SIGNED. Beast or Angel? Choices that make us human

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974. First printing.

1974 NOTED BIOLOGIST'S STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE AND OUR CAPACITY TO SHAPE OUR FUTURE--SIGNED BY AUTHOR.

15.5x24 cm hardcover, green cloth binding, gilt decoration to cover, gilt title to spine, inscribed and signed on front free endpaper, "With warmest wishes/ Rene Dubos." i-xiii, 226 pp, light fading top cover edges, top corner pages bumped, light wear to jacket cover, crease front jacket flap, very good in very good jacket.

RENE JULES DUBOS (1901 – 1982) was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book So Human An Animal. He is credited for having made famous the environmental maxim: "Think globally, act locally." Aside from a period from 1942 to 1944 when he was George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and professor of tropical medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, his scientific career was spent entirely at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, later renamed The Rockefeller University. Dubos began his career in microbiology in 1927, when he joined Oswald Avery's laboratory at The Rockefeller Institute. In 1939, with the help of Rockefeller Institute biochemist Rollin Hotchkiss, Dubos isolated the antibacterial agents tyrothricin and gramicidin from the bacterium Bacillus brevis that killed or inhibited Gram-positive bacteria and tested their bacterial, chemical, and clinical properties. These antibiotics remain in limited use today. In 1942, before antibiotics were in general use, Dubos warned that bacterial resistance should be expected. In 1948, Dubos shared the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award with Selman Waksman for "their achievement in studies of the antibiotic properties of soil bacteria". He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1954 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he served as an editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine from 1946 to 1972. In later years, Dubos explored the interplay of environmental forces and the physical, mental and spiritual development of mankind. The main tenets of his humanistic philosophy were: global problems are conditioned by local circumstances and choices, social evolution enables us to rethink human actions and change direction to promote an ecologically balanced environment, the future is optimistic since human life and nature are resilient and we have become increasingly aware of the dangers inherent in natural forces and human activities, and we can benefit from our successes and apply the lessons learned to solving other contemporary environmental problems.