RARE "Theory of Evolution Pioneer” Homer W. Smith Signed 5.5X3 Card For Sale
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RARE "Theory of Evolution Pioneer” Homer W. Smith Signed 5.5X3 Card:
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Up for sale a RARE! "Theory of Evolution" Homer W. Smith Signed 5.5X3 Card.
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Homer William Smith (January 2, 1895
– March 25, 1962) was an American physiologist and science writer known
for his experiments on the kidney and philosophical writings
on natural history and
the theory of evolution. Smith was born in Denver, and three years later, his family moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado,
which was included in both the Cripple
Creek miners' strike of 1894 and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04. He had a stutter from
about the age of five, to which he attributes his introspectiveness.[1] Smith's mother died by the time he was seven;
he had five older siblings at the time, the oldest of which was 26. Smith
describes his father as "of the generation that had one foot still planted
in religious tradition, the other planted in
irreligious rationalism. ... For his mixed sentiment
and skepticism my father paid off his conscience by generous hospitality, and
any minister of any gospel was welcome at his table." At the age of
eleven, while Smith had the measles, his father built him a shed in
which he could conduct scientific experiments; these involved chemistry and microbiology, as well as the use of a vacuum tube, and Tesla Referral coil. He also dissected cats, which fueled his
interest for biology and diminished his faith in anthropocentrism. As a result of the apathy he felt following
the sinking of the RMS Titanic on
April 15, 1912, he set out on a philosophical quest of reading and writing with
a renewed focus towards scholarship. Smith received his D.Sc in 1921 from Johns
Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. From 1928
until his retirement in 1961 he was the Professor of Physiology and Director of
the Physiological Laboratories at New York University School of Medicine. Smith was a leader in
the field of renal physiology. His
elegant experiments on the kidney in the 1930s proved beyond any doubt that it
operated according to physical principles, both as a filter and a secretory
organ, eliminating the last vestige of vitalism in physiology. He used inulin (at the same time as A. N. Richards) to
measure how much kidney filtrate is formed. His book The Kidney:
Structure and Function in Health and Disease (1951) was an
authoritative summary of what was known at that time. Komongo or, the
Lungfish and the Padre (1932) takes place in the Suez Canal where a scientist returning to the United
States with a cargo of lungfish for kidney experiments delivers a monologue to
an Anglican Minister on how evolution shapes organisms. The book, after being personally
rejected by Alfred A. Knopf, was
accepted by Viking Press. It was
became a Book of the Month, was
included in The Woollcott Reader (1935),
and republished as a Pocket Overseas Edition for the troops during World War II, and then made a monthly selection by the Natural
History Book Club. For the latter republication, the book had to be reset, as
the original plates had been donated during the metal shortages of 1943–44.
Smith desired to make changes to the book, which the publisher gave him a week
to make. The manuscript for Man and His Gods (1952),
which Smith describes as "a simple story of man's changing ideas about
himself and his place in nature," was declined by several publishers and
reduced from about 275,000 to 250,000 words before it was accepted by Little, Brown and Company. The publisher made further cuts for
length, which Smith approved of. It considers "man's ideas about the
supernatural in the perspective of the evolution of western theology and
philosophy from the ancient Egyptians to
the nineteenth century", culminating in Darwin's theory of
evolution and the reaction to
it, including the thoughts of Thomas Henry Huxley and
the relationship of modern thought to that of Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant ]Albert Einstein says in the foreword: The work is a
broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic
ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates
the impact of these phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal
relationships by which they have come to be crystallized into organized
religion. This is a biologist speaking whose scientific training has
disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. From
Fish to Philosopher (1953) explains how evolutionary history accounts
for the seemingly bewildering mammalian kidney, in which water, salts, and
small molecules are filtered from the blood into kidney tubules and then much
of the water and salt and many of the small molecules are pumped back into the
blood stream. He argues that vertebrates originated in fresh water, where water
was drawn into their bodies by the osmotic pressure of their body fluids; their kidneys
excreted the extra water while also retrieving their supply of small solutes. Smith
served on the board of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for
Science & the Public, from 1952–1955. As a memorial
to Smith in 1963 the New York Heart Association created
the Homer W. Smith Award in Renal Physiology. Additionally, the American
Society of Nephrology established The Homer Smith Award in 1964. The award is
presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions
which fundamentally affect the science of nephrology, broadly defined, but not
limited to, the pathobiology, cellular and molecular mechanisms and genetic
influences on the functions and diseases of the kidney. Homer Smith was married
to Margaret Wilson, who was the daughter of Lily and James Robert Wilson from
Spring City, Tennessee. His son was Homer Wilson Smith.
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