More about Mrs. Darwin than Mr. Darwin.

After Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) is perhaps the scientist best known. Several biographies have been published and many essays have been written on both men. Indeed, Darwin wrote his own autobiography, for his children, and many of the thousands of letters he sent and received throughout his life have been gathered. All this information has become readily accessible thanks to several projects that have allowed the existing documents to be digitalized and published on the web. One of the benefits of these efforts is that we have learned more about the personal and family life of this great scientist. The popular saying, “behind a great man there is always a great woman”, is often true, but the opposite less so. When a woman is considered to have been “great,” it is hardly ever the case that it was because there was a great man behind her; otherwise she would have been overshadowed by him. One exception is the couple Marie and Pierre Curie, although she was almost excluded from the first Nobel Prize—Physics, 1903, which she shared with her husband—because there were those who believed that she was simply his assistant. Years after, a member of the Nobel Committee suggested that she should not accept the second one—Chemistry, 1911—, because she, already a widow, had an affair with a married man. Knowing the life of Emma Darwin (born Wedgwood, 1808–1896, Fig. 1) helps to know more about Darwin himself, his work, and the society in which he developed his scientific theories. My interest in Emma Darwin started in London, in November 2000. At a second-hand bookshop across from the British Museum, I stopped to browse the books displayed on several shelves in the street. One of them, Wives of Fame, by Edna Healey [3], caught my eye. It was dedicated to Jenny Marx, Mary Livingstone, and Emma Darwin, the wives of possibly three of the most influential men of 19th century. As the author of the book stated, “genius often demands exceptional powers of concentration”, and Darwin himself advised his son Francis to persist in his theories “to the death.” Healey added that “the sword of the mind is too sharp for the body,” and that intense mental effort can often lead to health problems, or that illness may develop in order to protect the body’s vital energies. In a later book, devoted exclusively to Emma Darwin, Healey [3] offered the examples of Darwin and Florence Nightingale; both suffered chronic, sometimes disabling, illness and were essentially forced to conserve their energies in order to pursue their interests. Nightingale experienced bouts of Malta fever (brucellosis) [5], and Darwin, as discussed below, may have contracted Chagas disease. In addition to these two examples, there is probably a long list of famous people whose physical disabilities may have ultimately contributed to their success. INTERNATIONAL MICROBIOLOGY (2009) 12:69-74 DOI: 10.2436/20.1501.01.83 ISSN: 1139-6709 www.im.microbios.org