Dobrovsky Vdo-brof-skeV Josef (b. Aug. 17, 1753, Gyarmat, Hung.—d. Jan. 6, 1829, Brno, Moravia, Austrian Empire) Czech linguist. He was ordained a priest in 1786, but after 1791 noble patronage allowed him to devote himself to scholarship in Prague. His textual criticism of the Bible led him to study Old Church Slavonic and then the Slavic lan¬ guages as a group. An influential scholar of the Czech language and its literature, he published such works as History of the Bohemian Language and Literature (1792). His grammar of Czech, Learning System of the Bohemian Language (1809), helped standardize literary Czech, and his grammar of Old Church Slavonic (1822) laid the foundation of compara¬ tive Slavic LINGUISTICS.
dobsonfly Any insect of the family Corydalidae with four net-veined wings, found in North and South America, Asia, Australia, and Africa. The species Corydalus cornutus has a wingspread of about 5 in. (13 cm), and the male has very large jaws (mandibles) of about 1 in. (2.5 cm) or more. Females lay eggs near streams. Larvae live in the streams and, with their strong biting mouthparts, are ferocious predators on other aquatic insects and small invertebrates. Sometimes called hellgrammites or toe- biters, they can inflict painful bites on humans; they are eaten by fish, especially bass, and are used as bait by fishermen.
Dobzhansky \dob-'zhan-ske\, Theodosius orig. Feodosy Grig- orevich Dobrzhansky (b. Jan. 25, 1900, Nemirov, Ukr., Russian Empire—d. Dec. 18, 1975, Davis, Calif., U.S.) Ukrainian-born U.S. geneticist and evolutionist. He immigrated in 1927 to the U.S., where he taught at the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and Rockefeller University. He laid the groundwork for a theory combining Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics by changing the then com¬ monly held view that natural selection produced something close to the best of all possible results and that changes would be rare and slow and not apparent over one life span. He observed extensive genetic variabil¬ ity in wild populations of Drosophila, and he found that in a given popu¬ lation some genes would regularly change in abundance with the seasons of the year.
dock Any coarse weedy plant of the genus Rumex, in the buckwheat fam¬ ily, that has a long taproot and is sometimes used as a potherb. Most docks are native to Europe but naturalized throughout North America. Examples include curly dock ( R. crispus) and bitter dock (R. obtusifolius ). The early basal leaves of patience-dock ( R. patientia ) are sometimes used in salads. The common weed R. acetosa is known variously as dock, common sor¬ rel, or garden sorrel. See also sorrel.
Doctorow Vdak-t9-.ro\, E(dgar) L(aurence) (b. Jan. 6, 1931, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. novelist. Doctorow worked as an editor and has since taught at colleges and universities. His best-selling novels have often focused on the working class and the dispossessed of earlier decades in the U.S. The Book of Daniel (1971) concerned the Rosenberg spy case. Ragtime (1975; film, 1981) incorporates actual early 20th-century Ameri¬ can figures. Loon Lake (1980), World’s Fair (1985), and Billy Bathgate
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Doctors' Plot ► Doesburg I 557
(1989; film, 1991) examine the Great Depression and its aftermath. City of God (2000), concerns the efforts of a New York City Episcopal min¬ ister to renew his faith.
Doctors' Plot (1953) Alleged conspiracy of prominent Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, at least six of them Jews, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. Because of Joseph Stalin’s death in March, no trial occurred. Pravda later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. In his secret speech at the Communist Party’s Twentieth Congress, Nikita Khrushchev asserted that Stalin intended to use the doctors’ trial to launch a massive party purge.
Doctors Without Borders French Medecins Sans Frontieres
\mad- , sa n -sa I1 -fro n - , tyer\ (MSF) World’s largest independent international medical relief agency. It was established by a group of French physicians in 1971. It aids victims of armed conflict, epidemics, and natural and man-made disasters and helps others whose lack of health care is due to geographic remoteness or ethnic or political marginalization. Teams pro¬ vide primary health care, perform surgery, vaccinate children, rehabilitate hospitals, operate emergency nutrition and sanitation programs, and train local medical staff. Operating independently of governments, the organi¬ zation depends on volunteer health professionals (more than 2,000 annu¬ ally) and private donations. It received the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize.
doctrine of the affections German Affektenlehre Aesthetic theory of music in the Baroque period. Under the influence of Classical rhetoric, late Baroque theorists and composers held that music is capable of arousing a variety of specific emotions in the listener, and that, by employing the proper musical procedure or device, the composer could produce a particular involuntary emotional response in his audience. By the end of the 17th century, individual movements were customarily orga¬ nized around a single emotion, resulting in the lack of strong contrasts and the repetitive rhythms characteristic of Baroque music. Several attempts at systematic lists of the emotional effects of different scales and figures were made, but to no general agreement.
Doctrine of the Mean See Zhong yong
rootlike organs called haustoria that penetrate the tissue of a host plant and may kill it. Dodder can do great damage to crops of clover, alfalfa, flax, HOPS, and beans. The best control is to remove the plant from fields by hand and to prevent its accidental introduction.
Dodge, Mary Mapes orig. Mary Elizabeth Mapes (b. Jan. 26, 1831, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. Aug. 21, 1905, Onteora Park, N.Y.) U.S. author. She began writing children’s stories when she was suddenly wid¬ owed with two small sons. Her first collection, Irvington Stories (1864), was followed by Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates (1865), which became a children’s classic. In 1873 she was named editor of the new children’s magazine St. Nicholas', its success stemmed from her high standards, which attracted such writers as Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Rudyard Kipling.
Dodge, William E(arl) (b. Sept. 4, 1805, Hartford, Conn., U.S.—d. Feb. 9, 1883, New York, N.Y.) U.S. mining entrepreneur. He was a dry- goods merchant in Hartford, Conn., before founding the metal dealership Phelps, Dodge & Co. with his father-in-law, Anson G. Phelps, in 1833. They soon established a prosperous metal-importing business. Dodge made numerous other investments in timberland, mills, and iron and cop¬ per mines. After purchasing the Copper Queen mine in Arizona in 1882, the company became a major U.S. mining concern. Further acquisitions and diversifications have made Phelps Dodge Corp. one of the world’s largest copper producers.
dodo Extinct flightless bird ( Raphus cucullatus ) of Mauritius, first seen by Portuguese sailors about 1507.
Humans and the animals they intro¬ duced had exterminated the dodo by 1681. It weighed about 50 lbs (23 kg) and had blue-gray plumage, a big head, a 9-in. (23-cm) blackish bill with a reddish hooked tip, small use¬ less wings, stout yellow legs, and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end. The Reunion solitaire ( R. soli- tarius), also driven to extinction, may have been a white version of the dodo. Partial museum specimens and skeletons are all that remain of the dodo.
Dodoma \do-'do-ma\ City (pop.,
1995 est.: 189,000), Tanzania. Des¬ ignated the national capital since 1974, it awaits complete transfer of official functions from Dar es Salaam, the current capital. Located in a sparsely populated agricultural region at an elevation of 3,720 ft (1,135 m), it is a market centre for the surround¬ ing area. Industries produce wood and furniture, beverages, processed food, soap, and oil.