Have you ever heard of Fanny Angelina Hesse?

by Corrado Nai
 

A graphic novel about this forgotten woman in science is on its way, please visit the project's website! But it's unlikely to make an impact without the strong support from the microbiology community. If you have never heard Fanny Angelina Hesse's name, what's your excuse? Please indulge my strong opening by saying this: without Fanny Angelina Hesse (1850-1934), microbiology as we know it would not exist. We owe to Angelina Hesse the introduction of agar (and its derivative agarose) to the life sciences. Why have many people – microbiologists included! – never heard her name? And how can we, as microbiology community, change that? Answering the first question requires some degree of speculation, the second some wishful thinking.

 

Let's start with the first question.Readers of ASM publications will know about the story (told in the paper cited above, and in a previous article published a few years after her death) of how the nearly forgotten Angelina Hesse was instrumental for the switch from gelatin to agar to make solid culture media, while supporting her husband Walther who worked in Robert Koch’s lab in Berlin in the Winter of 1880-1881. The two articles are the only original sources about Angelina Hesse, and perhaps this paucity of information might have contributed to her oblivion. Also, both papers tell, but don't show, the beauty of Angelina's scientific illustrations.

 

Fig. 1. A published (but rarely seen) illustration by Angelina Hesse from a 1884 publication from Walther Hesse about quantifying microbes in the air showing colonies of fungi and bacteria on solid media. Plate XI from source.

These papers (which really make for an interesting read) hint at one cardinal scientific sin of the Hesses: The couple never published a paper on the use of agar as method. In contrast, Julius Petri published a report about his innovation. This might be the reason why, today, we know about Petri dishes, but we don't recognize that "Hesses's plates" could – maybe even should – be synonymous with "agar plates." And here is one last speculation, which especially connoisseurs of the first historical article about Angelina Hesse will appreciate. Isn't the reason why the suggestion by authors Hitchens and Leikind to designate plain agar as "Frau Hesse"s Medium" failed, because Angelina's innovation isn’t about the medium, really? Media, like kitchen ingredients, can be easily replaced. Agar can't. Plating – in cuisine and in microbiology – makes all the difference for good dishes.

 

Now, on to the second question: What can the microbiology community do to help raise awareness of Angelina Hesse's seminal contribution? The first thing would be to talk about her (and read the two papers mentioned above). The second thing would be to support an ongoing project to produce a graphic novel on Angelina Hesse titled "The Dessert that Changed the World" (agar is a common ingredient in Indonesian desserts). I am part of a team of communicators, microbiologists, artists, illustrators and science comic cartoonists working on this novel. We aim to publish the graphic novel around 22 June 2025, the 175^th anniversary of Angelina Hesse's birth. We want to ask all members of the microbiology community to share the news of this project – and of course to read the graphic novel when the time comes!

 

Fig. 2. A sneak peak of the graphic novel about Angelina Hesse: Imagining the "Eureka!" moment – Walther and Angelina Hesse in a hot Summer of 1881 in Saxony (concept art by Stephanie Herzog).

This story is visually very rich. It’s all about making visible the invisible – a forgotten woman, a transparent yet essential substance, and the unseen realm of microbes. We want to celebrate microbiology in all its beautiful diversity, and we want this to be a story which microbiologists are proud to show families and friends. The graphic novel format (in the genre of a science comic/biography) can appeal to a broad audience. The person who introduced a substance that every microbiologist uses every day, and without which most labs in research, medicine, and industry would stop working, should be widely known.

 

Note: There is an important Kickstarter fundraising campaign to support our efforts. Please visit the site to learn more about our graphic novel and, if you wish, to contribute to this exciting project. We would very much appreciate your support in these last few days. For more information, you can contact me at [email protected].

 

 

 

Corrado Nai (@jan_corro) is a former fungal researcher turned fungal communicator and science writer. He lives in Jakarta with his wife and daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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