An Autobiography in Brief

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN BRIEF J. B. S. HALDANE* A number of inaccurate statements have been published about me in the press—quite as many in articles favoring me as in hostile statements. So I propose to give a brief account of my scientific career. I was born in 1892. I owe my success very largely to my father, J. S. Haldane. He was perhaps best known as a physiologist, but he was so far from being a specialist that in later life he was elected president of the Institution of Mining Engineers and delivered the Gifford lectures on the "Existence and Attributes of God." I suppose my scientific career began at the age of about two, when I used to play on the floor of his laboratory and watch him playing a complicated game called "experiments"—the rules I did not understand, but he clearly enjoyed it. At the age of eight or so I was allowed to take down numbers which I called out when reading the burette of a gas-analysis apparatus and later to calculate from these numbers the amounts of various gases in a sample. After this I was promoted to making up simple mixtures for his use and, still later, to cleaning apparatus. Before I was fourteen, he had taken me down a number of mines, and I had spent some time under water both in a submarine and in a diving dress. He had also used me as the subject in many experiments. In fact I spent a good deal of my holidays from school in learning my father's trade. Most Indian boys do this, but not the sons of scientists. After I was twelve, he discussed with me all his research before publication, and sometimes tried out a lecture course on me before delivering it to students. At school I deserted "classics," that is to say, the study of Latin and Greek, at the age of fourteen and studied chemistry, physics, history, and biology, with my father's full backing but to the annoyance of the * Professor Haldane died December 1, 1964. This article is reprinted with the kind permission ofthe Illustrated Weekly ofIndia, Bombay. 476 J. B. S. Haldane · An Autobiography in Brief Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer ig66 headmaster, who said I was becoming "a mere smatterer." The teaching of chemistry was good, and by the age of sixteen I had learned some facts discovered since my father had studied that subject, so that I could help him and C. G. Douglas; and my first scientific paper was a joint one with them, read to the Physiological Society when I was seventeen. I went to Oxford on a mathematical scholarship in 1911 and took firstclass honors in mathematical moderations (roughly the Indian B.Sc. level). But as nobody can study mathematics intensively for more than about 5 hours daily and retain sanity, I also attended the final honors course in zoology in my first year. One of my fellow students was the late Professor Narayan K. Bahl, who later did so much for the teaching ofzoology inIndia. At a seminar for zoology students in 1911, 1 announced the discovery, from data published by others, of the first case ofwhat is now called linkage between genes in vertebrates. My evidence was considered inadequate, and I began breeding mice with A. D. Sprunt, who was killed in 1915. In 1912 I switched over to literate humaniores, a course based on Latin and Greek classics, but including the study ofa good deal of modern philosophy and ancient history. I took first-class honors in this subject in 1914 and had intended to go on to study physiology. But in 1914 1joined the British army and have, therefore, no scientific degree. In 1916 my mouse work with Sprunt and my sister, Mrs. Mitchison, was published. During World War I, I was wounded twice, in France and in Iraq, after which I spent 16 months in India. I determined to come back as soon as I could associate with Indians on a footing ofequality. On returning to Oxford after the war, I was elected a Fellow ofNew College and began teaching physiology while myself...