Résumés
Abstract
This article examines the impact of military funding on the career of Dr Alan C. Burton (1904–79), who is widely remembered as a founding father of modern biophysics. Burton performed military research for the Canadian armed services during the earliest decades of the Cold War, securing funding and pursuing opportunities that advanced his career in medical science. Central to his military-sponsored research was a special climatic laboratory at the University of Western Ontario dubbed the Weather Factory, which enabled a long-running experimental research program on cold and the human body. Military sponsorship enabled the research that influenced Burton’s professional trajectory from mathematician and physicist to biologist, and thus played an important role in his development as a biophysicist and interdisciplinary health scientist in mid-century Canada.
Keywords:
- Alan Burton,
- biophysics,
- University of Western Ontario,
- Defence Research Board
Résumé
Cet article examine les répercussions du financement militaire sur la carrière d’Alan C. Burton (1904-79), Ph.D., un scientifique de la médecine dont on se souviendra comme un des pères fondateurs de la biophysique moderne. Burton a effectué des recherches militaires pour les services armés canadiens au cours des premières décennies de la Guerre froide, ayant obtenu du financement et saisi des occasions pour faire progresser sa carrière médico-scientifique. Élément central de ses recherches parrainées par l’armée, un laboratoire climatique spécial à l’Université Western Ontario appelé « Weather Factory » (usine de météo) a permis la mise en oeuvre d’un programme de recherche expérimentale de longue haleine sur le froid et le corps humain. Le parrainage militaire a façonné la trajectoire professionnelle de Burton, passant de mathématicien et physicien à biologiste, et a ainsi joué un rôle important dans sa formation en tant que biophysicien et scientifique interdisciplinaire de la santé du milieu du siècle dernier au Canada.
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Acknowledgements
I completed the research for this article while working as an Associated Medical Services (AMS) History of Medicine and Healthcare Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at Western University. I acknowledge the financial support received through the AMS funding program and extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to Shelley McKellar and my colleagues at Western for professional support and guidance. I also thank Peter Canham, Jefferson Frisbee, and the colleagues and staff of Western’s Department of Medical Biophysics, who graciously shared materials and answered questions about Alan Burton’s career and personality. Archives and Special Collections at Western provided access to university records and granted permission to reproduce the images used in this article. Finally, I wish to thank Scientia Canadensis Managing Editor William Knight for editorial support and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights and encouragement.
Biographical note
Matthew S. Wiseman is a Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo. He attained a PhD in History from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2017, held successive post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Toronto (2017-19), Western University (2019-20), and St. Jerome’s University (2020-22), and presently volunteers as Communications Director for the Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association. He is the author of a forthcoming monograph on the history of science in northern Canada and the Arctic during the early Cold War.