The Blinding of Bach (and Händel) for 28th July

 

The Chevalier John Taylor, oculist extraordinaire...

This blog began with a celebration of codes in music. My Darwinian string quartet, performed at Darwin College Cambridge last October, celebrates codes underlying music and life itself. The faith that Darwin had in an underlying mechanism for heredity was vindicated by the discovery of DNA 100 years later. Darwin took head on ‘Difficulties on the Theory’ by choosing the Eye as the supreme Test Case, the equivalent of Paley’s Watch, and it seemed a good fit to choose his words as inspiration for the melodies:

"and may we not suppose that a perfect instrument might thus be formed, as superior to one of glass as the works of the Creator are to those of Man?" C. Darwin

The question posed, the answer was represented by a musical rendition of the genetic code for the critical photoreceptor protein rhodopsin, the progenitor of all vision. This coded answer was meant to be an analogy to the greatest musical-coder of them all J.S. Bach, who also embodied the high water mark of faith-expressed-in-music with his religious works, signing all of them S.D.G. = soli deo gloria (only for the glory of God), as did his exact contemporary and pretty-much equal Georg Friedrich Händel, eg in his Te Deum. I plundered Bach’s most famous musical code B-A-C-H to set against the genetic melody.

There’s a very strange tale-within-a-tale of a different, and sadder, connection between both J.S. Bach and G.F. Händel with that marvelous ‘Organ of Extreme Perfection’ of the Creator – or Evolution – The Eye. Whereas Beethoven had the misfortune to go profoundly deaf, with no hope of a cure, both Bach and Händel were diagnosed as suffering from cataracts. And there was something that could be done, and they were rich enough (and desperate enough) to try.

However wince-making it appears to us, this was back in the day of the tooth-puller, barber-surgeon, and ‘bite-on-this’ quickie amputations on the battlefield. It’s said that Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, whilst in labour bearing Marie-Antoinette, had all her teeth pulled out to take her mind off her labour-pains, and vice-versa. Anaesthesia? Well, opium was available…

It being the Enlightenment they’d realised that the lens of the eye was fulfilling the same function as ‘one made of glass’ – see my setting of these words of Darwin’s in the choral piece which was the progenitor of the Eyenigma quartet.

A lens clouded by cataract could therefore be replaced (couldn’t it?) by very thick pebble spectacles, if the original were out of the way. This was called ‘couching’ (= laying) and entrepreneurial surgeons saw that there was a market for this, as long as the potential customers only heard the positive sales pitch and that one was miles away by the time the results were in. Enter the Chevalier John Taylor. The story is splendidly told by Jorge Álvarez including Taylor’s own eye troubles The Oculist who blinded Bach. Quite a read!

Bach and Händel, twin giants of the Baroque, composers of the mighty works of faith in the John & Matthew Passions and the Messiah, having to put their faith in a chancer (maybe that rather than a pure charlatan) like Taylor. A bad outcome for them both but nothing happens without a bit of faith, in medicine and science as well as religion.

Bach died on 28^th July 1750, aged 65. R.I.P. (requiescat in pace).

Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons (John Taylor); David F. Gahan (copyright)

World Population Day, 11th July

 

Thailand's 'Mr Condom' Mechai Viravaidya, 82

I’m on the mailing list for Population Matters (patron: David Attenborough) and was sent a press release for ‘World Population Day, 11^th July’.  This blog began just before 8 Billion Day and population is a theme, so I was interested in reading the report.

While I think that it’s inevitable that population will fall steadily form mid-late century, we have a torrid time to get through in our, our children & grandchildren’s time. The Cerberus heatwave around the Mediterranean is looking very ugly and all the bad stuff is linked to human numbers and people’s reasonable aspirations, including to migrate in search of better opportunities (like the great European migration to the U.S.A. in the nineteenth century).

The report is basically encouraging reading and gives case studies on four countries/regions – Thailand, Rwanda, Costa Rica and the Indian state of Kerala. The nutshell message is that family size drops and economic prosperity rises following on from female education and gender equality. All four examples now have higher GDP per capita and lower TFR (total fertility rate) than their neighbours with less enlightened policies. All this is done with emphasis on human rights and not on coercion, and doubtless the neighbours are watching and learning so the important thing is to get the message out and spread best practice.

Rwanda is getting some critical focus in the UK for valid reasons unconnected with its government’s social policies (the report makes interesting reading) but seems to have had something of a turn-around. It was of course the country of the notorious genocide in 1994 where a million people were murdered in a country with a population of just eight million (and a million fled). In the 1980s, the country had a TFR of 8.5 and became the most densely populated country in Africa; it’s hard not to draw an obvious conclusion.

To quote the report, “In the early 2000s, population started to resurface as a policy concern. The National Policy for Sustainable Development was introduced in 2003. The plan identified the importance of addressing population growth as part of a holistic programme for sustainable development, including ensuring universal education for all children, and equal economic opportunity for men and women. Political will was growing, with population action internally motivated, rather than heavily influenced by external donors as it had been in the past.” All pretty sensible so no need to despair in the developed world that Africa isn’t doing its stuff (which would be a racist trope anyway), and get on with putting our own house in order on environmental and equality issues.

But, in a blog which praises a local hero from the 1890s (this village in Oxfordshire), it’s good to see local heroes at work around the globe, such as Thailand’s 82 year old ‘Mr Condom’ (main picture).

Picture credit:  BBC