Background

Benjamin Minge Duggar was born on September 1, 1872, in Gallion, Alabama, the fourth of six sons of a country practitioner, Reuben Henry Duggar, and of Margaret Louisa Minge.

Education

Duggar entered the University of Alabama shortly before his fifteenth birthday, but a compelling interest in agricultural science led him to transfer after two years to the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Mississippi State College).

He then studied at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1891; at Harvard, where he worked from 1893 to 1895 under W. G. Farlow and Roland Thaxter; and at Cornell, where he received his Ph.D. in 1898.

Traveling in Europe for a year (1899-1900) Duggar studied with such eminent authorities as Wilhelm Pfeffer at Leipzig and Georg Klebs and Julius Kühn, both at Halle.

Career

Shortly after graduation Duggar found a sympathetic mentor in George F. Atkinson at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he served for one year as an assistant in mycology and plant physiology. He spent an additional year as an assistant director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Uniontown, Alabama, before transferring to Harvard. After another year of fieldwork - this one concerned with the wheat-devastating chinch bug in Illinois - Duggar rejoined Atkinson, at Cornell. Here he concentrated on chemistry and fungus spore germination.

He traveled in Europe for a year; returning to America, he spent one year as plant physiologist with the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There he developed a lasting interest in cotton diseases and mushroom culture.

While continuing to serve as consultant to the bureau, Duggar accepted his first major educational post, as professor of botany and head of the department at the University of Missouri (1902). Another foreign tour (1905-1906) took him first to Munich, where he worked with Karl von Goebel at the Botanical Institute, and later to Bonn, Montpellier, and Algiers.

Returning to Cornell as professor of plant physiology, Duggar completed two major works - Fungus Diseases of Plants (1909), the first monograph in any language devoted exclusively to the subject of plant pathology, which remained a standard text for many years, and Plant Physiology With Special Reference to Plant Production (1911).

Duggar next returned to Missouri as research professor of plant physiology at Washington University and director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Studies of this period include those on red pigment formation in the tomato, enzymes in red algae, nitrogen fixation, and methods for determining hydrogen concentration in biological fluids. During World War I, Duggar contributed valuable data on the salt requirements of higher plants. He later (1920) turned his attention to the serious problem of the tobacco mosaic virus, becoming a leading investigator in this field.

After fifteen years at Washington University, Duggar accepted his last university assignment, the professorship of plant physiology and economic botany at the University of Wisconsin, a post he held from 1927 to 1943, when he retired emeritus. But the most rewarding period of his career was yet to come. During World War II he served as adviser to the National Economic Council, and in 1944 he accepted a position as consultant in mycological research with the Lederle Division of the American Cyanamid Company.

After a short period devoted to the investigation of antimalarial drugs, Duggar turned his attention to the quest for new antibiotic-producing organisms. A three-year study of Streptomyces aureofaciens led to the introduction of chlortetracycline (Aureomycin) (1948), another milestone in the story of man’s attempt to conquer pathogenic bacteria.

A voluminous writer, he also was editor of several important publications, including Proceedings of the International Congress of Plant Sciences (1926); Biological Effects of Radiation (1936), for which he wrote a chapter, “Effects of Radiation on Bacteria”; and Botanical Abstracts for Physiology (1917-1926). When the latter publication was absorbed by Biological Abstracts, he continued as editor of the plant physiology section (1926-1933).

Achievements

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  As a scientist Benjamin Minge Duggar helped to advance research in his chosen field from the era of morphology to the modern period, with its emphasis on physiology. Certainly his pioneer work of 1909 has already won a secure place among the classics of American science, and the discovery of Aureomycin assures Duggar an honored position in the history of medicine.
  
  He is also remembered for an important achievement in another discipline occurring in the late 1940s, his discovery of chlortetracycline (Aureomycin), the first of the tetracycline antibiotics, from a soil bacterium growing in allotment soil.
  
  For an exhibit of mushrooms and other fungi he was awarded a grand prize at the St. Louis Fair in 1904.
  
  He received honorary degrees from the University of Missouri (Doctor of Law, 1944), the University of Washington (Doctor of Science, 1953), and the University of Wisconsin (Doctor of Science, 1956).
  
  In 1949 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Cultivation Of Mushrooms 1904
  • The principles of mushroom growing and mushroom spawn making 1905
  • Fungous Diseases of Plants 1909
  • Plant Physiology 1911
  • Biological Effects of Radiation, Volume 2 1936
  • Notes Upon Celery, Volumes 124-149 1897
  • The Sterile Fungus Rhizoctonia As A Cause Of Plant Diseases In America 1901
  • Peach Leaf-Curl and Notes on the Shot-Hole Effect of Peaches and Plums 1899
  • Three Important Fungous Diseases Of The Sugar Beet 1899
  • Biological Effects of Radiation, Volume 1 1936
  • Proceedings of the International Congress of Plant Sciences, Volume 1 1929
  • Proceedings of the International Congress of Plant Sciences, Volume 2 1929

Membership

A founder of the American Society of Agronomy (1907) and the American Phytopathological Society (1908), Duggar was also active in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Naturalists, the American Botanical Society (president, 1923), and the American Society of Plant Physiologists (president, 1947). He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society (1921) and the National Academy of Sciences (1927).

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  American Society of Agronomy , United States

  1907

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  American Phytopathological Society , United States

  1908

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  American Association for the Advancement of Science , United States

• 

  American Society of Naturalists , United States

• 

  American Botanical Society , United States

  1923

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  American Society of Plant Physiologists , United States

  1947

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  American Philosophical Society , United States

  1921

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  National Academy of Sciences , United States

  1927

Personality

Duggar was a man of great enthusiasm and physical vitality. A modest individual, although always a perfectionist, Duggar enjoyed many aspects of life to the fullest.

Connections

Duggar's marriage in 1901 to Marie L. Robertson produced two sons and three daughters. A second marriage to Elsie Rist (1927) produced one daughter.

Father:

Reuben Henry Duggar

Mother:

Margaret Louisa Minge

Spouse:

Elsie Rist

Brother:

David Minge Duggar

Brother:

John Frederick Duggar

Brother:

Reuben Henry Duggar

Brother:

Waverly Goode Duggar

Brother:

Llewellyn L Duggar

late spouse:

Marie L. Robertson

teacher:

Wilhelm Pfeffer

teacher:

Georg Klebs

teacher:

Julius Kühn

teacher:

George Francis Atkinson

teacher:

William Gilson Farlow

teacher:

Roland Thaxter

colleague:

Karl von Goebel

References

• Annual Review of Phytopathology
  1982