‘A treasure of hidden vertues’: the attraction of magnetic marketing

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Fara
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Instrument Maker ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Face ◽  
Magnetic Phenomena ◽  
Samuel Pepys

When customers like Samuel Pepys visited the shop of Thomas Tuttell, instrument maker to the king, they could purchase a pack of mathematical playing-cards. The seven of spades, reproduced as Figure 1, depicted the diverse connotations of magnets, or loadstones. These cards cost a shilling, and were too expensive for many of the surveyors, navigators and other practitioners shown using Tuttell's instruments. They provide an early example of the products promising both diversion and improvement which were increasingly marketed to polite audiences. Tuttell's description of loadstone as ‘a treasure of hidden vertues’ encapsulated many contemporary perceptions of these naturally occurring magnets which were to endure throughout the century. This phrase, with its hints of concealed financial and epistemological benefits, resonates with major eighteenth-century analytical themes, such as commercialization, the opposition between vice and virtue, and the fascination with the occult in the face of Enlightenment rationality. This card is emblematic of the multiple interpretations and utilizations of magnetic phenomena during the eighteenth century. It thus provides a useful starting-point for exploring some of the disputes which arose as enterprising individuals concerned with natural philosophy promoted themselves, their activities and their products.

The Quiet Scientific Revolution: Problem-Solving and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of “Newtonian” Mechanics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Hepburn
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mathematical Treatment ◽  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Select Group ◽  
Starting Point

A narrative is proposed for eighteenth-century origins of “Newtonian” mechanics, according to which there are two relevant streams of development. One was the popularization of Newtonian natural philosophy, particularly in France in connection with the philosophe movement and the Enlightenment. This movement was inspired primarily by the example of Newton’s Opticks and embraced induction from observation and experiment. Newton’s Principia (1687), on the other hand, and its mathematical treatment of forces and motion, was exceedingly difficult. Solving novel problems in mechanics not addressed in the Principia required the kind of training possessed by a select group of mathematicians, most of whom were already engaged in a program of mathematical mechanics and did not identify as Newtonians nor took Principia as their starting point. The loudly celebrated, popular Newtonianism was lacking a program in mechanics until the end of the eighteenth century, when it subsumed, ironically, the mechanics of the non-Newtonians.

Holism, Chinese Medicine and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Scheid
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
Shared Objective ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.

Mechanisms for Unity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

This chapter investigates changes in mentalities after the Black Death, comparing practices never before analysed in this context—funerary and labour laws and processions to calm God’s anger. While processions were rare or conflictual as in Catania and Messina in 1348, these rituals during later plagues bound communities together in the face of disaster. The chapter then turns to another trend yet to be noticed by historians. Among the multitude of saints and blessed ones canonized from 1348 to the eighteenth century, the Church was deeply reluctant to honour, even name, any of the thousands who sacrificed their lives to succour plague victims, physically or spiritually, especially in 1348: the Church recognized no Black Death martyrs. By the sixteenth century, however, city-wide processions and other communal rituals bound communities together with charity for the poor, works of art, and charitable displays of thanksgiving to long-dead holy men and women.

scholarly journals Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Hopwood ◽  
Staffan Müller-Wille ◽  
Janet Browne ◽  
Christiane Groeben ◽  
Shigehisa Kuriyama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Systems Ecology ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Reproductive Cycles ◽  
Economics And Biology

AbstractWe invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations.

Labor Productivity and Managerial Efficiency against a Static Technology: The Pennsylvania Iron Industry, 1750–1800

1980 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Paskoff
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Fuel Consumption ◽  
Labor Productivity ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Iron Industry ◽  
Managerial Efficiency ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Consumption Rates ◽  
The Face

An increase in labor productivity and a reduction of fuel consumption rates were two notable and closely related achievements of the management of Hopewell Forge, an ironworks in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. Significantly, these economies were realized in the face of technological stasis through learning by doing. The analysis of this accomplishment is cast in the larger context of the performance of the iron industry before and after 1800.

scholarly journals Southeast Asia as One of World’s Primary Sources of Biotic Recolonization Following Anthropocene Extinctions

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Şerban Procheş ◽  
Syd Ramdhani ◽  
Alice C. Hughes ◽  
Lian Pin Koh
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Habitat Destruction ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
High Survival ◽  
The North ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ancient Lineage ◽  
The Face ◽  
Lineage Diversity

The plight of Southeast Asia’s animals, plants and ecosystems in the face of unsustainable exploitation and habitat destruction has been illustrated in several recent studies, despite often falling outside the global discourse on global conservation priorities. Here, we collate biogeographic and phylogenetic information to argue that this beleaguered region is one of world’s primary macrorefugia, and possibly its best chance of regaining its natural biodiversity distribution patterns after the current Anthropocene upheaval. The region uniquely combines top diversity values in (a) ancient lineage diversity and (b) cosmopolitan lineage diversity, suggesting that it has acted in the past as a biodiversity museum and source of global colonization. This is at least partly due to the interplay between latitudinal diversity gradients and continental connectivity patterns. However, the peak values in South China/North Indochina for cosmopolitan tetrapods and their sister lineages suggest that a key feature is also the availability of diverse climatic conditions. In particular, the north-south orientation of the mountain ranges here has allowed for rapid recolonization within the region following past climatic changes, resulting in high survival values and overall exceptional relict lineage diversity. From this starting point, global colonization occurred on multiple occasions. It is hoped that, with urgent action, the region can once again fulfill this function.

scholarly journals HA NOI – HUE – SAI GON IN TERRITORY EXPANSION TOWARD THE SOUTH AND UNIFICATION OF THE COUNTRY (1069–1802)

2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (6E) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Nguyễn Quang Ngọc
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Development Trend ◽  
Early History ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Imperial Capital ◽  
The Relationship

Vietnam is a country of an early history establishment with three archaeological centres: Dong Son in the North, Sa Huynh in the Central, and Oc Eo in the South. In the long history, these three centres unite and gather into a unified block, step by step, becoming a mainstream development trend. By the eleventh century, Thang Long capital (Hanoi) is a typical representative, the starting point for the course of advancement to the South of the Vietnamese. Later, Phu Xuan (Hue) from the fourteenth century and Gia Dinh (Saigon) from the seventeenth century directly multiply resources, deciding the success of the course of territory expansion and determining the southern territory of the nation Dai Viet – Vietnam in the middle of the eighteenth century. The Tay Son movement at the end of the eighteenth century starts unifying the country, but the course is not completed with numerous limitations. The mission of unifying the whole country is assigned back to Nguyen Anh. Nguyen Anh continually builds Gia Dinh into a firm basement for proceeding to conquer the imperial capital of Hue and the citadel Thang Long, completing the 733-year journey to expand the southern territory (1069–1802) and unifying the whole country into a single unit. Hanoi – Hue – Saigon in the relationship and mutual support has become the three pillars that determine all successes throughout the long history and in each stage of expansion and shaping of territory and unification of the country.

French Influences on Germany’s Commercial Courts in the Nineteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 469-494
Author(s):  
Thomas Vogl
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
French Law ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Legal Situation ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Commercial Courts

Summary The present contribution explores the extent of influence which French law had on the development of Germany’s commercial courts in the nineteenth century. Modern literature describes this influence as marginal, yet without further proof. The author takes this state of research as a starting point to compare the Napoleonic legislation on commercial courts with the German commercial court systems of the nineteenth century. However, the present contribution will start with an overview of the German legal situation at the end of the eighteenth century. This is followed by an examination of whether French law was transferred to Germany during the French occupation of large parts of Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Against this background it is possible to fully analyse the influence which French law had on the further development of German commercial courts.

Music and the Origins of Ancient Science

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Pesic
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Arithmetic Geometry ◽  
Web Browsers ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Crucial Element ◽  
Ancient Science

Music entered deeply into the making of modern science because it was a crucial element of ancient natural philosophy, through which it thereafter remained active well into the formation of the “new philosophy” during the seventeenth century. The Pythagorean connection between music, numbers, and the sensual world remained potent in the quadrivium, the four-fold study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music that was the centerpiece of higher education until about the eighteenth century. This chapter surveys the ongoing connection between music and its sister sciences in the quadrivium from Plato and the Pythagoreans to Nicomachus and Boethius. The mythical story of Pythagoras in the blacksmith shop arguably represents the earliest recorded experiment, in the later sense of that word. Ancient Greek distinctions between number and magnitude were crucial elements in the unfolding interaction between arithmetic, geometry, and music. Throughout the book where various sound examples are referenced, please see http://mitpress.mit.edu/musicandmodernscience (please note that the sound examples should be viewed in Chrome or Safari Web browsers).

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