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Biographical Memoirs Volume 60 (1991) / Chapter Skim
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13. Alexander Petrunkevitch
Pages 234-249

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From page 235...
... once with imprisonment. His son, Alexander Petrunkevitch, seems to have become attached to the study of natural history as a small boy.
From page 236...
... at least one mining company official to his doom. 2"Uber die Entwicklung des Herzens bei Agelastica Redt.
From page 237...
... Characteristically, he chose to work under August Weismann at the University of Freiburg because the great German zoologist had been violently attackec} by Timariazev, professor of plant physiology at Moscow University. So it was that he first came to study and then to admire Weismann's work.
From page 238...
... Since this merely involved leaving a card, Petrunkevitch worked out the most efficient route, hired a cab, and set out only to discover that order of academic precedence, not geographical convenience, should have dictated the way. His mistake caused consiclerable offense, but despite such misunderstandings he became an effective spokesman for Weismann's students and junior staff, as is evident from his account of an unfortunate situation that developed when the behavior of a lazy, ignorant, and opinionated man began to ruin the reputation of the laboratory.
From page 239...
... Later, in 1943, he obtained remarkable results with a bromophenol-cupric formula, which he believed had finally solved the problem of a "fixing fluid} that would leave the tissues soft and at the same time give good nuclear and cytoplasmic fixation." The fixation process was by no means the only aspect of histological technique that interested him. His work on differential staining at controlled hydrogen ion concentrations clid much to interject elementary physical chemistry into histological practice.
From page 240...
... In 1913 he published "A Monograph of the Terrestrial Paleozoic Arachnida of North America" ~19 ~ 3) the first of his many significant paleontological works.
From page 241...
... RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS Though all this outside work must inevitably have interfered with his research, he published another paleontological monograph—this time on the Tertiary spiders and harvestmen of North America in 1922, along with a number of small papers. In 1925-26 he was a visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico.
From page 242...
... Despite this minor caveat, all subsequent studies of the higher taxa of spiders have been obliged to take his basic findings into account. Oligocene Amber Spiders In 1942, having resumed paleontological study, Petrunkevitch produced the first of four basic papers on the spiders of the Oligocene preserved in Baltic amber (1942,11.
From page 243...
... very early by a macroevolutionary process comparable to what his friend Richard Gol(lschmiclt had postulated for his so-called "hopeful monsters." Even the most dyed-in-the-woo] proponent of the more conventional view (such as the present writer)
From page 244...
... This event gave him great pleasure but came too late in his life for him to play a significant advisory role. Among the other societies to which he belonged, the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Scientists, the youngest of the three ISth century learned bodies in the United States, was particularly dear to him.
From page 245...
... evolutionary stucties when such matters came uncler consicleration at faculty meetings and on committees for the awarding of grants. IN PREPARING THIS ACCOUNT I am conscious of the help that I have received from Alexander Petrunkevitch's dear friend and colleague, the late Grace E
From page 246...
... 29: 145-80. 1925 External reproductive organs of the common grass spider, Agelena naevia Walckenaer.
From page 247...
... State of Illinois Scientific Papers 3: 1-72. 1946 Fossil spiders in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History.
From page 248...
... II. In: Studies offossiliferous amber arthropods of Chiapas, Mexico, completed and edited by Harriet Exline, pp.


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