Honoraria For Lectures Research Articles

Hooked on Hooke.

Richard Stone's cogent review of Robert Hooke's incredible achievements (“Championing a 17th century underdog,” News of the Week, 11 July, p. 152) evokes fascinating facets of his incomparably productive life. He produced weekly Royal Society demonstrations without compensation, promised lecture honoraria were never paid despite polite reminders, and the Council of the society even voted to deduct the amount from his promised salary. Isaac Newton's aloofness toward and disparaging belittling of “this miserable philosopher” was not without benefit for him: He awaited Hooke's death before publishing his dormant “Optics” without fully acknowledging Hooke's prior work. Newton was not his only enemy; Henry Oldenberg, Secretary of the Royal Society, often omitted Hooke's name from recorded comments and rightful priority credits. Their intensifying disputes caused Hooke to call Oldenberg a “trafficer in intelligence.” Little wonder that Hooke's digestive tract required “tailoring” of his “stomach and gutt” by his “one dish/meal,” supplemented by potable metals such as licking powdered silver, syrup of poppy seed, and liberal use of the famous ancillary treatments of clysters and bleedings with cuppings. Despite these problems, Hooke was able to perceive and correlate projected applications of his nearly 1000 inventions. While always dressed in his personally chosen long fabrics, sewn by himself, he gregariously interacted in coffee shops with many notables, including Samuel Pepys, but was never able to sustain wide recognition of his work. Hooke died a feeble, depressed, reclusive man, despite his wealth of legacies to science and his personal wealth, found dormant in an iron chest filled with several thousand pounds of earned silver and gold coins.