An American Physiologist Abroad - continued...

6. Networking and Exchange

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Benedict’s foreign travels enabled him to develop extensive personal and professional networks, and they facilitated the exchange of scientific ideas. The tours provided a way to find out what research was in process at the different laboratories or awaiting publication, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication, and they were an opportunity to disseminate the achievements, research plans and publications of the Carnegie Laboratory. In this way, the Carnegie Laboratory marked its place within the international research landscape and staked its claims. Benedict also used the tours to promote the methods and apparatus of his laboratory as international standards.

By visiting the laboratories, Benedict, who was naturally gregarious, could also introduce what he called the “personal element” into his professional interactions. Rivalry, polemic and petty jealousies were not unique to nutritional physiology but they were detrimental to communication and thus to cooperation between individuals and their labs across national and international boundaries. As a foreigner and an outsider in regard to European academic structures, Benedict was in a unique position to move between laboratories and national traditions and to mediate across the lines of dispute.