Evans, Alice WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY206•
detailed the chemical makeup of cozymase, a non-protein con-
stituent involved in cellular respiration.
In 1929, Euler-Chelpin was awarded the Nobel Prize in
chemistry, which he shared with Arthur Harden “for their
investigations on the fermentation of sugar and of fermenta-
tive enzymes.” The presenter of the award noted that fermen-
tation was “one of the most complicated and difficult
problems of chemical research.” The solution to the problem
made it possible, the presenter continued, “to draw important
conclusions concerning carbohydrate metabolismin general in
both the vegetable and the animal organism.”
In 1929, Euler-Chelpin became the director of the
Vitamin Institute and Institute of Biochemistry at the
University of Stockholm, which was founded jointly by the
Wallenburg Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Although he retired from teaching in 1941, he continued
research for the remainder of his life. In 1935, he had turned
his attention to the biochemistry of tumors and developed,
through his collaboration with George de Hevesy, a technique
for labeling the nucleic acids present in tumors, which subse-
quently made it possible to trace their behavior. He also helped
elucidate the function of nicotinamide and thiamine in com-
pounds which are metabolically active.
Euler-Chelpin was twice married, each time to a woman
who assisted him in his research. His first wife, Astrid Cleve,
was the daughter of P. T. Cleve, a professor of chemistry at the
University of Uppsala. She helped him in his early research in
fermentation. They married in 1902, had five children, and
divorced in 1912. Euler-Chelpin married Elisabeth, Baroness
Ugglas in 1913, with whom he had four children. This mar-
riage lasted for fifty-one years. A son by his first wife, Ulf
Euler, later also won a Nobel Prize. His award was made in
1970 in the field of medicine or physiology for his work on
neurotransmitters and the nervous system.
Euler-Chelpin was awarded the Grand Cross for Federal
Services with Star from Germany in 1959. He also received
numerous honorary degrees from universities in Europe and
America. He held memberships in Swedish science associa-
tions, as well as many foreign professional societies. He is the
author of more than eleven hundred research papers and over
half a dozen books. Euler-Chelpin died on November 6, 1964,
in Stockholm, Sweden.EEvans, Alice VANS, ALICE(1881-1975)
American microbiologistThe bacteriologist Alice Evans was a pioneer both as a scien-
tist and as a woman. Evans discovered that the Brucellabacte-
ria, contracted from farm animals and their milk, was the cause
of undulant fever in humans, and responded by fighting per-
sistently for the routine, improved pasteurizationof milk,
eventually achieving success. She was the first woman presi-
dent of the Society of American Bacteriologists (now American
Society of Microbiology). Although marginalized early in her
career, Evans overcame many obstacles and lived to see her
discoveries repeatedly confirmed. She had a major impact onmicrobiology in the United States and the world, and received
belated honors for her numerous achievements in the field.
Alice Catherine Evans was born on January 29, 1881, in
the predominantly Welsh town of Neath, Pennsylvania, the
second of William Howell and Anne Evans’ two children.
William Howell, the son of a Welshman, was a surveyor,
teacher, farmer, and Civil War veteran. Anne Evans, also
Welsh, emigrated from Wales at the age of 14. Evans received
her primary education at the local district school. She went on
to study at the Susquehanna Institute at Towanda,
Pennsylvania. She wished to go to college but, unable to
afford tuition, took a post as a grade school teacher. After
teaching for four years, she enrolled in a tuition-free, two-year
course in nature study at the Cornell University College of
Agriculture. The course was designed to help teachers in rural
areas inspire an appreciation of nature in their students. It
changed the path of Evans’ life, however, and she never
returned to the schoolroom.
At Cornell, Evans discovered her love of science and
received a B.S. degree in agriculture. She chose to pursue an
advanced degree in bacteriology and was recommended by her
professor at Cornell for a scholarship at the University of
Wisconsin. She was the first woman to receive the scholarship,
and under the supervision of E. G. Hastings, Evans studied bac-
teriology with a focus on chemistry. In 1910, she received a
Master of Science degree in bacteriology from Wisconsin.
Although encouraged to pursue a Ph.D., Evans accepted a
research position with the University of Wisconsin Agriculture
Department’s Dairy Division and began researching cheese-
making methods in 1911. In 1913, she moved with the division
to Washington, D.C., and served as bacteriological technician
in a team effort to isolate the sources of contaminationof raw
cow’s milk, which were then assumed to be external.
On her own, Evans began to focus on the intrinsic bac-
teria in raw cow’s milk. By 1917, she had found that the bac-
terium responsible for undulant or “Malta” fever (later called
brucellosis, after the responsible pathogen) was similar in
important respects to one associated with spontaneous abor-
tions in cows, and that the two bacteria produced similar clin-
ical effects in guinea pigs. Prevailing wisdom at the time held
that many bovine diseases could not be transmitted to humans.
That year she presented her findings to the Society of
American Bacteriologists; her ideas were received with skep-
ticism that may have been more due to her gender and level of
education than her data.
In 1918, Evans was asked to join the staff of the United
States Public Health Service by director George McCoy.
There, she was absorbed in the study of meningitis. Although
she was unable to continue her milk studies during this time,
support for Evans’ findings was trickling in from all over the
world. By the early 1920s, it was recognized that undulant
fever and Malta fever were due to the same bacteria, but there
was still resistance to the idea that humans could contract bru-
cellosis by drinking the milk of infected cows. Because the
symptoms of brucellosis were so similar to those of influenza,
typhoid fever, tuberculosis, malaria, and rheumatism, it was
not often correctly diagnosed. Evans began documenting cases
of the disease among humans in the U.S. and South Africa, butwomi_E 5/6/03 2:13 PM Page 206