History of Science

During the second half of the twentieth century, historians of science have shown a considerable interest in ‘presentism’, a term first applied to the kind of history of science in which past knowledge is judged to celebrate and legitimize modern science. Taking Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig interpretation of history as a point of reference, ‘presentism’ has been usually associated with ‘Whig history’ or ‘Whiggish history’. Nevertheless, Butterfield’s essay is one of many approaches to this question. In this article, I examine (...) Hélène Metzger’s La méthode philosophique dans l’histoire des sciences, a major theoretical contribution of ‘presentism’. I argue that the papers she published in the 1930s are among the most important critical reflections on ‘presentism’ written by a historian of science before 1950. Through this examination, I demonstrate that Hélène Metzger‘s ideas can provide historians of science with a useful set of tools to reflect upon ‘presentism’, beyond the narrow definition of the latter as ‘Whig history’.Keywords: Metzger; Presentism; Whig History; Hermeneutics. (shrink)

This article investigates the Arabic tradition of the Problemata Mechanica, a Greek text of mechanics ascribed to Aristotle, of which it has often been said that Arabic classical culture had been ignorant of it. Against this prevailed claim, it is shown that the Arabo-Muslim scholars had access to the text at least in the form of an abridged version entitled Nutaf min al-iyal edited by al-Khāzinī in Kitāb mīzān al-ikma . The article includes the critical edition of the Arabic text (...) of the Nutaf on the basis of the two extant manuscripts and its English translation. Finally, the mechanical theory in the Nutaf is characterized briefly. (shrink)

Thomas C. Jepsen takes his place among the increasing number of historians who have drawn attention to the often overlooked role that women have played in technology‐based industries. My Sisters Telegraphic documents the work experiences of women telegraph operators, mainly in the second half of the nineteenth century. The book describes the working conditions women encountered in telegraph offices and the ways in which they were represented in popular culture. While he devotes most of his attention to events in the (...) United States, the author also provides useful comparative data on women telegraphers in Canada, Europe, and South America.Jepsen vividly depicts daily life in the telegraph industry, drawing on trade journals, diaries, newspapers, corporate records, and popular literature. There are chapters on the tasks and routines of the telegraph office, the social background of female operators, and representations of women telegraphers in fiction and cinema. Working conditions could be grueling and dangerous; women who operated the telegraph in railroad depots, for example, had to hand instructions up to the train crew as the trains went speeding by. Jepsen considers “women's issues,” especially the question of equal pay, as well as women's participation in the labor movement. The chapter on popular culture discusses films, novels, and stories that were based on the adventures and romantic entanglements of telegraph women.Telegraph work demanded considerable technical skill, since the operator had to master Morse code, transmit messages at high speed, and often maintain the telegraph equipment in working condition. Women with these skills were able to achieve independence in many ways: high wages gave them financial independence, the distribution of telegraph offices throughout the country offered geographic mobility, and operators had a long‐distance communications medium at their disposal. Women who worked in small towns or railway stations usually ran the office by themselves, while women in large urban offices had the freedom of the city in addition to the possibility of promotion. Women thus benefited greatly from their association with this new technology, a point Jepsen underscores by comparing telegraph operators with modern computer programmers, who have also been able to translate technical competence into rewarding employment. At the same time, women faced discrimination from employers and unions, and their skilled status was undermined by the introduction around 1915 of the Teletype machine, which replaced Morse code with typewritten input and output.Jepsen argues that telegraph operators embodied a “modern” outlook because of their independence and embrace of new technology. “It is [their] ability to step in and out of the social bounds of their time that makes them seem so contemporary to us” . This point is not entirely convincing: the women may seem to us to have had a “modern” lifestyle, but the book offers little evidence that they saw themselves as being outside the mainstream. Indeed, Jepsen notes that most female operators stayed in the business for only a few years before leaving to get married .This book will be most useful to scholars interested in the intersection of technology and labor history. There is relatively little technical detail; instead, the author focuses on the social role that science and technology play as symbols of modernity and sources of economic power. Jepsen makes excellent use of his sources to provide a wealth of detail about the work practices of operators, much of it in the words of the women themselves. My Sisters Telegraphic offers a highly readable social history of women's participation in what was once a high‐tech industry. (shrink)

How much should we know about the underlying structure of a technological artifact in order to understand its history? Quite a bit, according to the authors of The First Computers: History and Architectures. This book, a collection of papers presented at the International Conference on the History of Computing in 1998, is aimed at computer scientists and programmers as well as historians of science and technology. The term “architecture” is used in computing to refer to the structure and capabilities of (...) a computer; it includes both logical design and physical design . Architecture is an abstraction that helps the authors make comparisons between computers from different countries and eras.The First Computers brings together a wealth of information on computers from the 1940s and 1950s, which the editors present in five main sections. Part 1, “History, Reconstructions, Architectures,” addresses general themes in the history of computing. Michael Mahoney's chapter, “The Structures of Computation,” examines the relationship between computer science and “pure” mathematics. Even in its most theoretical aspects, Mahoney notes, computer science has always focused pragmatically on feasible implementations of mathematical ideas, thus “blurring commonly made distinctions among science, engineering, and craft practice” . Robert W. Seidel examines the rationale for reconstructing historic computers, an activity that has engaged many of the book's contributors. Seidel notes that “as the artifacts of modern computing become invisible, older, larger computers supply a symbol of computing to practitioners, the public, and patrons which is not only visible, but comprehensible” .The four remaining parts cover computing developments in America, Germany, Britain, and Japan. The American computers include the Atanasoff‐Berry Computer, Aiken Mark I, ENIAC, and the Institute for Advanced Study computer. The section on Germany contains several chapters on Konrad Zuse as well as on such developments as the Göttingen machines, which may not be that well known. Britain is represented by the Colossus, Manchester Mark I, Atlas, and EDSAC. Perhaps least familiar to historians are the Japanese computers: Seiichi Okoma surveys nine early Japanese computers, and Eiiti Wada describes the PC‐1, which he helped build. Many of the chapters, especially those written by engineers, begin with a brief history of the machine followed by a detailed technical description of its design and operation. The contributions by historians tend to describe the computer's features in more general terms and discuss the intellectual, organizational, and economic context in which the machine was built.Because so many of the authors are technically trained, they are able to offer in‐depth information on the theoretical underpinnings and design of early computers. But often the discussion is difficult to follow, even for historians working in this area. Tony Sales's chapter on the Colossus, a British code‐breaking computer, exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of accounts written by technical specialists. Sales begins with a clear and engaging narrative of the origins of the Colossus, its method for decoding messages, and its significance to the Allied effort in the Second World War. He then veers into a highly technical discussion that will likely be opaque to readers unfamiliar with terms such as “thyratron rings.” The final section is a personal story of Sales's successful effort to have the machine rebuilt. Like the book as a whole, Sales's chapter can be read for a quick introduction to a milestone in the history of computing or for insight into the meanings embedded in technological artifacts—but readers should be prepared to decipher some formidable technical jargon along the way. (shrink)

Georg Ernst Stahl is one of the most outstanding physicians and naturalists of the so‐called Frühaufklärung in Germany. His scientific, philosophical, and ideological influence was deep and widespread in almost all the German states. As a professor at the University of Halle, the First Royal Physician in Berlin, and president of the Higher Medical Board of Prussia, he created a Stahlian school of medicine and chemistry, shaping some branches of medical thought, as well as of pure and applied chemistry. In (...) the history of chemistry his name is generally associated with the theory of phlogiston, and in the history of medicine he is described as a vitalist. Stahl proposed a different idea of chemistry that represented a novelty and influenced the chemical theory of the Enlightenment era. Stahl's chemical conceptions were parts of a general scientific program that had a strong socio‐ideological dimension. Characterized by harsh criticism of the iatromechanics, his work represents a main chapter in the history of modern chemical and medical science.In the 1930s Hélène Metzger published pioneering contributions to the history of Stahlian chemistry, which have been the main source of information for many generations of historians. In 1982 Karl Hufbauer demonstrated the crucial role played by Stahl and his followers in creating a German national community of chemists. In the historiography of early modern science one can find many references to Stahl, but his work has not been studied much, and we do not have an up‐to‐date biography or an exhaustive reconstruction of his ideas and multiform activities. Stahl is not a fascinating topic for historical research: his literary production is enormous, his Latin language is not easy to grasp, and his scientific interests span from many branches of medicine to pharmacy and applied chemistry. However, in Germany and Italy, one notes a recent revival of the historians' interest in Stahl, and real contributions are being published. Francesco Paolo de Ceglia's new book on Stahlian physiology, for example, is a good contribution that clarifies some main aspects of Stahl's physiological conceptions.De Ceglia's book does not aim at a complete reconstruction of the Stahlian physiological ideas. As is clear from its title, this volume presents an introduction to Stahl's physiological reflections. In the preface the author states that his book contains the first, very provisional results of a more general research project on Stahl. De Ceglia focuses his attention on Stahl's Theoria medica vera , a huge textbook composed of four introductory treatises proposing some philosophical and methodological perspectives, a physiological section, and a three‐part pathological section. De Ceglia's book is divided into three chapters. In the first de Ceglia illustrates the physiological elements of Stahl's Theoria—that is, the crucial differences between the mixed body and the living one, and emphasizes Stahl's definition of the living body as corruptible. For Stahl, life was the conservation, through movement, of a very corruptible body. Here, some important aspects of Stahl's physiological conceptions of blood, bodily heat, respiration, nutrition, and generation are illuminated. In the second chapter de Ceglia considers the main theoretical tenets of Stahl's epistemology and physiology. The third chapter focuses on the foundation of Stahlian physiology, that is, on the soul. Stahl's animism was much debated at the time; Leibniz, for example, strongly criticized his idea of the relationship between soul and body, but this animism was an important step toward a new definition of the living body.Sometimes de Ceglia only touches on some main conceptual points, such as the influence of Lutheran pietism on the Stahlian idea of soul. Still, as an introduction this book attains its goal. (shrink)

The landscape of seventeenth-century chemistry is complex, and it is impossible to find in it either a clear-cut distinction between alchemy and chemistry or a sort of simple identification of the two. The seventeenth-century cultural context contained a rich variety of "chemical" discourses with arguments ranging from specific experiments to the justification of the validity of chemistry and its novelty in terms of its extraordinary antiquity. On the basis of an analysis of the works by O. Borch, J.J. Glauber, and (...) J. J. Becher, this paper tries to demonstrate that a historical reconstruction of "chemistry" must consider these different levels of the chemical debate. Only then will it be possible to appreciate the outstanding role played by G.E. Stahl in founding modern chemistry. The paper argues in favor of a contextualization of the historical research on seventeenth-century chemistry. (shrink)