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In Retrospect: Fernel's Physiologia

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In Retrospect: Fernel's Physiologia OPINION NATURE|Vol 456|27 November 2008 in part from viewing our own world through Imprisoned by intelligence the distorted fairground mirror that Stephen- son establishes. The language is English with a Anathem harbour dangerous levels of intelligence. twist: the word devout morphs to avout, friar by Neal Stephenson Rather, they repopulate their numbers with to fraa, sister to suur. Euphemistic manage- Atlantic Books/William Morrow: 2008. unwanted orphans and those with abilities. ment speak is bullshyte and a caste of scathing 800 pp/960 pp. £18.99/$29.95 As the avout go about their rituals, the Sæcu- computer technicians is known as the Ita. The lar world might as well be another planet: its distortions are reflected in scientific concepts The divide between science and society is inhabitants chatter on ‘jeejahs’ (mobile phones) as well: Occam’s razor becomes Gardan’s Steel- extrapolated to the extreme in Neal Stephenson’s and surf the ‘Reticulum’ (Internet) when not yard. And the great scientific figures of Earth novel Anathem. The author, who is well cheering on sports teams and growing obese get their Arbre avatars: Plato appears as Protas, regarded for his vision of science in contempo- on sugary drinks. The two worlds mingle only Socrates as Thelenes and Archimedes as Carta. rary and historical settings, creates in his latest in strictly controlled circumstances, such as at As with any decent distortion, the author leaves work the fictional planet Arbre, which parallels an annual goodwill festival and in avout-run unexplained many areas of Arbrean society and Earth in the very far future. universities where smarter Sæculars can get a history that the reader can enjoy filling in. Following a series of past technological catas- sanitized education. Sæcular artisans may refine The story of Erasmas and his friends is an trophes for which they were blamed, the planet’s existing technology but lack the advanced scien- epic adventure that is well paced and excit- scientists, scholars and philosophers — known tific education to be innovative, so the avout are ing. Yet the action is underpinned by serious, as the avout — have been forced to live apart not dispensable. But it takes an extreme global carefully researched scientific and philosophi- from the ‘Sæcular world’ of society at large. The problem for the Sæcular government to sum- cal concepts — notably quantum mechanics, avout inhabit cloistered compounds, the distinc- mon the avout to contribute their brain power. parallel universes and the nature of conscious- tive clock towers of which are familiar features in So begins the novel. Anathem centres on a ness. Some of the scholarly dialogues take work most large towns and cities on Arbre. Most high young avout, Fraa Erasmas, who comes of age to follow, but the effort is rewarded. Stephenson technology is withheld from the avout in case during a pivotal time in Arbre’s history. A star- credits a number of philosophical and mathe- they repeat past disasters. Instead, they spend ship is orbiting the planet, and its crew, although matical thinkers in helping him flesh out these their robed, austere days engaged in theoretical familiar, do not seem to be friendly. Erasmas and fictionalized ideas, including Gottfried Leibniz, research and low-tech experimentation using his colleagues are called on to help understand Kurt Gödel, Edmund Husserl and Edward Zalta. permitted objects, such as telescopes. The avout the extraterrestrial threat and fend it off. As the people of Arbre struggle to understand are not allowed to breed, lest their offspring The pleasure of reading Anathem derives the alien invaders, the author seems most In Retrospect: Fernel’s Physiologia The seeds of systems biology were sown 450 years ago by a classic medical text, explains G. Rickey Welch. The Physiologia of Jean Fernel Therapeutice, was one of three volumes that reflection on the appropriate means of Translated and annotated by comprised Fernel’s crowning work, Universa analytical attack, and he settles on a top-down John M. Forrester Medicina. Physiologia set forth a fundamental method — one that we recognize in today’s American Philosophical Society: 2003. theory of the operation of the human body: physiological practice. He then describes all 636 pp. $24 (pbk) the nature of the wholly healthy human the known anatomical parts of the being, all the powers and functions. human organism and develops his This flowed into a description of notion of a ‘comprehensive physiol- The Physiome Project, spearheaded by the diseases (Pathologia) and their ogy.’ Seizing on the Aristotelian prin- International Union of Physiological Sci- treatments (Therapeutice). Fer- ciples of deductive reasoning, causal ences, aims to generate a framework for nel’s opus resonates today in the analysis and physics of matter, Fernel understanding the workings of the entire goal of the Physiome Project, which demonstrates how the elemental human organism, from genes and proteins to is ‘to understand and describe the attributes of the body parts are woven the whole body. A seminal Latin medical text human organism, its physiol- into a whole that manifests all the LONDON LIBRARY, WELLCOME presaged this venture around 450 years ago. ogy and pathophysiology, and temperaments, humours, powers Its author, Jean Fernel (pictured, right), was to use this understanding to and faculties of the living being. one of the foremost figures of French Renais- improve human health’. Although he characterizes the sance science and medicine, and the first to use In Fernel’s time, medical causation of bodily processes the term ‘physiology’ in its modern scientific practice centred on the study of body parts in within the framework of the ‘animal spirits’ sense. At the time, ‘physiologia’ denoted the lavishly illustrated anatomy texts, by authors proposed by the ancient Greek physician study of nature or natural philosophy. First such as Andreas Vesalius. Fernel attacked this Galen, Fernel envisaged such ‘spirits’ in a real published in 1542, Physiologia underwent ‘shallow and easy art’, arguing that it lacked material form, breaking from the irrationality more than 30 reissues, and caused debate in holistic principles of causation and function. of occultism and magic that had dominated Europe for the next 100 years. His answer, Physiologia, is a brilliantly logical medieval natural philosophy and medicine. Physiologia, together with Pathologia and treatise. Fernel begins with a philosophical Physiologia constitutes the first complete 446 NATURE|Vol 456|27 November 2008 OPINION indebted to Roger Penrose’s controversial ideas about how the quantum world might impinge on the neurobiology of consciousness. As a thought experiment in examining the relationship between science and society, and as a cautionary tale about the consequences of its breakdown, Anathem provides much to pon- der. In one scene, a scholar quizzes her students about the various stereotypes of the avout that society has harboured. The images are familiar: scientists as loveable, dishevelled Einsteinian boffins; as mystics hoarding the Universe’s secrets; as criminally insane desperadoes in white smocks with schemes to take over the world; as highly strung, meddling know-it-alls who simply don’t understand the realities of modern life. Although details of the catastro- phes that caused the avout to be sequestered are not made clear, it is hinted that tinkering with genetic information, with the structures of atoms and with space-time itself were all factors. Anathem is a shrewd exploration of what might happen if the fear of scientists meddling with things they were never meant to know becomes entirely justified. ■ Jennifer Rohn is a cell biologist at University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK, editor of Mark Rothko’s LabLit.com and author of Experimental Heart. Red on Maroon. e-mail: [email protected] ROTHKO PRIZEL AND CHRISTOPHER ROTHKO KATE © 1998 BY view of what we now call physiology. It is Rothko’s methods revealed also a forerunner of the systems approach Their research shows that Rothko used Rothko: the Late Series to understanding form and function in liv- materials far beyond the conventional range Tate Modern, London ing organisms. The field of systems biology sold for artists, modifying the properties of oil Until 1 February 2009 today presents us with a challenge similar to paints to achieve the flow, drying time and col- that faced by Fernel — to interpret stagger- ours he needed. He used synthetic substances ing amounts of data depicted in numerous Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals, commissioned such as oil-modified alkyd and acrylic resins pictographic forms, such as DNA microarray in 1958 to decorate the Four Seasons restau- alongside traditional materials, including egg, snapshots, proteome network displays and rant in the Seagram Building in New York, glue and dammar resin, which are fast-drying protein–protein interaction maps. Although are famous for their layers of translucent and and allowed him to apply subsequent layers causation has come to be assigned to a mole- opaque paints that produce a luminous and within hours. Resins increased the viscosity cule, namely DNA, the way in which we should ephemeral quality. of the mixtures so the paints could be diluted map from genes to the organism is far from Rothko was notoriously secretive about his without losing their coherence. Rothko also apparent. The Physiome Project embraces the methods, refusing to let even his studio assist- applied phenol formaldehyde to prevent layers systems-biology movement by showing us how ants watch him paint. Yet the clues he left within from blending into one another. Each mural the whole is more than the sum of the parts. the murals have informed conservators of the differs with regard to its paint mixture or the Denis Noble, one of the founders of the variety of materials he used and his layering layering sequence, suggesting that Rothko project, proffered that “a major part of the techniques that were innovative for the time.
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