Science: Honors

Each midwinter, with medals, scrolls, plaques, sonorous words and sometimes money, Science acclaims industrial and academic workers for outstanding achievement. Among those thus recently honored:

Arthur Edwin Kennelly, 74, professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, onetime assistant to Thomas A. Edison, codiscoverer of the radio-reflecting region of electrified air called the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer; the Mascart Medal, awarded every three years by the Societe Franchise des Electriciens: for contributions to pure science and for services on international commit tees whose efforts culminated last sum mer in the adoption of the centimetre-gram-second system of units by the Inter national Electrotechnical Commission. First U. S. scientist to receive the Mascart Medal, venerable Dr. Kennelly hoped its bestowal would mark a closer liaison be tween U. S. and French scholarship. Frank Walker Caldwell, 46, Hamilton Standard Propeller Co. engineer; the Sylvanus Albert Reed Award of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences ($250 and certificate) : for his development of controllable pitch and constant speed propellers (“gear shift of the air”). Arthur Cutts Willard, 58, president of the University of Illinois; the F. Paul Anderson Gold Medal of the American Society of Heating & Ventilating Engineers : for work as an engineer, teacher, author and consultant on the ventilating systems of the Holland Tunnel, the U. S. Capitol, the proposed Chicago subway. Charles Franklin Kettering, 59, vice president and research director of General Motors Corp. ; the Washington Award for engineering (bronze plaque on marble base) : for “contributions to the increase of personal mobility” and eloquent advocacy of the cause of research. Roger Adams, 47, chemistry department head of the University of Illinois, 1935 president of the American Chemical Society; the Willard Gibbs medal: for contributions to synthetic organic chemistry (local anesthetics, the chaulmoogric acid treatment for leprosy, space arrangement of atoms).

Edward Ray Weidlein, 48, director of Pittsburgh’s Mellon Institute of Industrial Research; the presidency of the American Chemical Society for 1937. William Frederick Durand, 76, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at Stanford University; the John Fritz medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers: for contributions to hydrodynamic and aerodynamic science.

Warren Kendall Lewis, 53, professor of chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wartime director of U. S. research on gas defense; the Perkin Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry: for “creative activities as the father of modern chemical engineering.”

Dr. William Mansfield Clark, 51, professor of physiological chemistry at Johns Hopkins; the Nichols Medal of the American Chemical Society: for researches ”of incalculable value” to medicine (explanation of oxidation and deoxidation processes in the body; methods of determining the acid-alkali balance in water purification and sewage disposal). Dr. Owen Harding Wangensteen, 37, surgery professor at University of Minnesota’s medical school; the Samuel D. Gross Prize in surgery ($1,500) of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery: for innovations in the treatment of intestinal obstructions. Percy White Zimmerman, 51, and Albert Edwin Hitchcock, 38, plant physiologists of the Boyce Thompson Institute (Yonkers, N. Y.); the $1,000 prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: for a paper on plant hormones, including one which causes roots to sprout from any place on the stem if rubbed with the hormonal preparation. Dr. William Bosworth Castle, 38, associate professor of Harvard’s School of Medicine; the Procter Award of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Science: for showing that pernicious anemia may be due to inefficient digestive juices. Isaiah Bowman, 57, president of Johns Hopkins University; the Henry Grier Bryant Gold Medal of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia: for being “scholarly and original in research, philosophical in his thinking, and concerned with the influence of geography on institutions and on society.” Lewis Buckley Stillwell, 72, consulting engineer, onetime Westinghouse researcher; the Edison Medal (an award founded by friends and associates of the late great inventor): for “pioneer work in the generation, distribution and utilization of electric energy,” especially alternating current, which Thomas A. Edison once vociferously disapproved.