FYI January 29, 2019

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On This Day

 
 
757 – An Lushan, leader of a revolt against the Tang dynasty and emperor of Yan, is murdered by his own son, An Qingxu.
An Lushan (c. 703[2] – 29 January 757[3]) was a general in the Tang dynasty and is primarily known for instigating the An Lushan Rebellion.

An Lushan was of Sogdian and Göktürk origin,[4][5][6][7][8][9] at least by adoption.[10] He rose to military prominence by defending the northeastern Tang frontier from the Khitans and other threats. He was summoned to Chang’an, the Tang capital, several times and managed to gain favor with Chancellor Li Linfu and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. This allowed An Lushan to amass significant military power in northeast China. After the death of Li Linfu, his rivalry with General Geshu Han and Chancellor Yang Guozhong created military tensions within the empire.

In 755,[11] An Lushan, following 8 or 9 years of preparation,[12] instigated the An Lushan Rebellion, proclaiming himself the ruler of a new dynasty, Yan.

In 757 An Lushan was assassinated by his own son, An Qingxu, following the deterioration of relations between him and his followers due to his growing paranoia. The state of Yan fell into turmoil and eventually collapsed in 763.[citation needed]

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Born On This Day

 
 
1881 – Alice Catherine Evans, American microbiologist (d. 1975)
Alice Catherine Evans (January 29, 1881 – September 5, 1975) was a pioneering American microbiologist.[1] She became a researcher at the US Department of Agriculture. There she investigated bacteriology in milk and cheese. She later demonstrated that Bacillus abortus caused the disease Brucellosis (undulant fever or Malta fever) in both cattle and humans.

Early years and education
Evans was born on a farm in Neath, Bradford County, Pennsylvania to William Howell, a farmer and surveyor, and Anne B. Evans, a teacher.[2] When Evans was five and six years old, she was taught at home by her parents and attended a one-room school house in Neath where she earned outstanding grades.[3]

In 1886, Evans survived scarlet fever, as did her brother Morgan.

She attended the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute in Towanda, where she played on a women’s basketball team and later became a teacher. In her memoirs, she writes that she became a teacher because it was the only profession open to women, but she found it boring.[4] After four years of teaching, she took free classes that were offered to rural teachers at Cornell University.[5] After receiving a scholarship, she earned a B.S. in bacteriology from Cornell University in 1909, and was the first woman to receive a bacteriology scholarship from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she earned her M.S. the following year.[1]

Work and discoveries
Evans was offered a federal position at the Dairy Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry at the United States Department of Agriculture. She accepted the offer in Madison, Wisconsin and worked there for three years. She worked on refining the process of manufacturing cheese and butter for improved flavor and investigating the sources of bacterial contamination in milk products. She was the first woman scientist to hold a permanent position as a USDA bacteriologist[6] and as a civil service worker was protected by law.[7]

Alice became interested in the disease brucellosis and its relationship to fresh, unpasteurized milk. Alice’s investigation focused on the organism Bacillus abortus, known to cause miscarriages in animals. Alice learned that the microbe thrived in infected cows as well as animals that appeared healthy. The reports hypothesized that since the bacteria was found in cow’s milk, a threat to human health was likely.[8]

Evans decided to investigate this; she wondered whether the disease in cows could be the cause of undulant fever in humans. She reported her findings to the Society of American Bacteriologists in 1917 and published her work in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in 1918.[9]

She was met with skepticism, particularly because she was a woman and did not have a Ph.D. She warned that raw milk should be pasteurized to protect people from various diseases. During the 1920s, scientists around the world made the same findings, and eventually, Brucella was confirmed as the disease that caused what was then known as undulant fever and Malta fever. Her findings led to the pasteurization of milk in 1930. As a result, the incidence of brucellosis in the United States was significantly reduced.[1]

Evans joined the United States Public Health Service in 1918, where she contributed to the field of infectious illness, studying epidemic meningitis and influenza at the department’s Hygienic Laboratories. There, she was infected with undulant fever in 1922, a then-incurable disease that impaired her health for twenty years.

Evans donated a collection of her papers to the National Library of Medicine in 1969.[10]

Post retirement and death
She officially retired in 1945 but continued working in the field.[11] Following her retirement, Alice became a popular speaker, especially with women’s groups. She gave lectures to women about career development and pursuing scientific careers. Alice suffered a stroke at the age of 94 and died on September 5, 1975. Her tombstone reads, “The gentle hunter, having pursued and tamed her quarry, crossed over to a new home”.[12]

Awards and honors
First female president of the Society of American Bacteriologists, elected in 1928 [13]
Awarded honorary degree in medicine from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1934
Awarded honorary doctorates of science from University of Wisconsin–Madison and Wilson College, 1936
Honorary president, Inter-American Committee on Brucellosis, 1945–57
Honorary member, American Society for Microbiology, 1975
Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, 1993

 
 

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