Redcliffe Salaman: Difference between revisions

'''Redcliffe Nathan Salaman''' (12 September 1874 – 12 June 1955) was a British [[botanist]] and potato breeder.<ref name=smith>{{Cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = K. M. | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1955.0017 | title = Redcliffe Nathan Salaman. 1874-1955 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 1 | pages = 238–245| year = 1955 }}</ref> His landmark work was the 1949 book on the ''History and Social influence of the Potato''.

==Personal life==

Salaman was born in [[Kensington, London|Kensington]], London on 12 September 1874 and was the ninth of fifteen children born to his parents Sarah Solomon and Myer Salaman who was a wealthy merchant who traded in ostrich feathers at the height of the [[Plume hunting|plume trade]].<ref name=Palladino>{{cite web|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/35911|title=Salaman, Redcliffe Nathan (1874–1955), geneticist and Jewish activist|author=Paolo Palladino|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography}}</ref>

Salaman was married twice, first to [[Nina Ruth Davis]]<ref>{{cite web|author=Todd M. Endelman|title=Nina Ruth Davis Salaman|publisher=Jewish Women's Archive|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/salaman-nina-ruth-davis}}</ref> in 1901 with whom he had six children including a cancer researcher, a doctor, the engineer [[Raphael Salaman]], the artist [[Ruth Collet]]<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary &ndash; Ruth Collet|author= Marion Glastonbury|work=The Independent|date=28 June 2001}}</ref> and the singer [[Esther Salaman]].<ref>{{cite web|author=Jane Miller |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/oct/26/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1 |title=Obituary: Esther Salaman |work=The Guardian |date=26 October 2005 |accessdate=2014-04-07}}</ref> Nina died in 1925 and in 1926 Salaman met and married Gertrude who survived him.<ref name=smith/>

Salaman was educated at [[St Paul's School, London]] initially studying [[classics]] but due to the dull teaching methods he switched to studying science and later became head boy of the Science Side of the school. He obtained a scholarship at [[Trinity Hall, Cambridge]] in 1893 and graduated with a first class degree in Natural Sciences in 1896 having studied physiology, zoology and chemistry. He was tutored and advised by the physiologist [[W. H. Gaskell]] who later became a good friend of Salaman. He moved to the [[London Hospital]] in 1896 to study medicine and remained there until he qualified in 1900.<ref name=smith/>

In 1903 Salaman was appointed Director of the Pathological Institute at the London Hospital but in 1904 he developed [[tuberculosis]] and had to stop practising medicine and spend six months in a Swiss [[sanitorium]].<ref name=Palladino/><ref name="Reader2009">{{cite book|author=John Reader|title=The Untold History of the Potato|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAM4s6arkhsC|year=2009|publisher=Vintage|isbn=978-0-09-947479-1|pages=221–225}}</ref> It took him over two years to fully recover from the illness, changing the course of his entire life. He purchased a house in [[Barley, Hertfordshire]] and because he could not return to practising medicine began experimenting in the emerging science of [[genetics]] under the guidance of his friend [[William Bateson]].<ref name=smith/><ref name="Reader2009"/> After several failed experiments with a range of animals, Salaman decided to experiment with potatoes after seeking advice from his gardener. Later in his career, commenting on his decision to study potatoes Salaman noted that he had "embarked on an enterprise which, after forty years, leaves more questions unsolved than were thought at that time to exist. Whether it was mere luck, or whether the potato and I were destined for life partnership, I do not know, but from that moment my course was set, and I became ever more involved in problems associated directly or indirectly with a plant with which I had no particular affinity, gustatory or romantic".<ref name="Reader2009"/>

Working in his private garden, he initially set out to cross two potato varieties and establish which traits were [[dominance (genetics)|dominant]] and [[recessive (genetics)|recessive]] in a similar manner to [[Gregor Mendel]]'s work on peas, but he soon broadened into other areas. In 1908 he decided to include wild potatoes in his experiments and requested that [[Kew Gardens]] provide him with ''[[Solanum maglia]]''. Kew's stocks had been incorrectly labelled however and Salaman was sent ''[[Solanum edinense]]'' instead. In 1909 Salaman grew forty self-fertilised crosses of ''S. edinense'' and found that seven of them did not succumb to [[late blight]] (''Phytophthora infestans''). Convinced that resistance to late blight existed in wild species he began to study other species and found that ''[[Solanum demissum]]'' was also resistant to blight. Salaman started to cross ''S. demissum'' with domesticated varieties of potato in 1911 to produce high yielding lines that were also resistant to late blight. By 1914 he had successfully created hybrids and in 1926 he remarked that he had produced varieties with "reasonably good economic characteristics which, no matter what their maturity, appeared to be immune to late blight.<ref name="Reader2009"/> Salaman was the first to identify genetic resistance to late blight and ''S. demissum'' was still used as a source of resistance in the 1950s.<ref name=smith/> In ''[[The Propitious Esculent]]'', John Reader called Salaman's discovery "an important breakthrough, offering real promise ... that it was possible to breed blight-resistant potato varieties".<ref name="Reader2009"/> In 1987 it was thought that half of the potato varieties cultivated in Europe contained genes from ''S. demissum''.<ref name=nee>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.2307/2806972| jstor = 2806972| title = The History and Social Influence of the Potato| journal = Brittonia| volume = 39| pages = 48| year = 1987| last1 = Nee | first1 = M. | last2 = Salaman | first2 = R. N.| last3 = Hawkes | first3 = J. G.}}</ref>

In 1910 he published a paper the inheritance of colour in potato in the first issue of the ''[[Journal of Genetics]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1007/BF02981567| title = The inheritance of colour and other characters in the potato| journal = Journal of Genetics| volume = 1| pages = 7| year = 1910| last1 = Salaman | first1 = R. N. }}</ref> Later papers in the ''[[The Journal of Agricultural Science|Journal of Agricultural Science]]'' examined [[male sterility]],<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1017/S0021859600004512| title = Genetic studies in potatoes; sterility| journal = Journal of Agricultural Science| volume = 12| pages = 31| year = 1923| last1 = Salaman | first1 = R. N.| last2 = Lesley | first2 = J. W.}}</ref> methods for estimating yields<ref name=tjoas1923>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1017/S0021859600003816| title = The determination of the best method for estimating potato yields, together with a further note on the influence of size of seed on the character and yield of the potato. III| journal = Journal of Agricultural Science| volume = 13| issue = 4| pages = 361| year = 1923| last1 = Salaman | first1 = R. N. }}</ref> and detecting viruses in seed potatoes<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1017/S0021859600018803| title = A note on the production of premature sprouting in the potato, and its application to the study of virus diseases| journal = Journal of Agricultural Science| volume = 17| issue = 4| pages = 524| year = 1927| last1 = Salaman | first1 = R. N. }}</ref> and a study of how the size of seed tubers affected the yield and size of tubers of the crop.<ref name=tjoas1923/><ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1017/S0021859600004901| title = The Influence of size and character of seed on the yield of potatoes| journal = Journal of Agricultural Science| volume = 12| issue = 2| pages = 182| year = 1922| last1 = Salaman | first1 = R. N. }}</ref>

His research on potatoes was disrupted by the outbreak of the [[First World War]] during which Salaman joined the [[Royal Army Medical Corps]] and served in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]]. Afterwards he was appointed chairman of the potato synonym committee at the [[National Institute of Agricultural Botany]] where he was tasked with describing potato varieties and putting an end to the common practice of marketing old and unreliable varieties under new names. His work there culminated in the publication of ''Potato Varieties'' in 1926. The same year he persuaded the [[Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Agriculture]] to establish the Potato Virus Research Institute in Cambridge of which he remained a director until 1939.<ref name=Palladino/> [[Kenneth Manley Smith]] was an entomologist at the institute and [[:de:Frederick Bawden|Frederick Charles Bawden]] became Salaman's assistant in 1930. Smith and Bawden went on to become renowned plant virologists.<ref name="Ainsworth1981">{{cite book|author=Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth|title=Introduction to the History of Plant Pathology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j-s8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA83|year=1981|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-23032-2|pages=84–85}}</ref> In conjunction with [[Paul A. Murphy]] of [[Dublin]] a large stock of virus-free potatoes was built up and multiplied in greenhouses, a practice which continued after his death and was adopted in other countries.<ref name=smith/> His research on viruses lead to him being elected to the [[Royal Society]] in 1935.<ref name=Palladino/>

* Daniel Dornhofer: ''[[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] reclaimed. [[Rassekunde]] und [[Sionism|Zionismus]] unter dem Eindruck des [[World War I|Ersten Weltkriegs]],'' in ''transversal. Zeitschrift für jüdische Studien.'' № 2, Year 14, [[University of Graz]] 2013, {{ISSN|1607-629X}} pp.&nbsp;59 – 75 (in German)

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