Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology

by Philip J. Pauly

Book Overview

The author traces Loeb's wide influence on the development of behaviorism, genetics, and reproductive biology.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195042441
• ISBN13: 9780195042443
• Release Date: April 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A little known facet of Monterey's Cannery Row history

This book has good photos and a lot of info about Jacques Loeb's activities in Monterey. Dr. Morris Herzstein was a physician and real estate speculator who was a benefactor to UC Berekley. He endowed UC Berkeley with the Herzstein Research Laboratory which was for the sole use of Jacques Loeb (the land was purchased from the Pacific Improvement Company). March 1915 The Popular Science Monthly (mistakenly locates the lab in pacific grove) "The Herzstein laboratory, also at Pacific Grove, is quite different in aim and scope of activities from the Hopkins. It was a gift to the department of physiology of the University of California by Dr. Morris Herzstein, of San Francisco, the primary purpose of which was to provide a sea-side working place where Professor Jacques Loeb could prosecute certain of his investigations. In keeping with the relatively simple technic of the studies which have made this biologist famous, the Herzstein laboratory is small and inexpensive. It is a plain, one-story wooden building, about forty-five feet square, divided into three fairly good-sized rooms, two small store rooms and a dark room. It is provided with an alternating electric current, and running fresh water, but not with gas or salt water. The small quantities of sea water needed are brought to the laboratory from the nearby sea by hand. A good supply of glassware for experimentation on simple animals is always on hand. As already indicated, the laboratory is operated in close connection, so far as research is concerned, with the department of physiology at Berkeley. No provision is made or is hardly possible for formal instruction or for any considerable number of investigators, or for much range of investigation. At present Professor S. S. Maxwell, as head of the department of physiology, also has charge of the laboratory. Professor Loeb's use of it has not ceased, although he has severed his connection with the University of California- He has spent considerable time at Pacific Grove during the last two years." The Lab was active from 1905 to1915. Jacques Loeb worked there from 1905 to 1910. The original plan was that the entire length of Oceanview Blvd was to eventually be acquired for the Lab. However the 1906 San Francisco earthquake also sent tremors through the financial world as well as San Francisco. Dr. Herzstein could no longer afford to keep the lab operating let alone add to the real estate (even though the Pacific Improvement Company offered to donate the rest of the land to try to keep out the nascent seafood processing industry). In 1917 it was leased to Knute Hovden. Annual Report of the President of the University on behalf of the Regents to His Excellency the Governor of the State of California, 1917-1918 1918 Published by the University of California University of California Press Berkeley "Lease to K. Hovden Company On October 9, 1917, The Regents approved a lease dated September 11, 1917, to the K. Hovden Company of Lo