Jeffries Wyman


Wyman, Jeffries

(1814–74) anatomist, ethnologist; born in Chelmsford, Mass. The leading anatomist of his day, Wyman lectured among other institutions at Harvard, where he was curator of what became the Peabody Museum (1866–74). His published work, renowned for its precision and accuracy, included the first description of the gorilla's skeletal structure, but he is best known by later archaeologists for his pioneering excavations and reports of shell middens in Florida.

Wyman, Jeffries

(1901– ) molecular biologist; born in West Newton, Mass. Grandson of Harvard anatomist and zoologist Jeffries Wyman (1814–74), he taught and performed research at Harvard (1928–51), became a scientific adviser to the U.S. Embassy, Paris (1951–54), then directed UNESCO's Middle East Science Office (1955–59). He relocated to the Regina Elena Institute in Rome (1960–84), where he remained active in research and scientific writing. He made major contributions to studies of allosteric enzymes and hemoglobin and published extensively in scientific journals on the relationship of thermodynamics and electrostatics to biology.