Allen G. Debus - Higher Education

Higher Education

Debus studied chemical engineering and history, graduating with a major in chemistry in the summer of 1947 from Northwestern University. He pursued his master’s degree at Indiana University where he had followed John J. Murray. In June 1949 he presented his master’s thesis Robert Boyle and Chemistry in England 1660-1700 under John J. Murray. Subsequently he worked towards a master’s in chemistry at the same institution. He went to work for Abbott Laboratories, a company for which he filed five patents. He wrote that slow reaction times for some of his work provided reading time for broader investigations in history of science and chemistry literature. In fall 1956 he began his Ph.D. studies at Harvard under I. Bernard Cohen. His teaching assistant work was supervised by Leonard K. Nash. In a seminar with Wilbur K. Jordan he presented a paper on the English followers of Paracelsus which received the Bowdoin Prize in the Natural Sciences, the first of two from his years at Harvard. In September 1959 he went to London, England to delve more deeply into the topic. There he met regularly with Walter Pagel and attended University College of London courses given by Douglas McKie. Returning to Harvard, he completed the requirements for a Harvard Ph.D. in history of science.