"Nothing is different but everything's changed"

Darwin stated that during his time on the HMS Beagle as he read Lyell’s Principles of Geology, he felt that he was seeing the world “through Lyell’s eyes.” He was supremely influenced by the reading and it helped derive the mechanism for Darwinian evolution. The constant, uniform changes over geological time which Lyell described were applied to the living world by Darwin. Although he did not fully understand the technical aspects of the idea, Darwin did understand that something about animals changed according to the environment with each generation. Now, this is understood to be a constant rate of genetic mutation which leads to slight shifts in phenotype which can be selected for or against by the environment where the organism lives. Just as Lyell saw a continuous presence of usually slight geological forces that shaped the world through their constancy, modern evolutionists recognize a continuous presence of genetic changes that slowly morph the organism. Although Darwin would have known little of the technical details, he certainly would have been able to see the phenotypic outcomes. He was able to see the incomplete pattern in the fossil record that inched from one form to another. In both geology and biology, although nothing was different about the forces working from generation to generation or from era to era, everything had changed as they slowly shaped the world. This seemingly contradictory statement can thus be applied to both sciences in order to make sense of so much of the world around us.

Lyrical inspiration for this post from Bishop Allen-“Calendar”

Empire, Tropical Medicine, and Conrad

While discussing tropical medicine in Paul’s lecture last week, I was very interested in how the British Empire had not only been aided to some extent made possible by the development of medicine. In the most imperial terms, until the diseases of the colonies were overcome, the colonies themselves could not be overcome. Patrick Manson and Ronald Ross both worked to educate doctors going abroad on the disease that they would encounter. Though they did not see eye to eye on the best way to go about this, the idea that it was necessary was consistent. While I was listening to this, however, could not help but to wonder to what extent it really worked. I was reminded of a passage from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (which, granted, takes place in a Belgian colony rather than a British one but the analogy is to the British Empire) in which Marlow meets the station master in the interior of the Congo and is taken aback by his inefficient and poorly run station. The only reason that Marlow is able to come up with for why this man had gained such a high rank in the service is his innate constitution. Simply put, the man was better than any other at surviving the wilds of Africa. Therefore, he advanced in his career over other less hardy individuals who either went back to Europe or died in Africa. Yet, Marlow certainly considers this person with disdain. It was with this thought in mind that I raised the question about whether people who were able to withstand the climate change were looked down upon as closer to the “savages” or if they were simply rewarded for their health. While certainly not all officers who could live in Africa were unfit for their jobs, the Conrad novella raises the question of how the empire would have been different and likely stronger had they been able to overcome the diseases that befell so many fit British men.

Brunel and Bristol

In discussing what we thought about Edinburgh in class last week, the first thing that sprung to my mind was the excessive pride that the people had for their city. They were not only aware of their history but were able to make it a vibrant, living thing. Granted, this sometimes translated into fairly cheesy tourist attractions, but there was a strong sense of what the city had been and is currently. By comparison, Bristol presented a very different identity. It seemed somewhat more confused and less sure of itself. In discussing it with others, the consensus was that the difference lay in the cities’ diverging fates during World War II. While Edinburgh was far enough out of danger to be a refuge for mainland European medical schools, the heavy bombing of Bristol the industrial center seemed to have set the city adrift. No longer sure of its moorings, the town remained centered on the floating harbor through condos rather than the shipping and ship-building that had supported it previously. The result of the building projects of the 70s and 80s stand oddly juxtaposed against the older generation of fisherman’s homes farther up the hill. Yet, in between (or despite?) these more recent additions, the history of the city is alive. The Clifton Suspension bridge and the SS Great Britain clearly demonstrated there is still much affection for the past. The people of Bristol seem to be finding their new direction by looking back at the work of Brunel in the 19th century. In this way, they are able to reconsider their past in order to asses their future. Through this re-identification of the city with Brunel, the man who was already seen as a heroic engineer, they are able to tie up loose ends. Although the history of Bristol neither started nor will end with Brunel, the spirit of the city is certainly centered upon him.

Photography and Photoshop

The images of both insane asylum patients and electro-shocked people displaying emotions that we saw during our trip to Cambridge provide an interesting insight into how Victorians viewed the new technology of photography. These pictures were presented as scientifically accurate because they were seen to provide a more instantaneous and life-like display than could have been provided by hand-drawings. Although with a fairly small sample size, Darwin used the photos of the electrically contorted man to test responses of dinner guests in order to determine the universality of emotional conception. Interestingly, when Darwin conducted the survey through contacts abroad, there were no photos involved but instead only a series of questions about how the people changed their expression while experiencing different emotions. While this was probably due more to the practical issues of printing and posting dozens of photos than to Darwin’s actual wishes, the detail that the questions provide demonstrate that Darwin would have liked to provide a photo. Descriptions of emotional expression are much more easily conveyed through images than words, and Darwin placed much trust in these images. Similar scientific uses of photography can be seen in the work done by the French psychiatrist Charcot, who would photograph his patients in various stages of their hysterical fits. In both cases, the scientists present the photos as infallible.
By contrast to the Victorian confidence in their new technology, in the twenty-first century we have taken a much more skeptical view to photography. We are quick to denounce anything incredible to a trick of the mind and the mouse. With a few clicks, Photoshop and airbrushing can take any image and alter it almost to the point of being unrecognizable. In the public arena, what we are looking at is rarely what the photographer was seeing. Thus, we have gained a cynicism regarding commercial photography which has slipped into our scientific images as well. One can surely remember looking through images in a text book or paper and wondering that they could possibly be real. A biology text book certainly provides many opportunities for the photography skeptic to criticize.
Still, maybe the Victorians could have used some of our cynicism. It has been questioned whether the scientific photos in which Darwin placed so much faith were not actually staged. The man who is most prominent in the series who claimed to be a subject because he was not pained by the electrodes has been said to be acting to a certain extent. The true question becomes, however, whether this was a nineteenth century criticism or a twenty-first. The difference lies in the faith in technology.

On birthday presents and the Victorians

Shortly before coming to London, I received Dracula as a birthday present. I started reading it although I have yet to complete it since I have been fairly busy during my time here. Yet, the multiple references that have been made to the book throughout the course have made it clear that the novel was an enlightened choice of birthday gift. Just a with other popular novels of the time, including those read in class, there have been several themes of the course intertwined with the plot of the story. First, one of the main characters, Dr. Seward, is a doctor who treats the insane and one of his patients becomes a main character in the story. Although I do not think he specified a certain title for his position, Stoker clearly describes the relationship the doctor has with the insane man Renfield. In the hospital, Seward acts like a Conolly-esque father figure, watching over his patients while also treating them with respect. Another interesting aspect concerning Dr. Seward’s character is that he actually lives in part of the hospital where he works, as John Hunter did. He has part of the house dedicated to his social life big enough for multiple guests to stay and then a portion dedicated to the patients.
More broadly than this, the very style in which the story is written is very much a product of its time. Instead of there being a narrator who tells the entire story from a third party perspective, the story is told through the journals, newspaper clippings, diaries, and telegraphs sent between the characters or saved by them. The post works so efficiently that they can send multiple letters in a morning and the telegraph technology is even speedier. The railway system which facilitated the growth of the telegraphs are also referenced multiple times as Dr. Van Helsing traverses between his home and London and the characters travel throughout England. Still, this all is made apparent through their private records rather than an omniscient narrator. This detail is important because it presents the story in a similar way as Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Without calling it a “case” per se, Stoker tells his story as if it is a case record. Indeed, the characters themselves compile and read the very collection of information which the reader is holding. This self-referential plot detail demonstrates that the characters view the story as a case which they must study and solve, and thus professionalizes the story in a similar way that Stevenson’s “case” does. There are certainly endless ways in which Dracula is a product of its time, yet for me at about half way through both the book and this course, these are the ones that struck me.

Revolutionary Recliners

When we went to Cambridge last Monday, a very small placard among the many in the exhibit on Darwin’s “gap years” on the HMS Beagle caught my eye. This card, folded in half and placed somewhat randomly throughout the historical artifacts and related descriptions, simply read “I hope my wanderings will not unfit me for a quiet life.” Darwin wrote this in 1832 when he was only 26 and still had four more years of wandering ahead of him. A quick Google search reveals that the letter which he wrote to his friend and cousin, William Darwin Fox. Fox was a settled clergyman in Cheshire and led the life that Charles Darwin could have seen for himself. He had, after all, been training to become a clergyman himself.
The emotions expressed in this simple sentence are particularly interesting when considered with the fact that Darwin was considered to be a “conservative revolutionary.” There is a line from the Oasis song “Don’t Look Back in Anger” that says “gonna start a revolution from my bed” (doubly relevant because we heard it covered in Scotland; here it is live Manchester). The song intends the lyrics to be facetious and a display of the singer’s ambivalence. Yet, this is almost literally what Darwin ended up doing, a hundred fifty years before the words were written. Following his marriage, he ensconced himself at Downe House attempting quite respectably to make a quiet life for himself. As his ideas brought him somewhat reluctantly into the limelight, Darwin remained above the fray, communicating to most people by letter but doing so fervently. While he may have gone through the motions of leading a quiet life, however, Darwin and his contributions cannot be said to be anything short of revolutionary. It was exactly his wanderings on the Beagle that enabled these ideas to flourish. Therefore, not only did his travels unfit him for a quiet life, but actually made the life of the local clergyman an impossibility for Darwin. He was too changed by them and in some ways took on a life of their own. So even while Darwin remained quietly at home writing thousands of letters, he did indeed start a revolution from his bed—or at least his armchair.

Historical Places Redeisgned

One thing that has struck me throughout this course is the way in which old nineteenth century buildings have made their way into the twenty-first century. It seems as though there is a variety of fates which can befall them. There are certainly countless buildings built or existing during the period which no longer stand. Yet for those that do, they can remain functional in their original purpose, such as Guy’s Hospital; they can fall into disrepair but be restored, such as the Crossness engines; or, I think most disturbingly, they can be reassigned a function with no trace of their past. While I’m sure that many structures have been completely remade, the example most in my mind is Colney Hatch. It seems crooked that the former insane asylum has been morphed into condos and even more so that this metamorphosis had occurred without any reference to the past. This fact made me wonder about what else around London, or any other city with a past as rich, might be more than they seem. The possibilities seem endless. What houses hid men like John Hunter, with dissecting rooms and body trafficking happening in the back half? What happened to the other sites where Bedlam was? And all the county and borough insane asylums? In London, there is a lot of pride taken by natives in the history that is on the surface—plain to see from the banks of the Thames. Yet, I would be much more interested in learning about the stories that have been hidden or covered up, whether with lies or simply with wall paper.

Technology and Bedlam

When we went to Bedlam last week and were looking at the case study books, one of the things that I was struck by was the number of charts and graphs that were included. The case books that we were flipping through were from about the late 1890s and patients that were recorded had a wide ranging number of charts included. While the majority had none, many had one or two, and a handful even had several. I was not able to look thoroughly enough to see if those with more charts had stayed at Bedlam longer, although that could be one explanation. But looking at the charts and thinking about modern medical practices, two things struck me as strange. First, the use of charts was somewhat sporadic and not standardized across patients. Second, although they so strongly tapped into the Victorian love of statistics, the charts were just beginning to be introduced into medical practice.
It is easily forgotten that these charts were as much innovations as other new medical tools like stethoscopes or specialized surgical tools were. The concept of taking someone's pulse, for example, was not new; the concept of counting the pulse, recording it, and quantitatively comparing how it changed over time or with new treatments was. Even while other changes were resisted, these methods crept into the record books at treatment-conservative Bedlam. Thus while the treatments may have stayed the same during the time recorded in the books we looked through, things at Bedlam were slowly integrating new technologies that allowed for the better care of patients.

The Hunterian and RCSE

The collections of various body parts in jars at the Hunterian Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh create an interesting comparison between the work of those working completely within the medical establishment and those without it. Our tour guide at the Hunterian described John Hunter as a man who did not have a formal education in medicine or science but who instead wanted to learn via experience and observation. He learned technique from his brother who had been a surgeon and teacher, eventually becoming good enough to open a school of his own. Hunter also collected a variety of body parts and pieces from animals and creatures of all sorts and in all forms. It was through studying what could go wrong with the body that he hoped to determine how to fix it; the theory of animal economy, demonstrating an analogous body plan across far reaching species, was the reason behind the extreme variance in creatures. John’s collection was certainly meant to be studied, both by himself and later by his students, but simultaneously it was meant to be seen. He displayed the pieces publicly, with days when people could come off the street to see the wonders that he had within his combined home-museum-school and whom he impressed with details of either the intellectual value or the actual price of most pieces. It was only after his death that the collection was sold to the Royal College of Surgeons London, where it was placed in display cases behind glass, arranged to emphasize the sheer volume of the collection.

While the collection at the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh at first may seem extremely similar, the differences quickly become apparent. This collection was never meant for public consumption but rather to teach exclusively. Even the physical placement of the collection within the building is telling—the upper level balcony which would physically give way were too many people to tread across it houses shelves of jars which can be seen by the public below but not touched. Importantly, the jars arranged on the shelves all contain diseased or abnormal human specimens and are all able to be held and examined closer by the medical student who might be researching. In general, one must pass inspection to be allowed up among the specimens. Further, while each jar in the Hunterian Collection is clearly labeled and explained, often with the names of those who were the prior owners, the jars among the teaching collection are anonymous. The prize piece in London was the Irish giant who was displayed in the center, well lit, and next to a small person wasting away of bone disease for comparison. Meanwhile, the centerpiece of the Edinburgh collection is less clear and certainly less prominent. It could be argued to be the case of Livingston’s broken arm, as this is the only piece with a name associated and certainly the only one with a 2 foot wide poster explaining its significance.

I am not sure what to make of this contrast in methodologies or reasons for presenting these valuable and informative collections in such differing manners. Yet, the difference between the newcomer and the professionalized, the public and the institutional, and the prized and the educational is marked in the comparison of the two collections.

Crossness

Before our visit to the Crossness Pumping station, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that it was a sewage pumping station, but I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant; I knew that it was a feat of 19th century engineering, but I didn’t have a whole lot with which to compare it; I knew that it would be ornamented in a typically Victorian fashion, but wasn’t sure how that would translate into something inherently involved with human excrement; finally, I knew that it would have smelt, but I didn’t know how much would linger a century and a half later.

With such conflicted expectations (can those even rightfully be called expectations?), I arrived at Crossness and was completely blown away. The sheer size of each engine was far beyond the scale that I had imagined, let alone seeing four of them in the same room. The decoration of each engine was equally incredible, with the restored engine painted in vibrant greens and reds. When the four beam engines worked to pull the city’s sludge up from far below the ground where it had settled and bring it up to be dumped into the Thames, they must have been quite a site. Although it at first seemed odd to name anything to do with sewage after members of the royal family, seeing just the single engine in action and fully painted seemed to earn it the title.

What Crossness made real for me was the amount of pride the Victorians put into their work. Every task was a feat but simultaneously no detail was ignored. They not only overcame the problem through their engineering but did it in style. The dignity that they clearly felt spread over society so completely as to include even the sewage pump station. And the fact that it still smells 150 years later is only a testament to the Victorian work ethic, which created something that is still used today, at least in part.

TB today

In the Wohl reading, in addition to the emergence of techniques to control cholera, he discusses the ways that people brought down the number of tuberculosis cases. He mentions such simple changes as improved housing and more nutritious diet, which certainly did a fair part in improving the living conditions in general as well as with regards to TB. The developments were discussed almost as a side note and I found the tone of the writing to be nearly dismissive. Yet, just because food and housing which is good enough to evade TB may have been discovered over a hundred years ago and seem to be a simple thing to do, it has yet to become standard practice in many places around the world. Despite our ability to consider TB in the developed world as a nineteenth century problem, and one which was fairly straightforward (if not exactly simple) to resolve, the disease is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Wohl’s tone did not convey that not only are these still problems faced today, but they still have the same solutions as they did then. Although TB cannot be cured by better living conditions, it can be avoided through them. Still this has not happened in many parts of the world. The lack of these basic things is aggravated by the sometime-assumption that the disease is something of the past. Such thinking will only lead to a continued ignorance of the problem. While the changes that must be made to avoid TB are not simple, they are clear and, importantly, relevant today.

Cholera and Contingency

While reading about the cholera epidemics in the mid and late 19^th century, I could clearly see the connections between the necessity of dealing with the disease and the developments of the public health field. This connection was fairly blatant and by no means new. Yet for the first time, I was struck by it. The contingency of the situation was for the first time amazing. The two most important factors are inseparably intertwined. These are first that conditions in the city be so terrible that disease can arise and second that a disease which passes almost exclusively due to these conditions comes along. Another necessary factor is that the cure for the disease be on par with the science of the time. If, for example, a disease which can pass through human-to-human contact had struck at the time of the cholera epidemics, the development of the sewers might have taken longer and instead other conditions demonstrated to relieve the situation be given more attention. Granted, the final completion of the sewage system, only ten years after Snow’s deductions on cholera were made, was not motivated solely by concern for disease. Yet, this brings us to another important factor in the health policy and engineering advances of the sewage system which was the almost universal public support for the alleviation of the situation. It can be safely taken that the creation of the public health field could not have happened in such a manner if all these contingencies had not come together. Due to my interest in the field, I was greatly struck by the fair amount of contingent factors from which it came.

History without Historicizing

One of the most important things which I have learned about process during my time studying history of science is that looking back, one must be careful not to be judgmental of the quality of past science. Despite something currently being considered wrong, it was at some point a fact. Just as former facts have come and gone, modern ones can do the same and therefore we cannot take our assumptions and apply them to other ages. This can come across in the tone used to describe something and likewise with the terms used. Last week, John discussed in class the coining of the term “scientist.” To us, this seems like about as basic a word as they come. One who performs art is called an artist; one who performs science is called a scientist. Yet, even this had to be invented. It was in 1833 that William Whewell first used the word, an umbrella term which was more general than the terms for people in certain fields. This neologism was coined just 4 years before Victoria was crowned queen, which adds to the appropriateness of studying Victorian “science” versus more individual or specific fields. Despite the existence of the term, however, there was not a sudden change in the scientific community, by which I mean that no such “scientific community” existed. There were guilds and societies for each of the specific fields but nothing that united them all. Thus, at what point did “scientist” go from being a word that was in existence to one that was in use? A jump into everyday terminology would be a big one to gap. At which point does “science” stop being an anachronism?

Blood, Sawdust, and Vampires

The medical walking tour featured many amazing things but I was most struck by the operating room. While other places certainly had a lot of history behind them and were full of remarkable remnants of bizarre medical practices, it was only in the operating room that they became real. Seeing a bone saw in a glass compartment is one thing, but holding it up to someone’s leg is quite another. Having learned and read about 19^th century surgical practices in the past, I knew the general gist of the process—no anesthetic, no antiseptic, and not great odds of survival. It was a sign in the corner of the attic-operating room which I found most interesting and considered an aspect which I had never thought of: how to deal with both blood lost and blood loss. The sign read:

The floor boards of the operating area form a false floor, being laid upon joists which rest upon the true floor: the 3 inch (7.5cm) space between is packed with sawdust. This would ensure that any blood which reached the floor was absorbed before it could pass into the church below. A mop and bucket in the corner would be used to clean up after the operation.

The image of blood-soaked sawdust is pretty horrible to thing about, but worse is the image of blood dripping onto people in the church downstairs. Blood loss must have been excessive during these operations, which though speedy were radical. I am currently about half-way through reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in which there are several scenes featuring blood transfusions. The fictional tale makes it seem to be a highly personal and threatening procedure, even referring to it as an operation. Further, there is no mention made of the blood clots and other problems that we now know to be issues when non-compatible blood types are mixed. With all the blood loss that was apparently a part of operations during the time, I am curious to learn more about transfusion possibilities, procedures, and problems.

Survival of the Fittest: Darwin and Wallace

The tour through the Natural History Museum rare books collection was really amazing—I am always slightly embarrassed by how much I enjoy seeing a book that was annotated by so-and-so or printed in such-and-such a year, and this was a veritable treasure trove. Who knew there was a copy of On the Origin of Species printed in Braille? What I found most interesting, however, (and what this post is really focused on) was the presentation of Wallace to the group. He was discussed as a man who was unfairly treated by historians and one who constantly was left in the shadow of Darwin. Taking into account the facts that I am a product of those same historians (could I even say one of them?) and that I have never taken a course exclusively on Wallace but have taken a few concerning Darwin, I don’t think that Wallace has been treated quite as unjustly as it was made to seem the other day. Surely, Wallace should have every claim to co-discoverer, or even discoverer, of the theory of natural selection. He did publish the article first and Darwin’s somewhat questionable tactics to get around this fact are often skimmed over or ignored. Yet, what is said is just as important as what is not said and it was the latter that I was thinking of during our talk.

Yes, Wallace’s paper was published in 1858 and Darwin’s book in 1859, but what happened after that? Wallace remained on the outskirts of society, at times even of the world, and to my knowledge did not publish again on the subject. What Wallace did do, however, was become involved in some strange and mystical aspects of 19^th century science, including spiritualism, mesmerism, and phrenology. These might have been seen as scientific at the time, but they were certainly a far cry from his work in evolution. Meanwhile, Darwin spent the remaining years of his life publishing work after work delving deeper into various aspects of natural selection only touched upon in Origin. For all intents and purposes, Darwin was branding himself, if you’ll forgive the 20^th century language. He found a niche in the scientific realm and was able to thrive and specialize in it. Darwin has become the great figure in the field not because he founded it (although this should not be totally taken from him when crediting Wallace), but because he made himself into the expert on the subject. In not discussing the period of Wallace’s life between 1858 and his death in 1913, much was left out of our presentation which would help explain the one-sided history that we know now.

Microscopes and the Great Exhibition

Today’s mini project fit into class this morning so that it was clear that we were supposed to have found ads for various medical tonics and quack’s schemes that may or may not have helped patients seeking a panacea. Yet, while researching it last night, this was not clearly the goal. So, I ended up with a document that caught my eye for a different reason: an advertisement for the “Microscopal Exhibition” at the Crystal Palace. An ad necessarily from 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, it describes the things that can be seen magnified far beyond their normal size, including a frog’s circulatory system, insects in water, and ‘the lively flea, chained by the neck with a silver chain.” Despite (or because of?) the fact that I failed horribly last time I tried to put a collar on a flea, even today this sounds pretty cool, if a tad 6^th-grade-science-lab.

Yet, at the time, this was the cutting edge of technology and a clever business man was charging two pence for the spectacle of seeing live mites in cheese which looked “as large as black beetles” despite the fact there were probably a lot of live mites in a lot of hunks of cheese sitting in non-refrigerators all over London. The Great Exhibition was meant to be a display of power by Albert and England, featuring wonders and cutting-edge technology from around the world, and then even better things from the Brits. Although this ad doesn’t give any information about how many people actually paid the money to see this particular exhibit, it is safe to say that of the 6 million people who went to the Exhibition, quite a few did. It is pretty remarkable, therefore, to consider how much of what was once spectacle has become common and what was once a rarity in an exhibit is now an expected feature of every science lab.