The flea that began a five-century journey through the history of scientific illustration

by time news

It is possible that the name of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) don’t ring a bell. However, it was he who theorized the law of elasticity that gave rise to springs, discovered the first binary system with two stars, was responsible for establishing the freezing point of water as a fixed reference in the thermometer, and named cells with that name because they reminded him of the monks’ cells. He also rivaled Isaac Newton for the paternity of the law of universal gravitation, assuring that those ideas were embodied in previous letters that he had sent to -in this case yes- famous scientist.

In fact, gossips say that due to this enmity, Newton ordered the only surviving portrait of Hooke to be destroyed. He is also, among many other things, the author of the drawing of a flea. And this data may be insignificant, but it is not: that flea is the first illustration of this insect after being observed under a microscope and is part of ‘Micrographia‘ (1665), the first scientific bestseller. A work that managed to bring the tiniest world closer to the eyes of the human ‘giants’. However, the controversies and time made his name fall into unfair oblivion.

“Something has to be done with that, how wonderful! What is it?” asked the editor more than three centuries later. Julius Wiedman pointing to the poster of a flea drawn in great detail on the wall of the science communicator’s office Anna Escardó. She explained that the insect had come from the hand of the (now) considered «Leonardo DaVinci English». “Could we make a book out of that?” Wiedmann asked Escardó, who, like Hooke, has interests in many fields: she has a degree in Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature and Mechanical Engineering, apart from being interested in the world of graphic design (and why the flea was hanging on a poster in his office).

This is how that drawing from more than 300 years ago became the germ of ‘Science Ilustration‘ (Taschen editorial), a work that compiles the illustrations that marked a scientific milestone from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, compiling from the drawings of the phases of the Moon of Galileogoing through the Ramon y Cajal’s neuronto the illustration made by a supercomputer showing how greenhouse gases travel in our atmosphere.

Top right, the phases of the Moon, by Galileo Galilei (1609); below, the neurons of Ramón y Cajal (1906); at right, NASA recreation of how greenhouse gases travel in our atmosphere (2014)

Science Ilustration

Escardó defends the great utility of illustrations, even in modern times, in which the figure of the illustrator Could appeared anachronistic facing the role of the photographer. «Illustration and photography complement each other. They are very useful tools at the service of science », he explains by phone to ABC. “In addition to the fact that the photography is usually flat and the illustrations are more flexible to show other points of view, such as the interior of the veins.”

Illustration by William Smellie (1754)

Or the depths of a womb with a baby ready to be born, as shown in the realistic illustration of William Smellie. Considered one of the fathers of gynecology, rumors arose around this scientist that he murdered his pregnant models in order to recreate his detailed drawings, such as the one that includes Escardó’s work and where the baby is observed in great detail, already formed shortly before delivery.

The only way to see Neanderthals

«Despite all the technology, many times the way to approach scientific knowledge is still illustration. For example, it is the only way to see what the past was like, because there were no cameras to photograph dinosaurs or Neanderthals. Or it allows us to approach today’s complex science and understand, for example, something as complicated as a black hole. It allows us to put ‘eyes and a face’ on the theory. It is a very current field today and with a lot of projection ».

Because scientific illustration is much more than drawings of plants or animals. They are also schemes, tables, maps, plans. “Even an electrocardiogram. Its function is to provide information at a glance”, indicates Escardó. Also an X-ray, like the first of all that the discoverer of X-Rays took, Wilheim Rötgen and who also picks up his book. In it you can see the phalanges of his wife along with a large ring at a fairly rough level of detail if we compare it with current X-rays.

First X-ray of history made by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, in which you can see his wife’s hand and a ring (1895)

Although, if any illustration has stood the test of time, without a doubt that is the periodic table of Mendeléyev (which could not be missing from ‘Science Illustration’ either). “It may seem simple, even simple; but that illustration collects all the chemical elements of the Earth and beyond. And the coolest thing is that Mendeleev left the precise gaps for the elements that had not yet been discovered. It’s absolutely cool.”

Escardó points out the importance and even validity of the oldest illustrations, even those based on data that later turned out to be not entirely accurate. “We know what the dodo looks like because someone drew it before,” he exemplifies. Precisely, the dodo or The hooded raphus was ‘formally’ baptized by Charles Linnaeus, considered the father of taxonomy and who also appears in the book with his binary nomenclature system to classify living beings, grouping them by genera, families, classes and kingdoms, an arrangement still in force today. «Behind the scientific illustration there is a great work of exhaustive documentation -Escardó points out-, and they often serve us to synthesize knowledge in a single glance».

The illustration advances

It is true that time has refined techniques. For example, it is no longer necessary to kill animals to portray them, as the ornithologist, naturalist and painter did. John James Audubon, author of “one of the most impressive books on scientific illustration, ‘The Birds of North America,'” Escardó recounts in his work. “They came to accuse him of attacking the species,” says the author after the phone.

The now extinct species of penguin from the Northern Hemisphere as portrayed by Audubon (1827)

“But its value today is undeniable and it continues to serve science today, as six of the animals included in his book are now extinct. Also today Hooke’s flea continues to provide scientific information, even after 300 years have passed. Because researchers continue to use these old descriptions and illustrations to compare specimens with each other and support new scientific studies thanks to the detail with which they were recreated.

The current illustrations are not spared from criticism either. In recent years there have been some voices denouncing that reconstructions of, for example, past human species based on the little data that we have (such as recreations of the faces of our ancestors from just a few jaw bones) they cannot be adjusted to reality and can lead to misunderstandings. «We cannot approach the past visually in any other way than illustration. And we must bear in mind that it is one more tool, which together with others, provides us with incredible information. Scientific illustrators work very hard, they do a lot of research. And above all, his work often democratizes science, something that is very necessary.

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