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The Madame Curie of Paleoneurology: Tilly Edinger's Life and Work

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The Madame Curie of Paleoneurology: Tilly Edinger's Life and Work Rolf Kohring, Gerald Kreft. Tilly Edinger: Leben und Werk einer jüdischen Wissenschaftlerin. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2003. 639 S. + 35 s/w Abb. Euro 39.80, cloth, ISBN 978-3-510-61351-9. Reviewed by Annette Leibing Published on H-Women (November, 2004) One of the outstanding personalities within fascinating visits to the Senckenberg Museum in German history of science is neurologist Ludwig Frankfurt with its collection of fossil animals in‐ Edinger (1855-1918). Less known is his daughter fluenced Tilly's scientific interests later in life. It Tilly (Ottilie), who was the founder of paleoneu‐ was also there that she had her frst (unpaid) posi‐ rology--the study of fossil brains. Paleoneurology, tion. Her Ph.D. thesis, fnished with magna cum as paleontology, is an academic feld studied by laude, was about the Nothosaurus--not a di‐ few and so public interest in Tilly Edinger has nosaur, but a long-necked, lizard-like aquatic rep‐ been mainly restricted to those in the feld. But tile. Although increasing reprisals by the Nazi there are additional factors that complicated her laws turned Tilly's life into a humiliating and fear‐ professional path and, therefore, fame: being a ful hidden existence at the margins of academia woman in science whose career started in the and society, she stayed at the Senckenberg Muse‐ 1920s; being Jewish in Germany; and having an um until the Reichskristallnacht in 1938. But only early onset hearing impairment. These factors in‐ in May 1939, after having insisted, for a long time, fluenced Tilly Edinger's life and career in such a upon staying in Germany, did Tilly go to London way that they can only be described by interrup‐ where she worked as a translator for one year. tions and losses. Nevertheless, Tilly's strong per‐ She probably had escaped from death at the very sonality, passion for science, and extraordinary last minute. Tilly lost several family members to intelligence made her recognized worldwide as a the Nazis, including her brother and beloved aunt leader in the field. ("the woman I loved best in the world," p. 509). Tilly Edinger was born in 1897 in Frankfurt/ She also lost her considerable family wealth and Main. She grew up in a wealthy and progressive lived in very modest circumstances until relative‐ Jewish environment, surrounded by scientists and ly late in her life, when she received some funds integrated into an old German family to which from the German government ("Wiederjud‐ she was deeply attached. The early and, to her, machung," p. 394). H-Net Reviews Tilly's new life started in 1940 when she went the four principal authors--a sociologist/historian, to Harvard. There she held a position, albeit one a paleontologist, a physicist, and a paleoneurolo‐ without a significant salary. She loved America, gist--provide such a multiple perspective. Also, the which for her meant liberty and academic realiza‐ different nationalities (American and German) tions. Apart from the successful, though some‐ provide further differences in the way the materi‐ times difficult, integration into the American way al is being read, for example, the divergent inter‐ of life, Tilly nevertheless maintained a bitter- pretation of Tilly's adaptation to American life. melancholic relationship to her Heimat (home‐ Some readers might be disturbed by the fact that land) Germany, which she visited fve times after some articles are in English, while the major part 1950. A colleague, Helmut Hofer, wrote to her say‐ of the book is in German. This nevertheless mir‐ ing that she had become the "Madame Curie of pa‐ rors Tilly's life between Germany and America. leontology" due to her ever-growing scientific Some overlap in material covered in the chapters recognition. She had become a respected scientist, is inevitable, and there were some repetitions. as well as the co-founder and later the president However, there are still a few divergences in the of the Society of Vertebral Paleontology. Except understanding of the carefully documented mate‐ for a short, though successful period, Tilly Edinger rial, and as the editors write in the introduction, did not teach. This was mainly because of her this invites the reader to become part of the con‐ hearing difficulties. Indeed, this handicap was re‐ clusion process. It reflects the editors' concept of sponsible for her early death, when on her way to history where objectivity and subjectivity are in‐ work in 1967, she did not hear the approaching separably interwoven. car that fatally injured her. The book starts with four short prefaces, These are, of course, only some of the facts wherein each author describes his impressions of about Tilly Edinger's life that are woven together and admiration for Tilly. These authors include in the book edited by Rolf Kohring and Gerald Stephen Jay Gould (writing that he shared with Kreft about this "remarkable and extraordinary Tilly a Jewish background and a "similar love and scientist" (p. 12). The book is a well-researched commitment to the science of paleontology" (p. document which shows the complex interplay of 7)); Dietrich Starck, president of the Ludwig life, work, and historical background. The au‐ Edinger Foundation; Harry Jerison, Professor thors--two German editors and two U.S. scien‐ Emeritus of Psychiatry, who had met her on sev‐ tists--include an enormous amount of detail and eral occasions; and, fnally, Reiner Wiehl, Profes‐ form their complex images of Tilly based on her sor Emeritus of Philosophy and Tilly Edinger's extensive correspondence with friends and col‐ nephew. leagues, interviews with a number of people who The body of the book begins with Rolf knew her, and material from sixty archives. The Kohring's 270-page-long overview of Tilly's life, authors stick close to their sources; only some‐ personality, and work. Because of its length and times is a hypothesis offered, more a suggestion to the number of details presented, this chapter by the reader than a fnal statement (e.g., on the the paleontologist could be a book by itself. One question why Tilly had left Germany so late or gets a neat impression of Tilly's entangled life and why she never married). her personality. Kohring describes her as an ex‐ In order to capture the complexity of a life traordinary person and scientist: history, differently positioned observers might "She was more than 'just' a scientist who cre‐ highlight complementary and even contradictory ated a subdiscipline. She was the frst female pale‐ aspects of this life. The different perspectives of ontologist to get a doctorate in Germany (indeed, 2 H-Net Reviews she was one of the frst female students of geogra‐ and was invited to continue. But, as she wrote, it phy in that country). This, in a time in which a was too time-consuming. She had to give up "pri‐ woman in paleontology was at best an exotic or vate life and correspondence almost entirely" (p. belittled exception; she was proud and self-confi‐ 378). It was at Wellesley College in 1950 that Tilly dent" (p. 24). "Tilly Edinger preserved certain gained one of her three honorary doctorates. childish traits all her life.... She could be enthusi‐ Marie Curie had gotten one there also, nearly thir‐ astically delighted, or even deliver incomprehen‐ ty years earlier. sible misinterpretations, getting annoyed by de‐ Harry Lang's chapter about "Tilly Edinger's tails" (p. 27). Deafness" provides a sensitive reading and under‐ Despite some breaks in argumentation, it is a standing of Tilly's life. The author, himself a deaf well-written text; the only astonishing part of this physicist, has already published other studies of chapter is an interpretation of Tilly's hand-writing scientists with this handicap. In the case of Tilly, by a graphologist. (It seems that natural scientist her hereditary otosclerosis helps to explain, in Tilly Edinger also ordered graphological evalua‐ part, her loneliness and the difficulty she had fol‐ tions about people around her.) lowing scientific conferences and other academic Kohring's extensive description, nevertheless, activities. For instance, the deafness impeded her leaves some space for a deepening of his data by ability to secure a better academic position, as the other specialists. Paleoneurologist Emily documents written by her director at Harvard Buchholtz adds two shorter texts. The frst one ex‐ showed: he recommended her only "partially" be‐ amines Tilly's life as seen through her scientific cause of her hearing problems. Her impairment contributions. Buchholtz shows that "Edinger's may also have been linked to the fact that she did scientific contributions were shaped to at least not get married, because as she once mentioned, some extent by her family, her ethnicity, her gen‐ she was afraid of passing on the disease to her off‐ der, and the political events of the mid-20th cen‐ spring (although that might be only one factor, as tury" (p. 301). Although the general outline of the several of the authors have shown). It was surely article repeats part of what Kohring had already an "emotional burden--all through her life she provided, the reader gains additional knowledge would be more or less haunted by memories of about paleoneurology. For a non-paleontologist sounds she was no longer able to enjoy" (p. 361). this might be a bit too specific in parts; converse‐ And, of course, it caused her fatal accident when ly, specialists will probably miss a more complex she was seventy years old. scientific discussion--a common dilemma when The most delicate--and in my opinion most el‐ writing for a broader audience. It might have egant--chapter is the one written by sociologist been helpful to discuss more extensively how pa‐ and historian of medicine Gerald Kreft: the de‐ leoneurolgy--a feld which was created and lead scription of Tilly's life as a Jewish life.
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