scholarly journals Sir Edward Penley Abraham CBE. 10 June 1913 — 9 May 1999

2014 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
David S. Jones ◽  
John H. Jones

Edward Penley Abraham (Ted Abraham to intimate friends and family, EPA to his students), was a pioneer in antibiotics who made critical contributions to the purification and structural elucidation of penicillin as a young man in wartime, and led the discovery and development of cephalosporin C in his maturity. A kindly, modest and self-effacing private man, he could have amassed great wealth out of cephalosporin patents, but instead chose the path of philanthropy. He established substantial charitable funds in his lifetime for the benefit of medicine and allied subjects, the Royal Society, King Edward VI School, Southampton, and the University of Oxford, especially the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology and Lincoln College.

1806 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 305-326 ◽  

Dear Sir, Being perfectly convinced of your love of mathematical science, and your extensive acquirements in it, I submit to your perusal a new demonstration of the binomial theorem, when the exponent is a positive or negative fraction. As I am a strenuous advocate for smoothing the way to the acquisition of useful knowledge, i deem the following articles of some importance ; and unless I were equally sincere in this persuasion, and in that of your desire to promote mathemati­cal studies, in requesting the perusal, I should accuse myself of an attempt to trifle with your valuable time. The following demonstration is new only to the extent above mentioned ; but in order that the reader may perceive the proof to be complete, a successive perusal of all the articles is necessary. As far as it relates to the raising of in­tegral powers, it is in substance the same with one which I drew up in the year 1794, and which was honoured with a place in the Philosophical Transactions for 1795. If, therefore, you think the following demonstration worthy the attention of mathematicians, you will much oblige me by presenting it to the Royal Society.


1761 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 173-177 ◽  

My Lord, The present bad state of health of my worthy friend and collegue Dr. Bradley, his Majesty's Astronomer, prevented him from making the proper observations of the transit of Venus on Saturday morning last; and consequently, has deprived the public of such as would have been taken by so experienced and accurate an observer.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry J. Snaith ◽  
Samuele Lilliu

Henry J. Snaith is Professor of Physics in the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the Royal Society. He has pioneered the field of perovskite solar cells and published more than 300 papers. He is the founder and Chief Scientist Officer of Oxford Photovoltaics, which holds the largest perovskite patent portfolio worldwide and focuses on developing and commercialising perovskite PV technology. In this interview, he discusses the present status and future prospects of perovskite PV. The interview is available at https://youtu.be/sbe9Z5oEs5o.


In the year 1782, while Sir Joseph Banks, the autocrat of the philosophers, who presided so formidably over the Royal Society for no less than forty-three years, was still comparatively new to office, the extraordinary conduct of a learned and popular Fellow involved the Royal Society in a situation of some difficulty. James Price was not only wealthy and of high social standing, he was also a man of considerable reputation as a chemist. In May of the year before, he had been elected to the Society with complete confidence. In the spring of 1782, to the consternation of his fellow chemists, this man whom they held to be not only an authority on chemistry but a man of honour put forward a claim to have achieved the goal towards which throughout the ages the efforts of the alchemists had been directed. He had discovered, he said, a means of transmuting baser metal into gold. He claimed to be in possession of a white powder, capable of converting fifty times its own weight of mercury into silver and a red powder which could convert sixty times its weight of mercury into gold. Between 7 May and 25 May 1782 he conducted in public in the laboratory in his house at Stoke, near Guildford, a series of experiments which appeared to his audience to confirm his claim in every respect. The demonstrations were attended by a distinguished company, including his neighbours Lord Onslow, Lord King and Lord Palmerston, although, as the Royal Society could not but feel, it was not a scientific audience nor one qualified to pass judgement on his claim. The apparent success of his experiments caused an immense sensation and the belief in his powers was strengthened when the gold and silver alleged to have been produced were found genuine on assay and were exhibited to the King. The University of Oxford—Price had been a Fellow-commoner of Oriel—presented him with the degree of M.D. on account of* his chemical labours ’, and two editions of his book,1 describing in great detail the chemical reactions concerned in the process, were quickly sold.


1940 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 173-195

John Mellanby was born in 1878 in County Durham. His father was manager of a shipbuilding yard at West Hartlepool. From Barnard Castle School he obtained a scholarship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1896. He was placed in the first class of the first part of the Science tripos in 1899 and of Part II in Physiology in the following year. A year later he was appointed physiologist in charge of research in the new laboratory of Messrs Burroughs & Wellcome at Brockwell Park. He worked there till he went late in 1904 to Manchester to do the clinical work necessary for his medical degree. He took his M.D. in 1907 and was awarded the Horton Smith Prize for the best thesis presented by candidates for the degree in his year. He then worked as George Henry Lewes research student at Cambridge for two years till in 1909 he was appointed lecturer-in-charge of the physiological department at the Medical School of St Thomas’s Hospital. Here he stayed till in 1936 he was appointed Waynflete Professor of Physiology in the University of Oxford in succession to Sir Charles Sherrington. In 1911 he married Alice Mary, daughter of Joseph Watson, of Barrhead. In 1920 the post that he held at St Thomas’s became a professorship in the University of London. In 1929 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society and was serving on the Council at the time of his death, which took place after five weeks illness on 15 July 1939. He is survived by his wife and one daughter.


1695 ◽  
Vol 19 (216) ◽  
pp. 73-78

2. Tractatus de Salis Cathartici amari in aquis ebeshamensibus & hujusmodi aliis contenti naturInâ & usu. Aut. Nehemia Grew, M. D. utriusque Reg. Soc. Soc. Lond. Impensis S. Smith & B. Walford. In 12º In the former of them are contained, 1. His Inaugural Oration , when he entred upon that Employ­ment, Octob. 31. 1649.


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