Since, however, it is immaterial whether the work is done by assistants or a machine, I decided to build a machine equivalent to an array of about 200 separating funnels.

In the last years of his life he suffered from Alzheimer's disease. The University of Houston dropped him from its chemistry faculty in 1979 (when he was 69 years old) because he was not publishing enough.

The University of Houston dropped him from its chemistry faculty in 1979 (when he was 69 years old) because he was not publishing enough. Amongst many other honours he received his Nobel Prize in 1952. His father was a GP.