The Making Of A Scientist | English | CBSE | Class 10 | Summary |

Richard H. Ebright, surprised the scientific world with his theory on how cells work. He published a paper on this finding in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science". Ebright, the only child of his parents, grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania. In his kindergarten days, Ebright enthusiastically collected butterflies. Apart from that he also collected rocks, fossils and coins. He was fond of star gazing too. His mother took him on trips and bought him equipment like microscopes, telescope cameras, mounting materials and the like. His mother ensured that Ebright was always busy as she knew that her child wanted to learn. By the time the young boy reached second grade, he had collected all the 25 varieties of butterflies. The mother ever keen for his son to continue his interest in butterflies, bought a book titled "Travel of Monarch X" . The book taught Ebright about migration of monarch butterflies to Central America and sharpened his eagerness about butterflies.

Ebright caught hold of a female monarch and raised her eggs in his basement. But, soon he lost interest in tagging butterflies since it was not a very rewarding job.

In the country job fair, Ebright learnt that if one wanted to win prizes, one had to perform actual experiments. Hence, he decided he would do some real experiments in next year’s fair. This way, Ebright did various experiments for which also won prizes. 

His famous experiments includes :

    reason behind the viral disease that cause the death of monarch caterpillars every few years, Theory that the viceroy butterfly copies the monarch, discovery of an unknown insect hormone which led to his new theory on the life of cells.

His theory about cell life was also published in paper.

He graduated from Harvard university with good grades and later joining Harvard medical school.

Richard Ebright was not only a good debater and photographer but also very good at outdoor activities and was a good canoeist as well.

He had all the qualities of great scientist.