Death in Hamburg. Society and politics in the cholera years 1830-1910

Soemmerring corresponded with many eminent contemporaries-other naturalists, as well as philosophers and poets. In the process, he came to occupy a central place in the cultural life ofthe German Ldnder during the period which the Germans tend to refer to as "the Goethe era". This central position has made it possible for Gunter Mann, Jost Benedum, and Werner F. Kummel to give the title of 'Soemmerrung-Forschungen' to a new publications-series in which not only Soemmerring material will appear but also contributions to the history of eighteenthand nineteenth-century science and medicine in general. The aim of the editors is to encourage the study of these subjects within a broad context of cultural history so as to bring out the many-faceted nature of the growth of science and medicine. The first volume in this new series admirably matches the editors' high historiographical ideals. Samuel Thomas Soemmerring und die Gelehrten der Goethezeit is a rich collection of essays, in which Soemmerring's life and accomplishments are explored through the network of contacts which he kept. There are separate chapters on his relationship to Goethe, Blumenbach, Peter Camper, Alexander von Humboldt, Cuvier, Merck, Gall, Kant, the poet Wilhelm Heinse, Soemmerring's close friend Georg Foster, his teacher Ernst Gottfried Baldinger, the illustrator Christian Koeck, the writer Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and the historian Johannes von Muller. Added to these biographical essays are a chapter on German academic institutions of the period, and also a comprehensive Soemmerring bibliography. An interesting array of topics is thus presented, including several of Soemmerring's scientific "errors". Among these were his refusal to accept Goethe's discovery of an os intermaxillare in man, his objections to Cuvier's interpretation of pterodactylus as a reptile, his partial concurrence with Gall's phrenology, and, most prominently, his interpretation of the intraventricular, cerebrospinal fluid as "the organ of the soul". A definite shortcoming of this collection of essays is the lack of a synthesizing introductory or concluding chapter. Some of the general questions raised by the individual contributions are therefore left unanswered. Among these questions is: why should mere anatomical expertise have made Soemmerring such a sought-after and central figure on the German cultural stage? Or, to turn the question around: why were not just the contemporary naturalists, but so many of the leading poets, philosophers, and historians, deeply interested in Soemmerring's anatomical work? The answer may be found in the fact that one of the great intellectual pre-occupations of "the Goethe era" concerned the meaning of organic form and diversity. Anatomy was one of the most pertinent areas of research in this connexion, and, through comparative anatomy and palaeontology, its results were perceived in an increasingly historical, developmental light adding substance to the organicist philosophy of history advocated by Herder and others. Thus Soemmerring's social eminence may in part be explained by the importance which his subject had as a pillar of the Romantic Weltbild. Even if one were reluctant to bring in the concept of "Romanticism" as an answer, the question itself should not be ignored. The second volume in the new series of'Soemmerring-Forschungen' is a reprint of the largest and most informative of two Victorian-type 'Life and Letters' of Soemmerring, written by the Gottingen zoologist Rudolph Wagner. It is useful to have this classic source of information about Soemmerring back in print.