Takuo Aoyagi, Ph.D., American Society of Anesthesiologists Honorary Member

Pulse oximetry has changed anesthesiology and all of health care. Its inventor is recognized with American Society of Anesthesiologists Honorary Membership this year. The authors explore his invention and its far-reaching impact.

James Croll and 1876: an exceptional year for a ‘singularly modest man’

ABSTRACT James Croll left school at the age of 13 years, yet while a janitor in Glasgow he published a landmark paper on astronomically-related climate change, claimed as ‘the most important discovery in paleoclimatology’, and which brought him to the attention of Charles Darwin, William Thomson and John Tyndall, amongst others. By 1867 he was persuaded to become Secretary and Accountant of the newly established Geological Survey of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a year after the appearance of his keynote volume Climate and time in 1875, he was lauded with an honorary doctorate from Scotland's oldest university, Fellowship of the Royal Society of London and Honorary Membership of the New York Academy of Sciences. Using a range of archival and published sources, this paper explores aspects of his ‘journey’ and the background to the award of these major accolades. It also discusses why he never became a Fellow of his national academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In the world of 19th-Century science, Croll was not unusual in being both an autodidact and of humble origins, nor was he lacking in support for his endeavours. It is possible that a combination of Croll's modesty and innovative genius fostered advancement, though this did not hinder a willingness to engage in vigorous argument.

Law and Economics as We Grow Younger

The European Association of Law and Economics grants a biennial Lifetime Achievement Award and Honorary Membership to a scholar “for his or her significant contributions to the field of Law and Economics, in particular to the development of this scientific movement in Europe.” This paper is the award lecture delivered by Professor Francesco Parisi at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Law and Economics, held at Tel-Aviv University on September, 19, 2019.

Two Newly Obtained Letters by Bedřich Smetana

In 2017 and 2018, the Smetana Museum added two of Bedřich Smetana’s letters to its collections. The letter written on 18 April 1859 in Dresden, the day before the death of the composer’s first wife Kateřina, was addressed to the piano virtuoso Alexander Dreyschock, and it is a major addition to Smetana’s still rather sparse correspondence from the 1850s. The second letter, dated 9 January 1882, is an expression of thanks to the Bivoj Vocal Society in Budyně nad Ohří for the conferring of an honorary membership. The study presents an edition of the two letters including a description of the sources, places them in the context of Smetana’s correspondence, and characterises Smetana’s relationships with Dreyschock and Bivoj on the basis of the information contained in the letters and the few other sources.