Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner, ForMemRS^[1] (June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943), was an Austrian and American biologist and physician.^[2] He is noted for having distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, and having identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient′s life. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926. In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was awarded with Lasker Award in 1946 posthumously, and is recognized as the father of transfusion medicine.^[3]

Start of an academic career[edit]

Landsteiner’s father, Leopold (1818–1875), a renowned Viennese journalist who was editor-in-chief of Die Presse, died at age 56, when Karl was only 6. This led to a close relationship between him and his mother Fanny (née Hess; 1837–1908). After graduating with the Matura exam from a Vienna secondary school, he took up the study of medicine at the University of Vienna and wrote his doctoral thesis in 1891. While still a student he published an essay on the influence of diets on the composition of blood.

From 1891 to 1893, Landsteiner studied chemistry in Würzburg under Hermann Emil Fischer, in München under Eugen Bambergerand in Zürich under Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch. A number of publications from that period, some of them in co-operation with his professors, show that he did not restrict himself to attending lectures.^[4]

Research work in Vienna – Discovery of the polio virus[edit]

After returning to Vienna he became an assistant to Max von Gruber at the Hygienic Institute. In his studies he concentrated on the mechanism of immunity and the nature of antibodies. From November 1897 to 1908 Landsteiner was an assistant at the pathological-anatomical institute of the University of Vienna under Anton Weichselbaum, where he published 75 papers, dealing with issues in serology, bacteriology, virology and pathological anatomy. In addition he did some 3,600 autopsies in those ten years. Weichselbaum was Landsteiner’s tutor for his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1903.^[5] From 1908 to 1920 Landsteiner was prosector at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna and in 1911 he was sworn in as an associate professor of pathological anatomy. During that time he discovered – in co-operation with Erwin Popper – the infectious character of poliomyelitis and isolated the polio virus.^[6] In recognition of this groundbreaking discovery, which proved to be the basis for the fight against polio, he was posthumously inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame at Warm Springs, Georgia, which was dedicated in January 1958.

Discovery of the blood groups[edit]

Karl Landsteiner working in his lab in Vienna, (reverse of 1,000-schilling bank note, 1997)

In 1900 Karl Landsteiner found out that the blood of two people under contact agglutinates, and in 1901 he found that this effect was due to contact of blood with blood serum. As a result, he succeeded in identifying the three blood groups A, B and O, which he labelled C, of human blood. Landsteiner also found out that blood transfusion between persons with the same blood group did not lead to the destruction of blood cells, whereas this occurred between persons of different blood groups.^[7] Based on his findings, the first^[8] successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907.

Today it is well known that persons with blood group AB can accept donations of the other blood groups, and that persons with blood group O can donate to all other groups. Individuals with blood group AB are referred to as universal recipients and those with blood group O are known as universal donors. These donor-recipient relationships arise due to the fact that type O blood possesses neither antigens of blood group A nor of blood group B. Therefore the immune systems of persons with blood group A, B or AB do not refuse the donation. Further, because persons with blood group AB do not form antibodies against either the antigens of blood group A or B, they can accept blood from persons with these blood groups, besides from persons with blood group O.

In today’s blood transfusions only concentrates of red blood cells without serum are transmitted, which is of great importance in surgical practice. In 1930 Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of these achievements. For his pioneering work, he is recognized as the father of transfusion medicine.^[9]

Research work in The Netherlands and the United States[edit]

Landsteiner bronze bust at Warm Springs

After World War I, Vienna and the new republic of Austria as a whole was in a desolate economic state, a situation in which Landsteiner did not see any possibilities to carry on with his research work. He decided to move to The Netherlands and accepted a post as prosector in the small CatholicSt. Joannes de Deo hospital (now MCH Westeinde) in The Hague ^[10] and, in order to improve his financial situation also took a job in a small factory, producing old tuberculin (tuberculinum prestinum).^[11] He also published a number of papers, five of them being published in Dutch by the Royal Academy of Sciences. Yet working conditions proved to be not much better than in post-war Vienna. So Landsteiner accepted the invitation that reached him from New York, initiated by Simon Flexner, who was familiar with Landsteiner's work, to work for the Rockefeller Institute. He arrived there with his family in the spring of 1923. Throughout the 1920s Landsteiner worked on the problems of immunity and allergy. In 1927 he discovered new blood groups: M, N and P, refining the work he had begun 20 years before. Soon after Landsteiner and his collaborator, Philip Levine, published the work and in 1927, the types began to be used in paternity suits.

Awards and honours[edit]

Landsteiner was posthumously awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1946 and elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1941.^[1]

Personal life[edit]

Landsteiner converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism in 1890.^[12] In 1916 he married Leopoldine Helene Wlasto, a Greek Orthodox who converted to her husband's Roman Catholic faith. In 1937 Landsteiner took legal action against an American publisher who had included him in the book Who's Who in American Jewry, stating that "it will be detrimental to me to emphasize publicly the religion of my ancestors."^[13]

Karl Landsteiner
Born	June 14, 1868 Baden bei Wien (near Vienna),Austria-Hungary
Died	June 26, 1943 (aged 75) New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	Austria United States of America
Citizenship	Austrian - American
Nationality	Austrian
Fields	Medicine, virology
Institutions	University of Vienna Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Known for	Development of blood group system, discovery of Rh factor, discovery of poliovirus
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1930) Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (1946 posthumously) ForMemRS (1941)[1]

Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose (Bengali: [Subhas Chandra Bose] ( listen); 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945^[1][a]), was an Indian nationalist whose defiant patriotism made him a hero in India, but whose attempt during World War II to rid India of British rule with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a troubled legacy.^{[4][b][5][c][6][d]} The honorific Netaji (Hindustani: "Respected Leader"), first applied in early 1942 to Bose in Germany by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin, was later used throughout India.^[7][e]

Earlier, Bose had been a leader of the younger, radical, wing of the Indian National Congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, rising to become Congress President in 1938 and 1939.^[8][f] However, he was ousted from Congress leadership positions in 1939 following differences with Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress high command.^[9] He was subsequently placed under house arrest by the British before escaping from India in 1940.^[10]

Bose arrived in Germany in April 1941, where the leadership offered unexpected, if sometimes ambivalent, sympathy for the cause of India's independence, contrasting starkly with its attitudes towards other colonised peoples and ethnic communities.^[11][12] In November 1941, with German funds, a Free India Centre was set up in Berlin, and soon a Free India Radio, on which Bose broadcast nightly. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion, comprising Indians captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, was also formed to aid in a possible future German land invasion of India.^[13] By spring 1942, in light of Japanese victories in southeast Asia and changing German priorities, a German invasion of India became untenable, and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia.^[14]Adolf Hitler, during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942, suggested the same, and offered to arrange for a submarine.^[15]During this time Bose also became a father; his wife, ^[3] or companion,^[2][g] Emilie Schenkl, whom he had met in 1934, gave birth to a baby girl in November 1942.^[3][11] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, and no longer apologetically, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.^[16][17] In Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked inJapanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.^[16]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), then composed of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured in the Battle of Singapore.^[18] To these, after Bose's arrival, were added enlisting Indian civilians in Malaya and Singapore. The Japanese had come to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, such as those in Burma, the Philippines and Manchukuo. Before long the Provisional Government of Free India, presided by Bose, was formed in the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands.^[18][19][h] Bose had great drive and charisma—creating popular Indian slogans, such as "Jai Hind,"—and the INA under Bose was a model of diversity by region, ethnicity, religion, and even gender. However, Bose was regarded by the Japanese as being militarily unskilled,^[20][i] and his military effort was short lived. In late 1944 and early 1945 the British Indian Army first halted and then devastatingly reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half the Japanese forces and fully half the participating INA contingent were killed.^[21][j] The INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula, and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose had earlier chosen not to surrender with his forces or with the Japanese, but rather to escape to Manchuria with a view to seeking a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to be turning anti-British. He died from third degree burns received when his plane crashed in Taiwan.^[22][k] Some Indians, however, did not believe that the crash had occurred,^[23][l] with many among them, especially in Bengal, believing that Bose would return to gain India's independence.^{[24][m][25][n]}

Subhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose
Native name	সুভাষচন্দ্র বসু
Born	Subash Chandra Bose 23 January 1897 Cuttack, Orissa Division, Bengal Province, British India
Died	18 August 1945 (aged 48)[1] Taipei (Taihoku), Japanese Taiwan[1]
Nationality	Indian
Ethnicity	Bengali
Education	Ravenshaw Collegiate School, Cuttack
Alma mater	University of Calcutta University of Cambridge
Known for	Figure of Indian independence movement
Title	President of Indian National Congress (1938) Head of State, Prime Minister, Minister of War and Foreign Affairs of Provisional Government of Free India based in the Japanese-occupiedAndaman and Nicobar Islands(1943–1945)
Political party	Indian National Congress 1921–1940, Forward Bloc faction within the Indian National Congress, 1939–1940
Religion	Hinduism
Spouse(s)	or companion,[2] Emilie Schenkl (secretly married without ceremony or witnesses in 1937, unacknowledged publicly by Bose.[3])
Children	Anita Bose Pfaff
Parent(s)	Janakinath Bose (father) Prabhavati Devi (mother)
Relatives	Bose family
Signature

Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology, especially his collaboration with Fascism.^[26] The British Raj, though never seriously threatened by the INA,^{[27][o][28][p]}charged 300 INA officers with treason in the INA trials, but eventually backtracked in the face both of popular sentiment and of its own end

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush, he was born in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in oil businesses. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. He was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election against Al Gore, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than an opponent.[6] He is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first having been John Quincy Adams.[7] He is also the brother of Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 presidential election.

Eight months into Bush's first term as president, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred. Bush responded with what became known as the Bush Doctrine: launching a "War on Terror", an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan, in 2001, and the Iraq War, in 2003. He also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, social security reform, and amending the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.[8] He signed into law broad tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors, and funding for the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and torture.

Bush successfully ran for re-election against Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004, in another relatively close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum[9][10][11] for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina,[12][13][14] and other challenges. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. In December 2007, the United States entered its longest post-World War II recession, often referred to as the "Great Recession", prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional passage of multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system. Nationally, Bush was both one of the most popular and unpopular presidents in history, having received the highest recorded presidential approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, as well as one of the lowest approval ratings during the 2008 financial crisis.[15] He was met with public protests during visits to the United Kingdom.[16]

George W. Bush
43rd President of the United States
In office January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009
Vice President	Dick Cheney
Preceded by	Bill Clinton
Succeeded by	Barack Obama
46th Governor of Texas
In office January 17, 1995 – December 21, 2000
Lieutenant	Bob Bullock (1995–99) Rick Perry (1999–2000)
Preceded by	Ann Richards
Succeeded by	Rick Perry
Personal details
Born	George Walker Bush July 6, 1946 (age 69) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Laura Welch (m. 1977)
Relations	See Bush family
Children	Barbara and Jenna
Parents	George H. W. Bush Barbara Pierce
Residence	Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Alma mater	Yale University (B.A.) Harvard Business School(M.B.A.)
Profession	Businessman (oil, baseball) Politician
Religion	Episcopalian (before 1977)[1] United Methodist (1977–present)[2][3]
Signature
Website	Official Website George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum George W. Bush Presidential Center The White House Archived
Military service
Nickname(s)	"Dubya", "GWB"[4]
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	Texas Air National Guard  Alabama Air National Guard
Years of service	1968–74
Rank	First lieutenant
Unit	147th Reconnaissance Wing 187th Fighter Wing
Awards	Air Force Pilot's Badge,Outstanding Unit Award,National Defense Service Medal, Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon[5]

Bush left office in 2009, returning to Texas where he purchased a home in suburban Dallas. He is currently a public speaker, and has written a memoir, Decision Points.[17] His presidential library was opened in 2013. His presidency has been ranked among the worst in surveys of presidential scholars published in the late 2000s and 2010s.[18][19][20]