Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950

201 Pages·2013·1.247 MB·English

by  Lloyd Ackert

Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life
Archimedes
NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME 34
EDITOR
Jed Z. Buchwald, Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES
Jeremy Gray, The Faculty of Mathematics and Computing,
The Open University, Buckinghamshire, UK.
Tilman Sauer, California Institute of Technology
ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Sharon Kingsland, Department of History of Science and Technology,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Manfred Laubichler, Arizona State University
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Henk Bos, University of Utrecht
Mordechai Feingold, California Institute of Technology
Allan D. Franklin, University of Colorado at Boulder
Kostas Gavroglu, National Technical University of Athens
Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Leibniz University in Hannover
Trevor Levere, University of Toronto
Jesper Lützen, Copenhagen University
William Newman, Indian University, Bloomington
Lawrence Principe, The Johns Hopkins University
Jürgen Renn, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Alex Roland, Duke University
Alan Shapiro, University of Minnesota
Noel Swerdlow, California Institute of Technology
ADVISORY BOARD FOR BIOLOGY
Michael Dietrich, Dartmouth College, USA
Michel Morange, Centre Cavaillès, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
Nancy Siraisi, Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA
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Lloyd Ackert
Sergei Vinogradskii
and the Cycle of Life
From the Thermodynamics of Life to
Ecological Microbiology, 1850–1950
Lloyd Ackert
Department of History and Politics
Drexel University
Philadelphia , USA
ISSN 1385-0180
ISBN 978-94-007-5197-2 ISBN 978-94-007-5198-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5198-9
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947949
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I dedicate this work to my wife Margot
Curran and daughter Merle Louise
Curran-Ackert.

Acknowledgements
It is a great honor to be considered a student of Daniel P. Todes. He inspired me in
selecting Vinogradskii as a topic for my doctoral thesis, in the approach I adopted
in exploring it, and encouraging me through its many versions. Through his writings,
his wise and frank advice, and countless exchanges of manuscript drafts he has and
continues to provide a model of mentorship that I strive to emulate.
My many conversations with Sharon Kingsland contributed signi fi cantly to my
understanding of the history of biology, evolutionary theory, and ecology. To her
I owe the kind and steady impetus ultimately to publish the revised version of the
monograph.
My colleague, James Strick, greatly encouraged my work with invitations to
present my research to his students at Franklin & Marshal College, and by introducing
me to a rich community of soil scientists.
My research for this monograph was supported by an Advanced Graduate Training
Fellowship from the Social Sciences Research Council, Eurasia Program. I greatly
appreciate the assistance rendered by the staff at the libraries and archives at which
I conducted my research: the Archiv Russkoi Akademii Nauk, Marina Sorokina and
T. M. Koroleva at its Moscow fi lial and N. S. Pokhorenko at its St. Petersburg fi lial;
the Biblioteka Akademii Nauk, St. Petersburg; Stephane Kraxner and Anne Weyer
of the Service des Archives of the Institut Pasteur, Paris; the manuscript collection
and the European reading room of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC;
Thomas Frusciano at the Rutgers University Library, New Brunswick; Tom Izbicki
at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and Christine Ruggere at the Welch Library of
the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; and N. A. Chekmareva at the Tsentral’nyi
Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Archiv in St. Petersburg, Russia. I had especially
rewarding discussions with Iu. P. Golikov, T. B. Andriushkevich, and Iu A. Mazing
at the Museum of the Institute of Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg, Russia.
At Johns Hopkins University, Gert Brieger, Jeffrey Brooks, Jerome Bylebyl, Pam
Long, Harry Marks, and Lawrence Principe guided me along during the course of this
project. In Russia, Danil Alexandrovich, Yasha Gall, Eduard Kolchinskii, Mikhail
Konashev, and Sergei Orlov improved my knowledge of Russian science. I explored
Vinogradskii’s place in Russian science and culture with my good friend Evgeny
vii
viii Acknowledgements
Khevets (d. 2009). In France, Bernard Vedry, who discovered the lost Vinogradskii
tomb, and his wife Brigitte showed great generosity to my family. I owe much of my
understanding of Vinogradskii’s life in Paris and Brie-Compte-Robert to them.
I learned much from my fellow graduate students at Hopkins: Alexa Green, Scott
Knowles, Joshua Levens, and David Munns, Keith Barbera, Jesse Bump, Greg
Downey, Sander Gliboff, Tom Lassman, Buhm Soon Park, and Karen Stupski—and of
the new generations: Allison Kavey, Allison Marsh, Nancy Medley, Maria Portuondo,
and Jimmy Shaffer.
Contents
Part I Plant Physiology
1 A Synthesis of Thermodynamics and Bioenergetics
in Plant Physiology: The Investigation of a Moody
Apprentice ................................................................................................ 3
The Gentleman Chooses Science .............................................................. 7
The Cycle of Life in European Science .................................................... 18
2 The Exchange of Matter and the Transformation of Energy ............. 23
Famintsyn’s Approach to the Cycle of Life .............................................. 23
Physiological Debates on the Nature of Microorganisms ......................... 26
The Intellectual Context for Vinogradskii’s 1883 Report ......................... 32
Vinogradskii’s Style .................................................................................. 35
Part II Experiment and Natural History
3 The Laboratory is Nature: Investigating the Cycle
of Life Under the Microscope ................................................................ 39
A Comfortable Internship: Anton de Bary’s
Laboratory at the University of Strassburg ............................................... 40
A Brush with German Darwinism: Vinogradskii’s Sulphur
Spring Expeditions .................................................................................... 43
Species Constancy: Vinogradskii’s Physiological Interpretation
of the Monomorphism-Pleiomorphism Debate ........................................ 48
4 Free Nature in the Laboratory .............................................................. 59
Beggiatoa Nutrition ................................................................................... 60
Vinogradskii’s Virtuosity: The Role of Sulphur
in Beggiatoa Nutrition ............................................................................... 63
A New Physiological Type ........................................................................ 67
The Reception of Vinogradskii’s Research ............................................... 69
ix
x Contents
Part III Ecology
5 Vinogradskii’s Transformation from Plant
Physiologist to Ecologist, 1890–1920 ..................................................... 73
Autotrophism ............................................................................................ 74
Nitri fi cation as a Biological Phenomenon ................................................ 77
Soil Microbiology at the Imperial Institute
of Experimental Medicine ......................................................................... 83
6 Soil Science and Russian Ecology .......................................................... 93
Vinogradskii’s Contributions .................................................................... 93
Physiological Ecology .............................................................................. 96
Beketov Without Darwin: Vinogradskii’s Concept
of the Cycle of Life ................................................................................... 99
Scienti fi c Forestry: Vinogradskii Retires to Gorodok ............................... 103
Part IV French Agriculture
7 The Master of Brie-Compte-Robert and His “Direct Method:”
Translating the Cycle of Life into Ecology............................................ 107
Vinogradskii Comes to Brie-Comte-Robert:
The Resurrection of a Career .................................................................... 108
The Direct Method in 1923: Its First Explication ..................................... 110
The Direct Method in 1925: The Rise of Soil Microbiology .................... 117
8 Ecological Microbiology ......................................................................... 125
Ecological Microbiology in 1925 ............................................................. 127
The Direct Method in the Late 1920s ....................................................... 130
The Direct Method and Micro fl ora in the Early 1930s ............................. 134
Part V The Impact of Vinogradskii’s Work
9 Science is Ecological and Ecology is Scienti fi c:
The Uptake of Vinogradskii’s Direct Methods ..................................... 141
The “Cycle of Life” at the Rutgers Agricultural
Experiment Station .................................................................................... 143
A “Holistic Habit of Mind” ....................................................................... 149
Statistical Soil Science: Rothamsted
Agricultural Experiment Station ............................................................... 152
In Beijerinck’s Backyard: The Delft School of Microbiology .................. 156
10 Vinogradskii’s Reception in Russian and Soviet Microbiology .......... 161
Vinogradskii’s First Student, V. L. Omelianskii:
Microbes as “Living Reactives” ................................................................ 162