FROM SAILOR TO SCIENTIST.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 205, 30 August 1926, Page 9

FROM SAILOR TO SCIENTIST.

LIFE SPENT IN TRAVEL.

MILLIONAIRE VISITOB. CAREER BEGUN AT AUCKLAND. A career that began in Auckland 21 years ago is recalled by the visit of Dr. Edward E. Johnson, of London, a millionaire and scientist, wro by the Niagara to-day on the way to Vancouver. Dr. Johnson has spent his life in travel. The real beginning to his career was in 1905 when, at the age of 20, he stepped aboard the sailing ship Sunlight and went to sea. He had joined the Auckland "Star", literary staff the previous year, and had only £6 in his pocket. After six months in journalism he co-operated with Mr. A. Busch, of the Auckland Pure Milk Supply Company, to sell the first I bottleu milk in Auckland and then worked for a brief period in opening up the new Puponga mine on the West Coast, near Westport. He returned to-day as Dr. Edward E. Johnson, millionaire, of London; and was in robust health after a life of much interest in all parts of the world, pi. Johnson is on his seventh voyage rounu the world. Since he sold bottled milk in Auckland he has become a bacteriologist, and has advocated bottled milk in other countries. At 20, with his future unplanned, Edward E. Johnson went to sea. To-day he recalled the experiences of five years before the mast, and summed them up by saying: "I think it is the finest thing in the world for a young man to go to sea. It makes him well-informed, and gives him a broad vision." Climbing tip the Ladder. By the time he was 25. Edward Johnson had his master's certificate. He had been studying science continuously while at sea, and had saved up all his spare money 'to buy shares in the Standard Oil Company, which owned the ships that took him to sea. He is now a big stockholder in the Standard Oil Company, and also in the Hudson Bay Company and the Canadian Facifie Railway Company, in Canada. When he left the sea he took uj> medical work in London, and finished vis course in America. He became connected with the College of Physicians and Surgeons as Professor of Pathology and Immunology, and held that position for five years. Besides being a master mariner, & Master of Science, and a Doctor of Medicine, Dr. Johnson hold important positions as a member of the American Society for the advancement of Science, the American Public Health Association, the American Society for the Control of Cancer, and the American Association of Railway Surgeons. During the war he was with General Pershing's army, and was a field representative of the Pasteur Institute, of Paris, on the battle front, holding the rank of major. Dr. Johnson says that there is no secret in his success. He felt he was getting on his feet at about 28, and since then he has progressed very rapidly. Plantations in Mexico. Just now he is bound for Mexico to inspect the Lazacualpa Hidalag coffee and rubber palntations, which cover 30,000 acres, in the Staet of Cheapis, on tiie borders of Guatemala. Owing to the unsettled conditions in America he is unable to remain in Auckland this visit, but intends to return as soon as possible to spend a long holiday. As to the Mexico plantations, he says that the present trouble has arrested economic development, and this has had a serious effect upon the country's prosperity. From Mexico, Dr. Johnson said he would go on to South America to inspect the copper mines at Cerro de Pasco, in which he had a large interest. In all his travels he had found much pleasure in renewing the acquaintance of the men he used to work with when he was a working man himself. He describes it as one of the greatest pleasures of his life to shake hands with some old shipmates or a companion of his early mining life. He was born at Harrietville, a small town near Bright, in Victoria, and his career has been one of many changes. He is a bachelor, a non-smoker, and practically a teetotaller.

Recently. Dr. Johnson- attended a conference of scientists in Moscow and another in Amsterdam; and was voted to the chair amo"" some of the greatest masters of science. -