C.B. van Niel and the Culture of Microbiology, 1920-1965

by

Susan Barbara Spath

A.B. (Harvard University) 1977

M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 1990

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

History

in the

GRADUATE DIVISION

of the

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Committee in charge:

Professor John E. Lesch, Chair

Professor John L. Heilbron

Professor Sydney Kustu

Spring 1999

CB. van Niel and the Culture of Microbiology, 1920-1965

©1999

by

Susan Barbara Spath

Abstract

C.B. van Niel and the Culture of Microbiology, 1920-1965

by

Susan Barbara Spath

Doctor of Philosophy in History

University of California, Berkeley

Professor John E. Lesch, Chair

This dissertation describes the successful efforts of microbiologist C.B. van Niel (1897-1986) to cultivate a discipline of general microbiology. No individual contributed more than van Niel to transforming general microbiology from the preoccupation of a relatively small number of laboratories into the dynamic, productive, and prestigious science it became between the 1930's and 1950's. The dissertation begins with an overview of van Niel's training at the Laboratory for Microbiology of the Technische Hoogeschoole in Delft, Netherlands where he acquired the elements of his distinctive view of microbiology.

I then draw a portrait of Stanford's marine biology laboratory, which van Niel joined in 1929, and examine the forces that drove the expansion of the experimental biology at Stanford in the 1930's. I show that patrons, administrators, and scientists found common ground in experimental biology. In the third chapter, I analyze van Niel's efforts to cultivate microbiology through teaching his course in microbiology, training graduate students, and continuing his innovative research in photosynthesis. In the fourth chapter, I give an account of the expansion of general microbiology after World War II and the development of van Niel's course into a unique resource. I show that substantial body of research claimed in the 1960's as foundational for molecular biology was carried out in the 1940's and 1950's under the disciplinary identity of microbiology. The fifth chapter concerns the increasing divergence between practitioners concerned with bacteria as biological entities and those who used bacteria as instruments for the analysis of molecules. I analyze how intellectual commitments and disciplinary ambitions interacted with new research practices to produce new language, concepts, and entities for biology.

The evidence I give here shows that general microbiology occupied a pivotal position among the experimental life sciences in the middle decades of this century. I provide a new context for understanding two distinctive features of the life sciences after World War II: the increasing reliance on microorganisms and the participation of physical scientists in biological research.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Key to Archival Sources

Chapter I. "A Grand Symphony of Pure and Applied Science" -- The Laboratory for Microbiology in Delft

A. Introduction -- C.B. van Niel and the Discovery of Science

B. General Microbiology as a "Research Orientation"

C. A Laboratory for Microbiology at Delft

D. Microorganisms and Grand Ambitions

E. High Ideals and Local Constraints

Chapter II. Ideals and Experiments -- C.B. van Niel and the Jacques Loeb Laboratory, 1929-1936

A. Introduction

B. A Seaside Laboratory for Stanford University

C. Experimental Biology -- "New Data, New Methods, New Objectives"

D. The Jacques Loeb Laboratory

E. Photosynthesis

F. Van Niel's General Equation

G. A School for Biology and Success for van Niel

Chapter III. Culturing Microbiology, 1930-1945

A. Introduction -- The Project to Reform Microbiology

B. The Course in "General Microbiology"

C. More Photosynthesis and Return to Europe

D. New Disciples and "The Spirit of 1936-42"

E. More Physicists and Diverse Research F. From Idyll to War

Chapter IV. Microbiology's Moment, 1945-1955

A. Introduction -- The "Spectacular Rise" of Microbiology

B. Van Niel and the Microbe to Center Stage

C. General Microbiology at Berkeley

D. Transmitting Craft and Concepts -- The Summer Course in "General Microbiology," 1947-1954

E. Making Microbiological History -- Reinventing the "Delft School" F. Microbiology and Microbial Genetics

Chapter V. The Bacterium as Organism and Instrument

A. Introduction

B. Reconstructing the Bacterium -- Heredity and Cytology

C. Microorganisms and Macromolecules

D. A New Order of Things -- Roger Stanier, C.B. van Niel, and the Procaryote/Eucaryote Distinction

E. Van Niel as Moral Exemplar

References and Appendices

References

Appendices

 

PREFACE

I became irrevocably committed to studying the scientific work of C.B. van Niel (1897-1986) after learning that he had formulated the procaryote/eucaryote distinction with his former student and colleague Roger Yates Stanier. During a chance conversation with microbiologist Germaine Stanier at the Pasteur Institute in 1986, I suddenly recognized that these categories were not direct reflections of the order of nature, as I had learned in biology classes, but concepts produced by people in particular historical circumstances. I resolved to determine why van Niel and Stanier had formulated these fundamental categories of life.

This issue provided a point of entry into a chapter in the history of science that had received little attention from historians. In my research, I learned that defining bacteria as procaryotes resolved a core problem for van Niel and Stanier because they were committed to developing microbiology into a fundamental, rigorous, and coherent science. The evidence I give here shows that general microbiology, as they called their science, occupied a pivotal position among the experimental life sciences in the middle decades of this century. By taking the social, institutional, and intellectual history of general microbiology into account, I provide a new context for understanding two distinctive features of the life sciences after World War II: the sharp increase in reliance on microorganisms as research objects and the participation of physical scientists in biological research.

No individual contributed more than van Niel to transforming general microbiology from the preoccupation of a relatively small number of laboratories into the dynamic, productive, and prestigious science that it became between the 1930's and 1950's. Through his research and this teaching, van Niel persuaded students, colleagues, and patrons that microbiology could be practiced as a fundamental science that yielded unique theoretical insights into nature. Van Niel's innovative research in the 1930's on photosynthesis in bacteria demonstrated the potential for microbiology to yield unifying conceptions with implications for evolution, biochemistry, biophysics, and plant physiology. Not an institution builder in the conventional sense, van Niel cultivated microbiology socially by training a significant number of students who became influential leaders in the field. Further, van Niel created an exceptionally effective means for winning converts to general microbiology: an intensive ten-week summer course that he taught nearly every summer from 1930 to 1962. This course evolved into a unique resource for an elite group of researchers, many of whom became leaders in establishing molecular biology. Its graduates include the physical scientists Max Delbrück and Leo Szilard, and Nobel Prize winners Arthur Kornberg, Konrad Bloch, and Paul Berg. In the course of my research, I learned that a substantial body of research claimed in the 1960's as foundational for molecular biology was carried out in the 1940's and 1950's under the disciplinary identity of microbiology.

Van Niel also attracted my attention because he represented a certain conception of science. To van Niel, science provided the key to achieving an autonomous existence as a human being because it cultivated rationality, objectivity, and tolerance. Van Niel's ideal of science shaped his scientific work as much as his disciplinary ambitions. Committed to a view of a science as a philosophical project, he sought to define fundamental concepts for microbiology.

Van Niel and his laboratory, the productivity of general microbiology as a research field, and van Niel's summer course illustrate that important science can occur in relatively small institutional and disciplinary spaces. If historians restrict their attention to large institutions, "Big Science," and conventional notions of what constitutes scientific work, they risk misunderstanding how a great deal of scientific work, possibly the vast majority, takes place.

Van Niel derived the elements of his conception of microbiology as a student and research associate at the Laboratory for Microbiology of the Technische Hoogeschoole in Delft, the Netherlands. In the first chapter, I explain how this laboratory and its distinctive research tradition in microbiology came into existence. In 1929, van Niel joined the faculty of Stanford University's marine biological laboratory where he remained for his entire scientific life. In the second chapter, I examine the history of this laboratory in connection with the expansion of experimental biology at Stanford in the 1930's. I show that patrons, administrators, and scientists found common ground in experimental biology. In the third chapter, I analyze van Niel's efforts to cultivate microbiology through teaching his course in microbiology, training graduate students, and continuing his innovative research in photosynthesis. In the fourth chapter, I give an account of the expansion of general microbiology after World War II and the development of van Niel's course into a unique resource. I show that microbiology enjoyed substantial success on its own terms in the 1940's and 1950's and provided organisms, techniques, and concepts later incorporated into the canon of molecular biology. The fifth chapter concerns the increasing divergence between practitioners concerned with bacteria as biological entities and those who used bacteria as instruments for the analysis of molecules. I analyze how intellectual commitments and disciplinary ambitions interacted with new research practices to produce new language, concepts, and entities for biology. The chapter concludes with the formulation of the procaryote/eucaryote distinction. This dissertation gives my best answer to how and why that piece of scientific knowledge was made.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Professor John E. Lesch who oversaw the writing of this dissertation from its amorphous beginnings to its completion. He cheerfully read countless drafts, often at short notice, and helped me refine important questions. Professor John L. Heilbron provided trenchant criticism that was always valuable. Professor Sydney Kustu offered much appreciated encouragement and the critical perspective of a practicing scientist. I thank them all.

My fellow students at Berkeley, especially Sonja Amadae, Loren Butler Feffer, Stephanie Kenen, Abigail Lustig, Jessica Weiss, and, above all, Julia Rechter, created the intellectual community that makes scholarly work a pleasure. Visiting scholars and postdoctoral fellows enlivened the social and intellectual life of the Office for the History of Science and Technology at Berkeley. I am especially indebted to Olivier Darrigol, Alex Pang, and Elihu Gerson for counsel and friendship. The hosts of the Biology Studies Reading Group, Jack Lesch and Adele Clark, and chief participants, Michael Dietrich, James Griesemer, and Kathleen Whalen, provided rich intellectual comradeship.

Crucial material for this project was made available to me by Professor Rudolf Prins at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and by Professor Geis Kuenen at the Delft University of Technology. In Delft, Drs. Lesley Robertson, Lex Scheffers, and Piet Bos helped me approach the papers of Albert Jan Kluyver. I could not have done this project without them.

For interviews and correspondence, I thank Edward Adelberg, Bruce Ames, Horace Barker, Seymour Cohen, Manny Delbrck, Norman Horowitz, Robert Hungate, Holger Jannasch (deceased), Ralph Lewin, Andr Lwoff (deceased), Aaron Novick, Germaine Stanier, Gunther Stent, and Hans Veldkamp.

Historical research would be impossible without the work of archivists and librarians. I thank especially Beth Weil, librarian extraordinaire at Berkeley, Jeff Karr at the archives of the American Society for Microbiology, Denise Ogilivie at the Pasteur Institute, and Thomas Rosenbaum at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

A Pre-dissertation Fellowship from the Council for European Studies allowed me to begin research in the Netherlands and France. A doctoral dissertation grant from the National Science Foundation supported the bulk of my work. Funding from Berkeley Science Historians, the Maurice A. Biot Archives Fund of the California Institute of Technology, and the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Berkeley, and a Humanities Graduate Research Grant made it possible for me to complete my study.

The goodwill of my family and friends sustained me during my long tenure in graduate school. Joyce Kouffman and Deborah Lans held my hand during the worst of times. Tony Phillips provided essential support of all kinds.

KEY TO ARCHIVAL SOURCES

ASM American Society for Microbiology, Archives; University of Maryland -- Baltimore County.

AJK Albert Jan Kluyver Papers; Kluyver Laboratory of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

CIT University Archives; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

HAB Horace Albert Barker Papers; The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

JM Jacques Monod Papers; Service des Archives, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

LRB Lawrence R. Blinks Papers; Special Collections, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

MD Max Delbrück Papers; University Archives, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

MWB Martinus Willem Beijerinck Papers; Museum Booerhaave, Leiden, The Netherlands

RAC Rockefeller Archive Center, North Tarrytown, New York

RF Rockefeller Foundation Collection of the RAC

RLW Ray Lyman Wilbur Papers; Special Collections, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

RYS Roger Yates Stanier Papers; National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

SAW Selma A. Waksman Papers; ASM

SUT Stanford University Board of Trustees Supporting Documents; Special Collections, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

UCBC Records of the Office of the Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley; The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

VNA C.B. van Niel Papers; ASM

VNH C.B. van Niel Papers; Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, California

VNG C.B. van Niel Papers; Rijskuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

VNS C.B. van Niel Papers; Special Collections, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California