A Field Trip Milestone
The Scientists for Life class took a field trip to the downtown Buffalo Public Library to view the “Milestones of Science” exhibit on Wednesday September 21st, 2016. The exhibit featured several journals and folios of famous scientists who made an impact on their field including only one female scientist – Marie Curie.
The exhibit was originally apart of the Buffalo Museum of Science, but after running into a financial issue, Hamlin donated everything to the library. Currently, they are only showing a small portion of their collection with books that vary through all fields in science. As most books are written in Latin, you might not be able to read the text, but it is still awe-inspiring to see.
We were able to make connections to some scientists that we learned about last year in chemistry, like Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (who arranged the periodic table) and Robert Boyle (who created Boyle’s Law, which has to do with gases).
We also heard about Marie Curie, who is most notable for her discovery of radium, which was an element that was being used in paint at the time. People working in factories would use this to paint clocks, so that men in the military could see the time even at night. To get a fine tip on the paintbrush, the workers would put the tip of the brush in their mouth, and the radium that was on the brush ended up killing several people. If this topic interests you, there is a fictional play based on it called Radium Girls by D. W. Gregory, which was performed at SEM two years ago.
Yet, we also heard about several scientists for the first time. For example, in the medical field, we learned about Edward Jenner, who is notable for creating the first vaccine for smallpox. Before figuring out the perfect way to test a vaccine, he would keep an infected person in a room with someone that he gave a vaccine and saw what happened. He was able to help cure smallpox, which was an impressive contribution of his time. During this time period, you see women wearing a lot of white powder on their face and creating beauty marks. This was not just for the fashion of the time, but to hide their smallpox.
“For the most part, I was really interested in the medicine part, and looking at the old first aid kit with all the tools to amputate, and how we compared it to the modern ones,” said Jenna Al-Naji.
The exhibit is opened until next September, if you would like to take a visit and immerse yourself in a plethora of scientific discoveries.
