Neuroscience has a rich history of vigorous debate and contentious argument, as Eliot S. Valenstein effectively illustrates in The War of the Soups and the Sparks: The Discovery of Neurotransmitters and the Dispute Over How Nerves Communicate. Valenstein argues that fundamental discoveries that come to shape the course of scientific thought are rarely arrived at in a straightforward manner and are much more nuanced than portrayed in the “classic” primary literature. Rather, discovery results from the combination of sound scientific arguments, individual personality, and the unpredictable course of history.
The “war” of neurotransmission that Valenstein examines in his book encompasses one of the key periods in the history of neuroscience. By the middle of the 20th century, it was well accepted that neurons are physically separated from one another by a narrow space. Discovering how neurons communicate across this cleft was the next major challenge facing neuroscience and would set the stage for the next great conceptual leap in the understanding of the nervous system. This debate would primarily involve the rapidly advancing fields of neuropharmacology and electrophysiology, and this divide, both technically and theoretically, would give rise to the “soup” vs. “sparks” camps, respectively.
Despite the bellicose title, the majority of Valenstein’s exposition leisurely travels the winding road of pharmacological discovery, detailing the personal history of the major (and minor) players in the chemical vs. electrical transmission debate along the way. There is little in the way of technical examination of the primary literature and assessment of experimental evidence produced during this great period; in fact, the “soup vs. sparks” aspect of the book is contained in a single, 14-page chapter. Nonetheless, Valenstein does a masterful job of tracing the history of pharmacological investigation into excitable tissue, particularly showing how investigation of neurotransmission arose from the rich tradition of investigation concerning muscle physiology. His tone is simultaneously relaxed and erudite, and he constructs a surprisingly compelling “story” from disparate sources. Valenstein carefully juxtaposes the intellectual climate of scientific discovery with the dire political climate of early 20th century Europe, and his narrative takes a serious tone when he describes the rise of the Nazi party and its effect upon German science, and, in particular, the lives of the many Jewish scientists involved in the “soups vs. sparks” debate. The “war” of the title also may then metaphorically refer to the events of World War II, which greatly affected science and which Valenstein details wonderfully. His thoughtful treatment lends an appropriate gravitas to the science that emerged from this period of history. As mentioned, this is not a book for those desiring thorough examination of the experiments and evidence concerning chemical vs. electrical neurotransmission, although there is enough detail to pique the interest of the specialist. Rather, this a book for graduate or medical students interested in the characters and events surrounding the discovery of neurotransmission and also for those students of the history of science interested in how world events shape scientific discovery.