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Sir Frederick William Andrewes
(31 Mar 1859 - 24 Feb 1932)
[mp] who spent his career with the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew, London. His best known work concerned the food poisoning organisms, Salmonella.
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Science Quotes by Sir Frederick William Andrewes (1 quote)
It may very properly be asked whether the attempt to define distinct species, of a more or less permanent nature, such as we are accustomed to deal with amongst the higher plants and animals, is not altogether illusory amongst such lowly organised forms of life as the bacteria. No biologist nowadays believes in the absolute fixity of species … but there are two circumstances which here render the problem of specificity even more difficult of solution. The bacteriologist is deprived of the test of mutual fertility or sterility, so valuable in determining specific limits amongst organisms in which sexual reproduction prevails. Further, the extreme rapidity with which generation succeeds generation amongst bacteria offers to the forces of variation and natural selection a field for their operation wholly unparalleled amongst higher forms of life.
— Sir Frederick William Andrewes
'The Evolution of the Streptococci', The Lancet, 1906, 2, 1415-6.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
