Content uploaded by Gabriel Finkelstein
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gabriel Finkelstein on Nov 25, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
Content uploaded by Gabriel Finkelstein
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gabriel Finkelstein on Nov 23, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
SCIENTIFIC CELEBRITY: THE PARADOXICAL CASE OF EMIL DU BOIS-
REYMOND
A talk delivered at the Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, 20 November 2015, in the panel
“Biography as Historiographical Genre: Examples from Nineteenth-Century Germany”
Introduction
Once lauded as “the foremost naturalist of Europe,” “the last of the encyclopedists,”
and “one of the greatest scientists Germany ever produced,” the neurophysiologist Emil
du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) has suffered a terrible decline in celebrity. Unlike Charles
Darwin and Claude Bernard, who endure as heroes in England and France, du Bois-
Reymond is generally forgotten in Germany—no streets bear his name, no stamps portray
his image, no celebrations are held in his honor, and no collections of his essays remain
in print. Most Germans have never heard of him, and if they have, they generally assume
that he was Swiss.
I want to use du Bois-Reymond’s curious example to address two historical
questions: first, how did German scientists become famous in the nineteenth-century?
And second, how have their reputations been maintained today? My contention is that du
Bois-Reymond fell victim to his very success.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
2
The Path to Fame
Du Bois-Reymond’s fame was anything but a foregone conclusion. He was born in
Berlin on 7 November 1818 to a middle-class family of Huguenot ancestry. On his
mother’s side, he descended from a long line of pastors, scholars, and artists well known
to the refugié community; by contrast; his father was an immigrant from Neuchâtel who
worked himself into a position of respectability as counselor for Swiss affairs in the
Prussian foreign ministry. Du Bois-Reymond grew up bilingual in French and German,
and he originally intended to apply his love of mountains, his Swiss connections, and his
interest in natural history to a career in geology, but contact with a student at university
convinced him that the best path to fame in science ran through the laboratory. Du Bois-
Reymond apprenticed in physics at the university and in physiology at the medical
school; in effect, his work can be understood as applying the techniques of the former to
the study of the latter.
So much for training. How about ideas? In the summer of 1838 du Bois-Reymond
read a new translation of Lucretius’s poem De Rerum Natura.1 Thereafter he converted to
a positivist view of biology, which is to say one that dispensed with teleology, vitalism,
and other Romantic notions. There’s a distinctly anti-Catholic bend to du Bois-
Reymond’s outlook, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it anti-clerical, since his
philosophy best resembles a secular variant of his father’s Calvinism—a vision of a
universe preordained, subject to law, and ultimately unfathomable. The difference
between Calvin and du Bois-Reymond is that the latter scholar framed his rationalism in
1 He may well have read Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive as this time, too, since he cites it in later
writings.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
3
the idiom of science. He did this, most famously, by showing the action of the will to be
an electrical signal.
Like all great experiments du Bois-Reymond’s demonstration was deceptively
simple.2 It was based on his famed method of compensation, which is to say, the
configuration of two elements of a circuit so that their currents balanced, or
“compensated.” As long as the voltages across each element remained the same, the
needle of his galvanometer kept still. At the slightest imbalance, however, the needle
swung. Popularized in 1843 by Charles Wheatstone, this technique was familiar to
physicists; du Bois-Reymond’s innovation was to apply it to the study of the body. Here
his right and left arms served as the balanced elements of the circuit, leaving the
galvanometer free to detect any difference in the currents of his limbs.
To perform the experiment du Bois-Reymond proceeded as follows. He attached the
leads of his galvanometer to platinum plates resting in “conducting vessels” filled with
saline. After immersing his fingers in the electrolyte, he waited for the galvanometer
needle to come to rest. All of a sudden, he tensed one of his arms. The needle jumped.
Observers in Berlin, Paris, and London were astonished by the exhibition; indeed the
performance, which was simple and striking, made his name as much as any of his
scholarly publications, including the introduction to his treatise on animal electricity, first
published in the revolutionary year of 1848 and later famed as an early attack on vital
2 This section is taken from my book Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society (Cambridge;
London: The MIT Press, 2013), 99.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
4
explanations in biology.
Figure 1. Demonstration of voluntary tetanic current. The arrows indicate the flow of current through the
body. The galvanometer detecting the signal rests on a separate shelf to avoid disturbance. Reprinted from
Emil du Bois-Reymond, Untersuchungen über thierische Elektricität, 2 (Berlin: Reimer, 1848–1884),
(volume 2, part 2, plate V, figure 147).
Du Bois-Reymond’s teaching was a clear as his experiments. He devised a panoply of
aids to demonstration like “the twitch telegraph,” “the frog alarm,” “the frog pistol,” “the
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
5
mirror multiplier,” and “the feather myograph,” the use of which turned his instruction
into theater. Stanley Hall described a typical performance at the Berlin Institute of
Physiology: “Graphic charts are the scenery, changed daily with the theme, and the
lecturer is mainly occupied in describing his curves and instruments, and signaling
assistants, who darken the room, explode gases, throw electric lights or sunbeams, simple
or colored, upon mirrors and lenses, or strike up harmonic overtones, as the case may
be.”3 Students would enroll in classes immediately preceding these lectures just so they
could keep their seats. The Royal Family, by contrast, had their own box.
In spite of all his showmanship, du Bois-Reymond knew the only way he would
really make his name was to address the public in general. As he put it, popular authors
“persist in the public mind as monuments of human progress long after the waves of
oblivion have surged over the originators of the soundest research.”4 In this regard he
took after his patron Alexander von Humboldt as much as he did his teacher Johannes
Müller. The difference in generations was one of style: where Müller and Humboldt had
instructed protégés in private, du Bois-Reymond held forth in full view. He used his
academic standing as a platform, fully aware that he could not be censored for anything
said in the performance of his duties. The result was a candor of expression rarely seen in
Imperial Germany. It is to his credit that du Bois-Reymond addressed the tragedy of
nationalism, the corruption of the universities, the dangers of extremism, the persecution
of Jews, and the temptations of fame, power, and money. He was brave and forthright,
3 Granville Stanley Hall, “The Graphic Method” (1879), Aspects of German Culture (Boston: James R.
Osgood and Company, 1881), 66-72, 68.
4 Emil du Bois-Reymond, “Adelbert von Chamisso als Naturforscher. In der Leibniz-Sitzung der Akademie
der Wissenschaften zu Berlin am 28. Juni 1888 gehaltene Rede,” Reden, 2 (Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1912), 2:
353-389, 354.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
6
and his example belies the stereotype of the unpolitical German. Even more important, it
shows that science lay at the center of Imperial German society.
The Fate of Reputation
Du Bois-Reymond’s speeches found an enormous response. Crowds listened to him
as dean and rector of the university, as perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences,
as keynote speaker at annual meetings of the Congress of German Scientists and
Physicians, as a guest of the Royal Institution, and as a star of the Urania, a popular
Berlin theater of science. His lectures circulated in the Deutsche Rundschau (the leading
German journal of ideas), in reprints, in translations for the foreign press, and in readers
for students of German. Journalists analyzed his remarks, politicians debated his
proposals, clergymen attacked his apostasies, poets honored his example, satirists
parodied his style, and bookshops displayed his portrait. “Few, if any scholars now
living,” the American mathematician James Howard Gore wrote in 1895, “have exercised
directly, as well as through their students, such a wide-spread influence as can be
ascribed to this greatest of all German scientists.”5
A review of du Bois-Reymond’s accomplishments will give some idea why he was so
celebrated:
In terms of science, he revolutionized the study of the nervous system. He also
popularized the unifying principles of energy conservation and natural selection.
5 Emil du Bois-Reymond, Wissenschaftliche Vorträge, ed. James Howard Gore, vi. This section is taken my
book, Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society (Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2013),
207.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
7
In terms of philosophy, he provoked responses from Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Mach,
David Hilbert, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer. Du Bois-Reymond’s insights
continue to inform philosophy today.
In terms of history, he legitimated the study of culture, incited the development of
historicism, popularized the philosophes of the 18th century, and drew attention to the
phenomenon of nationalism.
In terms of the arts, he promoted the career of Julia Margaret Cameron, championed
realist literature, and lamented the Americanization of culture.
In terms of sports, he helped to pioneer gymnastics, mountaineering, and the
physiology of exercise.
And finally, in terms of foresight, he predicted that Europe would sink into genocide
and that fossil fuels would degrade the environment.
Legacy of Oblivion
The question naturally arises, How did someone so famous end up so forgotten?
I’d like to suggest three kinds of answer. The first has to do with the kind of histories
that disciplines write about their origins. These usually take the form of the classical
Greek myths of the Titanomachy, with a Promethian figure (the disciplinary founder)
aligning with the Olympian gods of truth against an older and more barbaric generation
(here symbolized by Kronos, or tradition). Psychology provides a perfect case in point. In
Russia the discipline’s heroes are the two Ivans, Pavlov and Sechenov, with little
discussion of how much these scientists owed to Carl Ludwig’s studies of digestion or
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
8
Emil du Bois-Reymond’s studies of nerve function. In Austria the hero is Sigmund
Freud, and only recently have Andreas Mayer and Katja Guenther laid out just how much
he owed to Jean-Martin Charcot’s skill at hypnosis and Ernst Brücke’s anatomical
investigations of the nervous system.6 And in the United States the hero is William
James, the center of a veritable industry of scholars, none of whom quite put their finger
on why he moved to Berlin in 1867. James never mentioned his debt to du Bois-
Reymond, perhaps because he flunked out of his class, or perhaps because so many of his
early lectures draw from du Bois-Reymond’s writings. In each case the titanic hero
breaks the line of continuity, throws over the all-devouring father (otherwise known as
the Institute Director), and benefits humanity with his torch of reason. For this service he
is martyred to a rock of fame, where he is tormented daily by critics.
Then there is the problem of academic specialization. Du Bois-Reymond worked in
so many fields that he’s hard to pigeonhole. This is the problem with studying polymaths.
It takes a very long time to master the history of the fields in which they work, and then
when one does, it still isn’t easy to explain their contributions in a catchphrase. Think of
how many biographies there have been of Alexander von Humboldt. People are still
trying to figure out what to make of him.7
Finally, there is the larger question of presentism. When I was a graduate student
most people thought of Imperial German culture as consisting of little more than
6 Andreas Mayer, Sites of the Unconscious: Hypnosis and the Emergence of the Psychoanalytic Setting
(Chicago; London: University of Chicago, 2013); Katja Guenther, Localization and Its Discontents: A
Genealogy of Psychoanalysis and the Neuro Disciplines (Chicago; London: University of Chicago, 2015).
7 Nicolaas Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography (Chicago; London: University of Chicago,
2008); Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World (New York: Knopf,
2015).
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
9
Nietzsche, Wagner, and “the politics of despair.” The name of the game was “Find the
Proto-Nazi.” Things haven’t improved much. Since the end of the Cold War German
historians have written fine studies of what Carol Harrison and Ann Johnson list as “the
celebration of rural homelands, Bach’s genius, nature preservation, physical culture,
female domesticity, and Christmas trees”—all very interesting, to be sure, but all
somewhat peripheral to the main achievements of the age, which were in science,
technology, and medicine.8 Why this absence at the heart of modern German history? It’s
not just du Bois-Reymond who is forgotten—pretty much every German scientist beside
Albert Einstein and Werner von Braun is forgotten (and those two are half American).
Active remembrance
On 3 August 1883 Emil du Bois-Reymond delivered a lecture on “The Humboldt
Statues in front of the University of Berlin.”9 Earlier in the summer the sculptures had
been unveiled in a ceremony attended by student deputations, university faculty,
ministers of state, foreign dignitaries, members of parliament, municipal authorities,
Prussian generals, cultural celebrities, and the Royal Family. As this gala was too festive
for more than a few words, du Bois-Reymond saved the body of his remarks for the
8 Carol E. Harrison and Ann Johnson, “Science and National Identity,” Osiris 24, no. 1 (2009): 1-14, 5.
9 Emil du Bois-Reymond, “Die Humboldt-Denkmäler vor der Berliner Universität. In der Aula der Berliner
Universität am 3. August 1883 gehaltene Rektoratsrede,” Reden, 2 (Leipzig: Veit, 1912), 2: 249-284.
Cf. Rudolf Virchow and Emil du Bois-Reymond: Briefe 1864-1894, ed. Klaus Wenig (Marburg am Lahn:
Basilisken-Presse, 1995), 55-67; Denise Phillips, “Building Humboldt’s Legacy: The Humboldt Memorials
of 1869 in Germany,” Northeastern Naturalist 8, no. 1 (2001): 21-32; Andreas W. Daum, “Nation,
Naturforschung und Monument: Humboldt-Denkmäler in Deutschland und den USA,” Die Kunst der
Geschichte: Historiographie, Ästhetik, Erzählung, ed. Martin Baumeister, Moritz Föllmer, and Philipp
Müller (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 99-124. This section is taken from my book, Emil du
Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society (Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2013), 236-237.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
10
inauguration of the new academic year.10 He focused his speech on the Humboldt he
knew best, a man whose complexities were embodied in his statue itself.
As du Bois-Reymond recounted, Virchow first proposed a national monument to
Alexander von Humboldt at the North German Customs Union in 1869.11 When this
appeal failed du Bois-Reymond solicited private contributions on behalf of a committee
of leading professors and citizens.12 Finding a site for the statue was more difficult. The
University of Berlin agreed to donate land on condition that a monument to Wilhelm von
Humboldt be erected alongside his brother. The committee could hardly object: Wilhelm
had founded the university, and the King had agreed to underwrite the additional cost.13
Sadly, the sculptures turned out disappointing. Wilhelm appeared dignified and pensive,
but Alexander seemed to float on top of a globe; he also looked old, which clashed with
his image as an adventurer.14 The real Humboldt, du Bois-Reymond recalled, was
10 “The Humboldt Statues in Berlin,” The Daily News, No. 11582, New York, Tuesday, 29 May 1883; “Die
Enthüllung der Humboldt-Denkmäler in Berlin,” Provinzial-Correspondenz 21, No. 22, Berlin, 30 May
1883; “Kleine Chronik. [Denkmäler der Brüder Humboldt.],” Neue Freie Presse, Nr. 6735, Vienna,
Tuesday, 29 May 1883, 4; EdBR to RV, 1 June 1883 (#50), 28 November 1883 (#51), Briefe, 112-113. On
the subversion of bourgeois ceremonies into state cults, see Hartwin Spenkuch, “Vergleichlichweise
besonders? Politisches System und Strukturen Preußens als Kern des ‘deutschen Sonderwegs,’” Geschichte
und Gesellschaft 29 (2003): 262-293, 283n35.
11 “An das Deutsche Zollparlament,” Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Handschriftenabteilung, Nachlaß du Bois-Reymond, K. 3 M. 1 Bl. 1-2, reprinted in Wenig, ed., Briefe, 159-
160.
12 Members, all liberals, included du Bois-Reymond, Virchow, Siemens, Wilhelm Förster (Professor of
Astronomy), Max von Forckenbeck (Mayor of Berlin), Wolfgang Straßmann (Chairman of the Berlin City
Council), Georg Reimer (publisher), Alexander Mendelssohn (banker), and the councilman and Honorary
Citizen Heinrich Kochhann. Nachlaß du Bois-Reymond, K. 3 M. 1.
13 Emil du Bois-Reymond, “Bericht über die vor dem Universitätsgebäude zu Berlin zu errichtenden
Standbilder der Gebrüder Wilhelm und Alexander von Humboldt,” Deutscher Reichs-Anzeiger und
Königlich Preußischer Staats-Anzeiger, Nr. 220, Berlin, Monday, 18 September 1876, 1-2.
14 Emil du Bois-Reymond, “‘Aus den Llanos’,” 46-47; EdBR to RV, 11 February [18]77 (#18), 6 March
[18]77 (#20), Briefe, 85-87; Protocoll über die Abnahme des Modells der Statue Alexander’s von
Humboldt, Berlin, 25 August 1880, reprinted in Emil du Bois-Reymond, Friedrich II. in englischen
Urtheilen. Darwin und Kopernicus. Die Humboldt-Denkmäler vor der Berliner Universität. Drei Reden
(Leipzig: Veit, 1884), 114-116.
Gabriel Finkelstein © 2015 Scientific Celebrity
11
anything but an “exalted ruin.”15 In this way his monument told the story of German
liberalism: auspicious beginnings in the 1860s, flawed execution in the 1870s, and
apparent obsolescence in the 1880s.
What do we choose to monumentalize? There is a statue of Claude Bernard in the
courtyard of France’s most prestigious academic institution, the Collège de France.
Charles Darwin is buried in Westminster Abby. Bernard and Darwin stand for battles still
being fought: secular revolutions against the power of religion. Emil du Bois-Reymond
won that battle in Germany; in fact, very few of the societal divides of the 19th century
remain. There is almost no militarism left, no violent class or confessional conflict, little
hatred of France or Jews or even Americans. Perhaps Islam will change this. I tend to
doubt it. Secular, cosmopolitan, rational elites continue to run the country, and unlike
here, they enjoy wide support. Emil du Bois-Reymond is a victim of his own success.
15 “Die Humboldt-Denkmäler,” 255.