| Bacteriologist,
author; born in Saint-Brice, France. He came to the U.S.A. in 1924, and
spent his career at Rockefeller University (1927--71), except for two
years at Harvard (1942--44). He expanded his original studies of soil
bacteria to include investigations of bacterial enzymes and toxins, infectious
diseases, and the relationship between microbes and other life on earth.
In 1939 he isolated tyrothricin, the first commercially-produced antibiotic.
He was a prolific author of both scientific and popular books.
In 1969 Dubos won the Pulitzer Prize for So Human an Animal (1968).
About the book, from the publisher: "Is the
human species becoming dehumanized by the condition of his environment?
So Human an Animal is an attempt to address this broad concern,
and explain why so little is being done to address this issue. The book
sounds both an urgent warning, and offers important policy insights into
how this trend towards dehumanization can be halted and finally reversed.
Dubos asserts that we are as much the product of our total environment
as of our genetic endowment. In fact, the environment we live in can greatly
enhance, or severely limit, the development of human potential. Yet we
are deplorably ignorant of the effects of our surroundings on human life.
We create conditions which can only thwart human nature. So Human
an Animal is a book with hope no less than alarm. Science can change
our suicidal course by learning to deal analytically with the living experience
of human beings, by supplementing the knowledge of things and of the body
machine with a science of human life. Only then can we give larger scope
to human freedom by providing a rational basis for option and action." |