Helmholtz: From Enlightenment to Neuroscience (review)

A recurring topic among those interested in art, science and technology is the value of transdisciplinary approaches. In my view, those who gravitate to this area (or related areas such as interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and integrative studies) see broad-based thinking both as a creative tool and as a means to innovatively address some of the complex issues of our world today. Among these people are some who value disciplinary boundaries and believe that those who can operationally span their narrow parameters have the best foundation for conceptualizing how to innovate and see beyond known territory. The tendency to cast Leonardo da Vinci in the role of the “historical archetype” of this type of person, the “Renaissance Man,” has perhaps allowed us to lose sight of the many other original thinkers who exemplify what a creative mind can accomplish when paired with a far-ranging, inventive imagination.

Helmholtz: From Enlightenment to Neuroscience by Michel Meulders offers a reminder that a number of figures in the past worked across disciplines. The book introduces us to Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), trained by Johannes Müller, and one of the most accomplished physiologists of his time. A key 19th-century polymath, Helmholtz used a versatile toolbox for his co-discovery of the principle of the conservation of energy, his invention of several instruments (e.g. the ophthalmoscope, the ophthalmometer and the telestereoscope), and his many significant contributions to physics, physiology, physical theory, philosophy of science and mathematics, and aesthetic thought.

How Helmholtz brought his varied interests and education into his laboratory is one thread that runs through the book. We learn that during his formative years he was exposed to philosophy and strongly influenced by his father, a German teacher who cultivated an interest in science and philosophy. Although Hermann was strongly attracted to the natural sciences, his father urged him toward medicine because funding for medical education was available. After training in physiology, Helmholtz worked in many areas outside of medicine over the years. Indeed, a defining feature of Helmholtz’s work was the way he branched out in many fields as he sought to translate his biological insights through an empirical and mathematical framework. In this, he was aided by his keen observational abilities and his passion for experimentation.

I began this book expecting a biography that would offer a chronology of Helmholtz’s work, along with contextual material to help the reader place his work within the 19th-century world. The author instead offered a quite variegated picture that made it somewhat difficult for me to see the man as a whole as I read. The challenge in ferreting out Helmholtz’s story was due to the amount of material the author included that contextualizes Helmholtz in terms of the people and ideas that influenced him. For example, the chapter “Goethe and His Vision of Nature” is 13 pages and does not mention Helmholtz. It seems its purpose is to provide a framework for where Helmholtz’s views of color differ from those of Goethe, which is discussed 8 pages into the next chapter. Long “asides” such as this are quite distracting and make it difficult to understand what the author wanted the reader to take away from the book. What was clear is that the author has great enthusiasm for the accomplishments of Helmholtz. In addition to the detour in the Goethe chapter, there are chapters “Johannes Müller: “Man of Iron” and “Conclusion: The Wisdom of Alexander von Humboldt.” It is hard to say if this format was intentional or if the chapters began as standalone articles and were later pieced together into this book.

The strongest chapters are the two that cover Helmholtz’s work on hearing and acoustics and the one chapter that summarizes Helmholtz’s theory of visual perception. Helmholtz’s introduction to his Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music says that...