Day 12 Slides History of Biology F23

pdf

School

Dalhousie University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

3602

Subject

Medicine

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by MateStrawYak31

Observation and Representation: Scientific Illustrators and Illustrations

2 In today’s class: 1. A bit more about Strophanthus 2. Flower families: Maria Sybilla Merian and the Dietzch workshop 3. Back to the Jardin du roi: Madeliene Françoise Basseporte 4. Watching and drawing frogs: Hélène Dumoustier and the Réaumur household 5. Darwin and Mendel: what do we know? “Detail, Maria Sibylla Merian, Branch of Pomegranate with Lanternfly and Cicada , 1702 – 03, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic over lightly etched outlines on vellum. Royal Collection Trust, London.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/protofeminist-insects-in-art/

3 A bit more about Strophanthus in its West African context, from Bitter Roots (2014) Stropthanthus as a medicine: “African healers have long recognized the medicinal value of the genus, incorporating different species into treatments for muscular aches, open sores, constipation, food poisoning, venereal ailments, and heart failure. In the Gold Coast, preparations of the plant variously called “ omaatwa ,” “ yoagbe ,” and “ ajokuma ” relied on alcoholic decoctions made by steeping roots in a fermented, alcoholic beverage, a therapeutic method common to the region. The resulting bitter- tasting solution would be taken in small sips over a period of days or weeks. Local healing specialists throughout West Africa seemed to have closely monitored its use: “The stems are mashed and boiled and the liquid drunk, the dose being carefully regulated by the native doctor, any error easily producing poisoning.” A potent plant with both healing and highly toxic capabilities, Strophanthus was also integral to traditional legal regimes relying on ordeal trials. In such court proceedings, the physical response of the accused to a strong drink prepared with Strophanthus or another potentially toxic ingredient determined the verdict. Among the secret women’s societies of Sierra Leone, S. gratus represented a form of female knowledge in its use during closed ordeal trials.” (Osseo -Asare 2014, p. 117-118) https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo17031345.html

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

4 Strophanthin as a laboratory preparation: “Fraser pieced together available written information on African arrow poisons and assembled eight sample poisoned arrows on which he inflicted a battery of tests, eventually leading him to the elusive drug. […] To make the drug, Fraser first ground and dried samples of seed obtained from his colleagues, which he surmised to be S. hispidus . […] To some extent, he provided geographic and cultural information on the sites where people produced the collected armaments, noting, for example, that Arrow C came from a district ‘75 miles N.N.W. of Zanzibar,’ and that Arrow H, said to come from ‘one of the Manyuema tribes on the west side of Lake Tanganyika,’ was used only for the killing of game. Fraser mixed combinations of powdered Strophanthus seed with alcohol or water until he was able to create a concentrated form of the seeds that, under the lens of his microscope, revealed suspended crystals. These crystals, described as ‘intensely bitter,’ were mixed with water and tannin to produce ‘the active principle.’ Then the tannin was converted to tannate through the introduction of lead oxide. Carbonic acid was passed through the remaining solution for several days. A solution of the dried residue could then precipitate strophanthin through the introduction of ether. The rewards of this long process were ‘beautiful stellar groups of colourless and transparent crystals.’” (Osseo-Asare 2014, p. 119-120) “Efforts to export Strophanthus from the Gold Coast during World War I indicated a need for botanical expertise at the ground level. However, the very people who might have built on existing knowledge to accurately identify Strophanthus were banned from using it.” (Osseo - Asare 2014 p. 122-123)

5 Learning about scientific illustrators helps us think about all sorts of things, but for today let’s focus on Scientific work is usually collaborative • Scientific work almost always relies on the work of multiple people, not all of whom appear in finished publications (e.g. gardeners at the Jardin du roi: Andre Thouin (head gardener) and Jean- Nicolas Collignon (voyaging gardener), studied by Lippi (2002)) • It’s sometimes difficult to separate out collaborative work into specific roles or distinct contributions • Scientific illustration is not separate from scientific knowledge or theoretical commitments/assumptions • Spaces of scientific work are worth studying! “Madeleine Francoise Basseporte, Recueil de dessins de fleurs , folio 7 recto, ca. 1750. Watercolor on vellum. Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris.” Caption and image retrieved from https://artherstory.net/madeleine-francoise-basseporte-and-the- ribbon-as-a-signifier-of-a-womans-touch/ . In this article, art historian Tori Champion writes that “ This piece of delicate pink fabric is the only instance of a non-natural material that I am aware of in Basseporte’s work.”

6 Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) Merian grew up in a Frankfurt family that included artists and engravers; she moved with her husband (an artist; her two daughters also became artists) to Nuremberg and published Blumen (flower; three sets of images 1675-1680) and Raupen (caterpillar; 1679 and 1683) volumes, and taught other women painters. Merian studied the growth and metamorphosis of hundreds of insect species, raising caterpillars indoors and learning about the close relationship between plant species and insect development. Etheridge (2010 and 2021) explains that Merian claimed to have both drawn and engraved the Raupen images (these jobs were often done by separate people), and characterizes her illustrations: “ Merian arranged her compositions to contain as much information as possible in one engraved plate, and this sometimes resulted in plants shown simultaneously in full flower and fruit, or a molted exoskeleton or pupa balanced precariously on leaves and stems.” (Etheridge 2010, p. 16) “Plate 8 from Merian’s first “caterpillar” book showing a dandelion and the lifecycle of the dark tussock moth. This and other images from Merian’s 1679 Raupen book are from a counterproof edition in NEV Library/Naturalis, Leiden. Maria Sibylla Merian, Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumen- nahrung . Nuremberg, 1679.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/curiosity -and-the-caterpillar/

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

7 Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) “Plate 33 of sphinx moth on a fig. Maria Sibylla Merian, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium . Amsterdam: G. Valck , 1705.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/curiosity-and-the-caterpillar/ Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium (1705), the source of your reading today, was based on Merian’s 1699 two-year trip with her daughter Dorothea (Maria was 52 and Dorothea was 21) to Surinam, then a Dutch colony organized around primarily sugar-growing plantations. Though Merian was critical of practices in Surinam, she nonetheless participated in enslavement. How best to account for the role of enslaved people’s work and knowledge (particularly plant medical knowledge) in this text? (for more engagement with this: Dr. Frappier’s class Hypatia’s Daughters (HSTC 3412)) Scheibinger (2004) in Plants and Empire notes Merian’s use of the phrase “They told me this themselves.” ( e.g. in relation to medical use of the peacock flower to control reproduction)

8 Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) “Plate 33 of sphinx moth on a fig. Maria Sibylla Merian, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium . Amsterdam: G. Valck , 1705.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/curiosity-and-the-caterpillar/ Let’s look at the reading, and particularly at the illustrations. What do you notice?

9 The Dietzch family of artists “ Margaretha Barbara Dietzsch, Thistle with five butterflies and other insects , 1741 –84. British Museum.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/barbara-regina-dietzsch-enlightened-flower- painter/ . Margaretha lived from 1726-1795. Barbara Regina Dietzch, Thistle and Butterfly (~1765), image and information from https://aradergalleries.com/products/barbara- regina-dietzsch-german-1706-1783-berries-and-ladybug . Barbara lived 1706-1783. Nuremberg family workshop of artists/engravers (father and seven children). Banta ( 2021 ) describes this as a not-unusual structure. “ Generally speaking, women trained and working within a family structure were able to navigate more easily through the societal restrictions imposed upon them.[…] Officially, women continued to be excluded from these formal arenas of education and exchange (since 1596 the Painter’s Code expressly prohibited women from producing paintings[)]…But domestic commercial activity — such as the workshop in the Dietzsch home — allowed for greater latitude in female members’ involvement.” Often difficult to assign credit to one particular artist for work produced in this context.

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

10 Madeliene Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) Image from https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300252569/minervas-french-sisters/ Trained by artist Robert de Sery; together they set up an art school for girls in Paris (flower painting was a way for girls/women not of means to earn money and there were many such schools across Europe especially from ~1740; Daston and Galison (2007) report that “In 1771, there were over three thousand students, most between the ages of eight and sixteen, receiving free drawing instruction in Paris alone .” ) Basseporte worked as an art teacher and portrait painter before apprenticing to Claude Aubriet (botanical illustrator to the King) beginning 1726, and she took on this position in 1741, shortly before Aubriet’s death. “Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, Musa paradisiaca L, India / Plantain banana, 18th century. Watercolor on vellum. National Museum of Natural History.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/madeleine-francoise-basseportes-hyacinths-at-the-french-court/

11 Madeliene Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) Image from https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300252569/minervas-french-sisters/ • Diplomacy: staying on good terms with the Jussieu and Buffon factions, building working relationships with e.g. Linnaeus, not calling attention to her role in much of Aubriet’s late work • Her role included being an on-call illustrator to the King and his minsters. Examples : one minister “asked that she rush to Versailles in 1744 to paint an exotic gift sent to the monarch,” and another “urged her to hurry to Compiegne in 1750 to capture a fresh fruit just received from the Indies before it perished.” ( Gelbart 2021, p. 120) • Natural history art instruction to those about to expedition, and to women (including some poor women) as students/apprentices • Women at the Jardin du roi: attending public lectures and herborisations. Based on new research, Gelbart (2021) has found that Basseporte’s “most meaningful relationship appears to have been with another woman, Mlle [Marie-Marguerite] Biheron ”, an anatomist (and one-time student of Basseporte’s ) who made wax figures for her museum and used them in medical lecturing. “Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, Musa paradisiaca L, India / Plantain banana, 18th century. Watercolor on vellum. National Museum of Natural History.” Caption and image from https://artherstory.net/madeleine-francoise- basseportes-hyacinths-at-the-french-court/

12 Next up: Madeliene Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) But first, let’s draw! While you’re drawing, think about what you’re doing: • what choices are you making? • what are you trying to represent? • what are you not going to be able to represent?

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

13 Madeliene Françoise Basseporte (1701-1780) The “truth -to- nature” ( Daston and Galison 2007) approach to botanical illustration: “In those days before photography, only drawings could capture the plant being studied and ensure its eternal visual existence. Her finished images, under the guidance of [various botanists] had to represent the whole class of plant being studied, its essence, its invariable traits. She depicted not individuals with their anomalies, variations, and idiosyncrasies but composites that revealed the universal characteristics, the constants, the typical regularities for each plant. Only long, patient, and keen observations of particular specimens could lead to this general knowledge of the pure reality of each species, this ability to see past surfact differences to the underlying ‘truth’. It has been called ‘four - eyed sight,’ for it was a combination of the naturalist’s and the artist’s vision. Basseporte grew attuned to Jussieu’s intellect, and in the process became a botanist in her own right through drawing.” (Gelbart 2021, p. 122) Gelbart adds that Basseporte researched plants thoroughly before drawing them, and that “[t]he toolkit in her satchel included magnifying glasses, microscopes, and fine dissecting knives similar to the instruments used by jewelers.” (p. 123) “Nature was the model, the final court of appeal, for all art and science – but nature refined, selected, and synthesized. This convergence of artistic and scientific visions arose from a shared understanding of mission: many observations, carefully sifted and compared, were a more trustworthy guide to the truths of nature than any one observation.” ( Daston and Galison 2007)

14 Hélène Dumoustier (fl. Mid 18 th century)* *The Stuttgart Database of Scientific Illustrators has only a bit of information on Dumoustier; the work of historian Mary Terrall (2011, 2015) has some more, but not dates that I could find. https://dsi.hi.uni-stuttgart.de/index.php?tablename=dsi&function=details&where_field=id&where_value=1853 Part of the large “scientific household” ( Terrall 2015) of naturalist and prominent Royal Academy of Sciences (Paris, est. 1666) member Ren - Antoine Ferchault de R aumur, Dumoustier was an uncredited (by her request, according to R aumur/Terrall;) but paid illustrator and assistant (“records in the academy’s archives show that Dumoustier was paid for her drawings from 1736 to 1747, at the same rate commanded by the professional artist Simonneau .” Terrall 2015, p. 195) Some of her illustrations and observations were included in Réaumur’s notes (unpublished, Dumoustier’s observations and descriptions credited) on studies of frog mating behaviour from the 1730s, studied and described by Terrall. Image and caption from Terrall (2011). The frog-pants study: “ In detailing his troubles with getting the pants to stay on the frogs, Réaumur effaced his helpers through the first- person singular pronoun. ‘I made numerous attempts before figuring out how to give the male frogs pants I could be satisfied with. . . . Waxed taffeta seemed a better choice, but after having made the pants and put them on, the frogs abandoned them in front of me.’” ( Terrall 2011, p. 189; she reports that thirty years later Lazzaro Spallanzani repeated the frog pants work with more success.)

15 The Biodiversity Heritage Library Women in Natural History collection: what did you find?

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

16 Gregor Mendel and the pea plants: what do we know already? Where has this information come from?

For next time: Focus on pages 407- first bit of 410 from “Experiments on Plant Hybrids” (Mendel ); and read the short piece by Radick (2015) and the excerpts from Brannigan (1979) 17