The Seeds of Life
Page 31
* Photosynthesis was not discovered until around 1779. In one crucial experiment, a Dutch doctor named Jan Ingenhousz put a plant and an unlit candle together inside a transparent, closed container. Several days later, he put a match to the candle, which lit at once and burned nicely. Then he repeated the experiment, but this time with a piece of dark cloth covering the container. After several days in blackness, the candle would not light. Ingenhousz concluded—correctly—that when plants absorb sunlight, they breathe out a mysterious substance that sustains candles (and, it would turn out, life).
* Plutarch explored this puzzle two thousand years ago, in his parable about Theseus’s ship. Theseus was the hero who slew the minotaur. For a thousand years afterward, grateful Athenians preserved his ship, replacing each plank with an identical copy when worms and weather had taken their toll. Eventually not an original board remained. Was the rebuilt ship a new ship altogether, Plutarch asked, or was it still Theseus’s ship? (If it was new, at what point had the old ship vanished? And if it was not new, did it make a difference that Theseus had never set foot aboard “his” ship?)
* Spallanzani noted indignantly, in the course of his digestion experiments, that eagles, falcons, and dogs “used all their efforts to bite me.” Good for them!
* Spallanzani was 150 years ahead of his time, but he had missed a crucial insight. He believed that bats have super-acute hearing, which let them detect the buzz from flying insects or the sound of air from their own wings bouncing off nearby surfaces. The true story, which emerged at around the time of World War II, was that bats emit high-frequency peeps and chirps and listen for the echoes. When biologists first gave a talk explaining the bats’ technique, research on radar and sonar was still top secret; the bat researchers were accosted by scientists who were outraged that they had divulged military secrets. But bats had figured it out 50 million years before human engineers.
* A century later, Louis Pasteur would add a refinement by leaving the flask’s neck open to the air but shaped into an ever-so-thin curve like a swan’s neck. The curved neck played two roles; its shape meant that nothing could fall from the air into the broth, and the opening at its end spoke to the objection that perhaps microorganisms would have arisen spontaneously if they’d had access to fresh air.
* Spallanzani owed the idea to two French scientists who had tried unsuccessfully to fit frogs with underwear in 1740. Years afterward they told him of their mishaps in a letter. Either the shorts were so loose that the frogs wriggled free or so tight that they could scarcely breathe, let alone mate.
* In Hamlet, probably written a few years before King Lear, Shakespeare had put a more sardonic twist on the impossible-to-fathom fact that we are dust and return to dust: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay / Might stop a hole to keep the cold away. / Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, / Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!”
* Though Franklin did not know it, a French scientist had beaten him to the punch by drawing lightning from a storm one month earlier. Franklin had proposed the experiment in print, and the Frenchman, Thomas-François Dalibard, had followed up at once.
† Many religious believers opposed lightning rods, on the grounds that it was sinful to try to thwart God’s plans. Nollet, the French abbot, warned that it was “as impious to ward off God’s lightnings as for a child to resist the chastening rods of the father.”
* Joseph Priestley, one of the eighteenth century’s most admired scientists, remarked that “it is not given to every electrician to die in so glorious a manner as the justly envied Richmann.”
* The ancient Greeks and Romans had known about sting rays (although not about electric eels, which are found in South American rivers). The physician to one Roman emperor recommended standing on a live sting ray as a cure for gout, because the shock numbed the foot and leg all the way up to the knee.
* Polidori’s contribution to the ghost story contest was The Vampyre, the first novel built around the romantic, murderous adventures of a blood-sucking aristocrat.
* This was Einstein’s “Annus Mirabilis,” the miraculous year when the twenty-six-year-old patent clerk published four revolutionary papers. One explained Brownian motion, another proposed that light comes in packets called quanta, a third unveiled special relativity, and a fourth announced that E = mc2.
* Lavoisier’s discoveries could not save him from the guillotine. He was executed in 1794, at age fifty, for his role in a tax-collecting scheme. A judge turned down an appeal to save his life. “The Republic needs neither scientists nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.” So runs the famous quote, at any rate, though it may be apocryphal. But no one has ever challenged the judgment of Lavoisier’s contemporary, the mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange: “It took them only an instant to cut off his head, but France may not produce another such head in a century.”
* Roget made no outstanding contributions to science, but he was absorbed, rapt, transfixed, and riveted with lists and order, and the great work of his life was compiling Roget’s Thesaurus.
INDEX
Academy of Sciences, 173
An Account of the Breeding of Worms in Human Bodies (Andry), 152
Ackerman, Diane, 15
adultery, 163
Aeschylus, 16
aesthetics, 47
Age of Science, 23, 127
alchemy, 66
Aldini, Giovanni, 240–241, 242 (fig.)
amphibians. See frogs
Amsterdam, 54
“An Essay on Man,” Book 1 (Pope), 192
analogies, 75, 132n, 191, 204
Harvey and, 85
silkworms as, 144
snake venom as, 221
for women, 168
anatomists, 2, 54
autopsy for, 37, 68
bodies for, 47, 55, 59
breakthrough for, 125
Haller as, 185
Harvey as, 64–69
language of, 99
Swammerdam as, 140
anatomy, 59, 61, 231
books on, 17
da Vinci and, 37
dissection and, 67
illustrations of, 42, 43, 50, 58, 95
of muscles, 93
professor of, 238
reproduction and, 83, 93
sex and, 90
structures and, 191
of women, 20
Anatomy Act (1832), 61
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Joan Deyman (Rembrandt), 52
Anatomy Theatre, 53
Andry, Nicolas, 151, 279n
An Account of the Breeding of Worms in Human Bodies by, 152
animalcules, 109
ejaculation and, 154
Leeuwenhoek and, 104–107, 216
theories of, 137
animals, 47, 251
anatomy of, 231
as cold-blooded, 82
as companions, 65
eggs from, 87, 98
electricity by, 230, 238–239
embryos of, 81
kingdom of, 137
as machines, 173
mating for, 26
mysteries of, 13
semen of, 114–122, 149, 153, 253
species of, 224
spirit as, 232
anthropologists, 30
aphids, 175–178, 178n
aphrodisiacs, 24–25
Aquinas, Thomas, 36
Archimedes, 136
Arctic, 179
Aristotle, 31, 39, 64, 76, 165
biology and, 74
On Generation by, 32, 282n
on women, 77
Aristotle’s Masterpiece (1684), 26, 27 (fig.)
astronomy, 110, 187, 188, 189
atheism, 129, 144, 243
atoms, 133, 249, 259
Augustine (Saint), 35, 36n
authority, 70, 217
deference to, 41
position of, 179
automatons, 182
autopsy, 37, 68
ba
bies, 14
parents and, 8, 21
sex and, 15–22, 29, 37–51, 170
traits for, 165, 168, 180, 227
Bacon, Francis, 12
bacteria, 111
Baer, Karl Ernst von, 256, 264
On the Genesis of the Egg of Mammals and of Men, 257
Baroncelli, Bernardo, 46
Bassi, Laura, 209
bats, 210–211
beliefs
of scientists, 213
witches and, 66
about women, 32, 98
bestiality, 167n
the Bible, 31, 32
biographers, 43
biologists, 116, 134, 190, 246
battle among, 263
facts for, 254
learning for, 135
predicament for, 193
religion and, 128
in 1700s, 187
biology, 10, 22, 174, 179, 255
Aristotle and, 74
cells and, 117, 135
connection through, 30
God and, 35
journals of, 115
of plants, 260
respect for, 240
state of, 182
textbooks for, 132
birds, 83–84, 203, 210
birth
defects at, 180
of hybrids, 168
Bismarck, Otto von, 261
Black Jan, 53
Blanckaert, Steven, 177
blood, 1, 62n, 116, 222
cells of, 112
erections and, 46
in human body, 67
loss of, 159
from menstruation, 45, 74
semen and, 75, 77, 81, 88
body, 196
cells of, 9, 195
after death, 38
as machine, 87
See also human body
body snatching. See grave robbery
bones, 56
Bonnet, Charles, 175, 176
snails and, 178
The Book of Nature (Swammerdam), 142
botanists, 260
Boyle, Robert, 43, 68n
as Royal Society founder, 99
Brown, Robert, 247–248
Brownian motion by, 258
nucleus term by, 258
Brownian motion, 258
Buffon: A Life in Natural History (Roger), 159
Buffon, Count de. See Leclerc, Georges-Louis
Burke, William, 60, 61 (fig.)
Byron, 243–244
Canon of Medicine (Avicenna), 72
capillaries, 86, 87, 112
castrati, 229
caterpillars, 143–144
Catholics, 90
Celestial Bed, 236–237
celibacy, 99
cells, 196
biology and, 117, 135
blood as, 112
body of, 9, 195
division of, 262–264
nucleus for, 258, 262
sperm as, 122, 156, 223
term by Hooke, 259
theories for, 117, 135, 259, 261
Charles I, 1, 2
chemistry, 244
children, 72
connection for, 30
demons and, 157n
dissection of, 48
as preformed, 126
resemblance of, 198
spirits and, 28–29
Christians, 35
church, 157
clitoris, 73, 97
code
as cosmic, 12
for genetics, 10
instructions in, 181
reading and, 183
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 193
Collis, John Stewart, 265
Columbus, Renaldus, 73
computers, 183–184, 194
conception, 51, 61, 77, 200, 237, 259
development and, 17
eggs and, 102, 118, 120, 225
Galen on, 70
God and, 131
of life, 85
sex and, 221
sperm for, 136
stories of, 119
system of, 155
theories of, 24, 70
timing for, 8
Trobrianders, 270n
understanding of, 252
consciousness, 15
contraception, 23n
techniques for, 24
Trobrianders and, 30n
Cooke, James, 156
Copernicus, 56
corpses, 57, 95, 241, 242 (fig.), 245
Cosimo II, 96
Cosimo III, 96
cosmos
code and, 12
Newton on, 69
theories of, 186
creatures, 195
components of, 249
discovery of, 107
as microscopic, 115, 245
Crick, Francis, 190
criminals, 52, 61, 241–242
cultures, 20
creation myths of, 21
father’s role in, 30
sex and, 25
curiosity, 106
cabinets for, 143
electricity as, 231
sin of, 40
da Vinci, Leonardo, 18
anatomy and, 37
appearance of, 43
collection of, 51
death of, 50, 52
heart and, 62
Mona Lisa, 49
studies of, 42
Darwin, Charles, 129, 165
on development, 130
on wasps, 139n
Darwin, Erasmus, 244–245
d’Auvermont, Magdeleine, 163
Davies, Jamie, 195
de Graaf, Maria, 103
de Graaf, Regnier, 89, 98
conception and, 119
death of, 103
dormouse testicle and, 91 (fig.), 92
experiments by, 100
introduction by, 104
A New Treatise Concerning the Generative Organs of Women by, 96
de Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau, 179, 197
calculations, 180
The Earthly Venus, 201
de Medici, Cosimo, 143
de Medici, Giuliano, 46
de Vaucanson, Jacques, 182
death
body after, 38
of da Vinci, 50, 52
of de Graaf, R., 103
decay and, 193
of Leclerc, 199–200
of Richmann, 235
of Swammerdam, 147
deer, 3–4
demonstrations, 228, 232–233
Descartes, René, 212
design, 130, 182
of experiments, 82
God and, 97, 131
as intelligent, 129
of microscopes, 109
development, 201
conception and, 17
course of, 137
Darwin on, 130
of embryos, 127, 145, 203
epigenesis as, 145, 202
humans and, 18
insects and, 139, 140
model of, 196, 202
Diamond, Jared, 33
discoveries, 63
acclaim for, 141
clitoris and, 73, 97
creatures and, 107
through the 1600s, 11
of sperm, 115, 121, 149
vocabulary for, 117
Disputations Touching the Generation of Animals (Harvey), 86
dissection, 18, 39, 95
of amphibians and reptiles, 65, 82
anatomy and, 67
children and, 48
criminals and, 52, 61
human body and, 44, 47
laws about, 58
of muscles, 49
of pets, 84
as postmortem, 46
as public, 54
skills in, 93
of women, 50, 54
doctors. See physicians
doctrines, 134, 167, 171
as absurd, 91
as conventional, 157
as dangerous, 202
maternal influence as, 162, 163
Ockham�
��s razor as, 190
spontaneous generation as, 212, 215–216
dogs, 121, 222, 256
Driesch, Hans, 263
Dumas, Jean-Baptiste, 253
The Earthly Venus (Maupertuis), 201
Eden, 41, 106
eggs, 8, 17, 151, 226
from animals, 87, 98
chickens from, 203
conception and, 102, 118, 120, 225
defense of, 148
fertilization and, 220, 223, 263
flies from, 215
follicles for, 200
from frogs, 217–219, 253
of mammals, 71, 84, 257
of ostriches, 82, 83
quota of, 204
release of, 100, 102
scientists and, 88
of sea urchins, 262
from silkworms, 111
theories about, 121
women and, 69, 125
Egypt, 24
Einstein, Albert, 249
ejaculation, 154
electricity, 242
as curiosity, 231
electrocution by, 234
experiments with, 229–230, 234n
genitals and, 229
by humans and animals, 230, 238–239, 240
Leyden jar for, 233
sex and, 236
vital force as, 228
Elephant Man, 162
embalming, 48
embryos, 257, 263
of animals, 81
development of, 127, 145, 203
follicles and, 101
humans as, 153
ovists and, 126
tissue and, 224
England, 17
Charles II’s royal library in, 51
in early 1630s, 1–4
London in, 57
epigenesis, 145, 202, 203
erections, 45–46
Essay Considering Human Understanding (Locke), 166
Estonia, 256
Europe, 42
Age of Science in, 23
scientists in, 35
evolution, 130, 244
execution
of Charles I, 2
hanging and, 53, 58
experiments, 66, 178, 215, 250, 256
bats for, 210–211
contamination of, 248
as controlled, 268n
danger and, 235
of Darwin, E., 244
by de Graaf, 100
design for, 82
dilution for, 222–223
electricity and, 229–230, 234n
as follow-up, 239
frenzy of, 174
by Galvani, 238
lenses and, 108
on life origin, 214
on self, 235
simplicity of, 220
of Spallanzani, L., 230
tradition of, 253
water and, 106, 172
eyes, 138
Fabric of the Human Body (Vesalius), 55, 56 (fig.), 58, 70
facts
for biologists, 254
of heredity, 171