William Harold Pearsall, 1891-1964

1971 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 511-540 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Flowering Plants ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
Botanical Society ◽  
Spare Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

William Harold Pearsall was born on 23 July 1891, at Stourbridge in Worcestershire. He came of an old Worcestershire family, some of whom ran into trouble in Cromwellian times because of their Royalist sympathies. He is said to have been the fourteenth bearer of the name William H. Pearsall. His father, William Harrison Pearsall, was a schoolmaster who moved to Dalton-in-Furness when Harold was quite a small boy to become headmaster of Broughton Road School. W. H. Pearsall senior was an excellent teacher, and Mrs T. G. Tutin writes: ‘When I was a schoolgirl in Barrow I knew people who had been pupils of the elder Pearsall in Dalton, and they still spoke of what a kind man and wonderful teacher he had been and how he had made them look at plants.’ He had very definite views on the way to bring up his own and other children. It was his belief that one should ‘never do for a child what a child can with reasonable effort do for itself’, and the playroom in the Pearsall house had a large printed notice bearing the three words THINK TRY ASK. Apart from his competence as a teacher he was also a good organist and trainer of choirs, a Methodist laypreacher and a first-class naturalist who devoted all his spare time to an intensive study of the natural history of the English Lakes. He was a member, and for a time Honorary Secretary, of the Botanical Society and Exchange Club (now the Botanical Society of the British Isles) and became a leading British expert on several genera of aquatic flowering plants and especially on the pondweeds, starworts and water buttercups, publishing many descriptions and keys. His key to British grasses was recently still in use at the Brathay Field Centre near Ambleside.

Symptoms and Their Relationship to Diagnosis: A Commentary on “Symptom Descriptions in Psychopathology: How Well Are They Working for Us?” (Wilshire et al., 2021)

2021 ◽  
pp. 216770262199035
Author(s):  
John B. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Gaming Disorder ◽  
Human Disorders ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Symptoms are vital representations of human disorders, are key to understanding disorders, and may be the focus of specific therapeutic efforts. Symptoms are imperfect, and there are many influences on how they are described and understood. Are they hand servants of diagnosis or important in their own right? The answer seems to be both, but diagnosis is typically the way in which communication about psychopathology occurs internationally in many clinical disciplines. Diagnosis is also the basis of knowledge of the natural history of psychopathology and its treatment and therapy. Investigations into the nature and meaning of symptoms can helpfully focus on emerging disorders, of which gaming disorder is provided as an example.

Redefining the Role of Experiment in Bacon's Natural History: How Baconian was Descartes before Emerging from His Cocoon?

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 158-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mădălina Giurgea ◽  
Laura Georgescu
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

AbstractIn this article we argue that the views that Francis Bacon and René Descartes held about the role of experiments in the process of discovery are closer than previously accepted. Looking at the way experiments and the heuristics of experimentation are embedded in Bacon's posthumous History of Dense and Rare and Descartes' Discourses 8, 9, 10 of the Meteorology, we will show that experiments help the investigator both in solving specific problems that could not have otherwise been foreseen and in generating relevant information that advances the scope of the investigation.

The Botanists. A History of the Botanical Society of the British Isles through 150 Years

Kew Bulletin ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 948
Author(s):  
F. Nigel Hepper ◽  
David Elliston Allen
Keyword(s):  
British Isles ◽  
Botanical Society ◽  
History Of

Chronicling the discovery of the British and Irish native floras – Richard Pulteney's overlooked contribution

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Pearman
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Native Plants ◽  
Flowering Plants ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Of Botany ◽  
History Of

Until 1897, when William Clarke produced his First records of British flowering plants, there was no publication where one could see the date and source of the discovery of all of the native plants in Britain and Ireland. Two manuscripts were traced in the library of the Natural History Museum, London, which are in the hand of Richard Pulteney, an apothecary and physician, and also author of works on Linnaeus and the history of botany in Britain. The first of these manuscripts, based on the second edition of Hudson's Flora Anglica (1778), traces each plant described in that work back to the earliest authorities; the second lists a single authority, as the ‘first describer or discoverer’ of each plant. Although Pulteney was handicapped by not having access to all of the pre-1640 literature, these manuscripts nevertheless represent an important contribution to the discovery of our flora, pre-dating, as they do, the work of Clarke by a century.

Aπαθεια and Πρ&ogr;παθειαι in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions: Stoicism, Christianity and Natural History

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 230-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Kraye
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Texts ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis paper examines the reception of the Stoic theory of the passions in the early modern period, highlighting various differences between the way notions such as απαθεια (complete freedom from passions) and πρ&ogr;παθειαι (pre-passions) were handled and interpreted by Continental and English authors. Both groups were concerned about the compatibility of Stoicism with Christianity, but came to opposing conclu- sions; and while the Continental scholars drew primarily on ancient philosophical texts, the English ones relied, in addition, on experience and observation, developing a natural history of the passions.

The Natural History of Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-85
Author(s):  
Paul K.J. Han
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Psychological Responses ◽  
Compensatory Responses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medical Uncertainty ◽  
Management Of Uncertainty ◽  
The Way

Chapter 4 describes the natural history of medical uncertainty—that is, the way that the phenomenon is manifest in people’s lives. It classifies people’s psychological responses to uncertainty within two main categories: primary (initial cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses) and secondary (compensatory responses aimed at regulating primary responses). It presents a conceptual framework that classifies the variety of primary and secondary responses to uncertainty and discusses how the framework can help clinicians and patients evaluate and manage these responses. The ultimate goal of this framework is practical: to improve the management of uncertainty in medicine. The framework can promote this goal by enabling clinicians and patients to rise above their own regulatory responses to uncertainty and achieve greater tertiary control over them.

João Allen: Collecting the World: An Exhibition and Case Study of the First Private Museum in Portugal

Collections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-297
Author(s):  
Laura Castro
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
The Political ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

João Allen (1781–1848) was a business man who collected antiques, curiosities, natural history, numismatics, archeological pieces, and fine arts. A trip to Italy in 1826–1827 was fundamental to his collection building, to the opening of the first private museum in Portugal, the Allen Museum in Porto (1837), and to the identity of one of Portugal’s most important museums, the Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis created in 1833 under a different designation. Allen’s Grand Tour of Italy and his eclecticism were the cornerstone of the exhibition that took place in this museum in 2018. This article addresses the way in which the exhibition reflects the museum itself and recalls the formation of collections which are of great importance for the history of European museums due to what they reveal about the political and cultural circumstances of their times. Finally, we point out some possible developments concerning the permanent exhibition of the museum.

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