Hufeland's interest in plant movements.

Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836) was one of the eminent physicians at the time of Goethe. When only 21 years old, he followed his father as a medical practitioner in Weimar. In 1793 he became Professor of Medicine at the University of Jena, from where he moved, in 1801, to Berlin as the physician in ordinary to king Friedrich Wilhelm III, council of state, and Professor at the leading hospital, the Charité. Hufeland pioneered in what today would be called public hygiene. Many of his lectures and publications were addressed to the educated laymen. In his most read book, the 'Makrobiotik', he emphasizes the importance of the 24-h periodicity as a basic unit of biological chronometry. In view of this, Hufeland has become a kind of 'patron saint' to modern chronobiologists.     

Proteomics data mining

Marc Wilkins completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. During his doctoral studies, he defined the concept of the proteome and coined the term. After postdoctoral studies in Geneva, Switzerland, during which he co-edited the first book on proteomics, he returned to Australia, where he cofounded the company Proteome Systems. More recently, Marc took a position as Professor of Systems Biology at the University of New South Wales. He has established and directs the NSW Systems Biology Initiative, and is currently researching the role that protein post-translational modifications play in the regulation of protein-interaction networks.     

Sir William Jardine and the Ichnology of Annandale

ABSTRACT

Sir William Jardine was a polymath; he was one of the world's foremost ornithologists, and ichthyologists, as well as a knowledgeable geologist, entomologist and botanist. He was a talented and skilled artist and engraver and a keen hunter and fisherman. He was also the author of the book The Ichnology of Annandale that represents the first book ever published on the subject of ichnology. It was here in this volume that Jardine coined the word ichnology. It is also one of the rarest ichnology publications, as it is believed that only 135–140 copies were ever printed. This volume remains the most lavishly illustrated book in vertebrate ichnology literature. This paper discusses the work of Jardine, the finds from his estate and his role in defining ichnology as a science.     

No correlation between lunar and menstrual cycle - an early report by the french physician J. A. Murat in 1806-

Jean Arnaud Murat was a physician at the Medical School of Montpellier in France. In 1806 he published his outstanding book “De L’Influence de la Nuit sur les Maladies ou Traité des Maladies Nocturne”. In his book he concentrated on the following questions:

- Does the night has an influence on a disease?

- Are there diseases in which this is more or less obvious?

- What is the physical background of this influence?

Murat described in detail certain diseases which dominate at night and he concluded that the most evident motivation for his observations is the constant and periodic movement of the earth around its axis, resulting in a period of about 24 h, and the elliptic rotation around the sun. Most important Murat presented for the first time data that the menstrual cycle is not governed by the lunar cycle.     

The origins of “new assimilation theory”

Boundaries play an important role in Richard Alba’s articulation of new assimilation theory, as is evident in the major works he has produced during the past two decades. This article traces his interest in boundaries to “The Twilight of Ethnicity among Americans of European Ancestry: The Case of Italians”, an article he published in ERS in 1985. It is in this article and a related book published the same year that one can begin to trace the evolution of his thinking on both ethnic boundaries and the cultural content contained within those boundaries.     

Darwin,Wallace, and Huxley,and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Conclusion Publication of the Vestiges and the rather primitive theory of evolution it expounded thus played a significant role in the careers of Darwin and Wallace. In addition, in spite of his poor opinion of the Vestiges, it presented Huxley with a convenient topic for critical discussion and the opportunity to focus more attention on the subject of evolution. The dynamic interactions among these leading figures of nineteenth-century natural science helped spur the development of more sophisticated models of evolution.Darwin had a proper appreciation of Chambers's contribution to evolutionary thought, although he fully recognized the shortcomings of this work. He understood the importance of allowing fresh ideas about organic change to be ventilated. However, he was primarily concerned with his own theory and viewed all developments in evolutionary biology from this perspective. If he did not give full consideration to Chambers and his book early on, it was due mainly to his feeling that the concepts in the Vestiges were very different from his own; he was therefore reluctant to embrace them as the forerunners of his own theory. As a scholar, he was also troubled by the scientific errors in the book. However, the record demonstrates that he attempted to make amends for any oversight on his part. His generous letter to Chambers's daughter, and his gracious treatment of Chambers during the brief time the latter lived in London, are ample proof of that.The attacks of Huxley, Sedgwick, and other prominent natural historians and geologists at the time, the problems inherent in Chambers's evolutionary theory, and the publication of the Origin, are the major reasons why the Vestiges became a neglected work. Nevertheless, Chambers's contribution will always stand out because, together with those of other late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century predecessors of Darwin, it laid the foundations of modern evolutionary thought and, more importantly, helped prepare the scientific community for the more fully developed ideas of Darwin and Wallace.     

A 'misplaced chapter' in the history of photosynthesis research; the second publication (1796) on plant processes by Dr Jan Ingen-Housz,MD, discoverer of photosynthesis

In 1779, the Dutch physician Jan Ingen-Housz (1730–1799) obtained a leave-of-absence from his post as Court Physician to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in order to do research (in England) on plants during the summer months. He performed more than 500 experiments, and described the results in his exceptional book Experiments Upon Vegetables (1779). In addition to proving the requirement for light in photosynthesis, Ingen-Housz established that leaves were the primary sites of the photosynthetic process. Later, Ingen- Housz published research papers on various subjects but aside from his 1779 book, he published only one more communication on photosynthesis and plant physiology. This was entitled 'An Essay on the Food of Plants and the Renovation of Soils'. The essay was published in 1796 as an appendix to an obscure British government report, which is rare and virtually unknown. The present paper describes the 1796 essay, which is particularly interesting in that it shows how Ingen-Housz's concepts were modified by new interpretations of chemical phenomena described in Lavoisier's great and revolutionary book Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789). Ingen-Housz not only discovered photosynthesis, but plant respiration as well, and the 1796 essay is testimony to his remarkable insights.     

Art and Agency: A Reassessment

In his book, Art and agency , Alfred Gell presents a theory of art based neither on aesthetics nor on visual communication. Art is defined by the distinctive function it performs in advancing social relationships through 'the abduction of agency'. Art objects are indexes of the artist's or model's agency. This article examines Gell's use of agency, particularly in relation to the ritual art that is central to his argument. Focusing on Gell's employment of Peirce's term 'index' (out of his triad of index, icon, and symbol), I note that Peirce's approach deflects attention from signification towards the link between art works and the things to which they refer. I consider what Peirce meant by abduction, and conclude that while Gell makes a good case for the agency of art objects he does not explain the distinctive ways in which art objects extend their maker's or user's agency. Gell lacked the time to make detailed revisions before publication and I acknowledge that, given more time, he might have revised some parts of the book.     

Groups on Groups: Some Dynamics and Possible Resolution of the Units of Selection Debates in Evolutionary Biology

David Hull's analysis of conceptual change in science, as presentedin his book, Science as a Process (1988), provides a useful framework for understanding one of the scientific controversies in which he actively and constructively intervened, the units of selectiondebates in evolutionary biology. What follows is a brief overview ofthose debates and some reflections on them.     

Charles Mills for and against liberalism

Charles Mills both severely criticizes and reluctantly accepts liberal political theory’s approach to race and racism. In this new book, he develops contract theory’s understanding of race and racism in the effort to resuscitate liberalism from the racist deathbed on which it lies. To do this he must wrestle with political forms of black resistance that comport uneasily with liberalism, at best: nationalism notably, but also other types of racially oriented collective subjectivity, for example, identity politics. The book represents a major advance in Mills’s thought, but his work remains uneasy about the instability of race and the flexibility of racism.     

Dr. Max King: the sad life and early death of Mackenzie King's physician brother

While researching her best-selling biography, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, CMAJ contributing editor Charlotte Gray discovered a wealth of information about Dr. Dougal Macdougall (Max) King. Although he never became as famous as his older brother Mackenzie, Gray presents a convincing argument that Dr. Max King''s life and early death speak volumes about medicine and the medical profession at the turn of the century. She also argues that Mackenzie King''s own life would have been much different had his brother not died at the too young age of 42. Gray''s book was nominated for the Viacom Award, which honours the best nonfiction book published annually in Canada.     

The life and times of Ferruccio Ritossa

Ferruccio Ritossa wrote these lines only a few months before he died, as a preface to a book he wanted to write and that, unfortunately, we will never be able to read. It was to be the story of his life, an amazing story indeed. With this article, we want to take a picture of Ferruccio’s life, a mosaic of events, facts, ideas, hopes, and memories linked in a way that they will not go away, even after “a stroll in our brain.”     

The physiologist Johann Autenrieth (1772–1835) at Tübingen University: early reports on biological rhythms and their use for medical lectures

Johann, Heinrich, Ferdinand von Autenrieth [1772–1835], was a teacher of anatomy, physiology and pharmacology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He was the author of a famous textbook on Physiology and one of the earliest pharmacologists [Öffentlicher Lehrer der Arzneykunst]. In his textbooks, he presented a lot of information that and how biological rhythms influenced physiological functions in the human body, the book was used for his medical lectures for students. He can be regarded as on of the earliest chronophysiologists. Most important, he assumed a chemical stimulation responsible for generating the periodicities in the human body.     

Garland Allen,Thomas Hunt Morgan,and Development

Garland E. Allen’s 1978 biography of the Nobel Prize winning biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan provides an excellent study of the man and his science. Allen presents Morgan as an opportunistic scientist who follows where his observations take him, leading him to his foundational work in Drosophila genetics. The book was rightfully hailed as an important achievement and it introduced generations of readers to Morgan. Yet, in hindsight, Allen’s book largely misses an equally important part of Morgan’s work – his study of development and regeneration. It is worth returning to this part of Morgan, exploring what Morgan contributed and also why he has been seen by contemporaries and historians such as Allen as having set aside some of the most important developmental problems. A closer look shows how Morgan’s view of cells and development that was different from that of his most noted contemporaries led to interpretation of his important contributions in favor of genetics. This essay is part of a special issue, revisiting Garland Allen's views on the history of life sciences in the twentieth century.     

Cryptic designs on the peppered moth

In a provocative recent book, Jonathan Wells (2000) decries what he discerns as a systematic pattern in how introductory biology textbooks "blatantly misrepresent" ten routinely cited examples offered as evidence for evolution. Each of these examples, according to Wells, is fraught with interpretive problems and, as such, textbooks that continue to use them should at the very least be accompanied by warning labels. The following essay critiques his reasoning with reference to one of these examples, the phenomenon of industrial melanism. After criticizing Wells's specific argument, the essay draws several conclusions about the nature of science lost in his account.     

Mendel's experiments: A reinterpretation

Conclusion My conclusion is that Mendel deliberately, though without any real falsification, tried to suggest to his audience and readers an unlikely and substantially wrong reconstruction of the first and most important phase of his research. In my book I offer many reasons for this strange and surprising behavior,⁵³ but the main argument rests on the fact of linkage. Mendelian genetics cannot account for linkage because it was based on the idea of applying probability theory to the problem of species evolution. Central to the theory is the law of probability according to which the chance occurrence of a combination of independent events is the product of their separate probabilities. This is the common basis of Mendel's first and second laws, but this is why Mendel's second law on independent assortment is enunciated in too general a way. From Morgan's work we now know that characters may not always be independent if their genes are located very close one to the other on the same chromosome. And this was also the basis of Mendel's personal drama: he surely observed the effects of linkage, but he had no theoretical tools with which to explain it. So he presented his results in a logical structure consistent with the central idea of his theory. Had he described the real course of his experiments he would have had to admit that his law worked for only a few of the hundreds of Pisum characters — and it would thus have been considered more of an exception than a rule. This is why he insisted on the necessity of testing the law on other plants, and this is why in his second letter to Carl Nägeli he admits that the publication of his data was untimely and dangerous.⁵⁴.We can argue that already in 1866 Mendel was less confident that his so-called second law had the same general validity as the first — and that later he lost his confidence altogether. Contemporary testimony indicates that in the end he became as skeptical as all his contemporaries as to the scientific relevance of his theory.⁵⁵ But he was wrong. His research is in no way the fruit of methodological mistakes or forgery, and it remains a landmark in the history of science. He was only the victim of a strange destiny in which the use of probability theory was responsible, at the same time, for the strength and for the weakness of his theory. We must still consider him the father and founder of genetics.     

A biologist's thinking man

Philosopher Daniel Dennett believes he has an evolutionary explanation for one of biology's most difficult concepts: free will. Nigel Williams reports on his latest book.