Friday, February 15, 2008

Shroud name index `A'

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

This 2008 Shroud name index has been superseded by my 2019 Turin Shroud Encyclopedia.

Here is my Shroud of Turin name index `A', for key persons

[Left: Late Prof. Alan D. Adler, American Society for Photobiology.]

associated with the Shroud whose surnames begin with "A."

See also main name index A-Z.




Adler, Alan D. 1932-2000. Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Western Connecticut State College. Was a research scientist at the New England Institute, Connecticut, where he worked with Dr. John H. Heller. Authority on porphyrins (e.g. haemoglobin) and blood chemistry. Member of Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), but not one of the original team who in 1978 examined the Shroud in Turin. Helped show that the bloodstains on the Shroud are real blood. Papers: Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 1980, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin," Applied Optics, Vol. 19, No. 16, 15 August, pp.2742-2744; Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 1981, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society for Forensic Science Journal, Vol. 14, pp.81-103; Adler, A.D., Whanger, A. & M., 1997, "Concerning the Side Strip on the Shroud of Turin," CIELT Third International Symposium on the Shroud of Turin, Nice, France, 12-13 May 1997; Adler, A.D., 2000, "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and Physical Characteristics," International Scientific Symposium "The Turin Shroud, past, present and future," Villa Gualino, Turin, 2-5 March, 2000; Adler, A.D., 2000 , "Chemical and Physical Characteristics of the Blood Stains," Ibid. Shroud links; Obituaries: ASP Newsletter, BSST Newsletter & The Redding Pilot.

PS: See `tagline' quotes below which will be about each person, in surname alphabetic order, and then date order (most recent uppermost).


"IN MEMORIAM The American Shroud of Turin Association for Research (AMSTAR), announces with deep regret the death of Dr. Alan D. Adler on June 11, 2000 and Donald J. Lynn on October 14, 2000. Both were founding board members of the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research (AMSTAR), a scientific organization dedicated to conducting research in connection with the Shroud of Turin. Dr. Adler was an internationally renowned chemist and an acclaimed expert on porphryns, a component of human blood. Dr. Adler's research proved that the blood-stained areas on the Shroud are human blood. Dr. Adler was involved in sindonological research for many years, particularly in the area of conservation of the Shroud. However, his encyclopedic knowledge extended to virtually every scientific discipline. His death leaves an inestimable void in sindonological research. Dr. Adler served on the Conservation Commissions of both Cardinal Saldarini and Archbishop Poletto. He was a member of ACS, APS, AAAS, NYAS, HSS, American Assn of Clin. Chem., American Soc. Photobiol. and Sigma Xi. Donald J. Lynn worked for many years at the prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory (TPL) in Pasadena, California. He was a supervisor in the Image Processing Laboratory where his primary areas of concentration were digital image processing and image analysis. It was his expertise in these areas which proved that the Image on the Shroud of Turin has no directionality, thus proving the Image is not a painting." (Minor, M., Adler, A.D. & Piczek, I., eds., 2002, "The Shroud of Turin: Unraveling the Mystery: Proceedings of the 1998 Dallas Symposium," Alexander Books: Alexander NC, p.v. Emphasis original).

"In Memoriam, Alan D. Adler, 1932-2000 Alan D. Adler, 68, renowned porphyrin chemist and professor emeritus of chemistry at Western Connecticut State University, died June 11, 2000, at his home in West Redding, Connecticut. Al received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester in 1953 and his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry seven years later from the University of Pennsylvania. His career began at Penn, where he joined the faculty as an assistant professor of molecular biology. In 1967, he joined the staff of the New England Institute in Ridgefield, Conn., holding the concurrent posts of professor, senior staff scientist, and chairman of the Chemical Sciences Division. He joined Western Connecticut State in 1974 and four years later cofounded its biochemistry program. Al's interdisciplinary work dealt mainly with the biophysical chemistry of porphyrinic materials but he also carried out photovoltaic studies of porphyrin films and mechanistic synthetic studies of heme proteins in nitrite-pollution problems. His landmark synthesis of tetraphenyl-porphyrin in 1967 can fairly be said to have paved the way for the great variety of porphyrin research that followed. Because of his extensive porphyrin studies and encyclopedic knowledge, he was considered an authority on blood chemistry. In 1977, Al agreed to do a `weekend's worth' of analysis on a controversial religious artifact, the Shroud of Turin. The initial short-term project became a career interest, lasting more than 20 years and taking him around the world as a member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project and as an ACS Tour Speaker on the subject. Though he formally retired from the university in 1992, Al continued to teach biochemistry through the spring of 2000. In addition to his teaching and research, he was active in several organizations, including the American Chemical Society, American Institute of Chemists, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Clinical Chemists, the American Society for Photobiology, and Sigma Xi. He joined ASP in 1972. Over the years, Al was very generous in sharing his samples and his knowledge with a large number of people working on various aspects of porphyrins. His passing was acknowledged at the First International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines held in Dijon in June 2000. He should have been there!" (Connolly, J., "In Memoriam, Alan D. Adler, 1932-2000," American Society for Photobiology Newsletter, Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer, 2001. No longer online).

"As Dr Adler continues to argue, [Adler, A.D., "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and Physical Characteristics', International Scientific Symposium "The Turin Shroud, past, present and future," Villa Gualino, Turin, 2-5 March 2000] in the wake of Heller's death and having been granted a relatively recent direct viewing of the cloth to facilitate conservation recommendations, `the body' image areas are superficial in the extreme, lying only on the very top of the Shroud threads. They do not penetrate the cloth, nor do they exhibit any capillarity or absorptive properties. They are more brittle than their non-image counterparts, as if whatever formed them corroded them. They are uniform in coloration, they are not cemented together, neither are they `diffused' as they would be if they derived from some dye or stain. They do not `fluoresce' or reflect back any light. Most emphatically, they are not made by pigment contact." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.74).

"But exactly like the Shroud, far more revelatory than the Oviedo cloth's history is its self-documentation. Although it bears no photograph-like `body' image in the manner of the Shroud, Mark Guscin and his Spanish colleagues have very convincingly demonstrated that its `blood and body fluid' stains exhibit shapes so strikingly similar to those on the Shroud that there has to be the strongest likelihood that both were in contact with the same corpse. Two groups of stains particularly indicate this. The first are what I would call the nasal stains, which appear to derive from a nose and mouth soaked in bloody fluids. These are repeated mirror-image-style, apparently because of the cloth having been partly doubled on itself. Forensic analysis indicates that they consist of one part blood and six parts pulmonary oedema fluid. This finding is therefore strikingly consistent with the strong body of medical opinion that the man of the Shroud's lungs would have filled with fluid caused by the scourging. They are also very compatible with gospel writer John's observation that at the conclusion of Jesus' crucifixion `immediately there came out blood and water' (John 19:34), as from the same oedematous fluid, when a lance was plunged into Jesus' chest. In the case of the Oviedo cloth's back-of-the-head group of bloodstains, if these are photographed to the same scale as their equivalent on the Shroud, and then matched up to each other, there are again enough similarities to indicate, in Dr Alan Adler's words, `that these two cloths were in contact with the same wounded body'. [Adler, A.D, "Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of Turin," in Orna, M.V., ed., "Archaeological Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic and Biochemical Analysis," American Chemical Society: Washington DC, 1996, p.226], 1996, p.226]" (Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, p.78).

"Case: Neither of you were original members of STURP, the Shroud of Turin Research Project composed mostly of American scientists, who investigated the Shroud in 1978, nor did you make the trip to Italy with the team. However, Dr. Heller's 1983 book, Report on the Shroud of Turin, is far-and-away the best piece of scientific writing I have read on the subject. What first piqued your interest in the Shroud? Dr. Heller: It's a mystery. It's an unanswered question that should lend itself to scientific verification. I read the article by Barbara Culliton in Science. Where she was talking about the physics of miracles. [Science, vol. 201, 21 July 1978]" (Case, T.W., "Interview with John H. Heller and Alan D. Adler," in "The Shroud of Turin and the C-14 Dating Fiasco," White Horse Press: Cincinnati OH, 1996, p.51. Emphasis original).

"We began our presentation. One by one, we gave our short talks with slides, graphs, spectra, and tried to make them intelligible to the nonscientist. Everything that had been done was included, from mathematical models, VP-8 and physical experiments, to pathology. ... We explained that we hoped to obtain permission to do a carbon 14 dating test some time in the future, but we had not yet received permission. We all wanted to be very careful that we did not overstate anything. We were extremely cautious to make no statement of any kind that could not be supported by the data. Bit by bit, the complex story involving optics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine unfolded. Most of the questions were excellent. Adler was asked how he could answer McCrone's claim that there was no blood, but merely a mixture of red ocher and vermilion. Adler flashed on the screen the following table from our paper. Table 5 Tests confirming the presence of whole blood on the Shroud 1. High iron in blood areas by X-ray fluorescence 2. Indicative reflection spectra 3. Indicative microspectrophotometric transmission spectra 4. Chemical generation of characteristic porphyrin fluorescence 5. Positive hemochromogen tests 6. Positive cyanomethemoglobin tests 7. Positive detection of bile pigments 8. Positive demonstration of protein 9. Positive indication of albumin 10. Protease tests, leaving no residue 11. Positive immunological test for human albumin 12. Microscopic appearance as compared with appropriate controls 13. Forensic judgment of the appearance of the various wound and blood marks Then, after explaining each item briefly, Al said, `That means that the red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!'" (Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, pp.215-216. Emphasis original).

Notes
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of this post (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Posted: 15 February 2008. Updated: 26 April 2019

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