Pub Date : 2022-10-01Epub Date: 2022-08-17DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2113141
Alan R Rushton
Early in the 20th century Bateson, Doncaster and Punnett formed a cooperative collective to share research findings on the chromosome theory of heredity (CTH). They cross-bred plants and animals to correlate behaviour of chromosomes and heredity of individual traits. Doncaster was the most enthusiastic proponent of the new theory and worked for years to convince Bateson and Punnett on its relevance to their own research. The two younger biologists collaborated with Bateson, the preeminent geneticist in England. As their own reputations developed, their research findings allied with the consensus on the importance of the CTH by the broader scientific community. After Doncaster's tragic death in 1920, major objections to the theory had been resolved; Bateson and Punnett then utilized the CTH to construct chromosome maps detailing locations of specific genes on particular chromosomes in several different species. The marriage of heredity and cytology enhanced confidence that the theory was an accurate mechanism to explain inheritance in both plants and animals.
{"title":"Cambridge geneticists and the chromosome theory of inheritance: William Bateson, Leonard Doncaster and Reginald Punnett 1879-1940.","authors":"Alan R Rushton","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2113141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2113141","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Early in the 20th century Bateson, Doncaster and Punnett formed a cooperative collective to share research findings on the chromosome theory of heredity (CTH). They cross-bred plants and animals to correlate behaviour of chromosomes and heredity of individual traits. Doncaster was the most enthusiastic proponent of the new theory and worked for years to convince Bateson and Punnett on its relevance to their own research. The two younger biologists collaborated with Bateson, the preeminent geneticist in England. As their own reputations developed, their research findings allied with the consensus on the importance of the CTH by the broader scientific community. After Doncaster's tragic death in 1920, major objections to the theory had been resolved; Bateson and Punnett then utilized the CTH to construct chromosome maps detailing locations of specific genes on particular chromosomes in several different species. The marriage of heredity and cytology enhanced confidence that the theory was an accurate mechanism to explain inheritance in both plants and animals.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40704592","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}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01Epub Date: 2022-08-07DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2106382
C S Leedham, V L Allan
The use of computers and the role of women in radio astronomy and X-ray crystallography research at the Cavendish Laboratory between 1949 and 1975 have been investigated. We recorded examples of when computers were used, what they were used for and who used them from hundreds of papers published during these years. The use of the EDSAC, EDSAC 2 and TITAN computers was found to increase considerably over this time-scale and they were used for a diverse range of applications. The majority of references to computer operators and programmers referred to women, 57% for astronomy and 62% for crystallography, in contrast to a very small proportion, 4% and 13% respectively, of female authors of papers.
{"title":"Scientific computing in the Cavendish Laboratory and the pioneering women computors.","authors":"C S Leedham, V L Allan","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2106382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2106382","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The use of computers and the role of women in radio astronomy and X-ray crystallography research at the Cavendish Laboratory between 1949 and 1975 have been investigated. We recorded examples of when computers were used, what they were used for and who used them from hundreds of papers published during these years. The use of the EDSAC, EDSAC 2 and TITAN computers was found to increase considerably over this time-scale and they were used for a diverse range of applications. The majority of references to computer operators and programmers referred to women, 57% for astronomy and 62% for crystallography, in contrast to a very small proportion, 4% and 13% respectively, of female authors of papers.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40593069","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}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01Epub Date: 2022-08-07DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2107702
Fabrizio Bigotti
This paper focuses on the scholastic approach to the intensity of complexions and presents some evidence as to how the meaning of complexio evolved in fourteenth-century Italian medicine: namely, how it was conceptualized, visualized, and finally quantified. In the first part, I summarize the philosophical development of complexio, pointing out how the concept differs from simple mixtures, thereby allowing for the mathematisation of compounds and their intensity. I then move on to consider the links between medicine and mathematics and present the schemes provided by Gentile Gentili da Foligno (1280/90 - 1348) as a case study, analysing their philosophical premises and implications for medical treatment more generally. In the final part, I argue that, quite aside from representing early forms of the mathematisation of qualities, schemata and diagrams also captured the medieval ideal of the cosmos, a hierarchical progression of forms ordered in ascending degrees of perfection and nobility.
本文着重于对肤色强度的学术方法,并提出了一些证据,说明14世纪意大利医学中肤色的含义是如何演变的:即,它是如何概念化、可视化和最终量化的。在第一部分中,我总结了复杂的哲学发展,指出这个概念与简单混合物的不同之处,从而允许化合物及其强度的数学化。然后,我继续考虑医学和数学之间的联系,并将Gentile Gentili da Foligno(1280/90 - 1348)提供的方案作为案例研究,分析其哲学前提和对医学治疗的更普遍含义。在最后一部分,我认为,除了表现早期的数学形式外,图式和图表也捕捉到了中世纪的宇宙理想,这是一种按完美和高贵程度上升的形式的等级级数。
{"title":"Gradus Dimetiri: intensity and classification of complexions in 14th-century Italian medicine.","authors":"Fabrizio Bigotti","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2107702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2107702","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper focuses on the scholastic approach to the intensity of complexions and presents some evidence as to how the meaning of <i>complexio</i> evolved in fourteenth-century Italian medicine: namely, how it was conceptualized, visualized, and finally quantified. In the first part, I summarize the philosophical development of <i>complexio</i>, pointing out how the concept differs from simple mixtures, thereby allowing for the mathematisation of compounds and their intensity. I then move on to consider the links between medicine and mathematics and present the schemes provided by Gentile Gentili da Foligno (1280/90 - 1348) as a case study, analysing their philosophical premises and implications for medical treatment more generally. In the final part, I argue that, quite aside from representing early forms of the mathematisation of qualities, schemata and diagrams also captured the medieval ideal of the cosmos, a hierarchical progression of forms ordered in ascending degrees of perfection and nobility.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40701922","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}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01Epub Date: 2022-06-18DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2086301
Nuno Castel-Branco
ABSTRACT This article deals with physico-mathematical approaches to anatomy in post-Harveyan physiology. But rather than looking at questions of iatromechanics and animal locomotion, which often attracted this approach, I look at the problem of how blood returned to the heart – a part of the circulation today known as venous return but poorly researched in the early modern period. I follow the venous return mechanisms proposed by lesser-known authors in the mechanization of anatomy, such as Jean Pecquet (1622–1674) and Nicolaus Steno (1638–1686), alongside the more famous Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679). Their mechanisms differed only in small details. Yet, these minor differences highlight significant aspects of the mechanization of the life sciences in the seventeenth century. First, they relied more on observations than hitherto acknowledged, even if only indirectly. Second, their mechanisms drew more from the physico-mathematical disciplines than from the trending corpuscularian philosophies of their time. Finally, these mechanisms led to a more accurate understanding of the circulation that remains valid today, thus revealing their cognitive benefits. In short, through the single problem of how blood returned to the heart, this article portrays the increasing complexity of anatomy in the early modern period.
本文讨论后哈维生理学中解剖学的物理数学方法。但是,我并没有关注经常吸引这种方法的医疗力学和动物运动问题,而是关注血液如何回流到心脏的问题——这是今天被称为静脉回流的循环的一部分,但在现代早期研究得很少。我遵循不太知名的解剖学机械化作者提出的静脉回流机制,如Jean Pecquet(1622-1674)和Nicolaus Steno(1638-1686),以及更著名的Giovanni Alfonso Borelli(1608-1679)。他们的机制只是在小细节上有所不同。然而,这些微小的差异突出了17世纪生命科学机械化的重要方面。首先,他们比迄今为止所承认的更多地依赖于观察,即使只是间接的。其次,他们的机制更多地来自物理数学学科,而不是他们那个时代流行的微粒主义哲学。最后,这些机制导致了对循环的更准确的理解,这在今天仍然有效,从而揭示了它们的认知益处。简而言之,通过血液如何回流到心脏这一单一问题,这篇文章描绘了现代早期解剖学日益复杂的情况。
{"title":"Physico-mathematics and the life sciences: experiencing the mechanism of venous return, 1650s-1680s.","authors":"Nuno Castel-Branco","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2086301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2086301","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article deals with physico-mathematical approaches to anatomy in post-Harveyan physiology. But rather than looking at questions of iatromechanics and animal locomotion, which often attracted this approach, I look at the problem of how blood returned to the heart – a part of the circulation today known as venous return but poorly researched in the early modern period. I follow the venous return mechanisms proposed by lesser-known authors in the mechanization of anatomy, such as Jean Pecquet (1622–1674) and Nicolaus Steno (1638–1686), alongside the more famous Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679). Their mechanisms differed only in small details. Yet, these minor differences highlight significant aspects of the mechanization of the life sciences in the seventeenth century. First, they relied more on observations than hitherto acknowledged, even if only indirectly. Second, their mechanisms drew more from the physico-mathematical disciplines than from the trending corpuscularian philosophies of their time. Finally, these mechanisms led to a more accurate understanding of the circulation that remains valid today, thus revealing their cognitive benefits. In short, through the single problem of how blood returned to the heart, this article portrays the increasing complexity of anatomy in the early modern period.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40058708","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}
Pub Date : 2022-09-28DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2127898
Michael Hunter
{"title":"Magic, Science and Religion in Early Modern Europe","authors":"Michael Hunter","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2127898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2127898","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48328445","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}
Pub Date : 2022-08-24DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2114547
P. Findlen
{"title":"On pestilence: a Renaissance treatise on plague","authors":"P. Findlen","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2114547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2114547","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49017031","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}
Pub Date : 2022-08-21DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2113430
P. Smith
disease’, he told his students in January 1577. (p. 36) Unfortunately for the Venetians, Mercuriale believed that anything short of a full-blown catastrophe with high mortality was not plague. The fact that one of the most well-respected physicians of the Renaissance could fail his society so dramatically is a reminder of the fragility and fallibility of human knowledge. Mercuriale was a dedicated, erudite, and intelligent physician; he had much good advice to offer but that did not mean that he was always right. Craig Martin’s excellent and accessible translation (which includes a valuable glossary defining key medical terms) has certainly enriched our ability to teach plague. I can think of no better decision during COVID than to put one’s scholarly abilities to use and expand our understanding of how medicine struggled to understand disease and pandemic in the past.
{"title":"Minerva Meets Vulcan: Scientific and Technological Literature – 1450–1750","authors":"P. Smith","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2113430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2113430","url":null,"abstract":"disease’, he told his students in January 1577. (p. 36) Unfortunately for the Venetians, Mercuriale believed that anything short of a full-blown catastrophe with high mortality was not plague. The fact that one of the most well-respected physicians of the Renaissance could fail his society so dramatically is a reminder of the fragility and fallibility of human knowledge. Mercuriale was a dedicated, erudite, and intelligent physician; he had much good advice to offer but that did not mean that he was always right. Craig Martin’s excellent and accessible translation (which includes a valuable glossary defining key medical terms) has certainly enriched our ability to teach plague. I can think of no better decision during COVID than to put one’s scholarly abilities to use and expand our understanding of how medicine struggled to understand disease and pandemic in the past.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49138343","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}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01Epub Date: 2022-07-08DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2093971
Yijie Huang
In an unpublished anatomical treatise written around 1670, the English anatomist and fellow of the Royal Society of London Edmund King proposed that the human body was ultimately an assemblage of tubes and contained liquids. Without literally seeing every of its constituents to be tubular, how did King come to posit a tubular body? This article tackles the question by examining King's inquiry about the pulse against his framing of the circulatory system into a universally tubular model. Asking how King registered this model despite the limited visibility of vascularity in practice, I discuss the place of analogy in his anatomical observation. I argue that analogy constituted an essential strategy for extending what King had perceived to account for the hardly perceptible nuances of the human body. I concentrate on two of his analogies, in which the artery was compared to the cord and the ureter. These two analogies revealed remarkable epistemic potency in representing and reasoning the pulse as the inherent motion of the living artery. They suggest that in seventeenth-century observation accounts, analogy was not simply a rhetoric suspicious of violating the principle of scientific empiricism; rather, they opened up ways of seeing and imagining nature.
{"title":"Anatomizing the pulse: Edmund King's analogy, observation and conception of the tubular body.","authors":"Yijie Huang","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2093971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2093971","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In an unpublished anatomical treatise written around 1670, the English anatomist and fellow of the Royal Society of London Edmund King proposed that the human body was ultimately an assemblage of tubes and contained liquids. Without literally seeing every of its constituents to be tubular, how did King come to posit a tubular body? This article tackles the question by examining King's inquiry about the pulse against his framing of the circulatory system into a universally tubular model. Asking how King registered this model despite the limited visibility of vascularity in practice, I discuss the place of analogy in his anatomical observation. I argue that analogy constituted an essential strategy for extending what King had perceived to account for the hardly perceptible nuances of the human body. I concentrate on two of his analogies, in which the artery was compared to the cord and the ureter. These two analogies revealed remarkable epistemic potency in representing and reasoning the pulse as the inherent motion of the living artery. They suggest that in seventeenth-century observation accounts, analogy was not simply a rhetoric suspicious of violating the principle of scientific empiricism; rather, they opened up ways of seeing and imagining nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40494198","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}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01Epub Date: 2022-07-09DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2091157
James Greener
At some point between 1684 and 1698 a Dartmouth tradesman started to perform experiments with the power of steam in his workshop. In the course of this investigation Thomas Newcomen discovered how to cause a partial vacuum by rapid condensation under a piston and incorporated this prime mover within an engine that was consistently reliable and proved commercially viable for draining mines.Consensus is that his initial apparatus was partly derived from an air pump, however historians have debated how this isolated ironmonger could have garnered sufficient theoretical understanding to pursue such a line of enquiry, let alone the know-how to make suitable devices and mechanisms. Just how remote was Newcomen from London 'science'?This paper examines his relational connections, identifying potential links with Denis Papin, Robert Hooke and an authority on mine pumps, Christopher Kirkby. The case of Newcomen illustrates the proliferation of modern ideas and values through relational networks, and, most importantly, the know-how to innovate.
{"title":"Offering themselves by chance: Newcomen's starting materials.","authors":"James Greener","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2091157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2091157","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>At some point between 1684 and 1698 a Dartmouth tradesman started to perform experiments with the power of steam in his workshop. In the course of this investigation Thomas Newcomen discovered how to cause a partial vacuum by rapid condensation under a piston and incorporated this prime mover within an engine that was consistently reliable and proved commercially viable for draining mines.Consensus is that his initial apparatus was partly derived from an air pump, however historians have debated how this isolated ironmonger could have garnered sufficient theoretical understanding to pursue such a line of enquiry, let alone the know-how to make suitable devices and mechanisms. Just how remote was Newcomen from London 'science'?This paper examines his relational connections, identifying potential links with Denis Papin, Robert Hooke and an authority on mine pumps, Christopher Kirkby. The case of Newcomen illustrates the proliferation of modern ideas and values through relational networks, and, most importantly, the know-how to innovate.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40603212","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}
Pub Date : 2022-06-18DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2022.2087903
Evan Hepler-Smith
{"title":"The elements: a visual history of their discovery","authors":"Evan Hepler-Smith","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2087903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2087903","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42418274","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}