1 Disciplining Biological Rhythms (2013)

Living organisms, from single-cell prokaryotes to humans, exhibit a variety of rhythmic behaviors. These occur at the cellular and subcellular levels and, in complex organisms, coordinate intricate biochemical systems and direct the activities of individuals on tidal, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual periodicities. The scientific investigation of the rhythmic behaviors of living organisms-of their internal physiological patterns as well as the temporality of their interactions with the ecosystem-is by its very nature multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, as is evident in its historical development. The modern study of biological rhythms began with isolated experiments that are documented in dissertations and research papers written in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, work that was undertaken by scattered researchers within the existing disciplinary frames of zoology, meteorology, botany, cell biology, chemistry, physiology, pathology, epidemiology, and other scientific fields. Rhythmic behaviors were manifest in all these disciplinary contexts, but the existing disciplinary boundaries also acted to isolate researchers from the cross-disciplinary exchanges of ideas and cooperation that ultimately led to the development of biological rhythms research as a coherent science. The development of such cross-disciplinaiy networks was a crucial component of the institutionalization of the field.1 * 3 The first pivotal moment in the professional development of biological rhythms studies was a meeting of German, Dutch, and Scandinavian biologists outside a small town in southern Sweden in 1937 that led to the formation of the Societas pro studio rythmi biologici, known more widely for many years by its German name, the Internationale Gesellschaft fur Biologische Rhythmusforschung. That this meeting was organized in Sweden and the resultant Society sponsored and dominated by Swedes in its formative decades can be explained by a tradition of Swedish research on phenomena related to solar and lunar periodicities in the Humboldtian tradition of cosmic physics, the Karolinska Institute's early funding of diabetes research, and Sweden's position as a neutral power during and after the Second World War. The intellectual development of rhythms studies leading up to this meeting, its social and organizational aspects, and its consequences for institutionalizing the field are the focus of this book.The earliest scientific investigations of rhythmic behaviors of plants and animals, of cells, systems, and communities were carried out by widely scattered scholars working generally in isolation from other rhythms researchers in backyard laboratories in Illinois or marine biological stations in Cuba and Bermuda, or in a quiet harbor on the Isle of Man-individual projects that sometimes quite unexpectedly yielded revelations about the rhythms of life. The intellectual foundation of the field was therefore the product of individual scientists working in diverse local and national contexts. However, the creation of an international society, conceived at the outset to bring together botanists, zoologists, and clinical researchers to share their common passion for the study of rhythmic behaviors in the organic world informs us about how the science moved from the researcher's study and the laboratory into a more public space, becoming a truly collective, international activity.2 The creation of the Societas pro studio rythmi biologici (the Societas or Society) represents the collectivization of these lines of scientific inquiry across disciplinary boundaries and the forging of a group identity that can be called a scientific field or subdiscipline, perhaps even a discipline in its own right.1 The institutional lineage of the Societas still exists, but under a new name to reflect a new sense of disciplinary identity that its members sought in the second half of the twentieth century: The International Society for Chronobiology. …