Frederic Lawrence Holmes

Frederic Lawrence Holmes (February 6, 1932 – March 27, 2003) was an American historian of science, specifically of chemistry, medicine and biology. He was Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine at Yale University and was known for his work developing Yale's programs in history of science and medicine. His scholarship included notable studies of Claude Bernard, Antoine Lavoisier, Justus Liebig, Hans Adolf Krebs, Matthew Meselson, Franklin Stahl, and Seymour Benzer. He was awarded the George Sarton Medal for lifetime achievement in the history of science in 2000 and served as a president of the History of Science Society 1981–1982.

Early life and education Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 6, 1932, Holmes earned his bachelor's degree in quantitative biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1954 and then began graduate study in the history department of Harvard University, where he graduated with MA in 1958. For his dissertation, he reconstructed Claude Bernard's path of discovery of basic physiological functions, such as those of the glucogenic functions of the liver, on the basis of Bernard's laboratory books from the 1840s.

Career Holmes spent two years at MIT as an assistant professor starting in 1962, teaching in the Humanities Department. In 1972 he moved to become a full professor and department chair at the University of Western Ontario.

Holmes became Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine at Yale in 1985, 1994 — Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with William C. Summers: Reconceiving the gene: Seymour Benzer's adventures in phage genetics, Yale University Press 2006; Reprint (pbk), 2008 Historians and Contemporary Scientific Biography, Pauling Symposium 1995