Perspectives
commitment, vision, and tireless challenges and opportunities for
endeavours will inspire them.
Wright and Clark’s compelling book
is a much-needed addition to the
largely neglected area of palliative
care research in Africa. It provides
a thorough background in current
In brief
Book On the origins of life
Back in her student days, Christiane
Nüsslein-Volhard writes in her
preface to this beautiful book,
texts of developmental biology
were dense and confusing, “full of
highly complicated experiments
Coming to Life: How Genes pointing out so many ‘trees’ that
Drive Development
it was impossible ‘to see the
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard.
Yale University Press, 2006. forest’.” A Babel of conflicting
Pp 224. £18·99. theories and opinions confused
ISBN 0-300-12080-X. matters further.
Now that genetics and develop-
mental biology have matured,
the time is ripe for Coming to Life,
Nüsslein-Volhard’s skilfully pruned
yet richly comprehensive overview
of our current understanding of
how a fertilised egg becomes
an adult animal, and the moral
issues this understanding entails.
The book is simply and elegantly
designed and organised, and makes
an excellent high-level reference
Psychedelic Horizons work on topics ranging from cell
Thomas B Roberts. Imprint
and molecular biology to evolution.
Academic, 2006. Pp 255
US$$34·90, £17·95. Nüsslein-Volhard, the long-time
ISBN 1-84540-041-0. director of molecular biology at
Germany’s Max-Planck Institute,
was one of the winners of the
1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine for her research on genetic
control of embryonic development.
She has written this book, she says,
so people interested in this subject,
from physicians to politicians to
philosophers, can learn more about
it without becoming specialists.
The book is certainly not light
reading, but Nüsslein-Volhard does
an admirable job of describing
98
like Mary and her grandmother will
key stakeholders, including service
providers, researchers, and donors
among many others. Let us hope
that the next review of palliative care
across Africa will show an increased
accessibility for care, and that people
some difficult ideas, such as how
prepatterning helps a developing
organism “decide” where its head
goes and which end is up, or why
geneticists care so much about
fruit flies. The drawings—by the
author herself—are helpful when
words aren’t quite enough. After
reading this book carefully, the
reader is certainly rewarded with a
comprehensive understanding of
developmental biology.
Here and there, Nüsslein-Volhard
leavens the book with quotes
from Goethe and Pliny and makes
detours to discuss Greek mythology
and ideas about reproduction in the
Middle Ages, including Paracelsus’
recipe for making a baby by
incubating sperm with horse dung
and urine inside a pumpkin for
40 days. In her final chapter about
issues of concern today, Nüsslein-
Volhard makes it clear why a
“Brave New World”—a future
of designer babies and human
cloning—is not something we need
to fear. Such popular perceptions,
she argues, are the product of the
naive idea that science is capable
of anything and the cynical belief
that science cannot be trusted.
The responsibility for addressing
the real issue at the heart of all
controversies in embryology—
namely, the moral status of the
embryo—will not lie with scientists,
she concludes, but with society.
Anne Harding
anne_harding@yahoo.com
no longer have to wait for the good
fortune of a stranger stumbling across
them to receive the care they need.
Faith Mwangi-Powell
mpowell@apca.co.ug
Book An affirming trip
Reading Psychedelic Horizons, for me,
was itself like some descriptions of
a “trip”, or psychedelic experience.
The initial effect, for the first few
chapters, is puzzling, a state where I
felt something deeper existed within
the fragments being laid out—images
from childhood, views of psychology,
art, eastern religion, and psychedelia,
naturally. Then, and I cannot quite put
my finger on the exact point, there is
an “a ha!” moment where the pieces
click into place, and the horizons
become clear. From then on, the book
unfolds aspect after aspect of original
thought, leading to a brighter future
view—an affirming trip.
Thomas Roberts has taught a
course on psychedelics for decades,
and this book is a suitable accompani-
ment. But, more fundamentally, he
challenges swathes of current thinking
by asking questions about altered
states of consciousness, including
those induced by psychedelics. The
variety of these experiences clearly
suggests our minds are multistate, and
prompt further questions about the
potential of these different states for
healing, psychology, cognitive studies,
and education. The only “come down”
is when he poses bioethical questions
of the future, related to what he calls
“mindbody psychotechnologies”. I am
left wondering whether we will solve
such future dilemmas as insightfully
as Roberts has explored them.
Kelly Morris
vital@dircon.co.uk
www.thelancet.com Vol 369 January 13, 2007