general physiology. Winthrop Osterhout was the son of the Reverend John Vanleuven Osterhout and Annie Loranthe Beman Osterhout. the only child of Mr. and Mrs. R. Beman of Brooklyn. The mother's family were English; she lived in Baltimore before her marriage. The Osterhout family were Dutch, having come, as the name implies, from the town of Oosterhout (East Wood) south of the Rhine delta near Breda in the North Brabant province of the Netherlands. Jan Jansen van Osterhout and his wife, Annetje Gielis, came to New Amsterdam (later New York) before 1653, and lived first in Brooklyn; they moved up the Hudson, settling near Kingston. Later many family members 213

214 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS lived in the vicinity of Ellensville, in Ulster County, and Win- throp's uncle William was a tanner in Tannersville, in the Catskills. There seem to be no New England ancestors to account for the distinguished name of Winthrop, which may have been given for some good friend. At the time of Winthrop's birth his father was a Baptist minister in Webster, Massachusetts, his congregation consisting largely of working people of very small means. John Osterhout was an idealist who preferred to minister to poor people, rather than seek a position at a wealthier church. When Winthrop's mother and infant sister died of typhoid fever in 1873, the boy was left without a nurse. At first his father tried to care for the boy himself, and wrote that "Winnie is a good little traveller," when he took his son along wherever he went to preach. However, this arrangement proved too difficult, and young Winthrop was sent to live with his grandmother in Baltimore. . · · ~ . . This was apparently a happy time, since Grandmother was easygoing and gave him much freedom to play with boys of his own age on the street. Meanwhile the elder Osterhout had remarried, but his second wife died very soon, and Winthrop never knew her. Finally, when he was eight years old, Winthrop moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where his father had again re- married; here he grew up under the care of his stepmother, who was good to him, although never very close; she was a somewhat formal person who always addressed her husband as Mr. Oster- hout, or "Mr. O." However, Winthrop knew her as Mother; she lived into the third decade of the next century. The parents had bicycles and took trips on them, but the boy was not in- cluded, and in general did not enjoy athletics. He did not play games, not even tennis, and apparently did not have any close boyhood friends that he could remember. In later life his chief recreation was walking and rowing. His father's church in Providence was also a poor one, and

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 215 the family never enjoyed affluence. Winthrop attended Bridg- ham Grammar School and Providence High School; when he was ten years old he got a job as errand boy in a bookstore, where he had a chance to get acquainted with books. His em- ployer liked him and allowed him to read; from then on most of his leisure time was spent in reading. Finally, when he entered Brown University in 1889, he was entranced by the col- lection at the library. He at least glanced into every book on the shelves to see whether the contents interested him—a feat possible in 1890 but scarcely in any present university library! He was interested mainly in literature, and was elected class poet; he probably would have become a teacher of literature had not one of those chance happenings deflected him to science. In his junior year he met Professor H. C. Bumpus, who had recently come to Brown from Olivet (a small Congregational college in Michigan that had a remarkable succession of good biologists on its staffs. Bumpus urged Osterhout to attend the botany course at nearby Woods Hole, in the summer of 1892; there the famous Marine Biological Laboratory, then only four years old, was just getting established. Here were such biologists as T. H. Morgan, E. G. Conklin, Frank Lillie, and Jacques Loeb, who later became a very close friend. The teacher of the botany course was W. A. Setchell, a recent Ph.D. of W. G. Farlow's at Harvard and then Instructor at Yale. Osterhout and Setchell often went on collecting expeditions. Here began Osterhout's acquaintance with marine and fresh- water algae—the organisms he was to exploit so successfully in later research. One day he actually found Nitella in Nobska Pond, though it was thirty years before its physiological ad- vantages were recognized. (Fifty years later Osterhout was to write Setchell's biography for the American Philosophical So- ciety.) Osterhout made such an impression on Setchell that the lat- ter invited him to assist in the course next summer, which he

216 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS did, immediately after graduating. Now he was given the oppor- tunity to do independent research, and discovered an interesting phenomenonin Rhabdoniatenera (now known es Agardhiella): four spores, each capable of forming a new plant, could also combine to form a single plant. This was the subject of Oster- hout's first paper, in the Annals of Botany. He was also in- trigued by plants living in brackish water, and tried some experi- ments that were the beginning of his later work on osmotic pressure and salt effects in algae. Osterhout returned to Brown in the fall of 1893 as Instruc- tor in Botany, remaining for two years while he studied for the M.A., which he took in 1894. He was able to spend the next year in Germany, where so many young American scientists then went for their graduate training. No doubt Setchell en- couraged this move; in any case the young Osterhout chose Bonn, where Eduard Strasburger was then at the height of his fame as a plant cytologist. The great professor was very kind and helpful, and the atmosphere of the laboratory was con- genial; Strasburger made the students his friends. Here Oster- hout met other young Americans: R. A. Harper, who took his Ph.D. at Bonn that year and later taught at Wisconsin and Columbia; and David Fairchild, who became the famous "plant hunter" for the Bureau of Plant Introduction. (Curiously, in view of Osterhout's later utilization of Valonia, Fairchild went on from Bonn to Naples, where he investigated the cytology of that genus.) At Bonn Osterhout worked on the cytology and reproduc- tion of the freshwater red alga Batrachospermum. It was nec- essary to collect the plants at all hours of the day and night to find the proper stages—which led to some interesting conversa- tions (in German) with farm dogs and also with the Polizei, who were suspicious of the collecting equipment: dark lantern and gummischuhen! These experiences no doubt contributed to Osterhout's good command of the German language, which

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 217 he read easily and spoke well. He published several papers in German periodicals. When the time came to return home in 1896, Osterhout had a position awaiting again at Brown, but chose instead to move west, to the University of California, then only 28 years old. Setchell had preceded him to Berkeley as Professor of Botany, and he appointed Osterhout as instructor in his department. At this grade the young man remained for five years while he completed his dissertation on the reproduction of Rhabdonia, the alga on which he began work in Woods Hole. He was awarded the Ph.D. degree in 1899 and was married the same year to Anna Maria Landstrom, Winthrop's father coming out from Providence to perform the ceremony. A daughter, Anna (Mrs. Theodore Edison), was born in 1901 and another (Mrs. Olga Osterhout Sears) four years later. Their aid in the prepara- tion of this memoir is gratefully acknowledged. Osterhout was promoted to Assistant Professor of Botany in 1901 and to Associate Professor in 1907. The years at Berkeley were exciting and influential ones. The university, up to that time an isolated and small institution, was beginning to take on the stature of greatness that it later assumed, partly because of the rapid growth of California, partly because of the competi- tion of its new neighbor at Stanford, but mostly because of its remarkable president, Benjamin Ide Wheeler (another graduate of Brown). In a day of famous leaders, Wheeler was a great builder and stimulator. One of his notable innovations was the bringing of great scholars from Europe for a year; some of these arrivals in science were Arrhenius from Sweden, de Vries from Holland, and Ostwald from Germany (whose name meant the same thing as Osterhout). There also came to Berkeley for a period of eight years the brilliant physiologist Jacques Loeb, who influenced Osterhout very greatly. There exists a photo- graph taken in 1905 showing de Vries beside an Oenothera plant in the botanic garden, flanked with the portly Arrhenius

218 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS and the ascetic slight figure of E. W. Hilgard, with Loeb smiling beside them, and Osterhout (in "bowler" hat) in the back row. It was a fruitful and stimulating society for a young scientist, and it is not surprising that Osterhout's thoughts began turning from cytology and morphology to physiology and physical chem- istry. These were the days of Loeb's interest in artificial par- thenogenesis (experiments on which were carried out in the Herzstein Laboratory near Monterey), and "salt effects" were at the center of the physiology of the day. Osterhout began looking at algae from this point of view, noticing a perfectly natural experiment. He observed the plants on the hulls of river steamers going daily from the salt water of San Francisco Bay to the mountain-fresh water of Sacramento. Those plants which sur- vived could obviously tolerate wide ranges of salinity. He also looked into the necessity of calcium to balance sodium, both in algae and in the roots of higher plants; these observations were the subject of several short papers. In addition, he wrote two books. A remarkable one, entitled Experiments with Plants, described simple, ingenious class exercises which could be per- formed with seeds, corks, and lamp chimneys. There was even included a homemade balance, sensitive to one-tenth of a gram, made from umbrella ribs! While this book was scorned by sophisticated colleagues who remembered Pfeffer's laboratory, its exercises were characteristic of Osterhout's "make-do" meth- ods, and the book was still in use twenty years later in his Harvard elementary class. I found it very useful when I began to teach in a poorly equipped laboratory (ironically that of one of the scorners noted above). Apparently others did also, for it was translated into Dutch within two years, and later into Russian (by none other than the distinguished plant physiologist, N. A. Maximov). It might still be useful in underdeveloped countries. It contained some illustrations from Luther Burbank, whom Osterhout knew. The other book, written in collaboration with the famous

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 219 agricultural and viticultural expert E. W. Hilgard, was entitled Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific Slope. While both books might be regarded as economic potboilers, they added greatly to the young botanist's reputation. At Berkeley, as his fame grew, Osterhout attracted increasing numbers of graduate students, among whom were A. A. Lawson, C. L. Williams, E. S. Byxbee, H. T. A. Hus, N. L. Gardner, and H. D. Densmore, the last a professor at Beloit College at the time of his work at Berkeley. All of these students worked on cytological problems: polar caps, spindle fibers, and the like. F. N. Magowan, however, studied the effects of salts on plants, reflecting Osterhout's own changing interests. Nathaniel L. Gardner, who was seven years older than Osterhout, became one of his most distinguished students, writing a large number of papers on Pacific Coast algae, many in collaboration with Osterhout's professor, Setchell. He and Osterhout went on collecting trips together— perhaps on the one from Monterey to Big Sur, aboard a very recalcitrant burro, which Osterhout recalled with amusement. Berkeley had many charms—its genial climate, good times at the Bohemian Grove, friendship with colleagues, and the beginnings of the university's later greatness. But it was a long way from other centers; except at Stanford there was then little science west of Chicago, and the long trip east by train was wearisome and expensive. Osterhout had not visited Woods Hole for many years. Therefore it was not surprising that in 1909 when Harvard offered him an assistant professor- ship, he accepted, despite the step down in rank—and a "munif- icent" salary of $1500 per year (paid quarterly, moreover, which created financial problems on arrival in Cambridge). Loeb also left Berkeley the next year, to join the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York. In Cambridge, Osterhout inherited the laboratories just vacated by G. L. Goodale—rooms in the "Agassiz Museum," that red-brick pile of New England mill architecture that

220 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS still houses the Museum of Comparative Zoology, as well as the geological, anthropological, and some botanical collections, especially the "glass flowers" that attracted the tourists in flocks past Osterhout's office on the second floor. It is not surprising that later he carried on much of his research in a greenhouse in the Botanical Garden several blocks away. M. L. Fernald was in the Gray Herbarium; W. G. Farlow, Roland Thaxter, and E. C. Jeffrey in the Museum. With such a collection of stars, life was not easy. ief- frey in particular was soon in open enmity, even threaten- ~ng to "shoot that damn Dutchman." However, there were many friendships as well, especially with George Howard Parker, the genial Professor of Zoology, who became probably Osterhout's best friend in C-lamhrirl~e With him, and those students who wished to attend, there were long walks on Sun- days, often ending with a meal and red wine at the "Stella d'Italia" on the North Side of Boston. Osterhout became a member of two clubs, one consisting mostly of Harvard profes- sors in Cambridge, the other (the Thursday Club) meeting in Boston and including prominent nonacademic neonle. Presi- ~ . . , _1 _ . 1 · 1 ~ . ~ ~ 1 1 ctent Lowell was always friendly. But still the salary remained low (Harvard then paying in the currency of prestige), and Osterhout had to eke out his earnings by teaching a course at Radcliffe as well as a Saturday morning extension course for teachers. He never owned an automobile, and he could be seen walking home to Buckin~ham Street in the evening. carrv- · v~ ~ ~ ——~ 7 J 1ng a Harvard green baize bag full of papers and calculations, and lost in plans for the next day's experiments. About this time he taught himself mathematics, which now began to nlav an important part in his work. r ~ ~ ~ ~- Among his friends were the chemists G. P. Baxter, A. B. Lamb, and Theodore Richards, who was soon to be the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry. They ap- preciated his applications of chemistry to biology, and he estab-

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 221 fished good "diplomatic relations" with them so that his students could quickly obtain advice in their work—an invaluable asset of being in a famous university. In the summer of 1910 he returned to Woods Hole, where he worked almost every summer for the next dozen years. He was elected a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1919, remaining on the board for thirty years. Now began a most fruitful period of research, when he employed a new organism for studying salt and other permeability effects, and a new technique (for biology) to measure them. The organism was the brown alga or kelp, Laminaria; the technique, electrical resistance of the tissue. The thin blade of the kelp was cut by a cork-borer into small disks and arranged in columns, like a pile of pennies, then inserted into a Kohlrausch bridge, such as was used for measuring the conductivity of electrolytes. The conductivity of the tissue was assumed to represent the perme- ability of its cells to the ions of the bathing solution. He was perhaps influenced in the choice of this technique by his friend- ship with Arrhenius, who had recently developed his theory of ionic dissociation. The current source was a tuning fork oscillator of 1000 Hertz, detected by a telephone. Of course, this circuit really measured impedance, but it was, because of the large number of cells in series, adequate for the purpose. His results were later confirmed with direct current resistance measurements by the writer. Osterhout's procedure had the great advantage of giving quantitative measurements of changes in permeability from moment to moment, permitting the construction of time curves which could be used for calculation and prediction. It was found that the resistance remained high and constant in sea- water, for long periods. On the other hand, a single salt, such as NaC1 of the same conductivity, produced an immediate fall of resistance; if the exposure was continued for some hours, the fall was all the way to that of a dead tissue, completely

222 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS permeable. Conversely, the resistance recovered if seawater was restored before the resistance had fallen all the way to the dead value. Thus injury and recovery were shown quantitatively. Some divalent ions such as Ca, on the other hand, caused a rise of resistance at first, even to 60 or 70 percent above normal, which would be maintained for some time before falling, eventually to the dead value. Again there was recovery if the tissue was restored to seawater soon enough. However, if a mix- ture of the two salts (e.g., 97.5 percent Na, 2.5 percent Ca) was ap- plied, each injurious alone, the tissue remained undamaged, the resistance maintaining its normal value, neither rising nor falling for long periods. Obviously a balanced solution had been attained between two ions (each separately injurious), and the principle of salt antagonism beautifully and quantitatively demonstrated. Varying mixtures of these salts, as well as others, were studied, as were the effects of acid and alkaline seawater, anesthetics, surface active substances, etc. The method was employed as well by several of Osterhout's students, and a great number of papers described the results, at first largely in Science, then in other journals. These studies were summarized in a series of Lowell Lectures, given in Boston in 1922, and as- sembled in a book entitled Injury, Recovery and Death in Re- lation to Conductivity and Permeability, published in a new series, "Monographs on Experimental Biology," of which C)ster- hout was an editor, along with Jacques Loeb and T. H. Morgan. It was one of Osterhout's best books, carefully written and demonstrating his facility in mathematics; but the assumptions used, a series of consecutive reactions in which a hypothetical substance M is formed by the reaction A ~ M, and decomposed by the reaction M > B. controlled by Ca and Na, respectively, were not directly demonstrated. This was the culmination of the Laminaria work, other matters now beginning to occupy Osterhout's attention. Indeed, only four or five more papers on these topics were published in the new periodical founded

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 223 by Loeb and Osterhout, the Journal of General Physiology, of which the first number appeared in September 1918. Osterhout remained an editor for forty-five years. The journal was the main place of publication for him and his students and col- laborators thereafter. Volume I, No. 1 of I.G.P. contained a description of a new method of measuring respiration and photosynthesis, namely by the color changes produced in pH indicators by the pro- duction or utilization of CO2. The first article (written with A. R. C. Haas) utilized this principle to study the "induction period" of photosynthesis; the second described an apparatus to circulate air from reaction chamber to indicator by means of a rubber bulb, with a soda lime tube to absorb CO2. This apparatus was run with a motor and was dubbed the "Mills of the Gods"; it was the basis of a number of dissertations by students. Students doing their doctoral work on this or other problems were (as far as I can ascertain) W. T. Bovie, G. B. Reed, A. R. C. Haas, S. C. Brooks, M. M. Brooks, O. L. Inman, G. B. Ray, F. G. Gustafson, W. O. Fenn, Oran L. Raber, S. F. Cook, C. l. Lyon, P. A. Davies, and L. R. Blinks. This seems a small list for sixteen years, but Ph.D. factories were smaller in those days. Some half dozen of these students predeceased Oster- hout; others went on to productive careers, two becoming members of the National Academy of Sciences. Osterhout was promoted in 1913 to the rank of Professor, at the age of forty-two, four years after his arrival in Cambridge. For much of his Harvard career he was in charge of the ele- mentary botany course, which he enlivened with simple but dramatic experiments, many of which could be demonstrated in lectures. He was a polished, effective speaker, who enjoyed making startling statements, and was not above showmanship when it could illustrate a point. He had to do this, he later explained, to keep the interest of Harvard's gilded youth, some of whom even brought bulldogs to class and aimed at the

224 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS Gentleman's C, in the days before the "Intellectual Renaissance" on the Charles. (Among his advisees was Vincent Astor, who was always accompanied by a bodyguard!) His advanced lectures, on the other hand, were serious, carefully studied efforts, filled with the latest research results, often freshly published in the newest 7.G.P. Although his courses in plant physiology con- tinued to bear the Pfefferian rubrics "Assimilation and Respira- tion," or "Growth, Irritability, and Reproduction," they were actually more and more concerned with the newest theories of enzyme action and of cellular permeability—in other words, general physiology. Indeed, for a long time his classes were the only place in Harvard College where practical work in bio- chemistry could be studied. L. l. Henderson, who taught bio- logical chemistry, offered no laboratory; Otto Folin was at the Medical School, many miles away in Boston. Osterhout's courses consequently attracted many able students, not only in botany, but from zoology, and from the Bussey Institution, a dozen miles away. Through much of his stay in Harvard, Osterhout was faithfully assisted by Lee Morrison, who also performed many of the Laminaria experiments, and was addressed by some students as "Professor Morrison." Around 1921 the emphasis changed to study of large coe- nocytic algae, at first Nitella and Chara, from each cell of which a drop of vacuolar sap could be drained, either for analysis of the sap (which was found to be very different from the surrounding solution), to follow its changes on injury, or to study the penetration of new substances from outside. Oster- hout's first paper on Nitella dealt with the rate of loss of chloride ions under injury (e.g., by chloroform), determining chloride in the sap by microtitration. He also measured the fall of electrical impedance of Nitella under injury, but the method (at 1000 cycles) was not capable of showing very great changes, on ac- count of the cell's high capacitance. (Direct current was later employed by the writer, with much higher resistance values

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 225 demonstrable.) Beginning in 1922, a start was made on bio- electric measurements with Nitella, under a Carnegie Institu- tion grant, which enabled E. S. Harris to assemble electronic equipment and literally make a string galvanometer. The study of dye penetration into Nitella also began at this time, in collaboration with Marian Irwin, a recent Ph.D. student of G. H. Parker. In 1923 work with giant marine algal cells began. Years earlier, at Osterhout's suggestion, R. P. Wodehouse, then a Harvard graduate student, had gone to Bermuda in 1916 and studied the vacuolar sap of Valonia macrophysa. This is a coenocytic alga, the large cells of which can each yield one ml or more of sap with a minimum of contamination by seawater. Wodehouse found potassium to be abundant, while sulfate was absent, in the sap. W. I. Crazier in 1919 found the pH of the sap to be about 6, while that of the seawater was 8.1 or so. Crazier had also sent to Osterhout a large volume of sap from Valonia for careful chemical analysis by L. M. van der Pyl in Baxter's laboratory at Harvard. The analysis confirmed Wode- house's qualitative findings. K was found to be 40 times as concentrated in the sap as in seawater, while Na was one-fifth to one-sixth as concentrated: K was accumulated, Na was partially excluded. C1 was a little higher in the sap than in seawater, while SO4 was excluded (as was Mg). The stage was now set for the study of Valonia at its place of growth; it was necessary to go to Bermuda for this. A grant (not at all common in those days) was obtained from the Rockefeller Institute, a sabbatical leave was arranged for the first term of the college year, and in the summer of 1923 Oster- hout took the Fort Victoria of the Furness line to Bermuda. His assistant was Mr. M. J. Dorcas, from the Chemistry Depart- ment at Harvard; the writer joined the two in the autumn, and work began in earnest on Valonia at the Biological Station. This year was possibly the happiest in Osterhout's life; he

226 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS had not been out of the United States since his student days in Germany, there were no interruptions, and he enjoyed the calm beauty of Bermuda (without automobiles then). His knee, injured in a mountain climb just before, prevented much walk- ing, but there was the daily row back and forth between the Grasmere Hotel (where we lived) and Agar's Island (where we worked). Dorcas studied the entrance of CON into the sap and later compared the saps of Valonia macrophysa with stranded "sea bottles" (then regarded as V. ventricosa). He found large differences, the latter cell not accumulating potassium at all. The anomaly was shifted to another genus when the writer identified the Bermuda "sea bottle" as a Halicystis (from a dif- ferent natural order) and named it H. Osterhoutii. But the Pacific Coast Halicystis does accumulate K! In 1923, Osterhout made the first measurements of potential difference across the protoplasm of Valonia, using a Compton electrometer. The P.D. was small (five to ten millivolts), but could be greatly increased by immersing the cell in natural or artificial sap, indicating a pronounced asymmetry of the protoplasm. The cause of such asymmetry (found in several marine algae) is still not thoroughly understood fifty years later. It is formally explained, and in Halicystis demonstrated by vacuolar perfusion, that the cell's plasma membrane and its tonoplast differ in their relative permeability to ions. Osterhout enjoyed the lively scene at the Hamilton water- front market on Saturday nights; there were tropical fruits, brought in from the West Indies and exposed for sale under kerosene lamps, with haggling over price and condition often becoming intense. Such evenings might end in having a beer at the Windsor Palm Garden, but more often in listening to the Salvation Army songs and preaching. Perhaps these awoke boyhood memories of Baptist services (which left little other trace except a good fund of biblical quotations). At this time he also began taking black and white pictures of sunsets with

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 227 a simple Brownie camera; some were quite spectacular. It was his only hobby. He was given a folding vest-pocket Kodak for Christmas that year, but he preferred the Brownie. He had a suspicion of complicated apparatus and always did experiments as simply as possible. He literally lived in his work; he kept a pad of paper beside his bed at night, on which he could write in large flowing script, suggestions for the next day's experi- ments. He had to return to Cambridge to offer his course shortly after Christmas; in February Jacques Loeb came to Bermuda on a holiday, only to die of a heart attack within a week. Loeb's death ended the friendship that began in 1892. But it created a vacancy in the Department of General Physiology at the Rocke- feller Institute, to which Osterhout was called a year later. He accepted gladly, for although he had been a most successful teacher at Harvard, he had longed for time to do more research. The opportunity now presented, to attack the many problems posed by large algal cells, with adequate staff and fine equip- ment at the Institute, was irresistible. He gave his last class in the spring of 1925, turned over his three remaining graduate students to his successor, W. i. Crozier, and moved to New York that autumn. With him went E. S. Harris and Marian Irwin, to be joined by the writer in 1926. In Bermuda a branch laboratory was set up in the Grasmere Hotel, with E. B. Damon and W. C. Cooper, Jr., succeeding Dorcas. Then began the most productive decade of Osterhout's life. The Institute was a scientific paradise, with full time available for research, and many associates, assistants, and technicians to help him. The electrical measurements begun at Harvard on Nitella were now pursued intensively by Harris, particularly with regard to the effects of salts on the potential. Osterhout discovered, in collaboration with Harris and the writer, that a "disturbance," a potential variation very like that of a nerve impulse, passed down the cell at a rate of about a centimeter per

228 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS second, when the cell was stimulated in a variety of ways: electrical, chemical, thermal, etc. While this had been partially appreciated by Georg Hormann in 1898, it had been unstudied until 1926 when amplifiers and faster recording instruments (Einthoven string galvanometers allowed it to be followed in detail. (K. Umrath's papers began to appear three years later.) A large number of papers, too numerous to refer to individually, by Osterhout and Harris, later by Osterhout and S. E. Hill, exploited this discovery, and uncovered many interesting anal- ogies to nerve: fatigue, block, alternans rhythm, as well as a most notable difference—conduction through a salt bridge to an- other cell. The mobilities of a number of ions in the cell surface were investigated, both under normal conditions and with seasonal alterations, effects of nonelectrolytes, and other agents. The bibliography during the decade 1930-1940 in- dicates the wide range of these studies. Meanwhile, in Bermuda, Cooper was carrying on studies of the penetration of weak acids and bases, such as HIS, H2CO3, and NH3, into the vacuole of Valonia. It was found that these penetrated more rapidly as undissociated molecules than as charged ions and were therefore under control of the external pH value. Ammonia actually accumulated in the vacuole, e.g., up to 0.1 M NH4C1 from 0.005 M in the seawater. This caused the Valonia cells to float and was a tempting analog to the ac- cumulation of potassium. However, the latter was not under very great control by pH. The laboratory next moved to an old part of "Undercliff," near the Grasmere, where E. B. Damon, A. G. Jacques, and L. L. Burgess worked on bioelectric and chemical properties of the cells. In New York, and later in Bermuda, the writer continued studies of the electrical resistance and capacity of Falonia, Nitella, and Halicystis, and Marian Irwin studied the penetration of vital dyes in cells and models. The latter two investigators published their results independently, the others usually collaborated with

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 229 Osterhout, who became more and more the writer of his as- sistants' results. Almost every weekend was spent in the country, writing or calculating; the load was heavy and the literary quality of the papers occasionally suffered. In the decade 1926- 1936, some fifty joint papers appeared, as well as many by Oster- hout alone. It is not surprising that important points were inserted as footnotes, often in proof. The result made for dif- ficult reading, and since no book summing up this work has ever appeared, a great deal of important material is still buried in footnotes, remaining to be rediscovered by future workers. A totally different research also developed along the line of ingenious models, by which the penetration of electrolytes into cells could be partially explained. Particularly striking was a mixture of p-cresol and guaiacol, separating two aqueous phases of different pH. Accumulation of salt occurred on the acid side ~ "vacuole"), potassium being preferentially accumulated over sodium. In the research on such systems Osterhout was assisted by S. E. Kamerling, J. W. Murray, and W. M. Stanley (who was later to become a Nobel laureate and famous for "crystallizing" tobacco mosaic virus). Theodore Shedlovsky, Lewis Longs- worth, and D. A. MacInnes were especially helpful in the physicochemical analysis of these models. One important con- cept developed from these studies was that of "carrier mole- cules," still a useful principle in discussions of cellular perme- . . ability. Although Osterhout had not visited Europe since his student days in Bonn, he was now able to travel again, and attended the Botanical Congress at Cambridge, England, in 1930, saw the Passion Play at Oberammergau, and visited the French Colonial Exposition in Paris. He returned again in 1932 to France and Holland, seeing de NIries once more. He had earlier undergone an operation for glaucoma, saving one eye, but its sight deterioriated slowly henceforth. In the winter of 1933 came an attack of atrial fibrillation, when he was sixty-one. It

230 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS was brought under control with digitalis and other drugs, but it appeared at the time that his activity must be greatly curtailed. He was actually to live more than thirty years longer, owing to expert medical care and devoted home nursing. He married Marian Irwin at this time. (His first marriage had ended in divorce the year before.) His department began to break up; Damon and the writer departed to other positions, as did Hill later. Jacques was drowned in Bermuda in 1938, and the Bermuda laboratory was given up. Most of the work of the next two decades was carried on by Mrs. Osterhout and a number of technicians. It is remarkable that so much important research was still ac- complished and so many papers written (fifteen in 1935 alone). In 1941 the whole volume of the J.G.P. was devoted to articles by friends and associates, in honor of his seventieth birthday. Osterhout never returned to Bermuda, but went regularly to Cold Spring Harbor or Woods Hole in the summers and at- tended the spring meetings of the National Academy of Sciences until about 1950. As his eyesight failed he kept in touch with developments by having others read to him, and he dictated papers after he could no longer see. Curiously, several of his later papers were on the egg of Nereis, a marine worm, his only work with animals. His last paper was a "summing up," written for the Annual Review of Plant Physiology; readers are re- ferred to it for further details of his work. In his last few years he was bedridden, but he retained clarity of intellect and dignity of bearing to the last. Winthrop Osterhout died peacefully in St. Barnabas Hospital in New York on April 9, 1964. His ashes are buried in the churchyard of St. fames the Less in Philadelphia, along with those of Marian Irwin Osterhout, who died in 1973.

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 231 CHRONOLOGY 1871 Born Brooklyn, N.Y., August 2 1889 Graduated from Providence (R.I.) High School; entered Brown University 1892 Attended the Botany Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 1893 A.B., Brown University 1893-1895 Instructor in Botany, Brown University 1894 M.A., Brown University 1894-1895 Instructor in Botany (summers), NIarine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole 1895-1896 Student of Eduard Strasburger, Bonn University 1896 First paper published, in Annals of Botany 1896-1901 Instructor in Botany, University of California 1899 Ph.D., University of California 1901 1905 1907 1909 1910 1913 1917 1918 1919 1920 1922 1923 1925 Married Anna Maria Landstrom, Berkeley, California Assistant Professor of Botany, University of California Experiments with Plants published Associate Professor, University of California Assistant Professor of Botany, Harvard University Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific Slope published (with E. W. Hilgard) Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Professor of Botany, Harvard University Member, American Philosophical Society Journal of General Physiology founded (with Jacques Loeb) Elected to National Academy of Sciences Trustee, Marine Biological Laboratory Hitchcock Lecturer, University of California Member, Board of Scientific Directors, Rockefeller In- stitute for Medical Research Colver Lecturer, Brown University Lowell Lecturer (Boston) Began work on Valonia, Bermuda Biological Station Sedgwick Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology D.Sc. (Hon.), Harvard University Member of the Rockefeller Institute

232 1926 1929 1930 1933 1939 1957 1964 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS D.Sc. (Hon.), Brown Un iversity Attended International Physiological Congress (Boston) Attended International Botanical Congress (Cambridge England ) Married (2d) Marian Irwin, New Castle, Delaware Member Emeritus, Rockefeller Institute Last paper published (Annual Review of Plant Phys- iology) Died, New York City, April 9 MEMBERSHIPS o ~ - — _ ~ _, Member, National Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member, Botanical Society of Edinburgh; Kungliga FysiogralSska Sallskapet, Lund; Kaiserlich Leopold-Carolinische deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (Halle); Academy of Na- tural Sciences (Philadelphia) Member, Washington and New York Academies of Science, Amer- ican Society of Plant Physiologists, Botanical Society of America, Society of General Physiologists, American Society of Naturalists, American Philosophical Society, American Chemical Society, American Physiological Society, Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography was greatly aided by one assembled by Nina Kobelt, Osterhout's secretary at the Rockefeller Institute. KEY TO ABBREVIA TI ONS Am. i. Botany American Journal of Botany Biol. Bull. Biological Bulletin Bot. Gaz. Botanical Gazette Bot. Rev. Botanical Review Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology Jahrb. wissensch. Bot. Jahrbucher fur wissenschaftliche Botanik J. Biol. Chem. Journal of Biological Chemistry |.G.P. Journal of General Physiology Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. University of California Publications in Botany 1896 On the life-history of Rhabdonia tenera, J. Ag. 10: 403-27. 2 plates. With W. A. Setchell. Some aqueous media for preserving algae for class material. Bot. Gaz., 21:140~1. A simple freezing device. Bot. Gaz., 21: 195. Annals of Botany, 1897 ·— Uber Entstehung der karyokinetischen Spindel bei Equisetum. [ahrb. wissensch. Bot., 30:159-65. 1898 Problems of heredity. 1900 Befruchtung bei Batrachospermum. 1902 University Chronicle (Berkeley), 1 :311-15. Flora, 87:109-15. Cell studies. I. Spindle formation in Agave. California Academy of Sciences, 2:255-65. 1904 Contributions to cytological technique. 2:73-75. Proceedings of the Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot.,

234 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 1905 Ex periments with Plants. New York, The Macmillan Company. xix + 492 pp. (With many reprintings and at least two transla- tions, one into Dutch, 1909, and one by N. A. Maximov in Russian, in the late 1920s.) 1906 The resistance of certain marine algae to changes in osmotic pres- sure and temperature. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 2:227-28. The role of osmotic pressure in marine plants. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 2: 229-30. On the importance of physiologically balanced solutions for plants. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 2:231-34. The antitoxic action of potassium on magnesium. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 2:235-36. Extreme toxicity of sodium chloride and its prevention by other salts. I. Biol. Chem., 1:363-69. On the importance of physiologically balanced solutions for plants. I. NIarine plants. Bot. Gaz., 42:127-34. 1907 On the importance of physiologically balanced solutions for plants. II. Fresh-water and terrestrial plants. Bot. Gaz., 44:259-72. On nutrient and balanced solutions. 317-18. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 2: 1908 The antagonistic action of magnesium and potassium. Bot. Gaz., 45:117-24. The value of sodium to plants by reason of its protective action. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 3:331-37. On the effects of certain poisonous gases on plants. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot., 3:339-40. On plasmolysis. Bot. Gaz., 46:53-55. Weitere Untersuchungen uber die Ubereinstimmung der Salzwirk- ungen bei Tieren und Pflanzen. Die Schutzwirkung des Natriums fur Pflanzen. Jahrb. wissensch. Bot., 46: 121-36.

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 235 1909 Proeven met planter. Netherlands. The nature of balanced solutions. Translated by S. i. Geerts-Ronner. The Bot. Gaz., 47: 48-49. On similarity in the behavior of sodium and potassium. 48:98-104. 1910 Bot. Gaz., With E. W. Hilgard. Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific Slope. New York, The Macmillan Company. xix + 428 pp. On the penetration of inorganic salts into living protoplasm. Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, 70:408-13. 1911 The permeability of living cells to salts in pure and balanced solu- tions. Science, 34:187-89. 1912 The permeability of protoplasm to ions and the theory of an- tagonism. Science, 35: 112-15. Plants which require sodium. Bot. Gaz., 54:532-36. Reversible changes in permeability produced by electrolytes. Sci- ence, 36:350-52. Some chemical relations of plants and soil. Science, 36:571-76. 1913 The effect of anesthetics upon permeability. Science, 37:111-12. Also in Proceedings of the American Physiological Society (1911-12), 29:xi. The organization of the cell with respect to permeability. Science. 38 :408-9. Protoplasmic contractions resembling plasmolysis which are caused by pure distilled water. Bot. Gaz., 55:446-51. Some quantitative researches on the permeability of plant cells. Plant World, 16: 129-44. 1914 The chemical dynamics of living protoplasm. Science, 39:544-46. The effect of alkali on permeability. J. Biol. Chem., 19:335-43.

236 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS The effect of acid on permeability. J. Biol. Chem., 19:493-501. Antagonism between acids and salts. i. Biol. Chem., 19:517-20. Quantitative criteria of antagonism. Bot. Gaz., 58:178-86. The measurement of antagonism. Bot. Gaz., 58:272-76. The forms of antagonism curves as affected by concentration. Bot. Gaz., 58: 367-71. Stetige Anderungen in den Formen van Antagonismus-Kurven. tahrb. wissensch. Bot., 54: 645-50. Uber den Temperaturkoeffizienten des elektrischen Leitvermogens im lebenden und toten Gewebe. Biochemische Zeitschrift, 67: 272-77. Vitality and injury as quantitative conceptions. Science, 40:488-91. 1915 Extreme alterations of permeability without inj ury. Bot. Gaz., 59:242-53. On the decrease of permeability due to certain bivalent kations. Bot. Gaz., 59:317-30. The effects of some trivalent and tetravalent kations on permeabil- ity. Bot. Gaz., 59:464-73. The determination of additive effects. Bot. Gaz., 60:228-34. The measurement of toxicity. l. Biol. Chem., 23:67-70. Normal and abnormal permeability. Am. I. Botany, 2: 93-94. On the nature of antagonism. Science, 41:255-56. 1916 The decrease of permeability produced by anesthetics. Bot. Gaz., 61:148-58. A dynamical theory of antagonism. Philosophical Society, 55: 533-53. Proceedings of the American Tl~e dynamics of antagonism. Science, 43:721. Eduard Strasburger (1844-1912~. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 51, No. 14. The nature of mechanical stimulation. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 2:237-39. Permeability and viscosity. Science, 43: 857-59. Antagonism and Weber's Law. Science, 44:318-20. The penetration of balanced solutions and the theory of antagonism. Science, 44:395-96. Specific action of barium. Am. J. Botany, 3:481-82.

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 237 1917 Antagonism and permeability. Science, 45:97-103. The dynamics of the process of death. i. Biol. Chem., 31:585-89. Also in Science, 46:542. Some aspects of the temperature coefficients of life processes. i. Biol. Chem., 32:23-27. With A. R. C. Haas. An adaptation of Winkler's method to bio- logical work. I. Biol. Chem., 32:141~6. With A. R. C. Haas. The dynamics of photosynthesis. Science. 46:343. The role of the nucleus in oxidation. Science, 46:367-69. Similarity in the effects of potassium cyanide and of ether. Bot. Gaz., 63:77-80. Tolerance of fresh water by marine plants and its relation to adaptation. Bot. Gaz., 63: 146-49. Does the temperature coefficient of permeability indicate that it is chemical in nature? Bot. Gaz., 63:317-20. 1918 The basis of measurement of antagonism. l. Biol. Chem., 34:363- 68. The determination of buffer effects in measuring respiration. l. Biol. Chem., 35: 237-40. Conductivity as a measurement of permeability. 36:485-88. T. Biol. Chem., A demonstration of photosynthesis. Am. I. Botany, 5:105-11. With A. R. C. Haas. Dynamical aspects of photosynthesis. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 4: 85-91. Endurance of extreme conditions and its relation to the theory of adaptation. Am. l. Botany, 5:507-10. With A. R. C. Haas. On the dynamics of photosynthesis. 1: 1-16; A method of studying respiration. T.G.P.. 1:17-22. J.G.P., , ~ ~ J An indicator method of measuring the consumption of oxygen. J.G.P., 1: 167-69. Note on the effect of diffusion upon the conductivity of living tissues. J. Biol. Chem., 36:489-90. A method of measuring the electrical conductivity of living tissues. [. Biol. Chem., 36:557-68.

238 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS With A. R. C. Haas. A simple method of measuring photosynthesis. Science, 47:420-22. Note on measuring the relative rates of life processes. Science, 48: 172-74. The nucleus as a center of oxidation. Memoirs, 1: 342-47. Brooklyn Botanical Garden A simple method of demonstrating the production of aldehyde by chlorophyll and by aniline dyes in the presence of sunlight. Am. J. Botany, 5:511-13. Comparative studies of respiration. 171-79. ~ 1919 With A. R. C. Haas. J.G.P., 1:295-98. A comparative study of permeability in plants. J.G.P., 1:299-304. Decrease of permeability and antagonistic effects caused by bile salts. J.G.P., 1 :405-8. A comparison of permeability in plant and animal cells. l.G.P., 1 :409-13. Antagonism between alkaloids and salts in relation to permeability. J.G.P., 1:515-19. Comparative studies on respiration. VII. Respiration and antago- nism. Introductory note. l.G.P., 2:1-4. Apparatus for the study of photosynthesis and respiration. Bot. Gaz., 68: 60-62. I. Introduction. J.G.P., 1: The temperature coefficient of photosynthesis. 1920 The mechanism of injury and recovery. l.G.P., 3:15-20. A theory of injury and recovery. I. Experiments with pure salts. ].G.P., 3: 145-56. 1921 A theory of injury and recovery. II. Experiments with mixtures. J.G.P., 3:415-29. A theory of injury and recovery. III. Repeated exposures to toxic solutions. J.G.P., 3:611-22. Conductivity and permeability. J.G.P., 4: 1-9. The mechanism of injury and recovery of the cell. 56. Science, 53:352-

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 239 1922 Direct and indirect determinations of permeability. 83. Injury, recovery and death. American journal of Physiology, 59: 443. Some aspects of selective absorption. i.G.P., 5:225-30. 1923 J.G.P., 4:275- Exosmosis in relation to injury and permeability. i.G.P., 5:709-25. In jury, Recovery and Death in Relation to Cond activity and Permeability. Monograph on experimental biology. Philadel- phia, J. B. Lippincott Company. 259 pp. (Reviewed in J. Am. Chem. Soc., 45:1861.) The mechanism of injury, recovery and death. 17: 174-200. Harvey Lectures, Continuation of investigations on permeability in cells. Carnegie Institution of Washington Year Book, 22:290. The Nature of Life. New York, Henry Holt & Co. 117 pp. (solver Lectures, Brown University, 1922.) 1924 Jacques Loeb, the scientist. in Science, 59:428. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 21:iv; also 1925 On the importance of maintaining certain differences between cell sap and external medium. [.G.P., 7:561-64. With M. J. Dorcas. Contrasts in the cell sap of Valonia and the problem of flotation. l.G.P., 7: 633-40. Is living protoplasm permeable to ions? i.G.P., 8:131-46. With M. J. Dorcas. The penetration of CO2 into living protoplasm. J.G.P., 9:255-67. 1926 The behavior of electrolytes in Valonia. 24: 234-35. 1927 Some aspects of bioelectrical phenomena. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., J.G.P., 11 :83-99.

240 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS With E. B. Damon and A. G. Jacques. Dissimilarity of inner and outer protoplasmic surfaces in Valonia. ~.G.P., 11:193-205. Some Fundamental Problems of Cellular Physiology. (3d William Thompson Sedgwick Memorial Lecture) New Haven, Yale University Press. 55 pp. 1928 Jacques Loeb. [.G.P., 8: ix-fix. Jacques Loeb. Collecting Net, 25: 7. With E. S. Harris. Protoplasmic asymmetry in Nitella as shown by bioelectric measurements. ].G.P., 11:391-406. With E. S. Harris. The death wave in Nitella. I. Application of like solutions. J.G.P., 1 2:167-86. With A. G. Jacques. Internal vs. external toxicity in Valonia. J.G.P., 12:209-19. With E. S. Harris. Reversible changes in living protoplasm. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 26:124-25. Note on the penetration of electrolytes. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 26: 192-97. Some aspects of cellular physiology. In: Lectures on Plant Pathol- ogy and Physiology in Relation to Man, pp. 179-90 (Mayo Foundation Lectures, 1926-27~. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Company. With E. S. Harris. unlike solutions. 1929 The death wave in Nitella. II. Applications of J.G.P., 12:355-61. With W. C. Cooper, fir., and M. l. Dorcas. strong electrolytes. J.G.P., 1 2:427-33. Edith E. S. Harris. The concentration effect in Nitella. ].~.P., 12:761-81. With E. S. Harris. Note on the nature of the current of injury in tissues. J.G.P., 13:47-56. With L. R. Blinks and E. S. Harris. Studies on stimulation in I\Titella. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 26:836-38. With E. S. Harris. Bioelectrical aspects of the all-or-none law. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 26:838-40. Some aspects of permeability and bioelectrical phenomena. In: Molecular physics in relation to biology. Bulletin of the Na- tional Research Council, 69:170-228. The penetration of

WINTHROP JOHN VANLEUVEN OSTERHOUT 241 1930 With E. B. Damon. The concentration effect with Valonia: poten- tial differences with concentrated and diluted sea water. ~.G.P., 13:445-57. With S. E. Hill. Negative variations in Nitella produced by chloro- form and by potassium chloride. l.G.P., 13:459-67. With S. E. Hill. Salt bridges and negative variations. J.G.P., 13:547-52. \~\lith A. G. Jacques. The kinetics of penetration. II. The penetra- tion of CO., into Valonia. J.G.P., 13:695-713. Calculations of bioelectrical potentials. I. Effects of KC1 and NaC1 on Nitella. ]. G.P., 13:715-32. With W. C. Cooper, fir. The accumulation of electrolytes. I. The entrance of ammonia into Valonia macrophysa. l.G.P., 14:117- 25. The kinetics of penetration. III. Eauations for the exchange of ions. [.G.P., 14:277-84. 1 - - O- The accumulation of electrolytes. II. Suggestions as to the nature of accumulation in Valonia. [.G.P., 14:285-300. With A. G. Jacques. The accumulation of electrolytes. III. Be- havior of sodium, potassium and ammonium in Valonia. ~.G.P., 14:301-14. 1931 Electrical phenomena in the living cell. 85, 1929-30. \\lith S. E. Hill. The death wave in Nitella. III. Transmission. [.G.P., 14:385-92. With S. E. Hill. Electrical variations due to mechanical transmis- sion of stimuli. ~.G.P., 14:473-85. Harvey Lectures, 25: 169- With S. E. Hill. The production and inhibition of action currents by alcohol. J.G.P., 14:611-16. Physiological studies of single plant cells. Biological Reviews, 6: 369-411. 1932 With A. G. Jacques. The accumulation of electrolytes. IV. Internal versus external concentrations of potassium. {.G.P., 15:537-50. NVith W. M. Stanley. The accumulation of electrolytes. V. Models showing accumulation and a steady state. }.G.P., 15:667-89.

242 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS The kinetics of penetration IV. Diffusion against a growing poten- tial gradient in models. J.G.P., 16:157-63. With W. M. Stanley. Models showing accumulation. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 29:577-78. Studies on large plant cells. Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science, 9:135-39. 1933 The kinetics of penetration. V. The kinetics of a model as related to the steady state. l.G.P., 16: 529-57. With S. E. Hill. Anesthesia produced by distilled water. [.G.P., 17:87-98. Anesthesia in acid and alkaline solutions. l.G.P., 17:99-103. The electrical behavior of large plant cells. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol., 1: 125-30. Also in Collecting Net, 8:213-14. Osmotic pressure in relation to permeability in large plant cells and in models. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol., 1:166- 69. Permeability in large plant cells and in models. Physiologie, 35: 967-1021. Some aspects of cell physiology. 7: 396-400. With S. E. Hill. Reversible loss of the potassium effect in distilled water. l.G.P., 17: 105-8. Ergebnisse der Annals of Internal Medicine, 1934 With S. E. Kamerling and W. M. Stanley. The kinetics of penetra- tion. VI. Some factors affecting penetration. J.G.P., 17:445-67. With S. E. Kamerling and \\1. M. Stanley. The kinetics of penetra- tion. VII. Molecular vs. ionic transport. J.G.P., 17:469-80. With S. E. Kamerling. The kinetics of penetration. VIII. Tem- porary accumulation. |.G.P., 17:507-16. With A. G. Jacques. The accumulation of electrolytes. VI. The effect of external pH. J.G.P., 17: 727-50. Nature of the action currents in Nitella. I. General considerations. J.G.P., 18:215-27. With S. E. Kamerling. The kinetics of penetration. IX. Models of mature cells. ~.G.P., 18: 229-34. With A. G. Jacques. Penetration of potassium into Nitella. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 31:1121-22.

Next: 8. Theodore William Richards »
Biographical Memoirs: Volume 44 Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $107.00
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Biographic Memoirs: Volume 44 contains the biographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences and bibliographies of their published works. Each biographical essay was written by a member of the Academy familiar with the professional career of the deceased. For historical and bibliographical purposes, these volumes are worth returning to time and again.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!