History of Science and Medicine Library – serie

Consisting of a series of case studies, this book is devoted to the concept and uses of salt in early modern science, which have played a crucial role in the evolution of matter theory from Aristotelian concepts of the elements to Newtonian chymistry. No reliable study on this subject has been previously available. Its exploration of natural history’s and medicine’s intersection with chemical investigation in early modern England demonstrates the growing importance of the senses and experience as causes of intellectual change from 1650-1750. It demonstrates that an understanding of the changing definitions of “salt” is also crucial to a historical comprehension of the transition between alchemy and chemistry.

This book throws a penetrating light on the life and work of the physiologist turned neurologist G.G.J. Rademaker against the background of flourishing clinical research in the Netherlands of the early twentieth century. It charts the rise and fall of the branch of experimental neurophysiology of which Rademaker was a master, which was transmitted from Charles Sherrington in England to Rudolf Magnus at Utrecht and then to Rademaker, Magnus’s most talented pupil. Reaching its apogee in the 1920s and 1930s, it was replaced after World War II by other less invasive approaches. This biography is a fitting memorial to a man who, though somewhat neglected in his own land, was recognised as a genius by his peers worldwide.

Although ancient and medieval doctors knew of the disorder called diabetes, the disease they treated was rare and largely confined to young sufferers. By the late Renaissance, however, the increasing incidence of diabetes in older adults required a re-examination of what caused the malady and how to cure it. Led by English healers, such as controversial apothecary Nicholas Culpeper and elite physician Thomas Willis, the study of diabetes produced significant debate in print over the locus of the disease and remedies for its treatment. These debates paralleled the growing schism in English medical circles over contradictory iatric theories and professional jurisdiction. On the eve of insulin's discovery, diabetologists still quarrelled over what diets might alleviate its symptoms. Including perspectives from patients and drawing on myriad sources, this book examines changing approaches to diabetes and its victims within the context of medical and scientific progress.

The design, construction and verification of complex two- and three-dimensional shapes in architecture and ship geometry have always been a particularly demanding part of the art of engineering. Before science-based structural design and analysis were applied in the construction industries, i.e., before 1800, the task of conceiving, documenting and fabricating such shapes constituted the most significant interface between practitioner's knowledge and learned knowledge, above all in geometry. The history of shape development in these two disciplines therefore promises especially valuable insights into the knowledge history of shape creation. This volume is a collection of contributions by outstanding scholars in their fields of study, archaeology, history of architecture and ship design, in classic antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The volume presents a comparative knowledge history in these two distinct branches of construction engineering.

This book is about medical beliefs and practices for animals in early modern England. Although there are numerous texts on human health, this is the first to focus exclusively on animals during this period. For most academics, the foundation of the London Veterinary College in 1791 marks the beginning of 'modern' veterinary medicine, with the period before unworthy of serious study. In fact, there is ample evidence of how the importance of animals resulted in a highly complex system of both preventative and remedial care. This book is divided into sections which start by 'setting the scene' with an overview of animals in early modern England and the contemporary principles behind health and illness. It moves onto an examination of the medical marketplace and printed literature on animal health care, followed by an in-depth look at preventative and remedial methods. It ends by addressing the question of what impact, if any, new colleges had on veterinary beliefs and practices.

Tobias Krüger explores the discovery of the Ice Ages, how the idea was received, and what further research it stimulated. The approach used in Discovering the Ice Ages is uniquely sweeping. The contemporary debates on the subject are compared from an international perspective. Krüger retraces the arguments advanced from the middle of the 18th century to the threshold of the 20th century. The positions held by defenders of the glacial theory as well as those by its most important opponents are set within the context of the then current understanding of geology. In an interdisciplinary overview Krüger then focuses on the impetus gained from early ice-age research. The most prominent examples worth mentioning are the discovery of trace gases and the greenhouse effect.

In Elegant Anatomy Marieke Hendriksen offers an account of the material culture of the eighteenth-century Leiden anatomical collections, which have not been studied in detail before. The author introduces the novel analytical concept of aesthesis, as these historical medical collections may seem strange, and undeniably have a morbid aesthetic, yet are neither curiosities nor art.As this book deals with issues related to the keeping and displaying of historical human remains, it is highly relevant for material culture and museum studies, cultural history, the history of scientific collections and the history of medicine alike. Unlike existing literature on historical anatomical collections, this book takes the objects in the collections as its starting point, instead of the people that created them.

The sudden appearance of portolan charts, realistic nautical charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, at the end of the thirteenth century is one of the most significant occurrences in the history of cartography. Using geodetic and statistical analysis techniques these charts are shown to be mosaics of partial charts that are considerably more accurate than has been assumed. Their accuracy exceeds medieval mapping capabilities. These sub-charts show a remarkably good agreement with the Mercator map projection. It is demonstrated that this map projection can only have been an intentional feature of the charts’ construction. Through geodetic analysis the author eliminates the possibility that the charts are original products of a medieval Mediterranean nautical culture, which until now they have been widely believed to be.

The Understanding, Prevention and Control of Human Cancer is an account of how a married couple opened understanding of environmental carcinogenesis. Elizabeth Cavert and James A. Miller showed that enzymes of the human body activate and enable otherwise benign organic chemicals to combine with DNA in such a manner that cancer results. Their work is of particular note because cancer causes more loss of life-years than the sum of all other causes of death—and, as the President’s (USA) Cancer Panel warned, environmental carcinogenesis is a form of cancer that has been previously “grossly underestimated”. The Millers’ cancer research led to tests that identify dangerous chemicals which in turn permits prevention and thus the control of human cancer.

This book shows that a rigorous study of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not simply an exercise in the history of astronomy, but constitutes a broad inquiry into our germinal ideas about speed, motion, and the spherical nature of celestial entities, as well as the relation between theology and gnoseology. Many have heard of Aristotle’s First Unmoved Mover, the one that moves all things without being moved. Very few, however, have managed to capture the ultimate meaning of that entity. One of the goals of this book is to explore why the existence of such a First Unmoved Mover is necessary, but the journey to this end allows us to understand why Aristotle maintained that there are a total of 55 Unmoved Movers, not just one. The key is Aristotelian astronomy, little studied so far in comparison with other aspects of his thought. In this solid piece of research and free philosophical speculation that Botteri & Casazza offer us, the authors’ gaze raised to the sky—by means of the naked-eye analysis of celestial movements—leads to the reconstruction of Aristotle’s astronomical system, key to understanding his cosmology, his physics, and even his metaphysics. This book is a revised English translation from the original Spanish publication El sistema astronómico de Aristoteles: Una interpretación, published by Ediciones Biblioteca Nacional, Buenos Aires, 2015.