Abel, John Jacob (1857–1938) American biochemist Abel was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a farmer. He was educated at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University. He spent the years 1884–90 in Europe studying at Leipzig, Heidelberg, Würzburg, Vienna, Bern, and Strasbourg, where he gained an MD in 1888. On his return to America he worked briefly at the University of Michigan before being appointed in 1893 to the first chair of pharmacology at Johns Hopkins, a post he retained until his retirement in 1932.

Abel approached biology with a first-rate training in chemistry and with the conviction that the study of molecules and atoms was as important as ...