The author of this work, Erling Norrby, became professor and chairman of virology at the Karolinska Institute in 1972, and, since 1973, has been very much involved in the selection of Nobel Prize winners. This puts him in an ideal position to write a book on Nobel Prizes and life sciences, and this book can be strongly recommended to historians of science.
As Norrby remarks, ‘The [Nobel] prize simply has come to reflect the history of modern science’ (p. 21). So his book gives a quite comprehensive overview of the history of the life sciences since 1901. Chapter 3 deals with virology, and here Norrby lays stress on how the modern concept of the virus developed. Wendell Stanley, who received the Nobel Prize in 1946 for crystallizing the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) in 1935, believed initially, as did many other scientists, that a virus was simply a protein. He actually missed the ‘nearly 6% RNA in the virus particle which was correctly described in 1936 by Bawden and Pirie’ (p. 78). Norrby's next two chapters deal with Nobel Prizes for virus vaccines. In fact only one Nobel Prize for a virus vaccine was ever awarded. This was to Max Theiler for his vaccine against yellow fever. No Nobel Prizes were given for the vaccines against polio, and Norrby gives a fascinating account of why this was so. Chapter 7 gives an account of how the role of nucleic acids was gradually discovered, while Chapter 8 gives a similar account of prions. There is a link between Chapters 3 and 8, because, as Norrby remarks (p. 93), ‘if TMV had been a prion … Stanley would have been right in his argumentation for an infectious protein!’
A history of science told in terms of Nobel Prizes gives quite a comprehensive history of science since 1901. Yet it presents this history from a distinctive point of view. The archives of the Nobel committees become available to scholars after fifty years, and they form a rich resource for historians of science. What is particularly significant about them is that they ‘contain all the reviews initiated by the committees’ (p. 24). Now characteristically historians of science examine the papers and correspondence of the leading scientists who made important advances. However, a scientific proposal can only become an advance if it is accepted by the majority of the experts in the field. So the reactions of the contemporaries of the famous scientists to their work are a very important consideration in the history of science, and the Nobel Prize reviews provide a most valuable source of information on this matter.
Is there anything we can learn about how the work of great scientists is received and evaluated by their contemporaries? From Norrby's study, one conclusion seems to emerge which could be called the ‘delayed-recognition principle’. It is rare that the importance of a discovery by a scientist is immediately recognized by that individual's fellow scientists working in the same field. Often ten, fifteen, twenty or even more years have to pass before the significance of a finding becomes recognized. There is a certain irony here because Nobel specified in his will that the prizes should go to those who had made discoveries in the preceding year. Fortunately this ‘preceding-year’ clause has been ignored in practice, and this is part of the reason why the validity of Nobel Prizes has stood the test of time. As Norrby remarks, ‘The few obvious mistakes that have been made often represent a too quick recommendation for a prize by a committee’ (p. 21).
The time that it takes for the importance of an advance to be recognized is sometimes remarkably long. Peyton Rous was one of the first to argue that viruses could cause cancers, giving in 1911 the example of a particular malignant sarcoma in chickens. ‘Rous was first nominated for the prize in 1926 and after that on repeated occasions’ (p. 72). He was finally awarded the prize in 1966 at the age of 87.
As we might expect, there were scientists who failed to win the Nobel Prize because they did not live as long as Peyton Rous. Norrby mentions the case of Oswald Avery, who was perhaps the first to show, in a paper of 1944, that DNA is the genetic material. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1946, 1952 and 1953–1955, but always rejected. He died in 1955, and so never got the Nobel Prize. Norrby concludes, ‘When Avery published his first article on transformation by DNA he was 66 years old. Had he lived another 15 years this shy bachelor certainly would have received a Nobel Prize’ (p. 215).
Although the case of Oswald Avery is a sad one, there is much to be said for the caution and delays of the Nobel Prize committees. This is illustrated by the case of Hideyo Noguchi, a scientist who worked at the Rockefeller Institute, and who advocated strongly in the 1920s the view that yellow fever was not caused by a virus. As Norrby says, ‘Noguchi was nominated no fewer than 24 times during 1913–1927 … later predominantly for his hypothesis that a spirochete was the causative agent of yellow fever’ (p. 103). However, in 1927 it was definitely established that yellow fever was caused by a virus.
Norrby's book contains many other things of interest – for example, a chapter on serendipity and Nobel Prizes, and another on unusual Nobel Prizes. However, I hope that, in this short review, I have given enough examples of what he covers to encourage historians of science to read this fascinating and informative book.
