post the complete text from Chapter 1 in pdf format (right click to download)
and the full Bibliography in PDF EndNote and Text formats
Evolution in Health and
Disease, Second Edition
Edited by Stephan Stearns and Jacob Koella
The book is available now from
the OUP UK site
Oxford University press has generously allowed the
Evolution and Medicine Network to
post the complete text from Chapter 1 in pdf format
(right click to download)
and the full Bibliography in
PDF EndNote and
Text formats
From the cover of the second edition of Evolution in Health and Disease
Four Fathers of Darwinian Medicine
Charles Darwin
Born 12 February 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Died 19 April 1882 in Down,
Kent. Major works: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859);
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), The Expression of
Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Darwin made evolution a plausible scientific
hypothesis by describing one process—natural selection—that explains
adaptations and another—geographic isolation followed by independent change—that explains speciation. His thought permeates all modern evolutionary work.
Many biographies. The one in two volumes by E. Janet Browne—Charles Darwin:
Voyaging (1995) and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002) — is magisterial.
Louis Pasteur
Born 27 December 1822 in Dole, France. Died 28 September 1895 in Paris. Major
work: The Germ Theory and its Applications to Medicine and Surgery. After
discovering that yeast is an organism that ferments sugar to alcohol, that decay
is produced by air—borne microorganisms, and that the agent of silkworm disease
is a microorganism, Pasteur proposed the germ theory of infectious disease and
developed vaccines for anthrax and rabies. He discovered pathogenic bacteria and
methods for developing vaccines and applied the experimental method to medical
research. Many biographies. The one by John Hudson Tiner and Michael Tenman
(1999)—Louis Pasteur: Founder of Modern Medicine—is recent and good.
Alexander Fleming
Born 6 August 1881in Lochfield, Ayrshire, Scotland. Nobel Prize 1945. Died 11
March 1955 in London. He discovered both penicillin and the evolution of
bacterial resistance to penicillin. Pasteur said: ‘Chance favors only the
prepared mind.’ Fleming’s mind was prepared. Several biographies. The one by
Gwyn MacFarlane (1985)—Alexander Fleming: The Man and the Myth—is
recommended.
George Williams
Born 12 May 1926 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Crafoord Prize 1999. Major
works: two books: Adaptation and Natural Selection (1966), Why We Get Sick: The
New Science of Darwinian Medicine (with first author Randolph Nesse, 1995) and
the paper (1957): Pleiotropy, natural selection, and the evolution of
senescence. Evolution 11:398—411. He graces the cover because, with Sir Peter
Medawar, he proposed the evolutionary theory of aging, now experimentally
confirmed, and because, with Randolph Nesse, he proposed the broad application
of evolutionary thought to issues of health and disease, stimulating the
development of the field. No biographies yet.