Anatomical eye models became increasingly popular in the seventeenth century across Europe. They served as useful pedagogical tools, allowing the hands-on study of ocular anatomy and repeated re-enactment of the dissection process, while also being appreciated for their workmanship and aesthetics. Their makers included surgeons, anatomists and artisans, and they often collaborated to produce these artefacts. Comprising materials such as ivory, horn, glass and leather, the components of the model aimed to recreate and stand in for bodily surfaces and textures. This article takes the materiality of the eye model as the starting point from which to explore the role of material-based expertise and insights in producing knowledge of the body. The model encapsulated a conceptualization shared across surgical and artisanal practices that the body was a kind of material, equivalent to the matter craftsmen worked with. It enabled engagement with the body as material and encouraged a re-evaluation of sensory literacy, fostering a way of seeing that also entailed touching.
{"title":"The making of early modern eye models","authors":"Wenrui Zhao","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0020","url":null,"abstract":"Anatomical eye models became increasingly popular in the seventeenth century across Europe. They served as useful pedagogical tools, allowing the hands-on study of ocular anatomy and repeated re-enactment of the dissection process, while also being appreciated for their workmanship and aesthetics. Their makers included surgeons, anatomists and artisans, and they often collaborated to produce these artefacts. Comprising materials such as ivory, horn, glass and leather, the components of the model aimed to recreate and stand in for bodily surfaces and textures. This article takes the materiality of the eye model as the starting point from which to explore the role of material-based expertise and insights in producing knowledge of the body. The model encapsulated a conceptualization shared across surgical and artisanal practices that the body was a kind of material, equivalent to the matter craftsmen worked with. It enabled engagement with the body as material and encouraged a re-evaluation of sensory literacy, fostering a way of seeing that also entailed touching.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136229540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores two early anthropological works on Japan that were produced in Britain during the nineteenth century. The first is James Cowles Prichard's chapter on Japanese culture from the third edition of his Researches into the physical history of mankind (1844) . It represents the first formative study by a leading ethnologist to tackle the subject. The second is Edward Burnett Tylor's essay on Japanese belief for the Journal for the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1877). During the later decades of the nineteenth century, information about Japanese society still remained relatively incomplete. When Tylor wrote his important essay about Japan in the 1870s, he still drew on the same sources Prichard had used three decades earlier. Very little new ethnographic information had travelled back to England by the second half of the nineteenth century. As a result, researchers continued to struggle when writing about Japanese culture. What we get in these nineteenth-century writings is best described as anthropological ‘glimpses’ of Japan. By exploring these early sketches of Japan, a more textured disciplinary history emerges that helps to complexify and challenge the heroic and teleological narratives of British anthropology's supposed success story.
{"title":"Anthropological Glimpses of Japan in Nineteenth-Century Britain","authors":"Efram Sera-Shriar","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0056","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores two early anthropological works on Japan that were produced in Britain during the nineteenth century. The first is James Cowles Prichard's chapter on Japanese culture from the third edition of his Researches into the physical history of mankind (1844) . It represents the first formative study by a leading ethnologist to tackle the subject. The second is Edward Burnett Tylor's essay on Japanese belief for the Journal for the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1877). During the later decades of the nineteenth century, information about Japanese society still remained relatively incomplete. When Tylor wrote his important essay about Japan in the 1870s, he still drew on the same sources Prichard had used three decades earlier. Very little new ethnographic information had travelled back to England by the second half of the nineteenth century. As a result, researchers continued to struggle when writing about Japanese culture. What we get in these nineteenth-century writings is best described as anthropological ‘glimpses’ of Japan. By exploring these early sketches of Japan, a more textured disciplinary history emerges that helps to complexify and challenge the heroic and teleological narratives of British anthropology's supposed success story.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135161364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Japanese biologist and ethnologist Minakata Kumagusu has achieved a degree of celebrity in Japan for being the first Asian contributor to the British scientific magazine Nature . However, although Minakata's many contributions to Nature from 1893 to 1914 provided British readers with rare insight into Asian scientific achievements, he is seldom discussed in history of science scholarship produced by American, British and European researchers. In this article we examine Minakata's Nature articles to gain insight into how his encounter with the Eurocentrism of British culture while living in London from 1892 to 1900 affected his intellectual development. We argue that having his articles published in Nature to gain scientific recognition was not Minakata's real goal. Rather, we demonstrate that his Nature articles were connected to a larger project that inspired Minakata for much of his life, a descriptive sociology of Japan. For this descriptive sociology, Minakata wished to construct a new form of historical analysis that drew on past Asian sources, as well as anthropological and sociological perspectives learned from British philosopher of evolution Herbert Spencer and British anthropologists such as Edward Clodd, Edward Tylor and Andrew Lang. Minakata's writings reveal him to be much more than a conduit of information about Asia. He was also a pioneering global intellectual who demonstrated how Asian science complemented Western science.
{"title":"Minakata Kumagusu in London: Challenging Eurocentrism in the pages of <i>Nature</i>","authors":"Bernard Lightman, Ruselle Meade","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0053","url":null,"abstract":"The Japanese biologist and ethnologist Minakata Kumagusu has achieved a degree of celebrity in Japan for being the first Asian contributor to the British scientific magazine Nature . However, although Minakata's many contributions to Nature from 1893 to 1914 provided British readers with rare insight into Asian scientific achievements, he is seldom discussed in history of science scholarship produced by American, British and European researchers. In this article we examine Minakata's Nature articles to gain insight into how his encounter with the Eurocentrism of British culture while living in London from 1892 to 1900 affected his intellectual development. We argue that having his articles published in Nature to gain scientific recognition was not Minakata's real goal. Rather, we demonstrate that his Nature articles were connected to a larger project that inspired Minakata for much of his life, a descriptive sociology of Japan. For this descriptive sociology, Minakata wished to construct a new form of historical analysis that drew on past Asian sources, as well as anthropological and sociological perspectives learned from British philosopher of evolution Herbert Spencer and British anthropologists such as Edward Clodd, Edward Tylor and Andrew Lang. Minakata's writings reveal him to be much more than a conduit of information about Asia. He was also a pioneering global intellectual who demonstrated how Asian science complemented Western science.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135161365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Whether matter could engender cogitation was a very divisive topic of early modern reflection. In his polemic with Descartes, Gassendi appeared to endorse a ‘materialistic’ understanding of cognition. Two objections by Gassendi were particularly relevant to this claim: he challenged the distinction between imagination and intellect, and argued that animal and human cognition only differed quantitatively. Since the intellect was traditionally seen as immaterial, while the imagination was understood as a bodily faculty, these claims appeared to entail a naturalized image of the human soul, and the potential that matter could generate cogitation. Here, I argue that Gassendi's claims were not only a result of his polemical vein against Descartes; rather, they were part of an intellectual agenda that Gassendi had been pursuing since the early 1620s. I then analyse Gassendi's change of perspective in Animadversiones (1649) and Syntagma philosophicum (1658), where Gassendi presented arguments for the immateriality of the intellect and its true distinction from the imagination. I argue that Gassendi's early objections against Descartes provided him with material to revise his own position on these subjects. I then show some of the implications of such a change of heart. Lastly, I address some hypotheses of its cause.
{"title":"Gassendi's second thought. From a materialistic picture of cognition to the defence of dualism: the lasting influence of the polemic with descartes","authors":"Rodolfo Garau","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Whether matter could engender cogitation was a very divisive topic of early modern reflection. In his polemic with Descartes, Gassendi appeared to endorse a ‘materialistic’ understanding of cognition. Two objections by Gassendi were particularly relevant to this claim: he challenged the distinction between imagination and intellect, and argued that animal and human cognition only differed quantitatively. Since the intellect was traditionally seen as immaterial, while the imagination was understood as a bodily faculty, these claims appeared to entail a naturalized image of the human soul, and the potential that matter could generate cogitation. Here, I argue that Gassendi's claims were not only a result of his polemical vein against Descartes; rather, they were part of an intellectual agenda that Gassendi had been pursuing since the early 1620s. I then analyse Gassendi's change of perspective in Animadversiones (1649) and Syntagma philosophicum (1658), where Gassendi presented arguments for the immateriality of the intellect and its true distinction from the imagination. I argue that Gassendi's early objections against Descartes provided him with material to revise his own position on these subjects. I then show some of the implications of such a change of heart. Lastly, I address some hypotheses of its cause.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135216201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article situates formative Mendelian and chromosomal precepts and rhetoric as an integral part of ‘reproductive’ physiology and the broader sexological terrain in Edwardian Britain. Alongside the discovery of ‘internal secretions’ (hormones), the discovery of the sex chromosomes, made around the same time as the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity at the turn of the twentieth century, transformed the ways in which questions about sex determination and sex development were considered. Approaches were diverse as leading biologists including William Bateson, Leonard Doncaster, Reginald Crundall Punnett, Geoffrey Watkins Smith and their interlocutors negotiated the multiple, often conflicting, sociopolitical interpretations, uses and abuses that Mendelian approaches to sex were amenable to. Most contentiously, it was recognized that any credible model of sex biology had to account for all manner of sex phenomena, including parthenogenesis, intersexualities and transformations of sex, and that it was the variations of sex that best provided insights into the otherwise hidden mechanisms that shaped sex characteristics. Such a move, however, embroiled the new sexological genetics and the developing discipline of ‘reproductive’ physiology with vexed debates about feminism, homosexuality and eugenics. The article charts how the ensuing tensions played out across scholarly and popular platforms, including Britain's newspapers.
{"title":"Mendel's closet: genetics, eugenics and the exceptions of sex in Edwardian Britain","authors":"Ross Brooks","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0036","url":null,"abstract":"This article situates formative Mendelian and chromosomal precepts and rhetoric as an integral part of ‘reproductive’ physiology and the broader sexological terrain in Edwardian Britain. Alongside the discovery of ‘internal secretions’ (hormones), the discovery of the sex chromosomes, made around the same time as the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity at the turn of the twentieth century, transformed the ways in which questions about sex determination and sex development were considered. Approaches were diverse as leading biologists including William Bateson, Leonard Doncaster, Reginald Crundall Punnett, Geoffrey Watkins Smith and their interlocutors negotiated the multiple, often conflicting, sociopolitical interpretations, uses and abuses that Mendelian approaches to sex were amenable to. Most contentiously, it was recognized that any credible model of sex biology had to account for all manner of sex phenomena, including parthenogenesis, intersexualities and transformations of sex, and that it was the variations of sex that best provided insights into the otherwise hidden mechanisms that shaped sex characteristics. Such a move, however, embroiled the new sexological genetics and the developing discipline of ‘reproductive’ physiology with vexed debates about feminism, homosexuality and eugenics. The article charts how the ensuing tensions played out across scholarly and popular platforms, including Britain's newspapers.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134974200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In France, the Jardin des Plantes is one of the oldest surviving scientific institutions, the chief botanical garden and the host of many schools and centres studying the natural sciences. It was established in 1640 as the Royal Garden through the tireless labour of the physician Guy de La Brosse (1586–1641). The present article focuses on La Brosse's views of advancement of plant alchemy as the source of knowledge of plants. It discusses his adoption of the Paracelsian physician Joseph Du Chesne's (Quercetanus, 1546–1609) distinction between external and internal signature theory, opting firmly for the latter as the basis of true knowledge. The internal character, La Brosse argues, can only be revealed empirically, by fire analysis and the practice of distillation, which can also harness the occult properties of plants for human benefit.
在法国，植物园是现存最古老的科学机构之一，是主要的植物园，也是许多自然科学学校和研究中心的所在地。在内科医生Guy de La Brosse(1586-1641)的不懈努力下，它于1640年建成皇家花园。本文主要讨论拉布罗斯关于植物炼金术作为植物知识来源的观点。它讨论了他对帕拉塞尔斯医生约瑟夫·杜·切斯内(Joseph Du Chesne, Quercetanus, 1546-1609)区分外部和内部特征理论的采用，坚定地选择后者作为真正知识的基础。拉布罗斯认为，内部特性只能通过火焰分析和蒸馏实践的经验来揭示，这也可以利用植物的神秘特性为人类造福。
{"title":"Plant alchemy, Paracelsianism and internal signature theory in the writings of Guy de La Brosse (1586–1641)","authors":"Georgiana D. Hedesan","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0031","url":null,"abstract":"In France, the Jardin des Plantes is one of the oldest surviving scientific institutions, the chief botanical garden and the host of many schools and centres studying the natural sciences. It was established in 1640 as the Royal Garden through the tireless labour of the physician Guy de La Brosse (1586–1641). The present article focuses on La Brosse's views of advancement of plant alchemy as the source of knowledge of plants. It discusses his adoption of the Paracelsian physician Joseph Du Chesne's (Quercetanus, 1546–1609) distinction between external and internal signature theory, opting firmly for the latter as the basis of true knowledge. The internal character, La Brosse argues, can only be revealed empirically, by fire analysis and the practice of distillation, which can also harness the occult properties of plants for human benefit.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135112739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The logic of the rarer-sex effect, concerning how natural selection acts to balance the sex ratio among newborns, was long supposed to have originated with Ronald Aylmer Fisher in his 1930 book The genetical theory of natural selection . However, the principle is now understood to have originated with John Austin Cobb in his 1914 paper ‘The problem of the sex-ratio’. Fisher did not provide a citation of Cobb's sex-ratio paper, and it has been unclear whether he was aware of its existence. Here, I show that Fisher was indeed aware of Cobb's paper in 1930, as revealed by him citing it elsewhere that same year. Fisher's willingness to highlight Cobb's sex-ratio work lends support to the view that his failure to mention it in his book reflects the less stringent citation standards of the time rather than an attempt to deceive readers as to the provenance of the rarer-sex effect.
{"title":"R. A. Fisher on J. A. Cobb's <i>The problem of the sex-ratio</i>","authors":"Andy Gardner","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0067","url":null,"abstract":"The logic of the rarer-sex effect, concerning how natural selection acts to balance the sex ratio among newborns, was long supposed to have originated with Ronald Aylmer Fisher in his 1930 book The genetical theory of natural selection . However, the principle is now understood to have originated with John Austin Cobb in his 1914 paper ‘The problem of the sex-ratio’. Fisher did not provide a citation of Cobb's sex-ratio paper, and it has been unclear whether he was aware of its existence. Here, I show that Fisher was indeed aware of Cobb's paper in 1930, as revealed by him citing it elsewhere that same year. Fisher's willingness to highlight Cobb's sex-ratio work lends support to the view that his failure to mention it in his book reflects the less stringent citation standards of the time rather than an attempt to deceive readers as to the provenance of the rarer-sex effect.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134972616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the latter months of 1890 the ornithologist Henry Seebohm (1832–1895) published his transnationally well-received The birds of the Japanese Empire . However, although travelling widely to places such as Greece, South Africa and Siberia, Seebohm never visited Japan. Instead, his knowledge of Japanese birds was gathered through second-hand methods including knowledge and network building, specimen acquiring and comparing and the adoption of a novel classification system. These observational methods of Seebohm as an ‘armchair’ practitioner served to enhance his name as an authority on Japanese birds. Despite an increase in scholarship surrounding the emergence of professionalized twentieth-century Japanese imperial ornithology, little attention has been paid to the various Victorian naturalists who were central to its nineteenth-century origins. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to document the importance of one such naturalist by focusing on Seebohm’s active years between 1878 and 1890. Through this analysis I argue that Seebohm’s observational practices, particularly his use of a novel trinomial classification, were central to securing his credibility on Japanese birds despite never visiting Japan, and that consequently his 1890 book became a landmark in the development of ornithology in the Japanese Empire.
{"title":"Classification, Observational Practice, and Henry Seebohm’s <i>The Birds of the Japanese Empire</i> in Late-Victorian Britain","authors":"Nathan Bossoh","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0059","url":null,"abstract":"In the latter months of 1890 the ornithologist Henry Seebohm (1832–1895) published his transnationally well-received The birds of the Japanese Empire . However, although travelling widely to places such as Greece, South Africa and Siberia, Seebohm never visited Japan. Instead, his knowledge of Japanese birds was gathered through second-hand methods including knowledge and network building, specimen acquiring and comparing and the adoption of a novel classification system. These observational methods of Seebohm as an ‘armchair’ practitioner served to enhance his name as an authority on Japanese birds. Despite an increase in scholarship surrounding the emergence of professionalized twentieth-century Japanese imperial ornithology, little attention has been paid to the various Victorian naturalists who were central to its nineteenth-century origins. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to document the importance of one such naturalist by focusing on Seebohm’s active years between 1878 and 1890. Through this analysis I argue that Seebohm’s observational practices, particularly his use of a novel trinomial classification, were central to securing his credibility on Japanese birds despite never visiting Japan, and that consequently his 1890 book became a landmark in the development of ornithology in the Japanese Empire.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135824216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I discuss how the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences attempted to transform itself from an unofficial government agency into what might be called a scientific public relations organization in the years around 1970. On an organizational level, this transformation manifested in the establishment of new positions at the Academy: an international secretary was hired in 1970 and an information secretary in 1973, both soon followed by their own departments and staff. On a more existential level, it involved redefining its role in Swedish scientific research and administration, in relation to other institutions and to its own past position.
{"title":"‘Tarzan of the sciences’: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the communication jungle, <i>CA</i> 1970","authors":"Jenny Beckman","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0050","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I discuss how the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences attempted to transform itself from an unofficial government agency into what might be called a scientific public relations organization in the years around 1970. On an organizational level, this transformation manifested in the establishment of new positions at the Academy: an international secretary was hired in 1970 and an information secretary in 1973, both soon followed by their own departments and staff. On a more existential level, it involved redefining its role in Swedish scientific research and administration, in relation to other institutions and to its own past position.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136059373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although nearly erased from history, the first formally trained South African veterinarian was the little-known Dr Jotello Festiri Soga (1865–1906), son of the Xhosa Reverend Tiyo Soga and his Scottish wife. By detailing Soga's remarkable trajectory, this paper helps to decolonize the history of veterinary medicine, long dominated by the ‘great deeds’ of a succession of white men, and only recently beginning to diversify. This sort of knowledge decolonization has been increasingly advocated by numerous scholars and a growing number of students globally. Dr Soga qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1886, after studying at the Royal (Dick's) Veterinary School in Edinburgh. Appointed Assistant Veterinary Surgeon for Cape Colony in 1889, he made pioneering contributions to veterinary toxicology and vaccination methods over the next decade. Soga was also one of the earliest to warn of the impending disaster of rinderpest, and he played an instrumental role in the containment and eventual eradication of this devastating disease. He provided essential help in communicating with indigenous South Africans about livestock diseases, although his feelings about his countrymen were sometimes conflicted. The processes of decolonization are complex, and frequently difficult, but the benefits are great.
{"title":"Decolonizing Veterinary History: On the benefits of telling the story of Dr Jotello Soga, the first South African veterinarian","authors":"Diana K. Davis","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2023.0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2023.0047","url":null,"abstract":"Although nearly erased from history, the first formally trained South African veterinarian was the little-known Dr Jotello Festiri Soga (1865–1906), son of the Xhosa Reverend Tiyo Soga and his Scottish wife. By detailing Soga's remarkable trajectory, this paper helps to decolonize the history of veterinary medicine, long dominated by the ‘great deeds’ of a succession of white men, and only recently beginning to diversify. This sort of knowledge decolonization has been increasingly advocated by numerous scholars and a growing number of students globally. Dr Soga qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1886, after studying at the Royal (Dick's) Veterinary School in Edinburgh. Appointed Assistant Veterinary Surgeon for Cape Colony in 1889, he made pioneering contributions to veterinary toxicology and vaccination methods over the next decade. Soga was also one of the earliest to warn of the impending disaster of rinderpest, and he played an instrumental role in the containment and eventual eradication of this devastating disease. He provided essential help in communicating with indigenous South Africans about livestock diseases, although his feelings about his countrymen were sometimes conflicted. The processes of decolonization are complex, and frequently difficult, but the benefits are great.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135590802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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