Mother Love and Its Selective Advantage
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book reviews proprieties of the doctor–patient relation- reported to have exclaimed, “this Yankee trolling insemination: inseminated eggs ship, and on medical reputations. dodge beats mesmerism hollow”. Second, become daughters. She lays daughters in Medical men were pressured to take a there are the published data generated from a large larvae, sons in relatively small ones — view: to investigate, explain or reject the new surgical production line developed by James the reproductive success of daughters is science. The latter course was eased for many Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon, between the more dependent on large body size than is when in 1838 Thomas Wakley (founder of mid-1840s and 1850s in the Native Hospital, that of sons. The Lancet, and a keen exposer of quackery) Calcutta. Here, patients were prepared for A socially dominant red deer hind gives proved beyond doubt before a large audience the knife by a team of mesmerizing assis- birth to more sons than daughters, probably that the eminent professor John Elliotson of tants. Sceptics had very properly insisted on by selective abortion of female fetuses. Her University College London had been reliable and repeatable evidence. But even sons have a better chance of becoming domi- hoaxed. Elliotson resigned. But despite The where this was available (as it evidently was nant and fathering many grandchildren than Lancet’s ridicule, public and medical interest in Calcutta), mesmeric anaesthesia failed to do the sons of subordinate females. Subordi- seems to have continued unabated. attain ‘scientific’ credibility. nate females, on the other hand, have off- Neither medicine nor science had a The problem seems partly to have been spring with normal sex ratios. So are mater- monopoly on investigation, as mesmerizing that unexplained phenomena that depended nal effects usually adaptations? The case is skills could be acquired relatively easily. Itin- on what we call suggestibility was character- clearer for these examples than it is for most erant lecturers took their skills to public and ized by rationalists as suspect. Mesmerism of the effects mentioned in this book, and the private audiences all over the country. Doc- was responsible for the development of the authors admit as much. tors witnessed them, accepted tuition from notion of suggestion, by James Braid, and of Although there are many such examples, and argued with them. Awareness of occa- unconscious action, in the work of Michael the editors and authors of the book com- sional hoaxes did not nullify the experiences Faraday in investigating table-turning by the plain that adaptive maternal effects have of people who to their own mystification had inculpation of those whose joined hands been neglected and that this must change. themselves experienced or witnessed mes- involuntarily spun the table. How do they arrive at the impression of meric phenomena. Professional disarray One of this book’s strengths is that it con- neglect in the midst of plenty? To an evolu- concerning the status of the evidence for and veys the strangeness — and the newness — tionary quantitative geneticist, taking an against mesmerism served to question not of mesmerism, which so puzzled and effect seriously means studying its genetics. only the very nature of evidence but also the intrigued contemporaries. Mesmerism’s sci- This they do by extending the methods of scientific credentials of doctors and scien- entific and medical impacts represent only quantitative genetics to include inter-gener- tists on all sides of the debate. Accusations of part of the story told in this extraordinary ational effects of parental phenotypes on fraudulence were not one-way. book, which examines its wide cultural offspring phenotypes, and they succeed Mesmeric anaesthesia was at first a matter repercussions in the arts (A Christmas Carol, rather well. of curiosity in public performances of ani- La Somnambula), including the develop- Why did they think that the time was ripe mal magnetism in which mesmerized sub- ment of the role of the orchestral conductor, to focus on maternal effects? Here I was less jects seemed oblivious to otherwise painful and in politics, the development of the satisfied. Plant and animal breeders have stimuli, such as being stuck with pins or notion of ‘consensus’. tended to play down maternal effects, and burnt. Its use in surgery was a logical step, The word ‘mesmerized’ remains highly the dominant texts on plant and animal and when tried in 1842 in a case of leg ampu- charged because of what we think we know of breeding make little mention of them. The tation at the thigh, proved an instant success. the power of the mesmerizer, and because, neglect has thus not been the fault of evolu- Fierce controversy ensued. Not surprisingly, despite our current knowledge, many of its tionary biologists, but of non-evolutionary patients were keen to try it, and many doc- phenomena seem to remain beyond our quantitative geneticists, who can hardly be tors were keen to assist them. Others simply understanding: dangerous, unscientific. blamed for not addressing problems they did asserted that anaesthetized patients were Such reactions indicate the influence the not realize they were supposed to solve. I fakers. nineteenth century continues to exert over wonder whether one needs a whole book to Winter argues convincingly that the our own intellectual culture, an influence make that simple point. deliberate suspension of pain during surgery this book brilliantly explains. Some authors seemed to value complexi- was a by-product of mesmeric research, and Ruth Richardson is in the Department of Anatomy, ty for its own sake. Other contributions were that its success stimulated the development University College, London WC1E 6BT, UK. more satisfying. Roff’s review of methods is and the swift and widespread adoption of clear, useful and concise. The reviews of chemical anaesthesia. The notion that maternal effects in flowering plants, insects, doctors had neglected their patients by fail- fish, amphibians and rodents are competent ing to ease their pain, and that mesmerism Mother love and its summaries of the state of the art. Denlinger’s could deliver an effective alternative, was chapter on the transgenerational control of such a spur to doctors suspicious of mes- selective advantage fly diapause shows how much can be merism that they disregarded the dangers Maternal Effects as Adaptations achieved with classical techniques; here the and fatalities of ether and chloroform, to edited by Timothy A. Mousseau and way ahead appears to be molecular rather possess the new medical grail: painless — but Charles W. Fox than quantitative genetics. ‘scientific’ — surgery. Oxford University Press: 1998. 348 pp. In brief, this multi-authored symposium This finding looks like a revolution in the £49.50, $65 volume has some new, creative contribu- history of anaesthesia. It is reinforced with Steve Stearns tions to methods, some useful reviews of the two very different clusters of evidence. First, state of the art and a few chapters from peo- the leg amputation at the thigh performed by Mothers love their children, of that we can be ple who should have done a better job. All the the famous surgeon Robert Liston to sure. Some biologists, who love their moth- authors are from North America. I hope that demonstrate the first use of ether anaesthesia ers as much as anyone, interpret the effects this does not declare a prejudice about where in the United Kingdom took place in 1847 that mothers have on their offspring as adap- significant work is being done. with triumphal symmetry in the same teach- tations shaped by evolution. Steve Stearns is at the Zoology Institute, University ing theatre in which Elliotson had first dis- A female parasitoid wasp determines the of Basle, Rheinsprung 9, CH-4051 Basle, played his mesmerized patients. Liston is sex of her haplodiploid offspring by con- Switzerland. 36 © 1999 Macmillan Magazines Ltd NATURE | VOL 397 | 7 JANUARY 1999 | www.nature.com.