A Short, Informal History of the Biological Sciences at Yale University

YALE JOUrNAL OF BiOLOGY AND MEDiCiNE 85 (2012), pp.551-558. Copyright © 2012. PErsPECTivEs A Short, informal History of the Biological Sciences at Yale university Peter B. Moore Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in May 2012, Yale University’s Graduate school of Arts and sciences held a reunion for all who have received doctorates from Yale in the biological sciences. The proceedings began with two presentations on the history of biological research at Yale: one focused on the Med - ical school, and the other centered on the rest of the University. This essay is a lightly ed - ited version of my account of the history of the biological sciences outside the Medical school. introduction corporated into the academic structure of As everyone knows, biology, broadly Yale University. Indeed, the history of bi - construed, is today a vast, lavishly sup - ology at Yale has been full of twists and ported, scientific enterprise that attracts the turns that still affect the way biology is interest of a larger and more heterogeneous done in New Haven. group of scientists than any other branch of In the first place, unlike the other science. Given its prominence in today’s major branches of science (e.g., physics, scientific universe, it may come as a sur - chemistry, astronomy, geology, etc.), biol - prise that biology was the last of the major ogy has never had a single departmental scientific disciplines to become fully in - home at Yale, nor has there ever been a de - To whom all correspondence should be addressed: Peter B. Moore, Department of Chem - istry, Yale University, PO Box 208107, New Haven, CT 06520-8107; Tele: 203-432-3995; Fax: 203-432-5781; Email: [email protected]. †Abbreviations: DPA, Department of Philosophy and the Arts; EEB, Ecology and Evolu - tionary Biology; MB&B, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; MCDB, Molecular, Cellu - lar and Developmental Biology. 551 552 Moore: The biological sciences at Yale partment focused on biology that could tHe 19tH centurY: tHe SHeffield Scientific ScHool claim to be more than first among equals. Today, there are a large number of depart - It is impossible to understand what hap - ments outside of the Medical School in pened to biology at Yale outside the Medical which biology is done. Those include the School in the century that followed Silli - obvious suspects ― Molecular, Cellular and man’s appointment if you do not know Developmental Biology (MCDB †), Ecology something about the history of the division and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), and Mo - of the University that began in 1846 as the lecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Yale School of Applied Chemistry. For the (MB&B) ― but they also include Chem - record, a year later, Yale established a sub - istry, Geology, and Biomedical Engineering. division called the Department of Philoso - In order to understand how biology came to phy and the Arts (DPA), which was charged be scattered all over the University, you need with supervising post-bachelor’s degree ed - to go back to the beginning. ucation in all fields other than Law, Theol - ogy, and Medicine. Today we refer to it as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. BeginningS (Similar ventures were launched at other in - In its first century, the 18th century, stitutions of higher education at about the Yale College offered its students a modest same time.) level of instruction in the natural sciences The first two faculty appointments in and mathematics, but systematic instruction Applied Chemistry were John Pitkin Norton, in the sciences did not begin until 1804, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, and when Benjamin Silliman took up his duties Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Professor of Practi - on the faculty of Yale College. His title was cal Chemistry. Their appointments had some “Professor Chemistry and Natural History,” important fine print attached. The Corpora - the latter being a catchall phrase applicable tion stipulated that neither man was to in - to all branches of science including geology, struct students enrolled in Yale College, nor which interested Silliman a lot, and what - was either to be supported by Yale College ever aspects of biology Silliman found funds. It may seem odd to the reader that the amusing. Corporation would have been willing to es - In 1810, only 6 years after Silliman’s ap - tablish two new positions, but unwilling to pointment, the Yale Corporation took the first support them. However, this paradox has a of the many steps it has taken since that en - simple explanation: The Corporation had no sured that the biological sciences would money. Nevertheless, the Corporation’s de - never have a single home at Yale. It agreed to mand that Applied Chemistry be self-fi - the establishment of the “Medical Institute of nancing led ultimately to its downfall, as we Yale College,” which was to be a joint ven - shall see. ture of Yale College and the Connecticut Since the education of students who al - Medical Society. It is now called the Yale ready had college degrees was a major com - Medical School. In its original manifestation, ponent of its mission, the School of Applied the Medical Institute was no more than a Chemistry was initially part of DPA. In trade school, but by the second half of the 1852, Yale established a School of Engi - 20th century, there was more biological re - neering, which was also incorporated into search being done at the Medical School than DPA, and two years later, Applied Chem - in the entire rest of the University. istry merged with the School of Engineering Since its founding, the Medical School to create the Yale Scientific School. For has been viewed by Yale as the proper home many years, DPA was little more than a for most, if not all, human biology, and little wrapper organization for the Scientific more will be said about it here because the School, which was the branch of the Uni - focus of this essay is the history of the bio - versity that educated the overwhelming ma - logical sciences outside the Medical School. jority of the students on whom DPA Moore: The biological sciences at Yale 553 bestowed advanced degrees. This should not necticut.) There was a stark contrast between come as a surprise; the Ph.D. degree was de - the forward-looking curriculum of the vised by German universities in the mid- Sheffield School and that of the 4-year bach - 19th century for the training of professional elor’s program offered at Yale College, scientists. which still emphasized Greek, Latin, and Norton, who was Yale’s first bio - Philosophy, just as it had a century before. chemist, died only a few years after the Sci - Why should any of this ancient history entific School was founded, and he was be of concern to recent recipients of ad - replaced by John Addison Porter, a recent vanced degrees in the biological sciences Yale College graduate who had been teach - from Yale? The reason is that from 1860 to ing at Brown. In 1856, Porter single-hand - about 1920, the Sheffield School was the edly solved the daunting financial problems home of most of the biologists at Yale out - that the Scientific School confronted in its side the Medical School. Some of them were early years by marrying Josephine Sheffield. pretty good. For example, around the turn of She was the daughter of Joseph Sheffield, a the last century, Lafayette Mendel collabo - railroad tycoon who lived in New Haven, rated with Thomas Osborne at the Con - and through his son-in-law, Joseph became necticut Agricultural Experiment Station on sufficiently interested in the Yale Scientific a series of nutritional experiments that, School to give it several gifts so large that among other things, demonstrated that ly - in 1861, in gratitude, the Corporation re - sine and tryptophan are essential nutrients named it the Sheffield Scientific School. for mammals. Their work also contributed Thereafter, the Scientific School was a mightily to the discovery of the first vitamin: financially independent subdivision of Yale vitamin A. There were other respectable bi - that ran its own degree programs in science ologists on the Sheffield faculty, e.g., Chit - and engineering, and at Joseph Sheffield’s tenden in Physiological Chemistry, Beecher request, it was provided with its own Board in Paleontology, Brewer in Botany, and Sin - of Trustees. It appears that the Corporation nott in Plant Genetics. (Sinnott’s textbook acquiesced to this peculiar arrangement in on genetics was still in use in the late 1950s, anticipation of future gifts from Sheffield, as the author can attest from personal expe - which, gratifyingly, did ultimately material - rience.) ize. In addition to the income the School re - For many years, the President of Yale ceived from tuition and from Sheffield’s attended Sheffield commencement cere - benefactions, it received government funds monies, which in those days included a re - due to the fact that from 1863 to 1893, it was search talk given by one of its advanced Connecticut’s land grant institution. degree recipients. Thus, Noah Porter was on The Sheffield School offered its stu - hand in 1879 to hear a talk entitled “The dents several bachelor’s degree programs in Anatomy of the Common Gray Mussel.” Af - engineering, as well as a variety of graduate terward, to the amusement of all within programs in science and engineering. In ad - earshot, Porter was heard to remark: “Won - dition, it also ran a non-specialized, 3-year derful. That young man got more out of that bachelor’s degree program that included not clam than most people would get out of an only the math, science, and engineering you entire cow.” would have anticipated, but also courses in Although Sheffield was certainly the the humanities, including English, which home of much of the science being done at was not taught at Yale College in that era.

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