Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have accumulated many debts while writing this book. My agent, Katinka Matson at Brockman Inc., first saw what Mutants might become. I thank her as well as Karen Murphy at Viking Penguin USA, Maarten Carbo at Contact, Netherlands and, most of all, Michael Fishwick at HarperCollins UK, whose faith in the book’s ultimate existence was tested but never faltered. Robert Lacey, also at HarperCollins, was a wonderful editor. My Dutch translator, Robert Vernooy, was an acute critic. Several friends and colleagues commented on part of the manuscript, among them: Austin Burt, Arnold Heumakers, Barbara van Ijzeren, Marie-France Leroi, Jan-Roelof Oostra, Corinne Pernet and Jonathan Swire. Olivia Judson, Clare Isacke, Jennifer Rohn and Alberto Saez read and commented upon it all; I do not know how to repay them.

Many friends and colleagues answered specific queries, among them: Elizabeth Allen, Alan Ashworth, Peter Beighton, Chin Chiang, François Delange, Frank Dikötter, Saul Dubow, Ademar Freire-Macias, Frietson Galis, Jill Helms, Christiane Hertel, Annemarie Heumakers, Michael Hochberg, Beatrice Howard, Grace Ioannidou, Martin Kemp, Hannelore Kischkewitz, Deborah Posel, Liesbet Rausing, Raymund Roos and John Wilmoth. Jan-Roelof Oostra in Amsterdam and Cédric Cremiere and Jean-Louis Fischer in Paris were especially generous with their expertise in teratology and its history. Véronique Dasen in Fribourg told me about the teratology of the ancient world; Marta Lahr and Robert Foley at Cambridge showed me their wonderful collection of skulls; Yehuda Koren and Eliat Negev in Jerusalem told me about the Ovitz family in the Third Reich. I have not been able to do their scholarship justice. My pupils Anne Rigby and Sarah Ahmad told me of things that just had to go into the book; Carolyn Richardson and Irin Maier researched and translated texts. I could not have illustrated the book without the help of Miriam Guttierez-Perez at the Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, London, and Laura Lindgren and Gretchen Worden at the Mütter Museum, Philadelphia.

My greatest debts, however, are to those around me: my colleagues at Imperial and the – sadly neglected – people in my lab; my friends – Austin Burt, Jim Isacke, Olivia Judson, Giorgos Kokkoris, Vasso Koufopanou, Michaelis and Katerina Koutroumanidis, Alexandra Meliadou, Jenny Rohn, Jonathan Swire, Liesbeth Verreijdt; and my family – Marie-France, Harry, Iracema, Joseph, most especially my parents, Antoine and Johanna. But above all it was Clare Isacke who sustained me while writing this book. It is dedicated to her with love.