PETER MEDAWAR’S ANONYMOUS SCIENTISTS REVEALED Advice to a Young Scientist

The book’s dedicatee has annotated this inscribed copy of Medawar’s Advice by revealing the names of the otherwise unnamed scientists cited by Medawar in his text. Alongside the relevant sections Todd has added the names Herman Kahn, Harry Johnson, Herbert Samuel, R E Billingham, effectively decoding Medawar’s anonymised text. Medawar has inscribed the book warmly to its dedicatee, from one Nobel Prize winner to another on the first flyleaf: ‘To Alex Todd who started all this by inviting me to give a Charles [C P] Snow Lecture at Christ’s. With all good wishes from Peter Medawar Nov. 1979’.

First edition in black publisher’s cloth, near fine in very good jacket, scuffing to lower panel. The printed dedication is ‘To the Royal Society of London’ - but there is no record of an inscribed copy in the society’s collections making this the dedication copy. Todd has made occasional annotations throughout the text as well as correcting one typo.

Peter Medawar (1915-1987) is regarded as the ‘father of transplantation’ for which research work he won a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 as well as being remembered as ‘the wittiest of all scientific writers’ (Richard Dawkins). Alexander Todd (1907-1997) was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the synthesis of nucleotides - the hereditary material of cells. He was a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge - also the College of C P Snow, novelist and author of The Two Cultures, mentioned by Medawar - later serving as President of the Royal Society from 1975-1980. A superb association copy.