Darwin’s Man in Brazil: The Evolving Science of Fritz Müller by David A. West (review)

On October 7 1897, the scientific journal Nature declared that the death of Dr. Fritz Müller, which had occurred on May 21 at Blumenau, in South Brazil, had “inflicted upon science a loss, the importance of which needs no pointing out.” Despite spending most of his working life in Brazil, Müller’s investigations of the natural world were well known in his native Germany and probably equally known in the English-speaking world at the time of his death. A century later, however, his achievements were recognized by only a few specialists, and then only in piecemeal fashion. “Müllerian mimicry” is certainly a familiar topic to entomologists today, but it was only one of many areas investigated by Müller. His working life spanned a period of fundamental change in the way the natural world was investigated, as collecting and observing shifted to experimenting and analyzing, and broad natural history moved towards specialist science. In many ways Müller was at the forefront of some of the changes that were taking place, even though (or perhaps because) his adult life was spent in relative isolation from centers of science, and with relative freedom to pursue his own interests. David West follows Müller’s life from his provincial birthplace in Thuringia, through radicalizing student years, to his emigration to and life in Brazil. Drawing on Alfred Möller’s monumental work, Fritz Müller: Werke, Briefe und Leben, published between 1915 and 1920, West’s book opens up this rich source of material for non-German speakers, but it also reveals much that is new. West scoured archival sources and family papers, and discovered correspondence that provides a glimpse into the previously unknown life of Müller’s wife, Caroline, through the eyes of Müller’s half-brother Wilhelm, who arrived in Brazil in 1883, visiting for two years. In 38 letters addressed to his mother (Fritz’s stepmother), Wilhelm described his impression of Caroline, whose principal flaw according to him, seemed to have been that she was too affectionate and spoiled her children and grandchildren, a fact attributed to her own lack of education.

West largely follows events chronologically up to Müller’s most productive years, but some of his later chapters are arranged by scientific topic, so that the same time period is covered a few times. The central focus of the book, as the title indicates, is Müller’s relation to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, and Darwin’s personal influence on Müller’s research through their correspondence. Müller had already been living on the outskirts of the German settlement in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, for over seven years when Darwin’s Origin of species was first published in 1859, but it was not until 1861 that he was sent a copy of the German translation by his friend and anatomist Max Schultze. Müller was so impressed by Origin that he soon began collecting facts that would test Darwin’s theory. He pursued an intensive study of the morphology and embryological development of different types of Crustacea, which led to the publication in 1864 of a short book titled simply, Für Darwin. Darwin received a copy of the book from Müller’s publisher, but his German was not up to the task of reading the highly technical and dense prose. West misreads Darwin’s statement in a letter to Ernst Haeckel in 1864, that he is having the book translated into English, supposing it to refer to the 1869 translation for publication by William Sweetland Dallas. Darwin refers, in fact, to an informal translation, probably made by Camilla Ludwig, the German governess to some of Darwin’s younger children.

Once Darwin had read the book, he initiated correspondence with Müller that lasted until Darwin’s death in 1882. M...