Vinogradskii’s story is linked to other elements of biological history, such as Darwinian evolution and psychology. Vinogradskii’s rise to prominence as an ecologist was lengthy, as seen by an examination of his papers published: from plant physiologist to microbiologist.1 Consequently, His biography fits ecology history’s outlines, typically depicted as being developed by botanists who coupled Humboldtian phytogeography with Darwinian evolutionary theory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vinogradskii’s life and career facts provide an alternative scenario in which botany and plant physiology are substituted by microbiology and phytogeography by the thermodynamics of life.
The scientist’s selection of experimental organisms influenced the direction of his research. His original organism, Mycoderma vini, flourished in wine, beer, or practically any other fermentable liquid; his new focus, “Beggiatoa (sulphur bacteria),” flourished in some of nature’s most unusual environments, such as sulfur springs on steep Alpine slopes.2 Vinogradskii extended the physiological features of all microorganisms based on his studies on sulfur bacteria and iron bacteria.3 He created a new category of vital activity, chemosynthesis, by extending this analysis to other microorganisms.4 Vinogradskii’s studies on sulfur bacteria were the initial step of a research program that would establish a significant element of his scientific heritage. Hence, the investigation of the sulfur springs influenced chemosynthesis discovery.
In terms of broader contexts, location, politics, and music shaped Vinogradsky’s life and career. His developmental years as a scientist took place during a time when Russia was establishing its local scientific publications and institutes. Throughout the 1880s, the Russian government increased its research support and hired a large number of Russian scientists.5 Vinogradskii departed Russia following the Bolshevik takeover of power to live in Brie-Comte-Robert, France, where he restarted his inquiry into nature’s life cycle.6 Essentially, he adjusted his previous research program to the demand for agricultural science and soil microbiology in this new French setting. Significantly, after graduating from the gymnasium, Vinogradskii went to St. Petersburg to master the forte piano.7 Nonetheless, he abandoned this career and studied science at St. Petersburg University.
Vinogradskii portrayed the life cycle as a single massive organism. The entity’s body was composed of the whole planet’s biological material; it utilized what it needed from nature’s inorganic resources and then returned it to nature’s deceased, inorganic domain. The scientist envisioned nature as a living organism in which bacteria reacted sensitively to their living environment, competing for resources and executing the critical activities of the superorganism. He referred to anti-microbial organic compounds as antiseptics by analogy to medical bacteriology.8 Significantly, Vinogradskii’s personal “cycle of life” is particularly notable as an instance of the interaction of Russian and Western European scientific organizations and academic legacies. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was educated in Russia to investigate nature as a superorganism composed of circulating energy, matter, and life.9 Therefore, over five decades, he created a system of research methods that interpreted the concept of a cycle of life into ecologically intended soil science and microbiology.
Bibliography
Ackert, Lloyd. “The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885-1940.” Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 109-145.
Ackert, Lloyd. 2012. Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950. Springer Science & Business Media.
Footnotes
- Lloyd Ackert, Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950 (Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 2.
- Lloyd Ackert, Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950 (Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 41.
- Lloyd Ackert, Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950 (Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 68.
- Lloyd Ackert, “The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885-1940,” Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 126.
- Lloyd Ackert, Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950 (Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 3.
- Lloyd Ackert, Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850-1950 (Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 11.
- Lloyd Ackert, “The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885-1940,” Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 111.
- Lloyd Ackert, “The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885-1940,” Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 131.
- Lloyd Ackert, “The “Cycle of Life” in Ecology: Sergei Vinogradskii’s Soil Microbiology, 1885-1940,” Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 110.