Part Three
Other memorials come from medical fields, as follows.
· African American Charles Drew invented the method of separating red blood cells from plasma, so both could be frozen and stored. His invention of blood banks has saved countless lives worldwide.
· Jonas Salk, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, co-developed a flu vaccine used by the military in WW2 before developing his famous polio vaccine. In the year he invented it, 57,628 new cases of polio were recorded. His invention and a subsequent oral one created by Albert Sabin, virtually eliminated the crippling disease within a decade.
· Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown, worked together from different cities to crate the antifungal antibiotic Nystatin. It not only cures various severe fungal infections of the skin and digestive system, but it’s been used against Dutch Elm disease in trees and to restore artwork damaged by water and mold.
· Gertrude Elion invented Purinethol, the first major medicine to fight leukemia, Imuran, which helps the body suppress its immune reaction to foreign tissue (which made kidney transplants possible), Zyloprim, which fights gout, and Zovirax, which battles herpes infections, along with dozens of other medicines.
· Among his 83 patents in a variety of areas, William Coolidge’s greatest was a vacuum tube for X-ray generation, which made safe X-rays, for medical diagnosis.
· Tuan Vo-Dinh, a Vietnamese immigrant, invented a number of life-saving medical devices that detect diseases and defects using optical scanning instead of biopsy. The devices are used for damaged DNA, diabetes and cancer.
· Wilson Greatbatch has 150 patents, but is best known for inventing the implantable cardiac pacemaker.
· Leslie Geddes, a Scottish immigrant, became an electrical engineer and biophysicist. He created electrode-based inventions for diagnosing nerve damage, respiratory monitoring systems, cardiovascular devices, invented biomaterials used in tissue grafting, developed new medical therapies such as defibrillation techniques, authored numerous books and articles, and taught more than 2,000 biomedical engineers – about one fifth of all those working in the US today.
· Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen invented a method of cloning genetically engineered molecules in foreign cells, which launched the biotechnology industry. Among the dozens of medical products this made possible are synthetic insulin for those with diabetes, a clot-dissolving agent for heart-attack victims, and a growth hormone for underdeveloped children.
· Eugene Chan created a method for mapping a genome quickly and inexpensively. It took the Human Genome Project nearly 5 years to map the human genome; Chan’s device, patented this year, can do it in about 30 minutes. It is anticipated that personalized drugs with fewer side effects will result from the device.
There are other technologies US inventors and researchers have contributed to the world, a well.
· Leo Baekeland, in 1907, created the first plastic, named Bakelite, in 1907.
· When trade troubles with Japan threatened silk supplies prior to WW2, Wallace Carothers created nylon with its numerous uses in clothing, carpeting and much more. He also invented neoprene rubber.
· Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1844, which helped usher in the automobile age, along with other uses of the material.
· Among his 116 patents is Waldo Semon’s polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which could be manufactured cheaply, as it was made with seawater and petroleum. It’s now the second most common plastic in the world.
· Chemist Edith Marie Flanigen worked with silicone polymers, for complex uses in chemical processes, and invented or developed over 200 different synthetic substances. The most important is ‘zeolite Y’, a silicate sieve used to refine petroleum that optimizes the conversion of crude oil to gasoline. US petroleum and gasoline use have had a huge impact on our society and economy, as well as the countries that produce petroleum.
Of course there are numerous better-known inventors, like Thomas Edison, who contributed the electric light bulb, the phonograph and the motion picture camera, among others. Or Henry Ford, whose assembly line revolutionized the productivity possibilities of all industry. Or the Wright Brothers, with their airplane, Robert Goddard and his liquid fuel rocketry, Willis Carrier and his modern air conditioner, Gordon Gould who gave us lasers, or Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone.
Along the way, we’ve had several ‘Renaissance men’ who provided contributions in multiple fields. The first was Ben Franklin, who not was not only a critical contributor to our founding Constitutional Convention, but was an author, printer, scientist (proving that lightning carried an electrical charge), a philosopher and an inventor. In the latter field, he invented the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, the freestanding Franklin woodstove, an odometer and the first medical catheter.
Another was Charles Kettering, best known for creating the all electric automobile, ending the hand crank starting system. But he was the driving force behind an industrial tech school and had over 300 inventions, including improvements to diesel engines, Duco paint, ethyl gasoline, portable lighting systems for farms, refrigeration coolants, a solar energy apparatus, an infant incubator, prototypical magnetic diagnostic devices and a treatment for venereal disease.
English immigrant Elihu Thomson co-founded a lighting sales company a few years after the German physicist Hertz published his work with invisible electro-magnetic waves. Thomson proposed using them for signaling through fog or solid bodies that would shut off light waves. Despite Edison’s advocacy of the use of direct current technology, Thomson’s experiments with alternating current eventually led to the adoption of AC as the U.S. standard. When his company merged with Edison’s to become General Electric, his research over several decades gained him 696 patents related to electricity, including arc lights, generators, electric welding machines, a recording wattmeter and x-ray tubes. He also contributed to the invention of the high-frequency dynamo and the transformer.
Croatian engineer Nikola Tesla immigrated to the US where he developed the first electro-magnetic motor. With over 700 inventions and 100 patents in electric applications, he also beat Marconi to the creation of second generation radio.
Lee DeForest gave us the audion amplifier, which gave us radio, and an associate who worked with him, Allen DuMont, began network television. Actress Hedy Lamarr, with composer George Antheil, created a secret communication system that became an unbreakable code used by Allied submarines, which helped us win WW2. |
