Praise for
GERALD WEISSMANN
“Weissmann is Lewis Thomas’s heir.”
—Robert Coles
“How I envy the reader coming upon Dr. Weissmann’s elegant, entertaining essays for the first time!”
—Jonas Salk
“Dr. Weissmann’s juggling with the balls of global politics, biology, medicine, and culture in the framework of history is breathtaking.”
—Bengt Samuelsson, Nobel laureate and former chairman of the Nobel Foundation
“The premier essayist of our time, Gerald Weissmann writes with grace and style.”
—Richard Selzer
“An absolutely first-rate writer.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
“As a belles-letterist, Weissmann is the inheritor of the late Lewis Thomas. . . . Like Thomas, he’s a gifted researcher and clinician who writes beautifully. Unlike Thomas, he is an original and indefatigable social historian as well.”
—Boston Globe
“He writes as a doctor, a medical scientist, a knowing lover of art and literature and a modern liberal skeptic. But more than anything else, Weissmann writes as a passionate and wise reader.”
—New Republic
“Weissmann is a master of the essay form. His witty and elegant prose makes the toughest subject matter not only accessible but entertaining.”
—Barnes and Noble Review
“[Weissmann] is a Renaissance Man. . . . He’ll stretch your mind’s hamstrings.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“[Weissmann’s essays] intertwine the profound connections of science and art in the context of our modern era . . . to illuminate the ongoing challenges scientists face in dealing with scrutiny and criticism, from colleagues and from our broader society.”
—Science
“Erudite, engaging, and accessible.”
—Library Journal
“Essays that brim with knowledge and bubble with attitude.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Weissmann models his work after that of his mentor, Lewis Thomas. . . . His ideas . . . are every bit as important.”
—Publishers Weekly
ALSO BY GERALD WEISSMANN:
The Woods Hole Cantata
They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus
The Doctor with Two Heads
Democracy and DNA
The Doctor Dilemma
Darwin’s Audubon
The Year of the Genome
Galileo’s Gout
Mortal and Immortal DNA
Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter
First published in the United States in 2018 by Bellevue Literary Press, New York
For information, contact:
Bellevue Literary Press
NYU School of Medicine
550 First Avenue
OBV A612
New York, NY 10016
© 1995, 1998, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2018 by Gerald Weissmann
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weissmann, Gerald, author.
Title: The fevers of reason: new and selected essays / Gerald Weissmann.
Description: First edition. | New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017039245 (print) | LCCN 2017043326 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942658337 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Science—Miscellanea. | MESH: Science—history | Philosophy, Medical | History, 20th Century | History, 21st Century | Essays | Collected Works
Classification: LCC Q173 (ebook) | LCC Q173 .W4424 2018 (print) | NLM Q 126.8 | DDC 500—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039245
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a print, online, or broadcast review.
Bellevue Literary Press would like to thank all its generous donors—individuals and foundations—for their support.
This publication is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Book design and composition by Mulberry Tree Press, Inc.
First Edition
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly express’d;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
—William Shakespeare (1609)
Le jeunesse est une ivresse continuelle; c’est la fièvre de la raison.
—Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1665)
To Ann
toujours toujours là pour moi
Contents