Nobel Prize

Thomas Hunt Morgan was born on September 25, 1866, at Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.A. He was the eldest son of Charlton Hunt Morgan. He was educated at the University of Kentucky, where he took his B.S. degree in 1886, subsequently doing postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied morphology with W. K. Brooks, and…

Ronald Ross was born on May 13, 1857, as the son of Sir C.C.G. Ross, a General in the English army. He commenced the study of medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in 1875; entered the Indian Medical Service in 1881. He commenced the study of malaria in 1892. In 1894 he determined to…

George Hoyt Whipple was born on August 28, 1878, in Ashland, New Hampshire, U.S.A., the son of Dr. Ashley Cooper Whipple and his wife Frances Hoyt. His paternal grandfather and his father, both physicians, were born and bred in New Hampshire. Whipple was educated at Andover Academy and then went to Yale University, where he…

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was born at Pongaroa, New Zealand, on December 15th, 1916. His parents came from Ireland; his father Edgar Henry Wilkins was a doctor in the School Medical Service and was very interested in research but had little opportunity for it. At the age of 6, Wilkins was brought to England and…

George Richards Minot was born on December 2, 1885, at Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. His ancestor, George Minot, had migrated to America in 1630, from Saffron Walden, England. His father, James Jackson Minot, was a physician, and his mother was Elizabeth Whitney. In his youth Minot was interested in butterflies and moths, and he published two…

John Carew Eccles was born in Melbourne, Australia, on January 27th, 1903. He owes much to his early training by his father, William James Eccles, who was a teacher as also was his mother, née Mary Carew. He graduated from Melbourne University in Medicine with first class honours in 1925, and as Victorian Rhodes Scholar…

I was born on 20 November 1886 in Vienna, the son of university professor Anton Ritter von Frisch and his wife Marie, née Exner. I studied at a grammar school and later at the University of Vienna in the Faculty of Medicine. After the first exams, I switched to the Faculty of Philosophy and studied…

William Parry Murphy was born on February 6, 1892, at Stoughton Wisconsin, U.S.A. He is the son of Thomas Francis Murphy and Rose Anna Parry, his father being a congregational minister with various pastorates in Wisconsin and Oregon. William Parry was educated at the public schools of Wisconsin and Oregon and at the University of…

Alan Lloyd Hodgkin was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, on February 5th, 1914. His parents were George Hodgkin (who died in Baghdad in 1918) and Mary (Wilson) Hodgkin, now Mrs. Lionel Smith. Alan Lloyd Hodgkin was educated at the Downs School, Malvern (1923-1927), Greshams School, Holt (1927-1932), and Trinity College, Cambridge (1932-1936). His grandfather, Thomas Hodgkin,…

Robert Koch was born on December 11, 1843, at Clausthal in the Upper Harz Mountains. The son of a mining engineer, he astounded his parents at the age of five by telling them that he had, with the aid of the newspapers, taught himself to read, a feat which foreshadowed the intelligence and methodical persistence…