Book Reviews

author’s account of the coming of insulin on aspects of it in need of further exploration. pp. 150–1, for example, and earlier had been That was the feeling of Robert Olby, historian amused at Farrell’s belief that the American of , ‘admirer’ and almost Diabetes Association’s Banting Lecture personal biographer of Crick, who, in the memorialises William Banting, the spring of 2001, began to write : obscure London diet propagandist, rather Hunter of Life’s Secrets. than the Canadian Frederick Banting, who Olby’s biography could be considered the shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of product of an open conversation with Odile insulin. Speed Crick – Crick’s wife – and others that It is not evident from this book that its extended for almost forty years. What is more, publisher subjects manuscripts submitted for Crick himself read and critically commented its history of science and medicine series to on the first fourteen of the twenty-one chapters serious scholarly review. There is so little of the book, with only one condition imposed useful material here – particularly on Olby, for it to be published after his considering the book’s soak-the-libraries lifetime. price – and so many problems with the One of the key aspects of Francis Crick’s author’s approach and execution that Fatal life motivating Olby’s biographical writing Thirst probably should not have been was an alleged personality change in Crick, published, or perhaps should only exist from a ‘wayward spirit, somewhat flippant and online. Diabetes and its treatment generally frivolous, with a rather immature sense of still await full-scale scholarly analysis. In the humor, and not the world’s best listener’ into meantime, the best short history of the the ‘serious and committed person he was to disease, with appropriate attention to British became’ (p. xii). Olby’s motivation, experience before and after the coming of interesting and genuine as it might sound, is insulin, is Robert Tattersall’s Diabetes: The unconvincing. The reason being that all of Biography (Oxford: , these attributes of Crick’s personality 2009). identified by Olby, were with him all his life, even on occasions when he wanted to be serious and committed at expressing his Michael Bliss, thoughts and convictions, both on scientific University of Toronto, and non-scientific issues. Olby’s book offers many instances where this apparent contradiction between flippancy and Robert Olby, Francis Crick: Hunter seriousness in Crick’s character could be of Life’s Secrets (New York: Cold Spring identified. In 1951, for instance, in a seminar Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009), pp. xix at Cambridge, Crick eloquently dismissed as þ 538, $45.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0-87969- hopeless the approach followed by Lawrence 798-3. Bragg, his boss, and Max Perutz, his mentor, on their work on haemoglobin (p. 109). In In a period of eighteen years, two biographies the early 1970s, when Peter Medawar on Francis Crick (1916–2004) were published: suggested to Crick to recast an essay he and his autobiography, What a Mad Pursuit Leslie Orgel wrote on life’s origins for the (New York: Basic Book, 1988), and that of fashion magazine Vogue, Crick immediately Matt Ridley, Francis Crick: Discoverer of the evened up Medawar’s score by telling him that Genetic Code (New York: Atlas Books, 2006). ‘they had originally considered Playboy Despite seeming that enough was known about magazine’ (p. 360). In 2001, facing an his life, it turned out that there were many allegation from Brenda Maddox – Rosalind

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Franklin’s biographer – that he and James further assessment. It would be interesting to Watson had stolen Franklin’s data on DNA, he know, for instance, the precise number of responded: ‘As to the theft issue, I will make army scientists relocated in bioscience no comments, or you will accuse me of feeling laboratories after the Second World War, guilty about it – which I don’t’ (p. 439). and the form and qualities that this war On many occasions in the book, Olby working culture took into the laboratories masterfully exposes many aspects of Crick’s to which it was transferred. life worthy of interest. Amongst them are In the preface of Olby’s book (p. xvi), he Crick’s role as ‘molecular evangelist’ – he states that he hopes for his work to ‘make an broadcasted many BBC radio programmes and additional contribution’. Needless to say, he intensively lectured worldwide between the largely achieves this and in so doing, proves mid-1950s and the late 1960s – his crucial role wrong those who, like myself, thought that in the cracking of the genetic code, his enough was known about Francis Crick’s life. controversial views on eugenics and religion, Olby’s book is written in a lucid style with an and his flirtation with two highly speculative impressive display of sources and a smart and subjects such as the origin of life and engaging narrative. Definitely a pleasurable consciousness. read. A key aspect from Crick’s scientific life that Olby rescues outstandingly is that of his Norberto Serpente, years working for the Admiralty during World War II (Chapter Four). As a naval The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of scientist, Crick, alongside other scientists, Medicine at UCL began to work first on the development of sweeping mechanisms to destroy the sea magnetic mines that the German Navy was Alex Mold and Virginia Berridge, Volun- using to blockade the traffic of vessels tary Action and Illegal Drugs: Health and through the English Channel. Later, his work Society in Britain since the 1960s, Science, shifted towards the design of mines able to Technology and Medicine in Modern History, neutralise the very same sweeping (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), mechanisms, in case the Germans had also pp. x þ 242, £55.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0- developed them. This was a very intense, 230-52140-7. working-around-the-clock period, one that allowed for the emergence of a well-defined Voluntary action in British welfare provision working culture (weapon development) that is not new: an early form being the religious would, in Crick’s hands, prove determinant guilds of the mediaeval period. As I write, it for the establishment of a highly competitive is being praised as an activity that ‘makes science, such as molecular biology. There lives better’ by a British Prime Minister – this is no doubt about how precious this culture time, David Cameron; and not for the first of fast response and the delivery of results, time ‘claimed’ as a key plank of the of the constant strive for getting ahead of government’s plan to deliver improved the competition’s ideas and work, was for welfare services. Crick and his colleagues at Cambridge when In their first co-authored monograph, Alex competing with Linus Pauling on the Mold and Virginia Berridge explore the determination, first of protein, and shortly meaning, importance and roles of after, on DNA structures. This transfer of contemporary voluntary service centred war culture into the biosciences, as revealed around illegal drug use in Britain from the by Olby’s account of Crick’s early days of 1960s. They illustrate that since the 1980s, scientific development, certainly deserves the key players in the mixed economy of

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