An Introduction to the History of Chronobiology, Volume 2

In three volumes, historian Jole Shackelford delineates the history of the study of biological rhythms - now widely known as chronobiology - from antiquity into the twentieth century. Perhaps the most well-known biological rhythm is the circadian rhythm, tied to the cycles of day and night and often referred to as the “body clock. â€. But there are many other biological rhythms, and although scientists and the natural philosophers who preceded them have long known about them, only in the past thirty years have a handful of pioneering scientists begun to study such rhythms in plants and animals seriously. Tracing the intellectual and institutional development of biological rhythm studies, Shackelford offers a meaningful, evidence-based account of a field that today holds great promise for applications in agriculture, health care, and public health. Volume 1 follows early biological observations and research, chiefly on plants; volume 2 turns to animal and human rhythms and the disciplinary contexts for chronobiological investigation; and volume 3 focuses primarily on twentieth-century researchers who modeled biological clocks and sought them out, including three molecular biologists whose work in determining clock mechanisms earned them a Nobel Prize in 2017.