The compassionate scientist in Jose Rizal

Sketching animals and observing life as it happened in the nature habitats of Mount Makiling and Laguna Lake when he was a child, Jose Rizal started on a path that led to his multi-faceted adult life that was spent on scientific pursuits in medicine, biology, and human evolution. But the would-be hero and martyr had also the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people. The young Jose, fondly nicknamed Pepe, also wondered if the people on the other side of the lake were being treated justly. According to American historian Austin Craig, Pepe also showed interest in the people around the area. “He looked at the world as an artist," said present-day scientist Dr. Perry Ong at a recent conference dubbed "Rizal @ 150: Rizal in the 21st Century" held at the GT-Toyota Asian Center in the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines. Ong stressed how the Philippines' national hero interacted with the natural world. Foundation in studies Rizal’s childhood interests got honed by academic training. As a student in both the Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila University) and the University of Santo Tomas (UST), he received exemplary grades across all fields – until he decided to take medicine in UST. The same student who always got “excellent" marks before he even turned 16 was suddenly getting “fair" marks in Physics and General Pathology. Based on the book by father and daughter historians Gregorio and Sara Zaide, Rizal might have received low grades because of unfair treatment from the Dominican friars in UST back then. Rizal would later move to the University of Madrid in Spain to study medicine and philosophy and write “Noli Me Tangere," which he hoped would spark the reform in the Philippines, Ong noted. So keen was his interest in the sciences that Rizal tried hashish as an “experiment" in 1879. Hashish is a hallucinogenic drug created from the resin of cannabis plants – a preparation known to be more potent than marijuana, Ong said. But Rizal was no pothead. In a letter to scientist Adolf Bernard Meyer (A.B. Mayer in Rizal’s letters) dated 1890, Rizal admitted to taking the drug and explained why he did so. “[I] did it for experimental purposes and I obtained the substance from a drugstore," Rizal wrote. The letter was among the many written messages Dr. Ong unearthed as he prepared for a presentation during the "Rizal @ 150" conference. Science in his novels Rizal went on to finish his licentiate in medicine in 1884 and later, a licentiate in Philosophy while at the same time writing Noli Me Tangere. His knowledge in science would later surface in his second novel, the "El Filibusterismo." Ong noted that in El Filibusterismo Rizal described Paulita, one of the novel’s characters, as “obeying the law discovered by Darwin," alluding to how female species surrender themselves to the dominant male. The reference, Ong said, was accurate. Rizal knew his Darwin. Miguel Paolo Reyes, a research associate of the Third World Studies Center also in UP Diliman, spoke about the science in El Filibusterismo. Rizal, for instance, made sure the character Simon came out as “a foreign oddity, a tall, sinewy, white-maned, raven-bearded chimerical creature sporting enormous azure eyeglasses (keeping even parts of his cheeks hidden), a tinsin helmet, a strange accent, an air of indomitable superiority," noted Reyes. In Reyes’ eyes, Simon was the “scientifically superior alien." El Filibusterismo, Reyes said, showed not only Rizal’s knowledge in science but his ability to imagine future scientific discoveries. Simon’s use of tinted eyeglasses to protect his eyes from the Sun was a concept foreign to Rizal’s time and according to Reyes, it was only in the 20th century when the concept of sunglasses as we know them today was born. Friends in science Rizal’s scientific aptitudes were set free when he was deported to Dapitan, said Dr. Ong. The exile let himself loose in the wilderness there. He went on to sketch, describe and collect samples of the creatures he found in the area. In one instance, Rizal identified shells in Mindanao without having a conchological library or museum at hand. The feat, noted a member of the Association of Philippine Shell Collectors in 1960, is the hardest part in shell collecting. Ong said Rizal managed to identify the shells based purely on memory. While in Dapitan, Rizal collected specimens which he sent to A. B. Meyer of the Dresden Museum in Germany. From these, three new species were named after him. These were Rhacophorus rizali, a frog, Draco rizali, a flying lizard, and Apogonia rizali, a beetle. However, only one of them, Apogonia rizali, remains in use as the other two have been synonymised. He also knew when he wasn’t the best man for the job. If a particular creature stumped him, he would send the data he collected to better-equipped friends in Europe. In exchange, Rizal would ask for books and scientific instruments. He wrote in an 1894 letter to A.B. Meyer, “I leave to you to estimate their value. If they seem to you worth anything, send me books for them; and if not, we remain friends as ever. I should like to have a treatise on Mathematics in French. I beg you to let me know always if the remittances arrive there in good condition." In a later exchange written in both French and German, Rizal acquired the following from A.B. Meyer:

• 2 volumes (French) Mathematics
• 1 volume Natural History Collector
• 1 volume German Vocabulary
• 1 volume Preparation and stuffing (of birds)
• 1 volume Malay Grammar
• 1 volume Kurschner's Lexicon

“I beg you to kindly tell me the price of these books so I'll know how much I'm already indebted to you," Rizal said. 'Not his priority' In some of Rizal’s letters, his interest in human beings would again pop up. He wrote to educator Ferdinand Blumentritt in 1895 about the Negritos in the country. “I suspect that there are also pigments under the layer of the conjunctiva scattered in less quantity than in the skin. This gives the yellow color," Rizal wrote. But beyond describing and hypothesizing on the Negritos’ skin pigments and genetic make-up, Rizal denied the concept of race supremacy. “Concerning the limited intelligence in races, after a detailed study of the subject, I believe like you do, that there is and there is none," he added. Intelligence, he argued, was something nations inherited. While European countries might have had an upper hand in intelligence, Rizal believed this was only so because of centuries of honing that intelligence – implying that eventually, “lesser" nations would have the chance to catch up. The notion, Ong noted, would propel Rizal to fight for the equality of the colonizer and the colonized. Despite his brilliance in the natural sciences, Rizal chose nation over science, said Ong. “[He didn’t come up with publications in the natural sciences] not because it was not important but because it was not his priority," Ong added. In a letter to Blumentritt, written in frustration over his countrymen’s tepid reaction to Noli Me Tangere, Rizal revealed his desire to retire to a life of science. “If I were a free European, I would be married by now, I would have a family, and I could live beside my parents, devote myself to science, and with my friends, contemplate and live in peace and tranquility in this beautiful world," Rizal wrote. — ELR/LBG/HS, GMA News