艾莉森·巴什福德，《解码手掌：科学、医学与魔法的历史》（芝加哥大学出版社，2025年）

大家好。

Hello, everybody.

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This is Marshall Poe.

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如果你正在听这个，那你应该知道，新书网络是全球最大的学术播客网络。

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我们拥有两百万的全球听众。

We reach a worldwide audience of 2,000,000 people.

你可能已经拥有一个播客，或者正考虑创建一个播客。

You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast.

正如你所知，这当中存在一些挑战。

As you probably know, there are challenges.

基本上分为两类。

Basically, of two kinds.

一是技术问题。

One is technical.

你需要掌握一些知识，才能制作和发布你的播客。

There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed.

第二个问题是，也是最大的难题，你需要吸引听众。

And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience.

在播客领域，建立听众群体是当今最难做到的事情。

Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today.

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Put this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions.

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What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast.

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Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience.

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We've done this many times with many academic podcasts, and we would like to help you.

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Just go to the front page of the New Books Network, and you will see a link to NBN productions.

点击该链接，填写表格，我们可以进一步交流。

Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk.

欢迎来到新书网络。

Welcome to the New Books Network.

您好，欢迎收听新书网络的另一期节目。

Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network.

我是您的主持人之一，米兰达·梅尔彻博士，今天非常高兴能与艾莉森·巴什福德教授对话，她著有《解码手掌：科学、医学与魔法的历史》，该书由芝加哥大学出版社于2025年出版。

I'm one of your hosts, doctor Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with professor Alison Bashford about her book titled Decoding the Hand, a History of Science, Medicine, and Magic, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2025.

显然，任何副标题为“科学、医学与魔法的历史”的书籍都会引人入胜且具有跨学科性。

Now obviously, any book that has the subtitle of a history of science, medicine, and magic is going to be fascinating and interdisciplinary.

这本书确实做到了这一点，带我们穿越了众多不同的地点、时代和事物——这些内容在今天看来似乎彼此分离，但实际上却比我们想象的更加紧密相连。

And this book absolutely does that, taking us to a whole bunch of different places and times and things that today we might see as being very separate from each other, but actually turns out are way more interconnected than we might assume.

例如，艾萨克·牛顿以众多科学原理而闻名，但他对解读手掌的神秘科学也非常着迷。

For instance, Isaac Newton, famous for all manner of scientific principles, was really into the occult science of hand reading, for instance.

为什么呢？

Why?

我想这会是我们讨论的内容之一。

Well, I think that's going to be one of the things we discuss.

所以，艾莉森，非常感谢你做客我们的播客。

So, Alison, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

米尔德丽德，很高兴能和你在一起。

Wonderful to be with you, Miranda.

你能先简单介绍一下自己，告诉我们你为什么决定写这本书吗？

Could you start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book?

好的。

Yes.

好的。

Yes.

当然。

Of course.

我是一名历史学家。

So I'm a historian.

目前我在澳大利亚悉尼担任历史学教授。

I'm a professor of history currently, in Sydney in Australia.

我之前曾在美国和英国工作过。

And I've worked, in The US and The UK previously.

我早年接受的训练主要是医学史，之后也研究过其他科学领域的历史，尤其是生物科学，并撰写了关于优生学和人口问题历史的著作。

And and I've I was long ago trained really as a historian of medicine primarily, and have worked through various history of other sciences, largely biosciences, biological sciences, and I've written on history of eugenics and history of population matters.

这本书的灵感实际上是在一瞬间产生的，当时我在伦敦威康图书馆的威康收藏馆中打开了一份精彩的档案文件。

And this book literally, started in a nanosecond as I opened up a wonderful archive folder in the Welcome Collection, the archives of the Welcome Library in London.

其中出现了一些我希望能与您讨论的内容，而这些内容我当时并不理解。

And, something emerged that I hope we can talk about that just I didn't understand.

这是作为一名历史学家常常经历的精彩时刻，我总是对我的学生们这样说。

And it was one of those those great moments as a historian where I always say this to my students.

如果你在档案中看到某样东西，完全看不懂，那就是停下来思考一下，看看是否背后藏着一个故事的时刻。

If you're looking at something in the archives and you can't make head or tail of it, then that's the moment to stop and wonder if there's a story to tell.

没错。

Yeah.

我最喜爱的书籍起源故事，就是偶然在档案中或与某种信息相遇时，突然冒出一个‘这到底是什么？’的念头。

That's my absolute favorite kind of origin story of a book is a chance encounter in an archive or with sort of any kind of bit of information going, what is on a second.

对吧？

Right?

这种线索真的特别有趣。

Like, that's such a fun thread to pull.

那么，你现在愿意透露那到底是什么吗？

So do you want to reveal now what that thing was?

我非常乐意。

I'm so happy to.

我上一本书是关于赫胥黎家族的，这个著名的科学家和科学作家世家，包括奥尔德斯·赫胥黎。

So my my previous book was on the the Huxley family, the the famous dynasty of scientists and scientist science writers, including Aldous Huxley.

奥尔德斯·赫胥黎，听众们可能知道，他对奇异和奇妙的事物非常感兴趣，写过《知觉之门》等作品。

And Aldous Huxley Huxley, listeners may know this, but he was quite interested in the weird and the wonderful, and he wrote doors of perception and other things.

因此，奥尔德斯·赫胥黎喜欢让人看手相，这或许并不令人意外。

And so perhaps it's not a surprise that Aldous Huxley liked to have his palm read.

我在研究赫胥黎家族的那本书时就知道这一点。

And I knew that when I was researching the book on the Huxley family.

巧合的是，我稍微查了一下，很快就弄清楚了究竟是谁在为奥尔德斯·赫胥黎看手相。

And it just so happened that it it it, I kind of scratched around a little bit, and it wasn't hard to find out who exactly was reading Aldous Huxley's palm.

结果发现，她是一位在柏林接受过医学训练的医生，非常聪明，还接受过精神分析学训练。

And it turned out that her papers she's a medical doctor trained in Berlin, very smart, psychoanalytically trained as well.

她的档案保存在伦敦尤斯顿路的‘欢迎收藏馆’。

And her papers are kept in the, Welcome Collection in London, in Euston Road.

于是我抱着一丝侥幸的心理。

So I I a bit on the off chance.

我的上一本书其实并不需要关注奥尔德斯·赫胥黎看手相这件事，但我直觉觉得，既然我知道他的占卜师是谁，为什么不顺便去看看呢？

I mean, the fact that Aldous Huxley had his palms read wasn't critical to my my last book, but I just had a hunch that, since I knew who his palmist was, why don't I go and have a look?

我打开了第一个文件盒，里面的内容足够令人惊叹。

And I opened up the first box of, papers, and there it was magnificent enough.

那里有奥尔德斯·赫胥黎自己的掌纹，她用墨水为人们拓印手掌。

There was Aldous Huxley's own palm print, and she took those in ink and printed people's palms.

然后我打开了下一个文件夹。

And then I open the next folder.

里面有弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的掌纹、安德烈·纪德的掌纹，任何一位两次世界大战期间的文化巨匠，他们的手掌都在那里。

There was Virginia Woolf's palm print, Andrejide's palm print, any name and interwar cultural luminary, and there were their hands.

这真是太引人入胜了。

So that was pretty fascinating.

但关键是这样一件事。

But here's the thing.

我打开了下一个马尼拉文件夹，发现里面有一张掌纹，比其他所有掌纹都要大得多。

I opened the next Manila folder, and there was a print there that was larger, way larger than any of the others.

这是因为那是莫克低地大猩猩的掌纹。

And that's because it was the palm print of Mock the Lowland Gorilla.

这是1938年。

This is 1938.

当时，低地大猩猩莫克被关在伦敦动物园。

Mock the lowland gorilla then kept in London Zoo.

我后来得知，莫克已经去世两天了。

And Mock, I learned, had been dead already for two days.

他躺在动物园的停尸房里，园丁发消息给夏洛特·沃尔夫医生——奥尔德斯·赫胥黎的掌纹师，说：我知道你想要莫克的掌纹。

And he was in the zoo's morgue, and the zookeeper, messaged, wrote to, Charlotte Wolfe, the doctor, Aldous Huxley's palmist, and said, I know you wanted to take a palm print of mock.

当他还活着时在笼子里太危险了，但现在他死了，躺在停尸房里。

It was too dangerous when he was in the cage, but he's dead, and he's lying in the morgue.

你现在可以来取他的掌纹了。

And you're welcome, and able to come and take those palm prints now.

我所看到的正是这些，而这正是我完全无法理解的地方。

And that's what I was looking at, and that's exactly what I couldn't make head or tail of.

我不明白她为什么要这么做。

Couldn't understand why she was doing it.

那为什么它会出现在奥尔德斯·赫胥黎的手掌印旁边？

What is that doing there alongside the prince of Aldous Huxley's hands and so forth?

就在那一刻，正如你所回应的，我突然坐直了身子。

And that was the moment exactly as you responded to where I sat up.

对我来说，那件事完全难以理解，而那正是最令人愉悦的时刻——你无法预知它何时到来，也无法凭空编造。

The it was inscrutable to me, and that's the most delightful moment, that you you don't know when it's coming, and you can't make it up.

但那枚掌纹的诡异之处，正是我开始深入探究的时刻，此后数年我再也无法停下，而解读手掌正是由此产生的结果。

But the strangeness of that palm print was the moment when I started digging around and then couldn't stop for years, and decoding the hand is the result.

那真是一个令人惊叹的时刻。

That's such an amazing moment.

谢谢你带我们走进档案，让我们得以见证这个起点。

Thank you for taking us into the archives in a way with you to have that starting point.

但当然，这并不是终点。

But, of course, that's not the end point.

正如你所提到的，或者至少是其中一个终点，就是你四处调查、最终解开那个时刻之谜后完成的这本书。

The end point, as you've mentioned, or at least one end point, is the finished product of the book where you went around and investigated and managed to make sense of that moment.

那么，让我们来看看这里能弄明白什么。

So let's see what we can make sense of here.

显然，你发现的这个人的档案，并不是掌纹阅读或可以解读手掌这一想法的开端。

Obviously, this particular person's archive that you found, was not the beginning of palm reading or the idea that kind of one could decode the hand.

那么，我们什么时候能看到这种开端呢？为什么这种称为

So when do we see kind of that beginning, and and why is this idea of

那种

kind of

掌纹术的概念能跨越时间一直存在呢？

chiromancy a consistent thing across time?

是的。

Yes.

它在时间长河中一直保持一致。

It is consistent across time.

所以，这正是我想的，这个掌纹到底是什么？

And so that's exactly you know, once I thought, what what is this print?

为什么这位医生在读它？

And why is this doctor, reading it?

你知道，她非常聪明。

You know, she's very clever.

她接受过分析训练。

She's analytically trained.

她接受过医学训练。

She's medically trained.

于是我开始回溯这两条线索。

And I started, going back through two lines.

一条是占星术本身，在中世纪和近代早期，它更常被称为chiromancy，源自希腊语中表示“手”的词。

One is palmistry itself, what in medieval and early modern times was called more often chiromancy from the Greek word for the hand.

另一条线索我们稍后可以稍微讨论一下，即从医学和解剖学角度解读手掌。

And the other line we might talk about a little later is a kind of a medical and anatomical line reading the hand.

但我心想，我真的对占星术一无所知。

But I thought I thought, you know, I knew absolutely nothing about palmistry.

我从未被人看过手相。

I've never had my palm read.

我对此并不特别感兴趣。

I wasn't particularly interested in it.

但我真的很想了解这只大猩猩的手掌纹路，以及它为何如此引人注目。

But I really wanted to understand this gorilla's palm print and why it was so interesting.

于是我开始四处查找，真的倒溯回了历史。

And so I started digging around and literally went backwards in time.

我主要在英国图书馆和剑桥大学图书馆查阅了十八世纪的掌纹学或手相学书籍，这些书往往比较轻松，是当时用于客厅游戏或娱乐的读物。

I, in in the wonderful British Library mainly and and Cambridge University Library, I was able to look at eighteenth century, chiromancy books or palmistry books, And they were often kind of to go backwards in time, they they were, more lighthearted books for parlor games or entertainment in the eighteenth century.

当我再往前追溯一个世纪，进入十七世纪时，我很快了解到，正如你所说，艾萨克·牛顿曾阅读并收藏过掌纹学书籍，我还得以亲眼查看了他本人的掌纹学著作。

When I went back another century, into the seventeenth century, I quickly learned, as you say, that Isaac Newton was reading and collecting chiromancy books, and I was able to go and, look at his own chiromancy books.

那时，这已不再是一种游戏。

And it was no longer a game.

你知道，艾萨克·牛顿是个非常严肃的人。

You know, Isaac Newton is a very serious person.

这是一种神秘传统。

This was an occult tradition.

神秘意味着一种隐秘的知识。

An occult means the idea of a hidden knowledge.

从那里，我开始回溯到中世纪，甚至更早的古代手相学和掌纹学。

So from there, I started to go back through medieval and, in fact, some ancient some ancient chiromancy and ancient palmistry.

而正是在那里，我在印度传统和更广泛的南亚传统中的早期文献中发现了它。

And that's where I found it in very early texts in an Indian tradition and a larger South Asian tradition.

在希腊传统中，手相学或掌纹学并不那么突出，但有一个非常相关的知识领域，在我的书中变得非常重要，那就是面相学。

In Greek traditions, there's not so much, palmistry or chiromancy, but there is a very related field of knowledge, which became very important in my book, which was called physiognomy.

亚里士多德或我们称之为亚里士多德学派的文本群，论述了面相学这一现象，即身体的任何部分都可以以某种方式解读，从而揭示性格——这是当时常用的术语。

And Aristotle or the group of texts that we come to call Aristotals, writes about this phenomenon of physiognomy, and that is this detailed way in which any part of the body can be read to in a way that would show character is the term that was often used.

因此，这种详细的描述指出，如果你有一个特定形状的鼻子，就会拥有某种性格。

So this detailed description of how if you've got a certain shaped nose, you'd have a certain character.

如果你有粗硬卷曲的头发，那意味着另一种性格，他说；如果你双手松软无力，这也关联着某种气质。

If you've got coarse and curly hair that, that that is a sign of another character, he would say, if you hold the hands flabbly, that that has a temperament attached to it as well.

因此，我了解到，面相学从最早的时候起就变得非常重要。

So it's a way physiognomy became really important, I learned, from the earliest times.

这在许多文化中都非常普遍，比如印度和波斯。

This this this quite common across many cultures, Indian, Persian.

中国也有古老的传统，通过观察身体的各个部位，尤其是面部和眼睛，以及双手，来解读这些身体表面的迹象，以了解内在的东西，通常被认为是人的性格或气质的体现。

There's a Chinese tradition, ancient Chinese tradition as well, of reading sometimes all parts of the body, but especially the face and the eyes, but also the hand, and reading all of these different parts of the body, the body's surface for signs of what's within, often understood to be a sign of person what came to be called personality or temperament.

因此，正是在这种面相学的总体概念下，掌纹学或手相学发展成为一种更为具体的知识。

And so really out of that umbrella idea of physiognomy, chiromancy or palmistry developed as a more specific, more specific knowledge.

但这一传统有着非常古老而深远的根源，它被伊斯兰传统、犹太传统以及许多希伯来文本和古代梵文文本所吸收。

But there's very, very ancient, ancient roots to this tradition that gets picked up across Islamic traditions, definitely across Jewish and in many, many Hebrew texts and in ancient Sanskrit texts as well.

能够了解这些观念追溯到多么久远、跨越了多少种文化，这真的非常有趣。

This is really interesting to have a sense of kind of how far back and across how many different cultures, these ideas go.

我对您提到的中国古代和南亚传统也感到非常着迷，当然，书中也提到了这些内容。

And I was intrigued as well about your mention there and, of course, in the book around the ancient Chinese or the ancient South Asian traditions.

因为当我们想到十九世纪的手相学、手部解读时——您之前提到的那些著名人物——人们常常认为这些是东方主义的实践。

Because I think quite often when we think about the sort of nineteenth century palmistry, hand reading, you know, the famous people you mentioned earlier, there is often an idea that these are sort of orientalist practices.

是因为这些源自中国或印度等古代传统的联系，还是说这种西方东方主义的色彩以另一种方式出现？

Is it because of those links with ancient traditions that come from places like China or India, or does that kind of Western orientalist tinge come in a different way?

不是。

No.

它确实深深植根于南亚、波斯和中东的传统。

It it's it's absolutely got a a root in especially South Asian, Persian, Middle East, traditions.

这些观念首先被引入西方，尤其是欧洲，而不是中国传统的直接传播。

And it's those ideas that are kind of being, pulled over, to the West, into into Europe rather more than Chinese traditions in the first instance.

当我们想到掌纹学时，你知道，很多听众——我之前说的是读者吗？

And, of course, when we think about palmistry, you know, many many many listeners, did I say readers before?

很多听众会立刻将它与所谓的吉普赛人、罗姆人社群及其古老的掌纹阅读联系起来，这种传统至今仍在延续。

Many listeners, many listeners would immediately make the link with so called gypsy roam Roma communities and roam Roma palm reading, which is very old and, of course, continues, to this day.

在十九世纪，也就是十八世纪末和十九世纪，人们实际上认为罗姆人的掌纹阅读者和罗姆人并非来自我们现在所知的北印度或波斯地区，而是来自埃及。

And in the nineteenth century, you know, late eighteenth and nineteenth century, there's an idea actually that, Roma palm readers and Roma people didn't come from what we now understand to be North India or around Persia, but in fact came from Egypt.

英语中‘吉普赛人’这个词，其实是‘埃及人’的缩写。

And the term, quote, unquote, gypsies in English is a shortening of Egyptian.

在十九世纪，出现了一个引人入胜的知识领域，当时十八、十九世纪欧洲的许多博学东方学家和语言学家正在追踪他们所称的‘印度-雅利安语言’——有时也称作印度-雅利安语系，即北印度语言与多种欧洲语言之间的联系。

And in the nineteenth century, there's this fascinating field of knowledge where various quite learned, orientalists and linguists in ninth eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe are tracking, what they called Indo Aryan language Aryan languages, sometimes called Indo Aryan languages, the connection between largely North Indian languages and many European languages.

他们对罗姆人的占掌术产生了浓厚兴趣，认为这证明了罗姆人并非如几个世纪以来人们所认为的那样来自埃及，而是实际上源自印度。

And they become quite interested in, Roma practices of palmistry also as evidence that, Roma people didn't come from, Egypt at all, as had been thought for many centuries, but in fact came from India.

因此，我查阅了大量十九世纪东方学家的记录，他们深入研究了罗姆人的掌纹阅读、手部语言，他们走遍欧洲和中东，以民族志学者或人类学家的身份，寻找罗姆人的传统，特别是旨在深化对北印度与欧洲之间——即共享语言与共享实践的印欧世界——联系的认知。

And and and so there's a lot of records that I was able to look at from these nineteenth century orientalists really deeply engaged with, Roman palm reading, with Roman languages around the hand, and they they they worked all their way across Europe and The Middle East finding, essentially, as kind of ethnographers or anthropologists, searching for Roma Roma traditions, specifically about getting you know, aiming to thicken, so to say, their knowledge of connections between, especially, North India and Europe, the Indo European world of shared language and shared practices.

因此，真正对欧洲传统形成产生最重要影响的是印度的古老传统。

So it's really the the Indian ancient traditions that become most important in setting up, traditions in Europe.

好的。

Okay.

了解这些联系以及它们为何以这种方式被研究，真的很有意思。

That's really interesting to understand what those linkages are and kind of why they're being investigated in that sort of way.

你所暗示的，人们对这些研究投入的巨大热情，表明这在当时并不被视为怪异之事。

And the fact of the kind of intensity of the interest in these investigations that you've, hinted out there suggest that this was like not seen as that weird a thing to look into.

这或许甚至在当时还被认为具有某种科学性。

Like, this was, I don't know, maybe even scientific at this point.

对吗？

Is that correct?

还是说这是一种隐秘的、奇怪的、我要去研究但不告诉任何人的事情？

Or was this sort of a hidden weird, I'm gonna look into it, I'm not gonna tell anyone type thing?

是的。

Yeah.

不是。

No.

它更偏向于奇怪的那一类。

It's more in the weird category.

在这一时期，还存在另一条线索，更加严格地属于科学、医学、解剖学和进化论范畴。

In the in the sense of, I mean, there is another strand right through this period, which is much more strictly scientific and medical and anatomical and evolutionary.

我希望我们之后能谈到这一点。

And we and I hope we'll come to talk about that.

但这些民族志学者，我们不妨这么称呼他们，他们通常自称民俗学家。

But the ethnographers, let's call them that, they called themselves often folklorists.

在十八和十九世纪，这个词指的是那些完全脱离科学框架去寻找这些现象的人。

And in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, that's a term for people who are looking for this is where this is where it's it's it's kind of outside a scientific frame altogether.

它更关注那些没有文字传统的迷人文化。

And it's more about fascinating cultures which don't have a written tradition.

民俗研究传统通常指的就是这个。

That's what the tradition of folkloric studies often, refers to.

所以，这些是一些偶然出现的人，有时是因为他们成长在罗马家庭周围，从而学会了各种罗马方言。

And so it's you know, these were one off people, who, by happenstance, sometimes were you know, perhaps often because they grew up around, Roman families, and they learned various Roman dialects.

他们成为了极其有天赋的多语言者，充满着浓厚的兴趣。

And they become they became incredibly talented multilinguists, fascinated.

这就是为什么它属于所谓的‘奇怪’类别。

This is why it's in the so called weird category.

这些完全是特立独行的人，有时穷尽一生，实实在在地穿越欧洲、中东和北非，寻找罗姆人群体，搜集各种语言和习俗信息。

You know, it's these kind of one off completely idiosyncratic people who spend sometimes their entire lives literally walking across Europe, The Middle East, North Africa, look looking for, Roma communities and piecing together all kinds of different language information, practice information.

所以这确实属于特立独行的范畴，而不是科学范畴。

So this is really in the idiosyncratic category, not, not the scientific category.

不过，实际上这些人所从事的工作是早期的文化人类学研究。

Although, you know, really what these people are working at is these early you know, they're really early cultural anthropologists.

正是从他们那里，今天我们仍保留了大量关于罗马语言和罗马手相术的知识。

And it's from them that, you know, you know, quite a considerable lot of knowledge about Roman languages and Roman palmistry practices remain with us today.

是的。

Yeah.

不是。

No.

这有助于我们理解这一脉络的实质。

That's helpful to understand kind of what that strand is.

但正如你所说，也存在更科学的那一部分。

But as you said, there is also the sort of more scientific piece as well.

那么，我们能不能谈谈那些科学家们对这一现象的看法？

So can we talk a bit about, those sort of scientists and what they thought about this?

我知道，比如在书中提到了解剖学家，但关于这一脉络，我们还知道些什么？

I know, for example, in the book, there's anatomists involved, but what else have we got on that strand?

是的。

Yes.

太多了。

So many.

而且某种程度上，当我从‘mop the poor dead mocks’、大猩猩的掌纹回溯时，我在想，这到底是什么？

And in a way, I you know, when I was tracking back from mop the poor dead mocks, the gorilla's palm and thinking, what is this?

我一度迷失在掌纹学本身的历史中，因为我对此一无所知，但它完全吸引了我。

I got lost for a while in the history of palmistry itself because I knew nothing about it and completely fascinated me.

一旦我对这个领域有了一些了解，我就开始研究中世纪的掌纹术，以及十五、十六世纪的掌纹术；我原以为这些内容全是占星术，比如木星的手指、命运线之类的，等等。

And once I got my a bit of a grip on that and I, you know, learned about medieval chiromancy and sixth fifteenth and sixteenth century chiromancy, which I expected to be I expected it all to be astrological and fingers of Jupiter and, you know, lines of miles and so on and so forth.

但事实上，这些内容出现得相当晚。

But in fact, that came quite quite late.

但在十五和十六世纪，我所阅读的那些手稿和早期的掌纹学书籍，大多数都是由医生撰写的。

But in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, all of these manuscripts and early CairoMatsi books that I was reading, most of them in that period were written by physicians.

因此，我学到的一件事是——我希望我在书中已经传达了这一点——不要以为回溯历史，我们会发现越来越神秘，实际上恰恰相反。

So one of the things that I learned, and I hope I've caught in the book, is not to think that going backwards in time, we get more and more magical, so to say, but in fact, quite the opposite.

回溯历史，通过相面术阅读手掌、解读身体，阅读掌纹学著作，这些本质上都是医学史。

Going back in time, reading the hand, reading the body through this field of physiognomy, reading chiromansy books, they were written what that is is the history of medicine.

这些著作大多是由医生撰写的，而非其他人。

They were more often written by physicians than any anyone else.

我们必须理解，在那个时代，大多数医生都会随身携带一本卷轴式的历书，上面标示着日历。

And we have to understand that, you know, this is a world where doctors, most physicians would take an almanac with them, a rolled up scroll, which would show the calendar.

它会告诉他们天体的位置。

It would show them where the heavenly bodies were.

他们完全把这种关联视为寻常之事，尽管颇为复杂——比如木星和木星指之间可能存在联系。

They completely took it as ordinary, if complicated, that, you know, that the planet Jupiter and the finger of Jupiter might be connected.

对我们而言，这是一种非常奇怪的想法。

For us, this is a very strange idea.

但我们需要理解的是，也是撰写此类书籍的挑战所在：要让这些关于身体与健康的主张重新变得平常。

But what what we need to understand and what is the challenge in writing a book like this is to make ordinary again those kinds of those kinds of claims about, you know, about the body and health.

这一切都基于天体与个体身体之间存在共鸣与联系。

And it is all about the celestial bodies having a sympathy with and a connection to the individual body.

因此，从某种意义上说，所有这些早期的掌纹学和手相学，早已是医学史的一部分。

So in a way, all of that, early chiromancy and palmistry was already the history of medicine.

但当我向前推进到更接近我们时代的十八世纪和十九世纪时，我不得不重新调整我在这项一直无法放下的研究中的方向。

But as I move forward into centuries closer to our own eighteenth and nineteenth century, in a way, I had to do a bit of a regroup on what I was doing with this this research that I just couldn't leave alone.

而有一本书，我早已知道，它在医学史上非常著名，叫做《手，仅仅是手》。

And there was there was a there was a was a book that I already knew of, which is very famous in the history of medicine, and it's called The Hand, Simply The Hand.

它的作者是十九世纪最杰出的英语解剖学家之一，名叫查尔斯·贝尔。

And it's by one of the nineteenth century's most eminent, Anglophone anatomists, a man called Charles Bell.

他在十九世纪三十年代写了一本名为《手》的书，书中比较了手的解剖结构。

And he wrote a book in the eighteen thirties called The Hand, and he wrote about the anatomy of the hand comparatively.

人类的手在骨骼结构、神经结构，甚至皮肤方面，与各种其他哺乳动物有何不同。

How did the human hand compare with its skeletal structure, its nervous structure, even its skin, with all kinds of other mammals.

这属于某一特定传统中的早期比较解剖学。

And this is early comparative anatomy in a particular tradition.

当我重新整理思路，心想：好吧。

And when I kind of regrouped and and I thought, okay.

我学到了不少关于掌纹术的历史，但关于手作为人体解剖一部分的更广泛历史呢？

I've I've learned quite a bit about the history of chiromancy, but what about the larger history of the hand just as a piece of human anatomy?

我想，当然了，那位著名的解剖学家、伦敦的查尔斯·贝尔写过一本关于手的书。

And I thought, oh, of course, Charles Bill Bill, this famous anatomist, London based anatomist, wrote wrote a book on the hand.

于是我重新整理并重启了这个项目，心想：好吧。

And I I did a kind of a a regrouping and a kind of a rebooting of the project to think, okay.

当然，手——包括手上的纹路、皮肤褶皱，甚至那些构成我们指纹的微小乳突纹路——都是解剖学历史的一部分，就像人体的其他任何部分一样。

Of course, the hand, including the lines on the hand, the folds of the skin, including including those little tiny little papillary marks that make our fingerprints, of course, this is part of the history of anatomy just like any other part of the human body.

这让我踏上了另一条道路，去追寻从查尔斯·贝尔开始的更现代的医学与手的历史。

And that set me on another another road to to to chase, a more modern history of medicine and the hand from Charles Bell onwards.

那么在这些较近的时代，这是否是一种合法、流行且医学上的实践？

So was this then in those more recent times a, like, legal popular medical practice?

在某种非常特定的意义上。

In in a very specific sense.

当我追踪十九世纪的医生时，你知道，那是一个世界，一群我相当熟悉的人。

So as I tracked, you know, nineteenth century doctors, know, it's a world and a set of a strange set of people that I know quite well.

多年来，我一直从学术和历史的角度与它们相伴。

I've been, you know, living with them in in scholarly and historical terms, you know, for for decades now.

它变得极为技术化的方式是通过两条线。

And the the way which it becomes absolutely technical is that is through two lines.

一是直接观察掌纹，也就是占卜师和手相师所关注并仍在关注的掌纹。

One is looking at literally at the same palm creases, the palm lines that chiromancers or palmists would look at and still look at.

但在十九世纪，人们开始将手上的某一条特定纹路与一系列智力障碍联系起来。

But in the nineteenth century, there started to be correlations made between one one line in the hand in particular and a set of, intellectual disabilities.

这条纹路，令人羞愧的是，后来被称为西蒙线。

And the line, quite shamefully, actually, came to be called the Simeon line.

这正是手相师所说的头线和心线合并而成的线。

And it's what Palmer's would call the head and heart line joined.

这条线横贯整个手掌，在大约百分之二的人类中出现，但在几乎所有其他灵长类动物中都存在。

One line that goes all the way across, human hands in about two percent of humans, we understand, but in almost all other primates.

这条非常明显的纹路后来被称为西蒙线。

This one very identifiable line came to be called the Simeon line.

在1880年代、1890年代，到二十世纪初，那些在各种智力障碍机构工作的人员，特别是针对后来被称为唐氏综合征、21三体综合征的人群，发现他们的状况与这条掌纹之间存在更强的关联。

In about eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties, and certainly by the beginning of the twentieth century, people who worked, in various, institutions for intellectual people with intellectual disabilities, most specifically people with what came to be called Down syndrome, trisomy, there was much more of a correlation between their condition and this this palm line.

这促使一批医生开始密切研究这种关联。

And this set a suite of doctors looking very closely at this correlation.

这条线索发展成了一项严肃而明确的工作，到了二十世纪三四十年代，这项工作已演变为极其复杂的统计研究。

And this is one line of very serious, clear, what comes to be done as as, very difficult statistical work by the time we get in the nineteen thirties, forties, fifties.

而本书的最后一章将我们从这样的观念中带出来：我们或许认为解读掌纹是一种完全古怪且边缘化的做法。

And the last chapter of the book moves us from you know, we might think that reading palm lines is a completely idiosyncratic and edge.

我们或许会认为它完全是伪科学的。

And, you know, we might think of it as an entirely pseudoscientific thing.

然而，本书的最后一章讲述的是二十世纪中叶最杰出的人口遗传学家之一，他的名字是莱昂内尔·彭罗斯。

However, some the last chapter of the book is on one of the most distinguished population geneticists of the mid twentieth century, His name is Lionel Penrose.

他毕生致力于研究唐氏综合征患者，通过统计分析这条掌纹，将其作为新生儿唐氏综合征的诊断工具。

And he spent his entire career working in and around and often with people with Down syndrome doing statistical work on this line as a as a diagnostic tool for neonates with Down syndrome.

他从二十世纪三十年代开始这项工作，一直持续到1972年去世。

And he did that really from the nineteen thirties right up to his death in 1972.

结果发现，位于巴黎的团队也发现了唐氏综合征的遗传原因。

And so so it turns out did the Paris based team who found the genetic cause of Down syndrome.

因此，他们也花了数十年时间研究手掌上的掌纹。

So they too had spent several decades looking at palms lines in the palm.

所以，当我了解到这一点后，我就意识到，这并不是边缘话题，而是二十世纪中期一些最杰出遗传学家的核心研究内容，于是我开始思考：这些奇怪的联系究竟是什么？

And so, you know, at that point, I was able to put once I found that out, that this is not fringe, this is absolutely core business for some of the most distinguished geneticists of the mid twentieth century, then I was able to think, oh, what are the strange connections?

这是否是解读手掌这一完整故事的一部分？

Is this part of one whole story about decoding decoding the hand?

我的意思是，这件事涉及很多方面。

I mean, there's so many elements to this.

对吧？

Right?

除了遗传学之外，你在书中还提到了颅相学家、生物统计学家，以及那个时代各种测量和比较人的方法，而掌纹学似乎在其中扮演了非常核心的角色。

There's, in addition to genetics, you in the book talk about phrenologists and biometrics and all sorts of things happening at this period in terms of measuring and comparing people that palmistry seems to be really quite central to.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

是的。

Yes.

某种程度上，我学会的一件事就是将研究范围从掌纹学扩展到真正地“阅读”手掌。

And in a way, one of the things I learned to do was to open this up from palmistry to literally reading the hand.

因此，与其仅仅认为自己在写关于掌纹实践的历史——这确实是书中的一部分——我开始对我的工作有了更广阔的理解：各种专家、科学界人士、普通大众，是如何以更广泛的意义上解读手掌的？

So so rather than, thinking, oh, oh, oh, I'm I'm writing history of palm the practice, which is part of the book, I started to have a kind of more expansive understanding of what I was doing, which is how have all kinds of specialists, scientific, lay, and otherwise, decoded the hand in a much larger in a much larger sense?

于是我想到了，当然了，我们每天打开电脑时使用指纹识别，这本身就是一种生物识别测量，通过手的一部分——手指或指纹——来进行解码。

And so that's when I thought, oh, of course, that almost every day when all of us open up our computers with our fingerprints, that's a measure a a biometric measure through which the hand a part of the hand, the finger or the thumbprint is being decoded.

因此，我将研究范围从仅仅关注掌纹，扩展到思考哪些医学和科学专家对手指、指纹、手掌正面和背面感兴趣。

And I so I kind of open this up from thinking about, just lines on the palm to thinking about how and which, medical and scientific specialists are interested in fingers, in fingerprints, in the front of the hand, in the back of the hand.

最终，这涵盖了从早期内分泌学家到进行各种相关性研究的人口遗传学家，尤其是被称为指纹学之父的非凡人物弗朗西斯·高尔顿。

And that ended up being everybody from early endocrinologists to population geneticists doing various correlations of as I've said, and especially to the so called father of fingerprinting, the extraordinary Francis Galton.

一旦我转向了研究中的这个方向，并决定：是的，

And so once I kind of, you know, turned to that corner in my research and in once I decided, oh, yes.

我意识到这里确实有一本非常有趣的书可写，可以追溯并解释‘大猩猩的手’——从过去到未来——于是我将研究视野扩展到更广泛地理解手掌。

There is a really interesting book here to write to explain mock the gorilla's hand, so to say, backwards in time and forward in time, I then opened up my inquiry to think about the hand in much larger terms.

对我来说，正是对指纹的思考让我迈出了这一步。

And for me, it really was thinking about fingerprints that made me turn that corner.

那么，关于这个故事，你还有什么想告诉我们的吗？

Well, is there anything you'd like to tell us more about that particular story?

谢谢你的邀请。

Well, thank you for the invitation.

这对我来说非常令人兴奋，因为我过去多次写过优生学的历史。

It it it it's it's rather exciting for me because I'd one of the things I've written about in the past many times actually is the history of eugenics.

而提出‘优生学’这一术语的人，是一位名叫弗朗西斯·高尔顿的杰出通才，他在19世纪80年代和90年代进行了相关研究。

And the person who gave us that term, eugenics, was a a a a brilliant polymath by the name of Francis Galton, through work he did in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties.

巧合的是，正如我所说，弗朗西斯·高尔顿也是第一个在19世纪90年代通过复杂数学和统计工作向我们揭示了两点的人。

And it just so happens that Francis Galton is also the person who, as I said, did the mathematical very complicated mathematical and statistical work that showed us for the first time in the eighteen nineties a two things.

第一，指纹在人的一生中不会改变。

A, that fingerprints don't change over a lifetime.

它们从生命开始时就与生命结束时完全相同。

They're the same at the beginning of life at the as they are at the end of life.

以及B，通过极其复杂的数学运算，他惊人地发现每个人都有完全不同的指纹。

And b, this stunning discovery through very, very complicated mathematics that everybody has a completely different set of fingerprints.

这其实是我们认为理所当然的事情，我想。

And this re really, it's something that we we take for granted, I think.

但这是多么非凡的发现啊，对于这位好奇的数学家来说，能完成这项工作是多么了不起。

But what an extraordinary thing, and what an extraordinary thing for this this curious mathematician to to to do the work on.

我早就了解弗朗西斯·高尔顿，因为我多年来一直研究优生学，他的所有论文都存放在伦敦大学学院档案馆成千上万的箱子里。

And I had known Francis Galton because I'd worked on Eugenics for years, and all of his papers are in miles and miles of boxes in, University College London archives.

所以我熟悉他的论文。

And so I knew his papers.

我对他很了解。

I knew him well.

我非常熟悉他的论文。

I knew his papers well.

但我确实已经迈过了那道坎。

But I did I had turned that corner.

我想到了，你知道的，很多人谈论手指是手的一部分，指纹也是手的一部分。

I thought of, you know, lots of people are talking about fingers are parts of the hand, fingerprints are parts of the hand.

如果我打开我的研究呢？

What if I open up my my research?

于是，当然，我会去找我最熟悉的人，那些我最了解的论文。

And so, of course, I would go I I go to the person that I knew the best, the papers that I knew the best.

令我完全惊讶的是，对我而言，下一个重大发现是，在盖尔顿采集的成千上万的指纹中，偶尔也会有掌纹。

And there, to my complete surprise, it was the next great discovery for me, was that amongst the literally thousands and thousands and thousands of fingerprints that Galtwood had taken was the occasional palm print as well.

所以，这位在19世纪90年代从事过极其复杂指纹研究的人，也曾对这些手上的其他纹路和线条产生过兴趣。

So this man in the eighteen nineties who had done very complicated work on fingerprints had also wondered about these other patterns and lines in the in the hand.

他对这些形状以及形状的几何结构感兴趣，真正想知道的是这些图案该如何解读。

These other what this this this, he's interested in the shapes and the kind of geometry of the shapes and literally how are those patterns to be read.

对他来说，这是一个问题：或许可以找到某种关联，从整个手掌而非仅仅指纹中，做出某种个体诊断。

And it was a question for him that, perhaps perhaps there are correlations to be made, and in individual diagnostics, so to so to be said so so to say, to be made from the whole palm and not just the fingerprint.

而这一点，我完全不知道弗朗西斯·高尔顿也做过，我想别人也不知道——作为指纹学之父的弗朗西斯·高尔顿，实际上也采集了大量掌纹，包括他自己的，并积极思考能从这些掌纹中发现什么。

And this was something that, Francis Galton I had no absolutely no idea, and I don't think anybody else did either, that Francis Galton, the father of fingerprinting, was also someone who was taking a lot of palm prints, including his own, and, wondering actively about what he could learn from from them.

而这最终演变成一个非常奇特的领域，称为皮纹学，即研究手部乃至足部皮肤（derma）上的纹路、图案或刻痕。

And what this what this turned into was a very strange field called dermatoglyphics, the study of glyphs, patterns, or engravings in the skin, derma, of the hands and actually of the feet.

这个领域是在1926年命名的，显然在弗朗西斯·高尔顿的研究之后，而我以前从未听说过它。

And it's it's a field that was named in 1926, definitely after the work of Francis Galton, and I have never heard of it.

作为一名研究身体史和健康医学史近三十年的学者，我竟然从未听说过它。

Never heard of it after nearly thirty years of being a historian of bodies and a historian of health and medicine.

我偶然发现了‘皮纹学’这个词，结果发现它还是另一个在20世纪早期到中期被许多解剖学家积极研究的纯粹科学领域。

And, I stumbled across this term, dermatoglyphics, and it turns out to be also another strictly scientific field of inquiry that a lot of anatomists through the early to mid twentieth century pursued.

事实上，听众们可以试着在谷歌或谷歌学术上搜索一下，你会发现至今仍有许多研究在皮纹学这一领域展开，它曾是对手部和足底纹路，包括手掌和足底线条的纯粹科学研究。

And in fact, listeners may be interested to plug it in to a Google search or a Google Scholar search, and you will see that still there's a suite of studies done in this field called dermatoglyphics, which was a strictly scientific study of the, the ridges in the hands and in the soles of the feet and including lines in the hands and the soles of the feet.

所以，米拉达，这又是另一个让我感到惊讶的时刻：在几十年研究科学与医学史，尤其是19世纪和20世纪的科学与医学史之后，我竟然从未听说过这样一个完整的领域，这真是太奇怪了。

So it was another one of those moments, Miranda, where I thought, well, after decades of researching, history of science and medicine, especially in the nineteenth, twentieth century, here's an entire field that I'd never heard of, and it's the strangest thing.

这真有趣。

And what fun.

我必须说，研究这本书真是一大乐事。

I have to say what a joy to research this book was.

因为研究医学史中的怪异现象，真的一次次把我吸引回来。

Because researching the strange in the history of medicine is really what just pulls me back over and over again.

嗯。

Yeah.

不。

No.

总有很多事情需要探索，然后你会说：哦，等等。

There's always so many things to investigate and go, oh, wait.

拐角后面会有什么？

What's around this corner?

对吧？

Right?

你知道吗，这个档案夹里会有什么？

You know, what's in this archival folder?

诸如此类的事情。

All that sort of stuff.

发现一些你从未听说过的领域非常迷人，同时也引发了一些关于掌纹学研究究竟发生了什么的问题。

And finding fields that you had never even heard of are is is fascinating and also kind of raises these questions around sort of what has happened to these studies of palmistry.

我的意思是，从某种意义上说，它们在科学层面似乎仍在继续。

I mean, it sounds like in some ways they're kind of still going on the scientific side.

我们是否还保留着它人类学和神秘学的方面呢？

Do we still have the sort of anthropological occult aspect of it too?

比如，掌纹学现在还存在吗？不管是不是叫这个名字？

Like, is palmistry still a thing whether by that name or any other?

哦，它绝对仍然存在。

Oh, it's absolutely still a thing.

因此，从某种意义上说，我有两个目标。

And so in a way in a way, there were two objectives for me.

一个是追溯掌纹学在时间上的来龙去脉，另一个是追溯这种更医学和科学的传统在时间上的演变。

One one is to to trace forward and backward in time palmistry, and another one was to trace forward and backward in time this more medical and scientific tradition.

而这两者，奇怪的是，至今仍然与我们同在。

And both, strangely, are still, with us.

所以，你知道，在海边、码头、客厅、集市和节庆活动中，那些我们称之为传统算命师的人，技艺高超且需求旺盛，他们至今仍在普遍地从事这一行。

So, you know, we will all know that, know, at the seaside and at the piers and parlors and fairs and festivals that let's call them traditional palmists, highly skilled, and much in demand, you know, that they are, still practicing, quite commonly.

在印度和中国，这根本不是边缘现象。

In India and in China, this is not marginal at all.

这是一种随时随地都在进行的活动。

This is something that is practiced all the time.

因此，是的，这条线索确实一直延续至今。

And so, yes, that line absolutely continues.

这本身就已经很有趣了。

And that's interesting enough.

但更重要的是，随着我深入研究这本书，我越来越被这样一个故事所吸引：那个鲜为人知的手相学领域，甚至包括掌纹学，确实一直以一种严格科学和医学的方式延续着。

But what is, I think, and the more I researched this book, the more I became enchanted by the story of how this lesser known field of hand reading and even palm reading certainly continued in a strictly scientific, and medical line.

当然，指纹识别的重要性显而易见。

And so, you know, one is obviously the great significance of fingerprinting.

但另一个较少为人所知的是，如今被称为‘四指纹线’或‘横纹’的特征，过去被称为‘西蒙线’，确实与唐氏综合征相关。

But the other lesser known is is the it's absolutely the case that what is now called the four sometimes the four finger crease or the transverse crease, what used to be called the Simeon line, is correlated with Down syndrome.

事实上，一些非常著名且备受尊敬的医疗机构仍然会提供相关信息，指导通过寻找四指褶皱或横纹——即过去被称为西蒙线的特征——来对新生儿进行唐氏综合征的快速、简便诊断。

And in fact, several very high profile and very distinguished medical institutions will still give, information, around looking for the four finger crease or the transverse line, what used to be called the Simeon line, as as diagnostic, instantly, easily diagnostic, for Down syndrome with neonates.

因此，这确实是公开记录中某些机构在医学培训中教授和推荐的内容。

So so that's something that is absolutely, on the public record as as, taught and recommended by certain institutions, in in medical, in medical training.

因此，你知道，这条线索变得越来越严格，更加医学化和科学化。

And so, you know, there there are kind of lines in this that became more, not less, strictly strictly medical and strictly scientific.

而这正是我在撰写这本书时最意想不到、也最想捕捉的探究方向。

And that's that's the, that's the kind of line of inquiry here that became most unexpected to me and most interesting to to capture in this book.

是的。

Yeah.

不。

No.

这确实是一个非常有趣的交织。

That's definitely a very interesting intertwining.

感谢你与我们分享这些。

Thank you for sharing that with us.

而且，正如你所提到的，这本书充满了如此多的揭示、惊喜和意想不到的发现，以及各种联系。

And, obviously, this book, as you've mentioned, had just so many reveals and surprises and, unexpected things to discover and discover connections between.

所以在我们结束关于这本书的讨论之前，还有没有其他什么惊喜或故事，是你希望确保我们在这次对话中提到的？

So before we, finish up our discussion on the book, is there any additional surprise or story that you want to make sure we include in our talk?

事实上，我们一开始谈到的就是这位在天文学、物理学和科学史上极具影响力的人物——艾萨克·牛顿。

Well, really, it's what we started with with this, you know, huge figure in the history of astronomy and physics and science, Isaac Newton.

因此，对我而言，也希望能引起读者的兴趣的是，我们知道年轻的剑桥学生艾萨克·牛顿——这位伟大的天文学家和物理学家——曾漫步穿过剑桥每年夏天举办的大型斯托布里奇大草坪。

And so it really is absolutely fascinating that we to me, and I hope to readers of the book, that we know that as a young Cambridge student, Isaac Newton, the great astronomer and physicist, strolled across to this the huge Stowbridge Common, which was held every summer in the in Cambridge.

我们知道，他买了一本名为《手相术：其秘密揭示》的书。

And we know that he bought a book called palmistry, the secrets thereof disclosed.

这本书的作者是一位名叫理查德·桑德斯的占星师兼医生。

And it was by an astrologer physician called Richard Saunders.

当我有机会前往艾萨克·牛顿的私人图书馆，看到他阅读了如此多的手相学著作时，其中一件让我着迷的事是，他本人将科学史与魔法史交织在了一起。

And one of the one of the things that fascinated me when I was able to go to Isaac Newton's own library and see just how many chiromancy books he was reading was that he himself was intertwining the history of science and the history of magic.

在这一点上，我们必须认识到，科学史中本身就包含着魔法。

That at this point, we need to understand that the history of science has magic in it.

艾萨克·牛顿感兴趣的一个领域是犹太传统中一种关于手和身体解读的卡巴拉学说，这种知识至今仍然存在。

And one of the things that Isaac Newton was interested in was a a particular Jewish tradition of hand and body reading called Kabbalah, which still exists, Kabbalistic knowledge.

艾萨克·牛顿对这一点着迷至极。

And Isaac Newton was absolutely fascinated with that.

我还了解到，艾萨克·牛顿热衷于读手相，因为他真的在观察手上的纹路。

And I also learned that Isaac Newton was fascinated with reading the hand because he's literally looking at lines.

他在观察手上的几何图案。

He's looking at a geometry on the hand.

那些三角形是什么？

What are the triangles?

那些四边形是什么？

What are the quadrangles?

线条的角度又是怎样的？

What are the angles of the line?

这种我称之为手部几何的传统，一直延续到了二十世纪的人口遗传学家身上。

And this tradition of what I call a geometry of the hand is also what got carried through right through to those, population geneticists in the twentieth century.

他们在观察手。

They're looking at hands.

他们在观察图案，并将手上的纹路和线条视为极其复杂的数学符号。

They're looking at patterns, and they're reading patterns and lines on the hands as very, very sophisticated mathematicians.

因此，我认为艾萨克·牛顿对我来说是一个关键人物，正是因为这位科学史上的伟大人物——还有比他更伟大的吗？

And so, you know, I do think that Isaac Newton for me was a really key, a key figure precisely because this great figure in the history of science I mean, is there a greater figure?

也许只有达尔文。

Perhaps Darwin.

达尔文也在书中被提及。

Darwin is also in the book.

他对蚂蚁也感兴趣。

He was also interested in ants.

但牛顿本人真正将我书副标题中所提到的科学、医学与魔法的历史融为一体。

But that Newton himself really wove together what I've got in the subtitle of the book, a history of science, medicine, and magic.

我认为，这正是我们讨论的绝佳收尾之处。

Well, that is a fabulous place, I think, to draw our discussion to a close.

这让我只剩下一个最后的问题，我通常会问每一位作者，但我也承认，当一本书有着如此高水准的好奇心和档案探索乐趣时，这个问题似乎更难回答，但也更让我感兴趣。

And it does leave me with just one final question, which I do tend to ask for pretty much every author, but I admit when a book has kind of such a high bar of curiosity and archival fun, it both seems like a harder question to answer, but also one I'm more intrigued to hear about.

那么，你接下来可能会研究什么呢？

Because what could you possibly work on next?

毕竟，这本书的科研乐趣已经设定了如此高的标准。

Like, this sets such a high bar of research fun.

我得说，对我来说，这已经是我的第几本书了。

I have to say, you know, this is a few quite a few books in for me.

而且，每一本书都当然令人着迷，能够做研究真是一件美妙的事。

And, you know, each one just becomes of course, it's absolutely fascinating and, know, research is just a just such a wonderful thing to be able to do.

但这本书，因为它的起点如此奇特，对我而言就像一个完全敞开的盒子，研究这本书的乐趣，我认为超越了我之前的任何一本。

But this book, because its beginning was so curious and it was just such an open box for me, The joy of researching this book really, I I think, exceeded any any other.

不过，你的问题确实是：接下来会做什么？

However, your your question really is what's next?

我目前正在参与一个完全不同的项目。

And I'm I've been involved in a project on it's it's very different.