Bao-yu: A Mental Disorder or a Cultural Icon?

The embodied human subject is dynamically connected to his or her historico-sociocultural context, the soil from which a person’s psyche is nourished as multiplex meanings are absorbed and enable personal development. In each culture certain towering artistic works embody this perspective. The Dream of the Red Chamber introduces Jia Bao-yu—a scion of the prestigious Jia family—and his relationships with a large cast of characters. Bao-yu is controversial but, at the time of the family’s tragic collapse, he can be seen as embodying a spiritual struggle in which his instinct, nature, sensitivity, and creativity are grounded in his transcendent relationship with a fragment of the world stone, an eternal source of energy and creativity. We are invited to draw on a metaphysical level of thought to consider his struggles with man-made hierarchies and a situated historico-sociocultural order in such a way as to live out his spiritual being. As such, the novel is closely relevant to questions of spirituality in bioethics. Through personal experiences, passions, creativity, and relationships with others, the body is inscribed, forming the soul, which may be misconstrued (for instance, through a medical or Cartesian reformulation of events) but which can be seen as the site of ethical and spiritual thought.     

The astrological roots of mesmerism

Franz Anton Mesmer’s 1766 thesis on the influence of the planets on the human body, in which he first publicly presented his account of the harmonic forces at work in the microcosm, was substantially copied from the London physician Richard Mead’s early eighteenth century tract on solar and lunar effects on the body. The relation between the two texts poses intriguing problems for the historiography of medical astrology: Mesmer’s use of Mead has been taken as a sign of the Vienna physician’s enlightened modernity while Mead’s use of astro-meteorology has been seen as evidence of the survival of antiquated astral medicine in the eighteenth century.Two aspects of this problem are discussed. First, French critics of mesmerism in the 1780s found precedents for animal magnetism in the work of Paracelsus, Fludd and other early modern writers; in so doing, they began to develop a sophisticated history for astrology and astro-meteorology.Second, the close relations between astro-meteorology and Mead’s project illustrate how the environmental medical programmes emerged. The making of a history for astrology accompanied the construction of various models of the relation between occult knowledge and its contexts in the enlightenment.     

We Know in Part: James McCosh on Evolution and Christian Faith

James McCosh (1811–1894), president of Princeton College from 1868 to 1888, played a significant role in the American reception of evolution in the late 1800s – he was one of the more prominent clergyman to assuage the public’s fears of evolution while incorporating evolution into a conservative Christian worldview. McCosh was a prolific writer, whose books document his intellectual journey from hostility to acceptance of evolution. Three things will stand out in this overview that have not been emphasized in detail in other works: (1) James McCosh’s perspective on evolution dramatically changed over time; (2) McCosh’s motivations for engaging in the evolution-religion debate serve to clear up confusion regarding McCosh’s final position on evolution; and (3) the theological and philosophical basis for McCosh’s acceptance of evolution was established while McCosh was still hostile to evolution. His theological background therefore ‘pre-adapted’ him for evolution, and he was able to preach theology and evolution without substantially altering his theology.     

Monkeys into Men and Men into Monkeys: Chance and Contingency in the Evolution of Man, Mind and Morals in Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies

The nineteenth century theologian, author and poet Charles Kingsley was a notable populariser of Darwinian evolution. He championed Darwin’s cause and that of honesty in science for more than a decade from 1859 to 1871. Kingsley’s interpretation of evolution shaped his theology, his politics and his views on race. The relationship between men and apes set the context for Kingsley’s consideration of these issues. Having defended Darwin for a decade in 1871 Kingsley was dismayed to read Darwin’s account of the evolution of morals in Descent of Man. He subsequently distanced himself from Darwin’s conclusions even though he remained an ardent evolutionist until his death in 1875.     

Engaging with Lyell: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Sarawak Law and Ternate papers as reactions to Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) and Charles Darwin (1809–1882) are honored as the founders of modern evolutionary biology. Accordingly, much attention has focused on their relationship, from their independent development of the principle of natural selection to the receipt by Darwin of Wallace’s essay from Ternate in the spring of 1858, and the subsequent reading of the Wallace and Darwin papers at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858. In the events of 1858 Wallace and Darwin are typically seen as central players, with Darwin’s friends Charles Lyell (1797–1875) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) playing supporting roles. This narrative has resulted in an under-appreciation of a more central role for Charles Lyell as both Wallace’s inspiration and foil. The extensive anti-transmutation arguments in Lyell’s landmark Principles of Geology were taken as the definitive statement on the subject. Wallace, in his quest to solve the mystery of species origins, engaged with Lyell’s arguments in his private field notebooks in a way that is concordant with his engagement with Lyell in the 1855 and 1858 papers. I show that Lyell was the object of Wallace’s Sarawak Law and Ternate papers through a consideration of the circumstances that led Wallace to send his Ternate paper to Darwin, together with an analysis of the material that Wallace drew upon from the Principles. In this view Darwin was, ironically, intended for a supporting role in mediating Wallace’s attempted dialog with Lyell.     

William E. Vidaver (1921–2017): an innovator,enthusiastic scientist,inspiring teacher and a wonderful friend

William (Bill) E. Vidaver (February 2, 1921–August 31, 2017), who did his Ph.D. with Laurence (Larry) R. Blinks at Stanford (1964) and a postdoc with C. Stacy French (1965), taught and did research at Simon Fraser University (SFU) for almost 30 years. Here he published over 80 papers in photosynthesis-related areas co-authored by his graduate students, postdocs, visiting professors and SFU colleagues. He developed a unique high-pressure cuvette for the study of oxygen exchange and studied high-pressure effects in photosynthesis. Ulrich (Uli) Schreiber, as a postdoctoral fellow from Germany, introduced measurements on chlorophyll (Chl) a fluorescence to Bill’s lab, leading to the discovery of reversible inhibition of excitation energy transfer between photosynthetic pigments and of a pivotal role of O₂ in the oxidation of the electron transport chain between Photosystem II (PS II) and PS I. Bill’s and Uli’s work led to a patent of a portable chlorophyll fluorometer, the first available commercially, which was later modified to measure whole plantlets. The latter was used in pioneering measurement of the health of forest and crop plants undergoing in vitro clonal micropropagation. With several other researchers (including Doug Bruce, the late Radovan Popovic, and Sarah Swenson), he localized the quenching site of O₂ and showed a dampening effect on measurements of the four-step process of O₂ production by endogenous oxygen uptake. Bill is remembered as a hard-working but fun-loving person with a keen mind and strong sense of social justice.     

Conception et suites de la Paléontologie française d’Alcide d’Orbigny

The whole formed by his Paléontologie française, his Prodrome, and his Cours élémentaire, which are closely linked, constitutes one of the major parts of Alcide d’Orbigny’s scientific production, in which he exposed his concept of Palaeontology as a science closely related with Zoology and as an indispensable tool for Stratigraphy. The result was a remarkable impulsion for palaeontological and stratigraphical research, which from that time developed on new scientific foundations. Two annexes complete this communication, the first concerning the ‘Comité de la Paléontologie française’ (1860–1893), the second specifying the publication dates of four volumes of the Paléontologie française.     

Postcolonial Ecologies of Parasite and Host: Making Parasitism Cosmopolitan

The interest of F. Macfarlane Burnet in host–parasite interactions grew through the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in his book, Biological Aspects of Infectious Disease (1940), often regarded as the founding text of disease ecology. Our knowledge of the influences on Burnet’s ecological thinking is still incomplete. Burnet later attributed much of his conceptual development to his reading of British theoretical biology, especially the work of Julian Huxley and Charles Elton, and regretted he did not study Theobald Smith’s Parasitism and Disease (1934) until after he had formulated his ideas. Scholars also have adduced Burnet’s fascination with natural history and the clinical and public health demands on his research effort, among other influences. I want to consider here additional contributions to Burnet’s ecological thinking, focusing on his intellectual milieu, placing his research in a settler society with exceptional expertise in environmental studies and pest management. In part, an ‘‘ecological turn’’ in Australian science in the 1930s, derived to a degree from British colonial scientific investments, shaped Burnet’s conceptual development. This raises the question of whether we might characterize, in postcolonial fashion, disease ecology, and other studies of parasitism, as successful settler colonial or dominion science.     

PSYCHOTHERAPY—A Concept for the Nonpsychiatric Physician

Patients tend to repeat with their physician, as with other significant people in their lives, their earlier previous patterns of behavior. The physician as well as the patient is involved in the physician-patient relationship. He will tend to respond to his patients in accordance with his earlier life experiences and his characteristic repetitive behavioral pattern. For both physician and patient, the relationship between them extends beyond the immediate reality situation.Psychotherapy is the utilization of psychological measures in the treatment of sick persons and the deliberate utilization by the physician of the physician-patient relationship for the benefit of the patient. The kind of psychotherapy that is practical and utilizable by the nonpsychiatric physician is that which uses education, reassurance, support and the management of the patient''s problems either directly or indirectly or through the intermediary of other people or agencies.The symbolic aspect of the physician-patient relationship is based essentially on the fact that a sick person, because of his anxiety and because of the threat to his physical and psychic integrity, is more dependent and more anxious than he would be if he were well, and therefore he has a correspondingly greater need for the authoritative and protective figure he finds in the physician.Psychotherapy is not directed exclusively to the treatment of flagrantly or obviously neurotic or psychotic patients. It should be and is directed to all sick persons. Limitations in psychotherapy are set by various determinants, among which are the nature of the precipitating factor in the illness, the nature of the sick person, the skill, knowledge and abilities of the physician, and the nature of the physician-patient relationship. In psychotherapy, as in all medicine, the physician should not do anything which may disturb the patient if the disturbance is of no value or if it cannot be followed through with special skills.     

Hebrew and Latin astrology in the twelfth century: the example of the location of pain

The formative period of Latin and Hebrew astrology occurred virtually simultaneously in both cultures. In the second quarter of the twelfth century the terminology of the subject was established and the textbooks which became authoritative were written. The responsibility for this lay almost entirely with two scholars: John of Seville for the Latins, and Abraham ibn Ezra for the Jews. It is unlikely to have been by coincidence that the same developments in astrology occurred in these two cultures. John of Seville and Abraham ibn Ezra were both brought up within the Islamic culture of Spain, and their astrology was Arabic astrology. Moreover, some scholars have thought that John’s origins were Jewish, while Ibn Ezra is known to have collaborated with Latin scholars (whose names are not recorded). It cannot be a coincidence that they forged the science of astrology for their respect co-religionists at almost the same time. Yet, very little research has been done on the possible relations between the two scholars. The purpose of this paper is to begin to explore this relationship, and to illustrate it in particular by their shared doctrine concern the location of pain.     

Transformation in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dang</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">ki</Emphasis> Healing: The Embodied Self and Perceived Legitimacy

Since spirit possession in mediumship and shamanism resembles psychotic symptoms, early researchers perceived spirit mediums and shamans as psychiatric patients whose psychopathology was culturally sanctioned. However, other researchers have not only challenged this assumption, but also proposed that spirit possession has transformative benefits. The idiom of spirit possession provides cultural meanings for spirit mediums and shamans to express and transform their personal experiences. The present case study focuses on dang-ki healing, a form of Chinese mediumship practiced in Singapore, in which a deity possesses a human (i.e., dang-ki) to offer aid to supplicants. This study seeks to explore whether involvement in dang-ki healing is transformative; and if so, how the dang-ki’s transformation is related to his self and the perceived legitimacy of his mediumship. At a shrine, I interviewed 20 participants, including a male dang-ki, 10 temple assistants, and nine clients. The results obtained were supportive of the therapeutic nature of spirit possession. First, there is a relationship between his self-transformation and the perceived legitimacy of his mediumship. As his clients and community have recognized his spirit possession as genuine, and the healing power of his possessing god, he is able to make use of mediumship as a means for spiritual development. Second, he has developed his spirituality by internalizing his god’s positive traits (e.g., compassion). Deities worshipped in dang-ki healing can be conceptualized as ideal selves who represent a wide range of positive traits and moral values of Chinese culture. Thus, the possession of a deity is the embodiment of an ideal self. Finally, the dang-ki’s transformation may run parallel to his god’s transformation. In Chinese religions, gods have to constantly develop their spirituality even though they are already gods. An understanding of the god’s spiritual development further sheds light on the dang-ki’s self-transformation.     

Darwin's principles of divergence and natural selection: Why Fodor was almost right

Darwin maintained that the principles of natural selection and divergence were the “keystones” of his theory. He introduced the principle of divergence to explain a fundamental feature of living nature: that organisms cluster into hierarchical groups, so as to be classifiable in the Linnaean taxonomic categories of variety, species, genus, and so on. Darwin’s formulation of the principle of divergence, however, induces many perplexities. In his Autobiography, he claimed that he had neglected the problem of divergence in his Essay of 1844 and only solved it in a flash during a carriage ride in the 1850s; yet he does seem to have stated the problem in the Essay and provided the solution. This initial conundrum sets three questions I wish to pursue in this essay: (1) What is the relationship of the principle of divergence to that of natural selection? Is it independent of selection, derivative of selection, or a type of selection, perhaps comparable to sexual selection? (2) What is the advantage of divergence that the principle implies—that is, why is increased divergence beneficial in the struggle for life? And (3) What led Darwin to believe he had discovered the principle only in the 1850s? The resolution of these questions has implications for Darwin’s other principle, natural selection, and permits us to readjust the common judgment made about Jerry Fodor’s screed against that latter principle.     

Ami Boué (1794–1881), géoscientifique du XIXe siècle

Born on 16 March 1794 in Hamburg as a son of a Huguenot family whose members made big fortune as ship-owners, Ami Boué took his doctor’s degree in medicine in 1817 at the University of Edinburgh. During the following years, he completed his knowledge in the field of natural sciences, especially in Geoscience. In 1830, after having founded, with other scientists, among whom Constant Prévost and Gérard-Paul Deshayes, the Geological Society of France, in which Boué became the first president, he left Paris in 1835 and settled in Vienna. In 1836, 1837 and 1838 he crossed the Balkans. In his masterpiece La Turquie d’Europe (Paris, 1840, four volumes), he published the results of this research. In his study, Ami Boué intended to join the Austrian empire with Turkey by railways. Anyway, Boué’s works concerning the Balkans were fundamental for the future generations of Austrian geoscientists.     

Réaumur (1683–1757): the discoverer of parasitoids in France

Early French discoveries of insect parasitoids and various aspects of their life cycle are discussed in this paper. Parasitism in insects first attracted the attention of French scientists in the 18th century, despite indifference of the famous encyclopedists of “the Age of Enlightenment” to this group of animals. Fortunately, a distinguished scientist of many talents, R.A. Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757), was interested in the study of insects. His work on insects, “Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes” published in six volumes, remains his most well known opus. He was the first person in France to describe an entomophagous insect (probably a Cotesia species) as well as several aspects of the biological characteristics of parasitoid life in 1736. Together with Latreille (1762–1833), he may be considered one of the founding fathers of entomology in France.     

Un premier schéma de l’inconscient par Charcot dès 1892

The recent discovery of a drawing of the mind sheds new light on Charcot’s contribution to the discovery of the unconscious. This particular drawing, given by his son Jean-Baptiste, was found in Charcot’s personal notes related to a lecture he gave in June 1892 and was kept in the Salpêtrière historical collection of the University Pierre and Marie Curie. Is this drawing an anticipation of Freud’s first topology of the Unconscious? This is the main issue raised. In order to understand its full meaning, we will focus on Charcot’s scientific thoughts, the specific position he held on hypnosis, his studies on the force of the idea and experimental paralysis, his relationships with Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud during the years 1885–1992, and finally, his view on Sigmund Freud that is shared in their correspondences.     

Beyond frontiers and time: the scientific and cultural heritage of Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857)

Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny was born on 6 September 1802 in Couëron (near Nantes), France. In his early youth, he developed a life interest in the study of a group of microscopic animals that he named ‘Foraminifera’. In his first scientific work, devoted to this group, he established the basis of a new science, micropaleontology. All his life, he worked on foraminifera, but his concern in natural sciences widely exceeded the domain of micropaleontology. Impressed by his first work on foraminifera, published at the age of 23, the scientists of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) chose him as the naturalist explorer for an expedition to South America. Alcide d’Orbigny explored Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru from 1826 to 1833. He was a great humanist and applied the view of an ethnologist and historian to the communities with which he shared his daily life in South America. A precursor in biogeography and ecology, he contributed greatly to the advancement of knowledge of the animal and vegetal kingdoms by describing several thousand living species in the nine volumes of his ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’ (1835–1847). Back in France, he turned his research towards paleontology and stratigraphy. He undertook the immense task of describing all species of fossil invertebrates found in France in the eight volumes of ‘La Paléontologie française’ (1840–1860). He arranged 18 000 species in stratigraphic order in the three volumes of ‘Prodrome de Paléontologie stratigraphique’ (1850–1852), and published three volumes entitled ‘Cours élémentaire de paléontologie et de géologie stratigraphiques’ (1849–1852). These important works led him to create the first geological and stratigraphical scale. Many of the 27 stages established are still used in the standard chronostratigraphic scale. The Chair of Paleontology of the MNHN in Paris was created for him in 1853. He died on 30 June 1857 at the age of 55, in Pierrefitte (France), leaving behind him a huge scientific and cultural heritage. Alcide d’Orbigny bequeathed to posterity a collection of more than 100 000 vegetable and animal specimens. This exceptionally rich heritage, deposited in the MNHN, is an international reference collection, and it is actively consulted by specialists from around the world. The application of his work extends to various fields of academic research (such as earth history, paleoceanography and paleoclimatology), to economics and practical applications in stratigraphy and micropaleontology that greatly contribute to oil and other resource exploration as well as major earth construction. The bicentennial of the birth of Alcide d’Orbigny was celebrated in France during the year 2002 under the patronage of the highest authorities of the state, along with scientific and cultural institutions. A traveling exhibition presented the different facets of his life’s work and international congresses were held in the three places dearest to Alcide d’Orbigny: Santa Cruz (Bolivia), La Rochelle (France) and Paris (France). This year (2003) marks the 150th anniversary of his appointment to the Chair of Paleontology of the MNHN.