Science and Medicine

Entry Category: Science and Medicine - Starting with H

Hot Springs Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

In the early months of 1895, Hot Springs (Garland County) suffered through a blizzard, numerous fires, and a smallpox outbreak. These collective disasters left the community economically crippled. The Blizzard of 1895 that swept across much of the country in late January/early February had made travel to the spa resort town impossible during what was normally its busy season. By mid-February, travel had resumed, and visitors soon filled up the town. Then, a series of unexplained fires started flaring up across the city, culminating in a large conflagration in the early hours of Friday, February 22. The fire started around 3:30 a.m. and, within minutes, it had engulfed four and a half blocks of businesses and residential buildings while thousands …

Houser, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte Houser was a prominent African American physician, owner of the Black Diamond Drug Store, and investor in Helena (Phillips County) from 1901 to 1920. He came to Helena from Charlotte, North Carolina, as the Arkansas Delta’s population and opportunities grew, but returned to the place of his birth following the Elaine Massacre. N. B. Houser was born near Gastonia, in Gaston County, North Carolina, on February 14, 1869. He was the son of William H. Houser, a well-to-do brick mason and contractor, and Fannie Houser, a housekeeper and mother. The youngest of six siblings, Houser attended public schools in Charlotte and worked as a farm hand on his father’s farm until the age of fourteen, when he began …

Huddleston, John Wesley

John Wesley Huddleston is best known as a struggling farmer who found two diamonds on the surface of his field near Murfreesboro (Pike County) in August 1906 and made himself and his state famous. Soon after the discovery, he was recognized as the first person outside South Africa to find diamonds at an original volcanic source. In the process, he also became the controversial subject of numerous folk tales. A native of Pike County, John Huddleston was born in 1862 to David Fielding Huddleston and America White Huddleston. He had seven siblings before his mother’s death in the early 1870s and gained three step-sisters after his father’s remarriage to Francis Carey. In 1886, Huddleston wed Sarah A. Keys, the mother …

Human Development Centers

From 1888 to 1959—prior to the creation of human development centers (HDCs)—the Arkansas State Hospital provided long-term care to individuals with intellectual disabilities as well as to individuals with severe mental illness. Arkansas lagged behind other states in development of facilities specializing in the care of the intellectually disabled. In the mid-1950s, plans were set in motion to develop a facility that would specialize in the treatment and education of children with intellectual disabilities. Within one year of the opening of the Arkansas Children’s Colony (later renamed the Conway Human Development Center) in 1959, the facility received accolades for its physical construction as well as for its progressive curriculum for residents. Soon after, several other Southern states were following in …

Human Dissection Monument

The first human dissection performed in Arkansas is commemorated by an obelisk located at the edge of MacArthur Park in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1927, the Arkansas Medical Society unveiled the marker, whose inscription states that the dissection was held on that spot in November 1874. To clarify: the monument honors the state’s first such legal event, and the unveiling took place on May 13, despite the marker being dated May 12. Following appeals by doctors, in April 1873 the Arkansas General Assembly passed Act 45 authorizing “dissection in certain cases for the advancement of science.” This paved the way for the establishment of a medical school, as the new law gave both doctors and medical students the right …

Hunter, Carl Glenn

Conservationist Carl Glenn Hunter achieved prominence in two branches of the Arkansas outdoors—its fauna and its flora. Activities with wildflowers of the state made him a household name in Arkansas and beyond after his retirement as a wildlife biologist. Carl Hunter was born on August 30, 1923, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). He graduated from Little Rock High School (now Central High School) in 1941 and received a bachelor of science in agriculture degree from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1945. In college, Hunter worked part time for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC); he became a full-time employee in July 1945. He was one of the first hires of the agency after it …

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectric power is the electricity generated by the gravitational force of falling or flowing water through a turbine connected to a power generator. The three major types of hydropower facilities include reservoirs (high dams), in-stream (low dams), and pumped-storage. The most common type is the high dam, which creates significant reservoirs behind the dam (e.g., Hoover Dam). In 1882, the world’s first hydroelectric power station, located in Appleton, Wisconsin, produced 12.5 kilowatts of electrical power. Also in the early 1880s, a similar facility opened in New York City. Since these early facilities, hydroelectric power from the nation’s waterways has proliferated. Hydroelectric development in Arkansas can generally be grouped into three time periods—1924–1930; 1944–1973; and 1988–1999—and under three sponsoring agencies: Arkansas …

Hymenoptera

aka: Ants
aka: Bees
aka: Wasps
Hymenopterans belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Labiata, Superclass Hexapoda, Class Insecta, and Order Hymenoptera. It is a large order of insects with over 150,000 described species comprising the sawflies, woodwasps, ichneumonids, chalcids, wasps, bees, and ants. In addition, there are over 2,000 extinct taxa. The order ranks third in the top five orders of insects in terms of total number of species. Many examples of this order are found in Arkansas, including the invasive fire ant. The Hymenoptera are divided into two suborders: the Symphyta (which have no waist) and the Apocrita (which have a narrow waist). Symphytans include the horntails, sawflies, and parasitic wood wasps. They have an unconstricted junction between the thorax and abdomen and a serrated …