James Beament

Sir James William Longman Beament (17 November 1921 – 10 March 2005) was a British scientist who studied insect physiology and psychoacoustics. He has been described as "an international authority" on "the structure and waterproofing of insect eggs".

Early life and education Beament was born on 17 November 1921 at Ashlands Farm near the Somerset town of Crewkerne, the only child of Tom and Elisabeth Beament (née Munden). The farm had been in the family since at least 1670, and probably since 1419.

As a boy, Beament had a great love of music. His mother has been quoted as saying that he "would wait for the Salvation Army band on Sundays, 'like a cat waiting for the fishmonger'". she said. He was a scholarship student at Crewkerne Grammar School beginning in 1931.

Winning an Exhibition to read Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at Queens' College, Cambridge, Beament went up in 1940. He studied under Alexander Wood, whose lectures and writings about the physics of sound led to a lifelong interest in acoustics. After having his first exposure to the work of classical composers, Beament taught himself to read music. He also founded Queens' College's amateur dramatic society, the Bats.

It was wartime, and Beament was obliged to join the 8th Cambridge Home Guard. On the suggestion of C. P. Snow, he devoted his third year at Cambridge to zoology, with a focus on insects.

He received a B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge in 1943, earning a First. He then proceeded to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (later the London School of Tropical Medicine, LSTM), where an older colleague, Vincent Wigglesworth, "told him that more people had died in the First World War from insect-borne diseases than had been killed in action" and that his assignment would be "to find out how to permeate insect skins", which were covered in a thin layer of wax. "Wigglesworth stimulated [Beament's] interest in the wetting and waterproofing properties of the insect integument or cuticle, a topic that was to be a dominant theme in his scientific career", according to one source.

Beament's research into this question led to five major scientific publications in which he showed how poisons could be introduced into insects. He also worked with the head of the LSTM, P. A. Buxton, on lice, which played a major role in transmitting typhus on the Eastern front. In addition, he played a role in DDT experiments that confirmed the ability of DDT to kill lice, and that helped prevent a typhus epidemic in Naples in 1944. Since Beament's and Wigglesworth's research required large numbers of lice, Beament, to keep them alive, "went around with aluminium tins tucked inside his socks 16 hours a day with the lice feeding off himself which just about kept up with the experimental demand".

He continued to work, however. He studied the acidification of lakes in his role as Chairman of the Biological Research Advisory Committee of the Central Electricity Generating Board, and concluded that the problem was not caused mainly by acid rain, as was then generally believed, but chiefly by organic acids produced by the decay of moss and of pine tree litter, a problem that was quickly resolved. This finding received insufficient public attention because "it was not what the media wanted to hear". A colleague described the book as “address[ing] the age-old problems of string tension, glue and varnish". In a 1997 article for the BBC Music Magazine headlined “Smashing the Strad myth”, Beament dismissed as a myth the popular notion that the Stradivarius produces a sound superior to that produced by other violins. He also answered the question “What is a tune?” for a Q-&-A feature in The Guardian.

In his later years he composed a string octet, two string sextets, and a string quintet. The response of the classic musical world to his first string sextet, according to one colleague, "probably gave him more pleasure than any of his scientific publications".

A Sunday Times (London) article about a debate at Cambridge over a proposal for co-ed dormitories noted that Beament supported the proposal, saying that one question being debated was “whether people in the age group we are considering should obtain sexual experience”. He said: “I am not alone in believing that they should.”

Selected works 1945 The cuticular lipoids of insects. J. Exp. Biol. 21, 115–131. 1946 The waterproofing process in eggs of Rhodnius prolixus Stahl. Proc. R. Soc. B 133, 407–417. The formation and structure of the chorion of the egg in hemipteran Rhodnius prolixus. Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 87, 393–438. 1947 The formation and structure of the micro-pylar complex in the egg-shell of Rhodnius prolixus Stahl. J. Exp. Biol. 23, 213–233. 1948 Laboratory studies on the egg of the blowfly Lucilia sericata. J. Exp. Biol. 25, 71–85. (With A. D. Lees) An egg-waxing organ in ticks. Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 89, 291–331. The penetration of the insect egg-shells. I. Penetration of the chorion of Rhodnius prolixus Stahl. Bull. Ent. Res. 39, 359–383. 1949 The penetration of insect egg-shells. II. The properties and permeability of sub-chorial membranes during development of Rhodnius prolixus Stahl. Bull. Ent. Res. 39, 467–487. 1950 The hatching mechanism of muscid eggs (Diphera). J. Exp. Biol. 27, 437–445. (With V. B. Wigglesworth) The respiratory mechanisms of some insect eggs. Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 91, 429–451. 1951 The structure and formation of the egg of the fruit tree red spider mite, Metatetranychus ulmi Koch. Ann. Appl. Biol. 38, 1–23. 1954 Water transport in insects. Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol. 8, 94–116. 1955 Wax Secretion in the cockroach. J. Exp. Biol. 32, 514–538. 1958 A paralysing agent in the blood of cockroaches. J. Insect Physiol. 2, 199–214. (With K. E. Machin) Thermostat suitable for controlling air temperature, particularly in biological research. J. Scient. Instrum. 36, 87–89. The effect of temperature on the water-proofing mechanism of an insect. J. Exp. Biol. 35, 494–518. 1959 The waterproofing mechanism of arthropods. I. The effect of temperature on cuticle permeability in terrestrial insects and ticks. J. Exp. Biol. 36, 391–422. 1960 The waterproofing mechanism of arthropods. II. The permeability of the cuticle of some aquatic insects. J. Exp. Biol. 38, 277–290. 1961 Electrical properties of orientated lipid on a biological membrane. Nature 191, 217–221. 1962 The surface properties of insects—some evolutionary and ecological implications. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 173, 115–119. 1963 (With J. Noble-Nesbitt & J. A. L. Watson) The waterproofing mechanism of arthropods. III. Cuticular permeability in the firebrat, Thermobia domestica (Packard). J. Exp. Biol. 41, 323–330. 1965 (ed., with John Treherne). Physiology of the Insect Central Nervous System (Academic Press) 1977 The biology of music. Psychol. Music 5, 3–17. 1981 (With S. A. Corbet) Surface properties of Culex pipiens pipiens eggs and the behaviour of the female during egg-raft assembly. Physiol. Ent. 6, 135–148. 1982 (With S. A. Corbet & D. Eisikowitch) Are electrostatic forces involved in pollen transfer? Plant Cell Envir. 5, 125–129. 1997 The violin explained. Oxford University Press. 1999 String Sextet, Opus 50 (for 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 'cellos). Lancaster: Phylloscopus Publications PP313. 2001 How we hear music: the relationship between music and the hearing mechanism. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.