Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Dale, Sir Henry Hallett, 1875–1968, English scientist. For his study of acetylcholine as agent in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses he shared with Otto Loewi the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physio...

(Encyclopedia) Sloan Foundation, fund established (1934) by automobile executive Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. as a philanthropic institution supporting research in various areas. In its early years it stressed support of U....

(Encyclopedia) Larsen, Peter Laurentius lourĕntˈsēəs [key], 1833–1915, American educator, b. Norway. He emigrated to the United States in 1857 as a Lutheran missionary. From 1859 to 1861 he was professor of th...

(Encyclopedia) Bridges, Calvin Blackman, 1889–1938, American geneticist, b. Schuyler Falls, N.Y., grad. Columbia (B.S., 1912; Ph.D., 1916). In his research he collaborated with T. H. Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, and ...

(Encyclopedia) West Indies, University of the, autonomous regional institution with main campuses in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados; coeducational; est. 1948 in Mona, Jamaica, as an external university college of t...

(Encyclopedia) Dewar, Sir James dyo͞oˈər [key], 1842–1923, British chemist and physicist, b. Scotland. He was professor of chemistry (from 1877) at the Royal Institution, London, and later was director of the D...

(Encyclopedia) Corpus Christi [Lat.,=body of Christ], feast of the Western Church, observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (or on the following Sunday). The feast, which celebrates the founding of the sacramen...

(Encyclopedia) Vassar College văsˈər [key], at Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; coeducational; chartered 1861 by Matthew Vassar, opened 1865 as Vassar Female College, renamed 1867. A leading institution of higher education fo...

(Encyclopedia) Bethlem Royal Hospital bĕthˈləm [key], the oldest institution for the care and confinement of the mentally ill in England, and one of the oldest in Europe. A priory in 1247, the building was conver...

(Encyclopedia) Taylor, Francis Henry, 1903–57, American museum director, b. Philadelphia, studied throughout Europe. He began his museum career as assistant curator (1927–28) and then curator of medieval art (19...