The Animal Chemistry Club; assistant society to the Royal Society

Towards the end of the eighteenth century it was becoming increasingly clear that the Royal Society alone was inadequate to provide the facilities needed for the detailed discussion of all the specialized branches of science. Groups of Fellows with common interests began to meet privately in order to discuss their problems and consider ways in which their particular branch might be studied and improved. In days when numerous coffee and dinner clubs were springing up, it was an easy matter to persuade a circle of friends and colleagues to join in following the fashionable trend. Thus a common interest might be furthered in a congenial atmosphere (i). Already in 1788, the Linnean Society had been formed with the aim of improving the study of Natural History (2). Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, intent upon measures which would raise the status of the Fellowship, looked with disfavour on anything which appeared likely to undermine the standing of the Royal Society. Nevertheless, he lent strong support to the Linnean Society in its early days (3), allowing its members full use of his extensive personal collection of specimens, so that by 1790 the new Society was well established (4). But by developing independently of the Royal Society, the Linnean Society became its rival in the field of Natural History. This was a blow to the monolithic structure of the parent body and Banks became more wary of the possible effects which might follow the formation of other such specialized groups, though he gave his qualified support to the Horticultural Society, established in 1804 and later to the Geological Society, set up in 1807 (5).

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 285-316
Author(s):  
Cheryl E. Praeger

Bernhard Hermann Neumann was born and educated in Berlin. He held doctorates from Berlin and Cambridge, and mathematical positions at universities in Cardiff, Hull, Manchester and the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Whereas his move to the UK in 1932 was a result of the difficulties he faced as a Jew in finding employment in Germany, his move to Australia in 1962 was to set up a new research Department of Mathematics at the Institute of Advanced Studies at ANU. Bernhard Neumann was famous both for his seminal research work in algebra and also for his strong support of all endeavours in mathematics. His scholarly publications span more than 70 years. His honours include election to the Fellowships of the Royal Society and of the Australian Academy of Science, appointment as Companion of the Order of Australia, and numerous honorary doctorates. To Bernhard it was important to share and spread the joy of doing mathematics.


2009 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Darragh

When Johann Wilhelm Theodor Ludwig von Blandowski (1822-1878), was appointed Government Zoologist on 1 March 1854, Victoria gained a scientist, who had attended Tarnowitz Mining School and science lectures at Berlin University. He had been an assistant manager in part of the Koenigsgrube coal mine at Koenigshütte, but as a consequence of some kind of misdemeanour, resigned from the Prussian Mining Service and joined the Schleswig-Holstein Army in March 1848. After resigning his Lieutenant’s commission and trying unsuccessfully to obtain another appointment in the Prussian Mining Service, he left for Adelaide in May 1849 as a collector of natural history specimens. After some collecting expeditions and earning a living as a surveyor he moved to the Victorian goldfields. He undertook official expeditions in Central Victoria, Mornington Peninsula and Western Port and in December 1856 he was leader of the Murray-Darling Expedition, but control of the Museum passed to Frederick McCoy with Blandowski relegated to the position of Museum Collector. Feted on his return from the Expedition, he fell out with some members of the Royal Society of Victoria over somewhat puerile descriptions of new species of fishes and he also refused to recognise McCoy’s jurisdiction over him. After acrimonious arguments about collections and ownership of drawings made whilst he was a government officer, Blandowski resigned and left for Germany, where he set up as a photographer in Gleiwitz in 1861, but some kind of mental instability saw him committed to the mental asylum at Bunzlau (now Boleslawiec, Poland) in September 1873, where he died on 18 December 1878. Assessments of Blandowki’s scientific and artistic career in Australia have been mixed. The biographical details presented provide the opportunity to judge assessments of Blandowski in Australia against his actions both before and after his arrival there.


2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Cheryl E. Praeger

Bernhard Hermann Neumann was born and educated in Berlin. He held doctorates from Berlin and Cambridge, and mathematical positions at universities in Cardiff, Hull, Manchester, and the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Whereas his move to the UK in 1933 was a result of the difficulties he faced as a Jew in finding employment in Germany, his move to Australia in 1962 was to set up a new research Department of Mathematics at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the ANU. Bernhard Neumann was famous for both his seminal research work in algebra and his strong support of all endeavours in mathematics. His scholarly publications span more than seventy years. His honours include Fellowship of the Royal Society and of the Australian Academy of Science, appointment as Companion of the Order of Australia, and numerous honorary doctorates. To Bernhard it was important to share and spread the joy of doing mathematics.


Sederi ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 117-137
Author(s):  
Sonia Villegas López

In line with the method prescribed by members of the Royal Society for natural history and travel writing, Richard Head explored the limits of verisimilitude associated with geographical discourse in his three fictions The Floating Island (1673), The Western Wonder (1674) and O-Brazile (1675). In them he argues in favor of the existence of the mysterious Brazile island and uses the factual discourse of the travel diarist to present a semi-mythical place whose very notion stretches the limits of believability. In line with recent critical interpretations of late seventeenth-century fiction as deceptive, and setting the reading of Head’s narrations in connection with other types of travel writing, I argue that Head’s fictions are a means of testing the readers’ gullibility at a time when the status of prose, both fictional and non-fictional, is subject to debate.


2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Fellers

Rollo Howard Beck (1870–1950) was a professional bird collector who spent most of his career on expeditions to the Channel Islands off southern California, the Galápagos Islands, South America, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. Some of the expeditions lasted as long as ten years during which time he and his wife, Ida, were often working in primitive conditions on sailing vessels or camps set up on shore. Throughout these expeditions, Beck collected specimens for the California Academy of Sciences, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley (California), the American Museum of Natural History, and the Walter Rothschild Museum at Tring, England. Beck was one of the premier collectors of his time and his contributions were recognized by having 17 taxa named becki in his honor. Of these taxa, Beck collected 15 of the type specimens.


2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Hodgkinson ◽  
John E. Whittaker

ABSTRACT: In spite of his many other interests, Edward Heron-Allen also worked for nearly 50 years as a scientist on minute shelled protists, called foraminifera, much of it in an unpaid, unofficial capacity at The Natural History Museum, London, and notably in collaboration with Arthur Earland. During this career he published more than 70 papers and obtained several fellowships, culminating in 1919 in his election to the Royal Society. Subsequently, he bequeathed his foraminiferal collections and fine library to the Museum, and both are housed today in a room named in his honour. In this paper, for the first time, an assessment of his scientific accomplishments is given, together with a full annotated bibliography of his publications held in the Heron-Allen Library. This is part of a project to produce a bibliography of his complete publications, recently initiated by the Heron-Allen Society.


1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
MADELEINE LY-TIO-FANE

SUMMARY The recent extensive literature on exploration and the resulting scientific advances has failed to highlight the contribution of Austrian enterprise to the study of natural history. The leading role of Joseph II among the neutral powers which assumed the carrying trade of the belligerents during the American War of Independence, furthered the development of collections for the Schönbrunn Park and Gardens which had been set up on scientific principles by his parents. On the conclusion of peace, Joseph entrusted to Professor Maerter a world-encompassing mission in the course of which the Chief Gardener Franz Boos and his assistant Georg Scholl travelled to South Africa to collect plants and animals. Boos pursued the mission to Isle de France and Bourbon (Mauritius and Reunion), conveyed by the then unknown Nicolas Baudin. He worked at the Jardin du Roi, Pamplemousses, with Nicolas Cere, or at Palma with Joseph Francois Charpentier de Cossigny. The linkage of Austrian and French horticultural expertise created a situation fraught with opportunities which were to lead Baudin to the forefront of exploration and scientific research as the century closed in the upheaval of the Revolutionary Wars.


The deed of conveyance of 1722, by which Sir Hans Sloane gave the Society of Apothecaries control of their ‘Physick Garden at Chelsey’ in perpetuity, forged an important link between the Apothecaries and the Royal Society, one that has lasted to the present day. For the next 75 years the Apothecaries paid an annual tribute of dried plant specimens to the Royal Society as proof that they were continuing to use the garden for its proper purpose. These specimens, which have survived the centuries with remarkably little damage, now provide important evidence of what was being grown in the garden at the time and may also be nomenclaturally important as representing plants given botanical names by Philip Miller in 1768. A careful search in the herbarium collections of the Department of Botany in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, where the Royal Society specimens are now held, has resulted in the location of all but a small number of the 3750 specimens that were sent. Tracing them has not been easy for a number of reasons, not least because they are now dispersed among the several million specimens in the Museum’s collections. The names of the plants used by the Apothecaries in the lists that were the starting point for the search were those current at the time, hence of pre-Linnaean character, and had first to be linked to present-day names before the work could begin. Some lists of names were found to be inaccurate and some were entirely misleading.


Philosophy ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-233
Author(s):  
John W. Cook

Wittgenstein has often been criticized, and even dismissed, for being a patron of ordinary language, a champion of the vernacular, a defender of the status quo. One critic has written: ‘When Wittgenstein set up the actual use of language as a standard, that was equivalent to accepting a certain set up of culture and belief as a standard … It is lucky no such philosophy was thought of until recently or we should still be under the sway of witch doctors …’ In what follows I want to show just how wide of the mark criticisms of this sort are.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-150
Author(s):  
Lytt I. Gardner

THIS is a progress report to the readers of Pediatrics on the status of Senator Lister Hill's "Health for Peace" bill (Senate Joint Resolution 41). This measure, which would have set up an international institute of medical research, passed the Senate May 20, 1959 with flying colors but finally was snagged in a House subcommittee through the summer of 1959. The legislation received resounding approval by the Senate, with a vote of 63 to 17. The bill proposed to organize an Institute of International Medical Research within the framework of the National Institutes of Health. A $50,000,000 annual appropriation was planned. Evidence of widespread public support for the measure was observed in the statements of authorities who spoke at the Senate hearings concerning the bill. It is of interest that no one appeared to testify against S.J. Res. 41 during the 6 days of hearings. At lease two persons participating in the hearings were members of the American Academy of Pediatrics: Dr. Martha M. Eliot, Head, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Sidney Farber (Honorary Associate Member), Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School. Many witnesses pointed out the importance of providing support for the research activities and the training of promising scholars in other lands. On this subject, Dr. Farber had this to say: In many countries, such as Italy, the amount of research support available is so small that men of great skill and intellect are compelled to carry on only token research concerning problems which are selected because they do not require manpower, equipment, or modern research facilities.


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