Special Reports - People in Science

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

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I would like to propose two gentlemen from the distant past as scientific heroes worthy of your respect and emulation today.

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The first, in historical terms, is Thucydides son of Olorus, a Greek from the Athens area who lived from c.460-c.400BCE.

He was not what would be considered nowadays “a scientist”, mostly because there was no such concept as “science”, then. The word we use comes from the Latin scientia, which means, simply, “knowledge”, or “knowing”. The idea of a specific body or type of knowledge which could be separated off and labelled “science” came very late to Western thought; if you look at The Gentleman’s Magazine, one of the most first and most popular publications for a general readership, dating from the 18^th century, you will find a gallimaufry of subjects all jumbled together, from farming economics to electrical experiments to astronomical observations to anthropology to abstruse points of Latin or Hebrew Grammar to politics to religion, to art. And this holds true well into the 19^th century: all knowledge and all theorising was one. And the same quality standards, then, applied to all knowledge and theorising....those were the days!

So, Thucydides. If he was categorised at all as a writer, it was as a historian. Though, in those days of Athenian democracy, he also served time as a soldier (so unsuccessfully that at one point he was exiled) and as a politician/public servant. But in 431BCE came the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, and Thucydides found himself in Athens, a location which very soon became a closed trap. The Athenians’ leader, Pericles, ordered the evacuation of the countryside surrounding Athens and the removal of its population, human and animal, to within the walls of Athens, and the space between the Long Walls, a fortified corridor which connected Athens with its sea port, the Piraeus. alt

Now the Greeks were pretty good on town planning; in fact, most authorities agree that their practice was considerably superior to anything that could be found in Europe until well into the 19^th century. They understood about living space, ventilation, and above all about the importance of an abundant and clean supply of water.

Unfortunately this didn’t apply to the area between the Long Walls, any more than it would today to a stretch of motorway between service stations. The country folk crowded into the city, and soon overwhelmed what spare accommodation there was, then they and their animals camped between the Walls. Not surprisingly, sickness soon broke out. To be precise, the Great Plague of Athens, about which historians have been arguing ever since. I hope to write further about this mystery disease, its causes, symptoms, and treatments, in a future article; suffice it to say here that it was a swift and highly contagious killer, just like the various plagues that depopulated Britain in past centuries. And it disappeared as swiftly and mysteriously as it arose.

Not everyone died, of course; just most of them. Pericles died, and, according to a much later account by Plutarch, died hard, speechless but shamefacedly wearing an amulet as a last, hopeless, resort to try to ward off the evil. And one who survived, and held on to his reason, was Thucydides. Now here comes the point at last. Thucydides set out deliberately to record, as comprehensively and objectively as he could, the origins, symptoms, and results of this epidemic, specifically for the use of future generations should it ever return. This record, which survives, is unparallelled in ancient medicine and is also superior by a mile to many later accounts of plagues.

It is not known when, where or why, exactly, Thucydides died; his History of the Peloponnesian War just breaks off in 411BCE and it is assumed this was because he didn’t live to complete it (the war continued until 404BCE). But for that plague description alone, and the attitude of mind which prompted him to record it as he did, I nominate Thucydides as one of the first Western scientists.

My second candidate is Roman: Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23-79CE, from Como in Gallia Transpadana (alas, no contemporary portrait of him survives). This man was a workaholic polymath, most of whose works have been lost except for his Natural History, in 37 volumes, although he is recorded by his nephew and heir (who adopted his name and is known as Pliny the Younger) as having written also on: cavalry tactics, oratory, grammar, history and biography; he also found time to be a public servant, an assistant to the Emperor Vespasian, and officer (prefect) in the Roman navy. Pliny’s Natural History displays an enquiring mind, at the very least; if he didn’t believe everything he was told about distant lands, exotic animals, alien customs, at least he recorded it all, as he said, for posterity or those better qualified than he, to judge. But his claim to the title of scientist comes from what happened at the end of his life. Vesuvius erupted (this was the eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum) in August 79CE. Pliny and his household, including the nephew, to whom we are indebted for this account, were staying with his sister at Misenum (Capo Miseno) on the north side of the Gulf of Naples, and were alerted to the occurrence of something strange by a cloud of abnormal appearance. His nephew described it in great detail: “like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches....sometimes it looked white, sometimes blotched and dirty....” alt

The picture shows a drawing of the 1822 eruption, as seen from Naples, by the vulcanologist George Julius Poulett Scrope. Perhaps this is similar to the phenomenon that Pliny saw?

Pliny’s first instinctive reaction was to get closer to the new phenomenon so he could observe it for himself. A message then arrived from a friend trapped on the seashore near Vesuvius, appealing for help, so he ordered up a boat and set off in rescue (remember, he was about 56, elderly in those days, and not in good health). His nephew says “He hurried to the place which everyone else was hastily leaving, steering his course straight for the danger zone.....he was entirely fearless, describing each new movement and phase of the portent to be noted down exactly as he observed them.” The boat landed at Stabiae, 4 miles south of Pompeii, where the travellers took what shelter they could until the next day. Pliny collapsed on the shore, in the fume-filled darkness, and seems to have been abandoned in the general panic.

alt They found him the next day on the beach, dead, quite peacefully, looking as if he had fallen asleep. In his memory, his nephew wrote out an account which he got from the eye-witnesses of the disaster, for posterity, which you can still read, as if it had happened yesterday, at