THE REMARKABLE P. F. B. VON SIEBOLD,HIS LIFE IN EUROPE AND JAPAN

We present a synopsis of the major trends of Siebold's life, his youth in the Rhineland and his lengthy employment as a physician and natural scientist in the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies. We follow his career on the cramped Japanese island of Dejima where he was based for 6 years. We reveal how, during two visits to Japan, Siebold became a renowned ethnographer, natural historian, author and entrepreneur and an unsuccessful diplomat. In this paper we attempt to provide an insight into Siebold's varied life in Bavaria, The Netherlands and Japan.     

Family metaphor in political and public debates in the Netherlands on migrants from the (former) Dutch East Indies 1949–66

Abstract

In 1949, the Dutch East Indies became independent Indonesia. In the aftermath of decolonization more than 300,000 people migrated from this former colony to the Netherlands. This article focuses on political and public debates in the Netherlands in which the boundaries between former colonizer and colonized were redrawn as a consequence of decolonization and migration. Migrants from former colonies claimed and were attributed a different position in the societies of their former colonizer than other migrants, based on their juridical citizenship, perceived shared history, Dutchness, loyalty and debt. Not all migrants for the former Dutch East Indies could be recipients of the same label. Dutchness could be stretched, but at one point the rhetoric changed from ‘family’ to ‘guests’.     

From Bacteriology to Biochemistry: Albert Jan Kluyver and Chester Werkman at Iowa State

This essay explores connections between bacteriology and the disciplinary evolution of biochemistry in this country during the 1930s. Many features of intermediary metabolism, a central component of biochemistry, originated as attempts to answer fundamental bacteriological questions. Thus, many bacteriologists altered their research programs to answer these questions. In so doing they changed their disciplinary focus from bacteriology to biochemistry. Chester Hamlin Werkman's (1893–1962) Iowa State career illustrates the research perspective that many bacteriologists adopted. As a junior faculty member in the Bacteriology Department in the late 1920s, Werkman faced a powerful professional dilemma: establishing a research identity that distinguished him from his colleagues with flourishing national and international reputations. His solution was to radically alter his research program from traditional bacteriology to a biochemistry program, which reflected the influence of the Dutch microbiologist/biochemist, Albert Jan Kluyver (1888–1956). Werkman was extremely successful in this career change. His laboratory made significant contributions to biochemistry, and Werkman achieved a notable degree of personal success. His career began in the shadow of his departmental bacteriological colleagues; within a decade he became the department's dominant research figure, as a biochemist. Werkman's personal success, however, had profound consequences for the disciplinary future of bacteriology at Iowa State. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Gene centres,a source for genetic variants in symbiotic nitrogen fixation: The symbiotic response of the cultivated pea toRhizobium leguminosarum strains from Europe and the Middle East

Summary Soil samples from several European countries; Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Greece, contained rhizobial populations capable of forming an effective symbiosis with the cultivated pea cv. Rondo from the Netherlands. The range of variation among the European Rhizobium strains, as expressed on pea cv. Rondo, was not so large and almost the same variation could be found within the rhizobial population within each country. Superior Rhizobium strains for the Dutch pea were not restricted to soils from the Netherlands but were also found in those from Sweden and Italy.Soils from Turkey and Israel also contained Rhizobium strains capable of nodulating pea cv. Rondo. However, the genetic variation among these Middle East Rhizobium strains was much larger than that of the European strains. When tested on pea cv. Rondo the majority of the Middle East strains belonged to the medium or low effective classes and only a few strains were comparable with European Rhizobium strains.Dutch Rhizobium strains induced effective nodules on both the Dutch pea cv. Rondo and the Swedish cv. L 110. However, in association with a Turkish Rhizobium strain effective nodules were formed on pea cv. Rondo and ineffective nodules on cv. L 110.We suggest that the genetic uniformity of EuropeanR. leguminosarum strains is the result of selection and domestication of Rhizobium strains originally derived from the gene centres of the pea plant.     

Cinchona plantation in the new world

The pre-war Dutch East Indies monopoly of cinchona bark, source of quinine—the world’s great febrifuge—is being challenged by the prospective results of extensive experimental plantings of the trees in Guatemala.     

Advanced directives. Legal and practical aspects of negative instructions concerning medical treatment

The right of a competent patient to stipulate in advance of possible non-competence, medical treatment he does not want, is based on the fundamental legal principle that a person cannot be medically treated without his informed consent. It is in Dutch law a strong and almost unqualified right. There are indications in the international literature, however, that advance directives in many cases may not have much influence on medical treatment at the end of life. Very little is known about the social practice of advance directives in the Netherlands.     

Governing Muslims and Islam in Contemporary Germany: Race,Time, and the German Islam Conference

The construction of a swimming pool for the European personnel of one of the fifty or so colonial sugar factories still operating in Java in the mid-1930s was a symptom of the growing 'enclavement' of the Dutch colonial communities on the island during the final decades of the Netherlands India. An earlier phase of Dutch colonialism in the Indies had been characterized by hybrid, inclusivist social practices and cultural assumptions generally labelled indisch or Indo-European. By the inter-war decades of the twentieth century, totok – meaning expatriate – norms and values began to assert their hegemony at virtually all levels of colonial society. Yet ambiguity continues to surround this progress from incorporation to differentiation, as instanced by the inter-war history of the Europeans who lived in the residential compound which the pool was designed to service.     

The contribution of neighbouring countries to pesticide levels in Dutch surface waters

Compared with other European countries, Dutch consumption of pesticides is high, particularly in agriculture, with many of the compounds found in surface waters in high concentrations and various standards being exceeded. Surface water quality is routinely monitored and the data obtained are published in the Dutch Pesticides Atlas. One important mechanism for reducing pesticide levels in surface waters is authorisation policy, which proceeds on the assumption that the pollution concerned has taken place in the Netherlands. The country straddles the delta of several major European rivers, however, and as river basins do not respect national borders some of the water quality problems will derive from neighbouring countries. Against this background the general question addressed in this article is the following: To what extent do countries neighbouring on the Netherlands contribute to pesticide pollution of Dutch surface waters? To answer this question, data from the Pesticides Atlas for the period 2005-2009 were used. Border zones with Belgium and Germany were defined and the data for these zones compared with Dutch data. In the analyses, due allowance was also made for authorised and non-authorised compounds and for differences between flowing and stagnant waters. Monitoring efforts in the border zones and in the Netherlands were also characterised, showing that efforts in the former are similar to those in the rest of the country. In the border zone with Belgium the relative number of non-authorised pesticides exceeding the standards is clearly higher than in the rest of the Netherlands. These exceedances are observed mainly in flowing waters. In contrast, there is no difference in the relative number of standard-exceeding measurements between the border zones and the rest of the Netherlands. In the boundary zones the array of standard-exceeding compounds clearly deviates from that in the rest of the Netherlands, with compounds authorised in the neighbouring countries but not in the Netherlands, such as flufenacet, featuring prominently. The share of the neighbouring countries in the total number of exceedances in the Netherlands is roughly proportional to the relative area of the border zones. Although there is a certain influx of pesticides from across national borders, the magnitude of the problem appears to be limited.     

COINCIDENT BIOGEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS: INDO-WEST PACIFIC OCEAN

The majority of tropical marine families demonstrate their greatest concentration of species within the relatively small East Indies Triangle. In every direction, the species diversity decreases with distance from the East Indies. Other patterns suggest that the East Indies is where the average generic age is youngest, where some historical routes of dispersal originate, where the most apomorphic species occur, where genetic diversity is the greatest, and where extinctions are likely to originate. These coincident patterns provide support for the hypothesis that the East Indies has been operating as a center of evolutionary radiation. The driving force for this dynamic system is apparently the predominance of successful speciation involving relatively large populations with higher genetic diversity. This mechanism fits the centrifugal speciation model that was proposed more than 50 years ago.     

Pasteur, Koch and American bacteriology

This study traces American awareness of the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch from the 1860s to the 1890s. In the years before the Civil War, American interest in germ theories had appeared at times of epidemics and persisted to a limited extent among physician-microscopists. Discussions of Pasteur's work occurred primarily in the context of spontaneous generation and antisepsis. Few Americans imitated his work on immunology or studied with Pasteur, but his work on immunity influenced their faith in the potential of bacteriology as a solution to problems of infectious disease. Koch's discoveries of the bacterial agents of tuberculosis and cholera stimulated American medical and public health interest in bacteriology in a more practical way. Americans learned Koch's methods by taking his courses and imported them directly into their own laboratories. A context of enthusiasm for science, educational reform, and problems of infectious disease associated with urbanization and changes in agriculture aided the growth of bacteriology in the American context.     

Legal developments concerning active euthanasia on request in the Netherlands

The author describes social and legal developments in the debate over active euthanasia in the Netherlands. There, as in all of Western Europe, euthanasia is a crime. Although the medical profession in several European countries has rejected efforts to change the situation, the Dutch Medical Association in 1984 issued a statement indicating an increased willingness to accept euthanasia under stringent guidelines. Some court decisions have been lenient in applying penal law to doctors acting at the wish of their patients. The Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia published a 1985 report advocating modification of the Penal Code. [An English summary of the report appears in the same issue of Bioethics]. An emotional debate is underway in medical and legal journals and in the mass media, but the Council of State has advised against any legislative change for now. Meanwhile, euthanasia continues to occur in the Netherlands at an estimated rate of 5,000 to 8,000 cases a year.     

Specialization and medical mycology in the US, Britain and Japan

This paper attempts to bring new insights to a long-standing historical debate over medical specialization by analyzing the formation of medical mycology, a somewhat marginal biomedical discipline that emerged in the mid-twentieth century around studies of fungal disease in humans. The study of fungi predates that of bacteria and viruses, but from the 1880s it became eclipsed by bacteriology. However, in the postwar period, there were moves to establish medical mycology as an independent speciality. I trace the processes that led to the launch of professional societies in the United States, Britain and Japan, three major players in medical mycology, and more broadly in biomedicine. The analysis of the three different national contexts illustrates how geographical, medico-technological, epidemiological, political and social conditions gave the specialty a distinctive character in each country; this was further complicated by the different and changing medical fields in which fungal diseases were studied and treated. The three case studies show medical specialization as a process that is not simply cumulative but responds to specific historical events and developments.     

Persistence and recolonisation determine success of bog restoration for aquatic invertebrates: a comment on Mazerolle et al. (2006)

1. Mazerolle et al. (2006) concluded that some aquatic invertebrate species, including bog‐associated species, readily colonise man‐made bog pools. In contrast, in Dutch bog remnants Van Duinen et al. (2003) found that a considerable number of bog‐associated species do not colonise newly created bog pools. 2. The conclusion of Mazerolle et al. (2006) is based on vagile aquatic invertebrates. Here, we question whether their conclusion can be extended to more sedentary species, which were not captured in the Canadian study, but made up an important part of the invertebrate assemblage in the Dutch study. This discrepancy could be caused by sampling artefacts, low colonisation rates of these species or an incomplete restoration of site conditions. 3. In Canada, chances of recolonisation may be higher than in the Netherlands, as natural and near‐natural bogs are more extensive. In the Netherlands, with low chances of recolonisation, persistence of species may be more important. To disentangle the relative importance of persistence and recolonisation, evaluations of the success of restoration projects need to cover the entire invertebrate assemblage, including both vagile and more sedentary species.     

Graduate Education in Medical Microbiology: A Report of Five Years' Experience with the Course Leading to the Diploma in Bacteriology,University of Toronto

During the last five years, 48 graduates have taken the formal Diploma in Bacteriology course offered by the School of Hygiene, University of Toronto. This course provides instruction by lectures, seminars, and practical work in bacteriology, virology, immunology, parasitology, sanitary bacteriology, and statistics. A graduate course of this type presents many advantages as it is possible to cover a considerable area of knowledge in the relatively short space of one academic year. Of the 48 students, 23 held degrees in medicine, and 25 in veterinary science, arts, or science. Eleven diplomates continued further formal studies by enrolling in Master''s or Ph.D. programs. Twenty diplomates are now engaged in university teaching in Canada or overseas. Almost all of the remaining 28 are employed in hospital, public health, or veterinary laboratories.     

Resting cysts of someChaetoceros species,identified and figured by A. Van der Werff

This note is dedicated to Albert van der Werff (1903–1991), the Dutch diatom expert, distributing his extended knowledge to numerous students interested in aquatic ecology. His drawings of the resting cysts ofChaetoceros affine Lauder andCh. constrictum Gran, not figured in his diatom flora (van der werff andhuls, 1957–1974), are published and discussed. The figures represent a valuable contribution to taxonomical literature. Publication no. 661 Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Centre for Estuarine and Coastal Ecology, Yerseke, The Netherlands.     

The marine East Indies: diversity and speciation

Aim To discuss the impact of new diversity information and to utilize recent findings on modes of speciation in order to clarify the evolutionary significance of the East Indies Triangle. Location The Indo‐Pacific Ocean. Methods Analysis of information on species diversity, distribution patterns and speciation for comparative purposes. Results Information from a broad‐scale survey of Indo‐Pacific fishes has provided strong support for the theory that the East Indies Triangle has been operating as a centre of origin. It has become apparent that more than two‐thirds of the reef fishes inhabiting the Indo‐Pacific are represented in the Triangle. An astounding total of 1111 species, more than are known from the entire tropical Atlantic, were reported from one locality on the small Indonesian island of Flores. New information on speciation modes indicates that the several unique characteristics of the East Indian fauna are probably due to the predominance of competitive (sympatric) speciation. Main conclusions It is proposed that, within the East Indies, the high species diversity, the production of dominant species, and the presence of newly formed species, are due to natural selection being involved in reproductive isolation, the first step in the sympatric speciation process. In contrast, speciation in the peripheral areas is predominately allopatric. Species formed by allopatry are the direct result of barriers to gene flow. In this case, reproductive isolation may be seen as a physical process that does not involve natural selection. Allopatric species formation often takes millions of years, while the sympatric process is generally much faster. Following species formation, dispersal from the East Indies appears to take place according to the centrifugal hypothesis.     

Sibling relationships in Dutch and immigrant families

This study examines differences in sibling relationships among native Dutch and immigrant groups in the Netherlands. It uses a large national dataset to compare adult sibling relationships among Moroccan, Turkish, Caribbean and native Dutch groups, focusing on the varying importance of gender composition and age structure for the sibling relationship in the ethnic minority groups and the native Dutch families. Results show that, on average, ethnic minorities in the Netherlands have more involved sibling relationships in adulthood, with more contact, more emotional support, practical support (except Turks and Antilleans), a higher relationship quality, but also more conflict (among the Turks and Antilleans) compared to the Dutch. Gender constellation and hierarchical position were not of equal influence in all groups, although no clear patterns emerged.     

Robert Koch and the white death: from tuberculosis to tuberculin

The German medical bacteriologist Robert Koch is commonly considered one of the founding fathers of medical bacteriology. His investigations into the aetiology of tuberculosis uncovered the pathogen of this condition, the tubercle bacillus today known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, in 1882. This work can be seen as a cornerstone of contemporary medical bacteriology, its technologies and methods. It has often been asked how such successful research connected to the tuberculin episode of 1890/91, when Koch produced a medicine for that disease, which spectacularly failed when applied in practice. The analysis concentrates on the path of mostly experimental investigations which Koch followed between 1882 and 1890. From Koch's laboratory notes it becomes clear that tuberculin therapy did in fact work in Koch's laboratory, even though it failed to do so almost anywhere else. The clue to this contradictory picture lies in the peculiar nature of Koch's understanding of tuberculosis as a disease e.g. his reliance an animal experiments, which essentially differed from what many of his contemporaries held as essentials of that condition.     

Gene therapy in The Netherlands: highlights from the Low Countries

Gene therapy is an active research area in The Netherlands and Dutch scientists involved in fundamental and clinical gene therapy research significantly contribute to the progresses made in this field. This ranges from the establishment of the 293, 911 and PER.C6 cell lines, which are used worldwide for the production of replication-defective adenoviral vectors, to the development of targeted viral vectors and T lymphocytes as well as of non-viral vectors. Several milestones have been achieved in Dutch clinical gene therapy trials, including the first treatment worldwide of patients with adenosine deaminase deficiency with genetically corrected hematopoietic stem cells in collaboration with French and British scientists. Until now, about 230 patients with various diseases have been treated with viral and non-viral gene therapy in this country. Ongoing and upcoming Dutch clinical trials focus on the translation of new developments in gene therapy research, including the restoration of genetic defects other than SCID, and the use of oncolytic adenoviruses and targeted T cells for the treatment of cancer. The growing commercial interest in Dutch clinical gene therapy is reflected by the involvement of two Dutch companies in ongoing trials as well as the participation of Dutch clinical centres in large phase III international multicenter immuno-gene therapy trials on prostate cancer sponsored by an American company. Translational gene therapy research in The Netherlands is boosted at a governmental level by the Dutch Ministry of Health via a dedicated funding programme. This paper presents an overview on milestones in Dutch basic gene therapy research as well as on past, present and future clinical gene therapy trials in The Netherlands.