Edward Phelps Allis (1851-1947) was a leading comparative anatomist and evolutionary morphologist in the early twentieth century. Some of the illustrations in his publications were considered the best of lower vertebrates until at least the 1980s.
Personal life and education
Allis was born in 1851 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
. He was one of the children of Margaret (previously Watson) and
Edward P. Allis
Edward Phelps Allis (May 12, 1824April 1, 1889) was an American businessman who founded the Edward P. Allis Company, a manufacturer of milling and mining equipment, steam engines, and other large-scale capital equipment. He was a notable ideologue ...
, a very wealthy American businessman. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which gave him knowledge of engineering, and he was involved in business management through his father's enterprises.
Ill health caused him to move to France in 1889. From 1919 onwards his eyesight deteriorated significantly. Allis died in 1947. He had married and had at least one child,
William Phelps Allis.
Scientific career
When Allis was 34, he founded a laboratory for biological research at his home, later called the Lake Laboratory or the Allis Lake Laboratory.
Allis did not have any training in biology, but provided facilities for or employed several leading biologists. These included
Charles Otis Whitman
Charles Otis Whitman (December 6, 1842 – December 14, 1910) was an American zoologist, who was influential to the founding of classical ethology (study of animal behavior). A dedicated educator who preferred to teach a few research students at ...
who was director of the laboratory from 1886 – 89 and
William Patten who conducted research there from 1886 - 1889.
Whitman had the opportunity to set up a well-equipped research laboratory and conduct his own research as well as assisting Allis.
William Morton Wheeler
William Morton Wheeler (March 19, 1865 – April 19, 1937) was an American entomologist, myrmecologist and Harvard professor.
Biography Early life and education
William Morton Wheeler was born on March 19, 1865, to parents Julius Morton Wheeler ...
lived locally and also conducted research there at this time.
Allis was particularly interested in freshwater fish and his first publication described the anatomy of the
bowfin
The bowfin (''Amia calva'') is a bony fish, native to North America. Common names include mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout, and choupique. It is regarded as a relict, being the sole surviving species of the Halecomorphi ...
fish in detail. The illustrations in this, and many of Allis's subsequent publications, were drawn and prepared for lithography by the Japanese artist Jujiro Nomura. At this time scientific journal publishing was starting in the USA and, with Whitman's encouragement, Allis provided the financial backing for a new publication, the ''
Journal of Morphology
The ''Journal of Morphology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of anatomy and morphology featuring primary research articles, review articles, and meeting abstracts. The journal was established in 1887 by zoologists and morphologists Edwar ...
'' that appeared from 1887 onwards. The journal was published regularly and made a financial loss, but Allis continued to support it financially up to the early 1900s.
In 1889 Allis moved to Palais Carnolés in
Menton, France
Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border.
Mento ...
. He continued his scientific research employing Nomura and others to carry out dissections and illustrations as his own eyesight deteriorated.
Allis's research focused on homologies and evolution of vertebrate structural systems. The quality and accuracy of the illustrations and also his thought about the evolution of the vertebrate musculature, nostrils, vascular system and nerves continued to have impact on thought about vertebrate evolution into the late twentieth century.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Allis remained in Menton until the Italian army arrived in 1940. Around 1943 most of his personal library and papers were taken to Germany by the German army. After Allis's death, his son returned to Menton in 1948 and retrieved his father's remaining papers, including original illustrations and notes.
Legacy
Ellis's illustrations and notes, including unpublished material and working drawings in color, were given to
A. S. Romer by his son around 1950. These were rediscovered in 1979 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
Publications
Allis was author or co-author of at least 80 scientific publications, many illustrated by J. Nomura. These included:
* E. P. Allis (1897) The cranial muscles and cranial and first spinal nerves in ''Amia calva''. ''Journal of Morphology'' 12 487–808.
* E. P. Allis (1901) The lateral sensory canals, the eye-muscles, and the peripheral distribution of certain of the cranial nerves of ''Mustelus laevis''. ''Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science'' 45 87-236.
* E. P. Allis (1917) The lips and the nasal apertures in the gnathostome fishes, and their homologues in the higher vertebrates. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 3 73-78
* E. P. Allis (1923) The cranial anatomy of ''Chlamydoselachus anguineus''. ''Acta Zoologica'' 4 123–221.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allis, Edward Phelps
1851 births
1947 deaths
American anatomists
Evolutionary biologists
Ichthyologists
People from Milwaukee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni