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More copies of this ISBNeBook editionsGeneration: The 17th Century Scientists Who Unraveled the Secrets of Human Reproductionby Matthew Cobb
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Four rival anatomists and their race to answer the age-old question: Where does life come from? Generation is the story of the exciting, largely forgotten decade during the seventeenth century when a group of young scientists—Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary, Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct, Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect, and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper—dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling “eels” in semen. However, their ultimate inability to fully understand the evidence that was in front of them led to a fatal mistake. As a result, the final leap in describing the process of reproduction—which would ultimately give birth to the science of genetics—took nearly two centuries for humanity to achieve. Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against a backdrop of the Dutch “Golden Age.” It is a riveting account of the audacious men who swept away old certainties and provided the foundation for much of our current understanding of the living world. Matthew Cobb is on the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester, where he lectures on animal behavior. He is also a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and has translated a number of books on popular science and science history. Where do animals come from? For thousands of years we had no idea how living things were created—great thinkers like Aristotle and Hippocrates had attempted to explain what became known as the problem of "generation," but none of them had the tools or the insight to solve the mystery. The result was a wealth of weird and wonderful ideas about the components necessary to create new life—blood, "vapors," invisible particles in the air. It was widely accepted that animals could sometimes produce difference species, for example; the notion that two sheep can only ever make another sheep is a surprisingly modern idea. But all this confusion changed in a flurry of discovery in one decade in the mid-seventeenth-century. Generation is the story of the exciting, all but forgotten decade when four men—Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary; Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct; Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect; and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper—dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling "eels" in semen. At last, the building blocks were in place—although, in one of the great ironies of science, it would be another 150 years before someone finally put all the pieces together to explain how babies are born. Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against the backdrop of the Dutch "Golden Age." It is an account of the audacious men who swept away old certainties and provided the foundation for much of our current understanding of the living world. "Mr. Cobb's strong suit is science. His pages come alive when he delves into experiments, published scientific works and the cross-fertilization of ideas made possible by new scientific journals and societies. Here, fortunately, he has a wealth of material, starting with the speculations of William Harvey, who first argued that all animals emerge from an egg, and ending with Leeuwenhoek's groundbreaking microscope studies of spermatozoa."—William Grimes, The New York Times "The discovery of sperm and ova and the controversy they generated represent one of the greatest stories in the history of biology. It is a story as relevant today as it was in its own time, and Matthew Cobb tells it with great scholarship and tremendous panache."—Tim Birkhead, author of Promiscuity and The Red Canary "Nothing as excellent on the subject of the history of ideas about sexual reproduction, the role of the sperm and the egg, and especially the rapid series of discoveries in the mid-seventeenth century, has ever been published before. Cobb's scholarship is impeccable and the way he writes is a model of clarity, energy, and wit."—Irvine Loudon, author of Western Medicine: An Illustrated History "A fascinating subject, full of arresting material and personalities."—The Sunday Times (London) "A ripping yarn . . . written with the ordinary reader, rather than other scientists, in mind."—Manchester Evening News (UK) "Anyone wanting to know how the early scientists discovered the secrets of reproduction could not find a better introduction."—Sunday Telegraph (UK) "Where do babies come from? If you'd been alive before 1650, you might never have known, as this instructive and pleasing history relates. Cobb, a British biologist whose day job while writing was 'studying the sense of smell in maggots—really,' here notes that the causal connections between anatomical equipment and usage and reproduction were not well understood before 1650; even Leonardo da Vinci got some of the most important details wrong, while the once-influential scientist Athanasius Kircher was sure that something alchemical was at work and offered up a recipe involving crushed maggots—really—and honey water to prove his point. 'If you wanted to generate flies, Kircher's procedure was sure to succeed,' Cobb writes. Flies relish such a dish indeed, but for reasons for which Kircher did not account, and it took the combined efforts of a generation of scientists from across Europe to overturn the old beliefs. Leiden University was a particularly effective hive of activity, blessed with a bibulous (the university 'gave students an annual tax-free alcohol allowance of 194 litres of wine and around 1500 litres of beer') but talented corps of scholars. Men such as Jan Swammerdam, Nils Stensen, Reinier de Graaf and Anton Leeuwenhoek, of various backgrounds and conditions, embodied the best aspects of the Dutch Golden Age, corresponding and visiting with their peers in other countries and gradually developing techniques and theories that underlie modern genetics, biochemistry and other disciplines. Not that their efforts weren't start-and-stop: As Cobb notes, it took a while for even those great thinkers in that great era to link the 'little animals' that lived inside semen to their role in fertilizing eggs. And yet, in time, 'They showed us where we come from,' Cobb concludes. Readers fond of such works as Jenny Uglow's The Lunar Men will find Cobb's tale a pleasure."—Kirkus Reviews "Cobb's thorough research results in a portrayal not only of the amazing discoveries in the science of reproduction but life in Holland at the height of its economic and intellectual powers . . . [Cobb provides] a wealth of historical details."—Publishers Weekly Review:"Today we all know the facts of life, but until the 17th century, even the most basic facts were a complete mystery. At that time, popular belief was that insects arose randomly from rotting meat and a leaf of basil pressed between two bricks would turn into a scorpion. But in one decade, three friends and scientists uncovered the foundations of our modern understanding of procreation: Jan Swammerdam, who was fascinated by insect generation; Niels Steno, 'the first person to suggest that all female animals have ovaries'; and Reinier de Graaf, who proved that human females produce eggs. These three men, working in Holland in the 1660s and '70s, were united by the discovery of another Dutchman: Antoni Leeuwenhoek's powerful microscope. Cobb's thorough research results in a portrayal not only of the amazing discoveries in the science of reproduction but life in Holland at the height of its economic and intellectual powers. Cobb works a little too hard to give a sense of inevitability to the lives of his subjects, leading inexorably to their discoveries. If his functional prose lacks vividness at times, Cobb makes up for it with a wealth of historical details. B&w illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Book News Annotation:Although dozens of the brightest lights of the ages ruminated over
where babies came from, none had come closer than proposing it was
something in the air. They were not even sure that two sheep would
always reproduce in the form of another sheep. However, four men of
the seventeenth century, armed with the new technology of the
microscope and the privilege of dissection denied previous
ruminators, began to discern how the different elements of
reproduction looked from the inside. Cobb (life sciences, U. of
Manchester) does a remarkable job of working through previously
untranslated documents and discerning the personalities,
particularities and discoveries of these gentlemen scientists, and
makes sure readers understand how ironic it was that they never quite
understood enough about reproduction from their experiments to know
precisely what was going on.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Synopsis:Four rival anatomists and their race to answer the age-old question: Where does life come from? Generation is the story of the exciting, largely forgotten decade during the seventeenth century when a group of young scientists--Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary, Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct, Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect, and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper--dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling "eels" in semen. However, their ultimate inability to fully understand the evidence that was in front of them led to a fatal mistake. As a result, the final leap in describing the process of reproduction--which would ultimately give birth to the science of genetics--took nearly two centuries for humanity to achieve. Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against a backdrop of the Dutch "Golden Age." It is a riveting account of the audacious men who swept away old certainties and provided the foundation for much of our current understanding of the living world. About the AuthorMatthew Cobb is in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester, where he lectures on animal behavior. He is also a regular reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and has translated a number of books on popular science and science history. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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