Edmund Newton Harvey (November 25, 1887 – July 21, 1959) was an American
zoologist
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...
.
He was acknowledged as one of the leading authorities on
bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by living organisms. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some b ...
.
He won the
Rumford Prize
Founded in 1796, the Rumford Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. The prize recognizes contributions by scientists to the fields of heat and light. These terms ...
in 1947 and was a member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
.
Early life
Harvey was born on November 25, 1887 in
Germantown Germantown or German Town may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
United States
* Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County
* Ger ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. He was the only son and fourth child of a minister in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
who died when Harvey was six years old. His interest in natural history was exhibited at an early age and he liked collecting things and spending as much time as possible in the countryside. He was educated at
Germantown Academy
Germantown Academy, informally known as GA and originally known as the Union School, is the oldest nonsectarian day school in the United States. The school was founded on December 6, 1759, by a group of prominent Germantown citizens in the Gree ...
followed by the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
where his interest in science excluded most of the social activities enjoyed by his contemporaries. He then moved to New York where he started his doctoral research under the evolutionary biologist
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role tha ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
[Link]
via ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
.
Career
In 1913 Harvey went on an expedition to the South Pacific with
Alfred G. Mayer, a retired professor from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
. It was probably on this trip that he became interested in bioluminescence, and later that year he wrote a paper "On the chemical nature of the luminous material of the firefly". In 1916 he married a marine biologist, Ethel Nicholson Browne, and during their honeymoon in Japan he became fascinated by the bioluminescent
ostracod
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a class of the Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 70,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant) have been identified, grouped into several orders. They are small crustaceans, typic ...
''
Vargula hilgendorfii
''Vargula hilgendorfii'', sometimes called the sea-firefly and one of three bioluminescent species known in Japan as umi-hotaru (海蛍), is a species of ostracod crustacean. It is the only member of genus '' Vargula'' to inhabit Japanese wate ...
''. This could be dried and would emit blue light when remoistened. He had large quantities of it shipped back to the United States where he devoted the next thirty years to studying the phenomenon of bioluminescence, and the chemical reactions involved in the process, in the ostracod and various other bioluminescent organisms.
[ He discovered that the light-emitting substances known as ]luciferin
Luciferin (from the Latin ''lucifer'', "light-bearer") is a generic term for the light-emitting compound found in organisms that generate bioluminescence. Luciferins typically undergo an enzyme-catalyzed reaction with molecular oxygen. The result ...
s were acted on by enzymes called luciferase
Luciferase is a generic term for the class of oxidative enzymes that produce bioluminescence, and is usually distinguished from a photoprotein. The name was first used by Raphaël Dubois who invented the words ''luciferin'' and ''luciferase'', ...
s and that both were species specific and not interchangeable.
After completion of his thesis, Harvey moved to work under Edwin Conklin
Edwin Grant Conklin (November 24, 1863 – November 20, 1952) was an American biologist and zoologist.
Life
He was born in Waldo, Ohio, the son of A. V. Conklin and Maria Hull.
He was educated at Ohio Wesleyan University and Johns Hopkins Un ...
at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
. By 1919 he was professor there and became the Henry Fairfield Osborn Professor on Conklin's retirement in 1933. He introduced courses in biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
and physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
, subjects little studied then, and inspired his students with his enthusiasm for everything scientific. During his career he wrote four books and had about 250 papers published, mostly on the subject of bioluminescence. Other fields of research included cell permeability
Semipermeable membrane is a type of biological or synthetic, polymeric membrane that will allow certain molecules or ions to pass through it by osmosis. The rate of passage depends on the pressure, concentration, and temperature of the molecule ...
and the effects of supersonic waves on living organisms. During World War II he studied decompression sickness
Decompression sickness (abbreviated DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompressio ...
and wound ballistics
The field of wound ballistics largely comprises the study of the physical and physiological effects of ballistic trauma by projectiles (primarily, but not exclusively, bullets) on living humans or animals. It can be considered the interdisciplinar ...
. He collaborated with Alfred Lee Loomis
Alfred Lee Loomis (November 4, 1887 – August 11, 1975) was an American attorney, investment banker, philanthropist, scientist, physicist, inventor of the LORAN Long Range Navigation System and a lifelong patron of scientific research. He estab ...
in the invention of the centrifuge microscope and he was a pioneer in the field of electroencephalography
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...
.
Personal life
Harvey's wife, Ethel Browne Harvey
Ethel (Nicholson) Browne Harvey (December 14, 1885 in Baltimore, Maryland – September 2, 1965 in Falmouth, Massachusetts) was an American embryologist, known for her critical findings about cell division, using the embryology of sea urchins, and ...
, worked on sea urchin
Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...
s in the same laboratories as Harvey in Princeton and Woods Hole
Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at ...
. They had two sons, Edmund (born 1916) and Richard (born 1922), who received doctorates in chemistry and medicine respectively. Harvey died of heart failure at Woods Hole on July 21, 1959 at age 71. He is commemorated in the names of a species of bioluminescent bacterium (''Vibrio harveyi
''Vibrio harveyi'' is a Gram-negative, bioluminescent, marine bacterium in the genus ''Vibrio''. ''V. harveyi'' is rod-shaped, motile (via polar flagella), facultatively anaerobic, halophilic, and competent for both fermentative and respiratory ...
''), a luminous crustacean ('' Enewton harveyi''), a species of firefly ('' Photinus harveyi'') and a species of centipede ('' Pselloides harveyi'').[
]
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, E. Newton
1887 births
1959 deaths
Scientists from Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Columbia University alumni
Princeton University alumni
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Germantown Academy alumni