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Accademia nazionale dei Lincei
http://www.lincei.it/
This is the website of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome, the oldest scientific academy worldwide. It provides free access to the online catalogue of the Academy's historical archive and its fellows' correspondence archive. The history of the Academy is briefly outlined. From the website's homepage users can access also an OPAC to search texts and documents held in the Biblioteca dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana [the Library of the National Lyncean Academy and Corsiniana]. Founded in 1603 by the scholar Federico Cesi (1585-1630), the Academy's aim has been that of promoting, coordinating, integrating and spreading scientific knowledge. Studies at the Academy are divided into two main categories: firstly, physical, mathematical and natural sciences; secondly, moral, historical and philological sciences. In particular the latter is subdivided into seven subcategories: philology and linguistics; archaeology; art criticism and poetry; history, historic and anthropic geography; philosophical sciences; juridical sciences; political and social sciences. Each main group includes various national and international members. The site provides information on: the Academy's history; structure; publications; conferences; meetings; as well as awards and grants. The website can be consulted in both Italian and English, although the bulk of the site's content is in Italian only.
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Aestimatio : critical reviews in the history of science
http://www.ircps.org/publications/aestimatio/currvol.htm
'Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science' is a full-text ejournal, published by the Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science in the U.S.A. Book reviews are freely available for download, as either colour or black & white PDF files. At June 2009 there are five volumes freely available, from 2004 to 2008, with all reviews written in English. Recently reviewed books include: 'Following Pausanias: The Quest for Greek Antiquity'; 'Through a Glass Darkly: Magic, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egypt'; 'Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany'; and 'The Symbol at Your Door: Number and Geometry in Religious Architecture in the Greek and Latin Middle Ages', among others. Most books reviewed appear to be in English, but there are also a few written in other languages, such as 'Naturwissenschaften im Kulturvergleich: Europa-Islam-China'. Text may not be copied and pasted from the PDFs. This will be a useful journal for those seeking to keep pace with new books in the history of science and technology.
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Bitácora-e : revista electrónica Latinoamericana de estudios sociales, históricos y culturales de la ciencia y la tecnología
http://www.saber.ula.ve/bitacora-e/
This is the website of Bitacora-e: Revista Electrónica Latinoamericana de Estudios Sociales, Históricos y Culturales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología [Latin American electronic journal of social, historical and cultural studies of science and technology] which main objective is to facilitate academic knowledge on the set of activities specifically related to scientific and technological activity, its history, and social implications particular to the Latin-American community. The journal is published biannually in Spanish by Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela. This resource presents general information about the journal, its policies and submissions guidelines; it allows users to register; perform searches; and access the archives and current articles which can be downloaded as PDF; it also provides links to the Universidad de los Andes related publications and events.
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Chinese science
http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/ans/eastm/back/csbigcont.htm
This Web page gives free access to 15 full-text back issues of the academic journal Chinese Science (1975-1998). This English-language journal was edited from U.S. universities and published articles examining aspects of the history of science, technology and medicine in China. Issues have tables of contents and articles are freely available as PDF files. Example article titles include: 'Craft and Ritual in Traditional Chinese Carpentry'; 'Not Quite Gentlemen? Doctors in Sung and Yuan'; 'Silk Weaving in Ancient China: From Geometric Figures to Patterns of Pictorial Likeness'; and 'The Evolution and Decline of the Ancient Chinese Practice of Watching for the Ethers', among many others. This will be an interesting collection for anyone interested in Chinese history, and for those interested more generally in the history of science and technology. The journal also had a few articles on science under communist rule in the 20th century.
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Connection, The
http://www.theconnection.org
This is the website for the American radio show 'The Connection', which ran from 1994 until 2005. Shows from 2000 onwards are available online in Real Audio format, and can be browsed by topic or date, or found through a search facility. The Connection featured high-calibre discussions of current affairs, and programmes on various special topics. Whilst the show's emphasis is on contemporary politics and international affairs, the searchable audio archives include editions concerning literature, culture, and the arts. There are also some programmes that might be of interest to philosophers and philosophers of science: 'Ethics and Morality'; 'Antonio Damasio on Consciousness and Emotion'; 'Freedom and Free Will'; 'The Examined Life'; 'John Rawls'; 'The Metaphysical Club'; 'James Yorke'; and 'Mapping the Universe', to name but a few.
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DIO : the international journal of scientific history
http://www.dioi.org/
'DIO: The International Journal of Scientific History' is a full-text ejournal, edited from Florida State University. The editors are inclined to accept articles by... "astrononomers, physicists, mathematicians, & classicists - not historians". Published three times a year, at June 2009 the journal has 27 issues online. Issues usually offer between two and six articles, freely available as PDF files. Example article titles include: 'The Babylonian Theory of the Planets'; 'The Southern Limit of the Ancient Star Catalog'; 'The Instuments Used by Hipparchos'; and 'Columbus's Landfall at Plana Keys', among others. The journal occasionaly collaborates with the The Journal for Hysterical Astronomy on special issues and articles on historical scientific hoaxes. The journal appears to have a special interest in papers on Hipparchos, ancient planetary observations, the maps of Ptolemy, and the early exploration of the polar regions. Three $1000 prizes are offered by the journal.
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Drug trade : therapy, pharmacy and commerce in early modern Europe
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/drugtrade
The website "Drug Trade: Therapy, pharmacy and commerce in early modern Europe" makes available online the exhibition of the Museum of the History of Science's (University of Oxford) collection of early modern drug or pharmacy jars from 2004-2005. The jars, which date from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, are situated in the historical context of therapy and pharmacology in early modern Europe. Images and texts from contemporary herbals are used to illustrate the types of drugs and medicinal preparations that would originally have been contained in the jars. These herbals include Dodoens's "Niewe herball" and Gerard's "Herball". The site includes an introductory section, which contains a selection of quotations from vernacular herbals justifying their use of the English language, and a bibliography of the herbals used in the exhibition. The exhibition is presented in three parts: "Exhibition"; "Gallery"; and "Essay". The Exhibition section presents the images of jars and herbal illustrations according to the type of material they contained or represented: herbs; roots; wood bark gum; fruits; roses; animals; and minerals. Each illustration is accompanied by texts from the herbals, which describe the properties and uses of each plant. The Gallery section presents thumbnail images of the illustrations and the drug jars. Each image can be clicked for a larger version, which is accompanied by source and catalogue information. The Essay provides a brief overview of the preparation and use of medicines in the period. This site presents a useful and interesting collection of images and information, which will be appreciated by general users as well as students with an interest in early modern medicine. The site is now archived.
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Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert : collaborative translation project
http://www.hti.umich.edu/d/did/
The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert: Collaborative Translation Project is an ongoing attempt to bring an English translation of this great 18th-century encyclopaedia to the World Wide Web. A major achievement of the French enlightenment, the original publication consisted of 32 volumes covering 70,000 topics. Like the original, the online version is a collaborative effort, and potential contributors are encouraged to contact the publishers. Users can browse encyclopaedia entries, or search for key words. Search results return the immediate local contexts in which words have been used, with the full entry accessed by a link from the title field. Entries include links to their original French language versions. Bibliographical searches are also available. Future plans for the online encyclopaedia include: the possibility of browsing by original author; a list of plates with English and French titles; and access to the images of plates even before captions have been translated.
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From alchemy to chemistry: five hundred years of rare and interesting books
http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/exhibit
The Web Site "From alchemy to chemistry: five hundred years of rare and interesting books" is a project directed by the Chemistry Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is a fascinating and well-constructed site which is easy to navigate and will prove to be an excellent teaching aid. Thirty-six books have been scanned onto the site from Hieronymus Brunschwig's "Liber de arte distillandi: Das buch der rechten kunst zu distillieren" of 1500 to Linus Pauling and Roger Hayward's "The Architecture of Molecules" from 1964. There are works in French, English, Latin, German, Russian and Italian. Among other works featured here are Nicolas Flamel's famed "His Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures - His Secret Booke of the Blessed Stone called the Philosopher's", Paracelsus' "Operum Medico-Chimacaorum", and Mendeleev's "Osnovy Khimii". The books can be viewed in large or small formats of the pages. Each book is accompanied by a brief description. An excellent site for students and teachers of the history of science, or history.
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Greek medicine
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/
This is an online exhibition, provided by the US National Library of Medicine, which offers an overview of ancient Greek medicine (from around 800 BC to 200 AD) and some of the ways in which modern Western medicine is founded on ancient practice. The site functions as an introduction for anyone interested in the history of medicine in the ancient world, with a timeline of key events and brief details of the transmission of ancient medical texts to the modern world. Individual sections focus on Hippocrates (fifth century BC), with a translation of the Hippocratic oath, Aristotle (fourth century BC), and Galen (second century AD). A further section looks briefly at the physicians Pythagoras (sixth century BC), Dioscorides (first century AD) and Artemidorus (second century AD). There is also some information on healing in Greek myth and art, with reference to the gods Asclepius and Apollo and the Homeric myth of Chiron and Achilles. A short bibliography on Greek medicine is given (without annotation).
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Higher Education Academy : Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies
http://www.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/
The website of the Philosophical and Religious Studies (PRS) Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy provides information and support for educators working in the fields of philosophy, theology, religious studies, and history and philosophy of science. The website offers: details of forthcoming conferences and workshops; articles and discussion pieces; and information of use to academics in all subject areas, such as guidelines on plagiarism. The Centre publishes the biannual journal 'Discourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies', and PDF versions of each issue are included here. The Centre also makes available a series of grants for the development of teaching and learning in religious and philosophical studies.
The PRS Subject Centre is part of the Higher Education Academy's network of 24 such centres, which support the sharing of innovation and good practices in learning and teaching, including the use, where appropriate, of communications and information technology. This subject centre was formerly a branch of the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN).
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History's medical mysteries
http://historymedmysteries.blogspot.com/
The website "History's Medical Mysteries" has been compiled by Mary Harrsch at the Network and Management Information Systems College of Education, University of Oregon. It consists of examinations of several historical medical mysteries, which have been re-examined by a panel of doctors led by Dr Philip A. Mackowiak, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. These essays, downloadable in PDF format, provide a modern insight into ancient and more modern deaths of the famous. The essays have been published in the American Journal of Medicine and make for intriguing reading, possibly throwing a new light on the reasons for certain historical events. The essays are entitled: what plague killed Pericles?; Were Claudius' mushrooms artificially poisoned?; what caused Beethoven's deafness?; did Mozart really die of pneumonia?; and was Custer mentally ill? An interesting site for historians and medical historians.
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Institut des traditions textuelles
http://fr_33.vjf.cnrs.fr/
This is the website of the Institut des Traditions Textuelles. The institute conducts interdisciplinary research in philosophy, history, history of religion, and history of science in many languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syriac. It was created in 1996 by bringing together four research units of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS): Histoire des doctrines de la fin de l'Antiquité et du Haut Moyen Âge; Centre d'études des religions du livre; Centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies Arabes et Médiévales; Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris. The website provides only basic details for access to the institute and its library. A separate Web page is dedicated to the collection entitled 'Textes et traditions' published by Librairie philosophique J. Vrin. There is a list of titles already published, which leads through hyperlinks to each book's title page (including a scanned image), a brief abstract and / or the table of contents.
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Isaiah Berlin virtual library
http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/
The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library looks after all aspects of the literary estate of the philosopher and historian of ideas, Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997). Berlin's views on pluralism and liberalism continue to provoke discussion and debate. The site's special emphasis is on editing and publishing his unpublished works and letters, publishing collections of his uncollected work, and generally fostering awareness of and access to his intellectual and literary legacy. The site includes a complete bibliography of Berlin's essays, articles, interviews, broadcasts and recordings. There is an extensive bibliography of critical and fictional works about Berlin. Featured also are photos, audio files and video clips of Berlin, relevant links, and information on Berlin's manuscripts.This is an excellent resource for those interested in the life and work of Isaiah Berlin.
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Map history / history of cartography
http://www.maphistory.info/
The Map History / History of Cartography website provides a comprehensive guide to print and online resources in the subject. It is intended for scholars, family historians, teachers, and collectors. The content of the site is grouped according to material type or end-user, with sections such as: conferences and talks; discussion lists; exhibitions; globes; image sites; map collecting; map societies; news sources; teacher resources; web projects; journals; categorised reading lists; and so forth. Many sections are subdivided, and there are about 100 web pages in total. All resource links are helpfully annotated and are automatically checked on a regular basis. A keyword search engine is included with the site.
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Notes and records of the Royal Society
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/
This is the website of Notes and Records of the Royal Society, the historical journal of the Royal Society. Notes and Records is published three times a year; its coverage is general across the history of science, but tends in practice to focus on the work and publications of the Society and of its members. The Royal Society was founded in 1660, and for many years served as a principal British centre of natural-philosophical activity; it now operates as a scientific academy and funding body, supporting research and teaching in the sciences. Articles are made available free of charge one year after publication, and the site offers PDF and HTML versions of issues from 1997 onwards (earlier issues can be accessed via subscription to JSTOR). The site also supplies the usual guidelines for authors and reviewers, and details of the editorial board.
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Portsmouth and Macclesfield collections, The
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/portsmouth_and_macclesfield/
Through the "Portsmouth and Macclesfiedl Collections" website, Cambridge University Library makes available digital images of important material relating to the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton. These documents are taken from the Portsmouth and Macclesfield collections, which contain Newton's correspondence and notes, together with copy letters and scientific papers. They cover the period 1606 to 1742, and include material on: gravitation; the Principia Mathematica; calculus; comets; optics; and chemistry. They thus reflect the breadth and depth of Newton's scientific interests. Other correspondents are represented in the collections, such as: Christiaan Huygens; Henry Oldenburg; Edmund Halley; Samuel Fermat; Robert Hooke; and many others. These manuscripts illuminate the development of scientific method and understanding in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the context of the work of members of the Royal Society and their European peers and correspondents. The documents often include diagrams drawn by the authors. Each document is digitised in full. The site can be searched by author, year, and language, or browsed using the drop-down menus provided in the search fields. Search results are presented as a list; each item links to a page showing thumbnails of the document images, each of which can be clicked to show a larger image. The document images are of high quality, but cannot be enlarged further and there is no zoom function. This is slightly unfortunate, as in many documents the script is small in size and can be hard to decipher. Each document is accompanied by brief bibliographic information. This web resource is aimed at researchers and research students and is presented with very little contextualising information, but the material itself is most rich and valuable.
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Royal meteorological society : a brief history
http://www.royal-met-soc.org.uk/history.html
Maintained as part of the Royal Meteorology Society's website, these pages contain papers on the history of the Society and its scientists, details of their current History Group, and assorted essays on the history of meteorological science. The British (later Royal) Meteorological Society was founded in 1850, and this resource covers from its history from foundation to present day. The site includes the minutes of the first meeting of the Society as well as the original membership list (with accompanying introductions to the prominent members) along with the texts of a couple of historical articles from the journal 'Weather'. The pages for the society's history group give details of their forthcoming meetings, as well as an online version of their most recent newsletter. Copies of all the occasional papers on meteorological history published by the society are available here. These include articles about the impact of meteorology on aviation, and the role played by the Met Office in the build up to D-Day. This site is a useful starting point for history of meteorology in Britain and scientific societies.
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Scientific revolution - dr. Robert A. Hatch
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/
The "Scientific Revolution" website is part of web page of Dr. Robert A. Hatch and is made available by the University of Florida. It provides access to a range of resources for the study and teaching of the Scientific Revolution, covering developments from Copernicus to Isaac Newton over the period 1550 to 1700. At the time of review, some links on the site were incomplete or broken. Nevertheless, the site presents much useful information about the resources available for the study of the Scientific Revolution and the scientists and thinkers involved. The site is divided into the following sections: Introduction; Overview and Background; Outlines, Timelines and Tools; Biography and the Scientific Revolution; Intermediate Resources; Research - Primary Texts; and Research - Early English Books Online. It is aimed at undergraduate students and teachers. The content available at the time of cataloguing included: an introductory essay discussing the concept of periodisation in relation to the Scientific Revolution; bibliographic essays by Robert Hatch and Richard Westfall; an account of basic concepts of various world and cosmological systems, from the Aristotelian cosmos to Newton; timelines; bibliographies of secondary and important primary material; and a guide to online resources, in particular Early English Books Online and Gallica. Hatch's "History of Science Study Guide", which covers developments in astronomy and related scientific disciplines from pre-scientific times to Newton, is a very useful overview. The site also makes available Richard Westfall's browsable prosopographical list of over 600 individuals involved in the scientific community. This is a valuable tool and will be of use to students and researchers. The study guide and account of cosmological concepts will also be of considerable interest to those involved in the history of science in the early modern period. The bibliographical material will be of use to all students of the subject. There is no indication of updates and the site seems to be archived.
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Theremin info
http://www.theremin.info/
Invented in 1919 by the Russian engineer Leon Theremin, the theremin was the first purely electronic musical instrument. Emitting a tone determined by the position of the musician's hands over the instrument, the theremin is the only musical instrument played without touching. The theremin's repertoire is small, partly due to the difficulty of mastering the instrument, and partly due to its distinctive spooky sound. The instrument's heyday appears to be past, but it is still occasionally used in modern experimental music.This website is devoted to popularising the instrument and presenting the history of the theremin, its creator, and other early electronic instruments such as the terpistone, rhythmicon, and electro-theremin. The site contains a biography of Leon Theremin, and his short memoir. The original U.S. patent for the instrument is reproduced, along with historical press articles. Robert Moog, the pioneer of the synthesiser, is profiled, along with many of the finest virtuosi of the theremin, including Clara Rockmore. There are several pieces on the theremin's role in film and music, and news of upcoming gigs featuring the instrument. Recordings of the theremin can be accessed from the site in mp3 format. This is an interesting site detailing one of the major innovations and catalysts for development in the history of music in the twentieth century.
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Turing digital archive
http://www.turingarchive.org/
This website makes available images of the collection of unpublished personal papers and photographs held in the Turing Archive at King's College Cambridge. Alan Turing (1912-1954) is famous for his Turing Test and Turing Machine and other contributions to early computer science and development. He is also known for his cryptanalysis on Enigma at Bletchley Park. The material catalogued on this site includes letters and memoirs written by colleagues, and Turing's own writings and correspondence covering: the Automatic Computing Engine; Turing's work at the National Physical Laboratory; theories of computable numbers; digital computers; artificial intelligence; morphogenesis; and the chemical development of cells. The archive can be browsed using the following sections: Biographical and personal; Publications, lectures and talks; Unpublished manuscripts and drafts; Correspondence; Turing Celebration Day, Cambridge, 1 Oct. 1997; and Material given to King's College Cambridge in 1960. A list of common abbreviations used in the catalogue is provided. The archive can also be searched. Search results are based on the catalogue information rather than on the actual content of the documents. Each result includes bibliographical information about the documents and links to images. The images are high-resolution and can be viewed closely using the zoom and pan functions provided. To pan, users hold down the left mouse button over the image and move it around. A toolbar which appears at the bottom of the image is used to zoom in and out. The portion which is to be viewed using the zoom needs to be at the centre of the image window. This system is slightly cumbersome. The site contains little background information. This website is a very valuable resource for those researchers interested in the life and work of Alan Turing, and in the history of computers and computing. It is primarily a scholarly resource.
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Whatever happened to polio?
http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/polio/
The excellent 'Whatever Happened to Polio?' website provides an extensive graphical introduction to the history of the polio virus in the USA during the twentieth century. The site explains the nature of the virus itself and its medical history, from identification to genetic mapping. The most extensive sections of the site cover the social impact of the virus on America, with some additional coverage given to current vaccination programmes in the developing world. With the use of plenty of primary sources, both photographic and textual, the American experience of polio is vividly reconstructed. A glossary, bibliography, and list of annotated links are provided. The site features some interactive sections for younger students, highlighting the difficulties faced by those with physical disabilities and illustrating the life cycle of the disease. A timeline provides a succinct chronology with hyperlinks to other sections.
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Workdiaries of Robert Boyle
http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/wd/index.html
This website, which is made available by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, presents an enhanced online edition of the workdiaries of Robert Boyle. This builds on the original online edition published by the Robert Boyle Project and the Perseus Project, and includes digitised images of the original manuscripts. Boyle (1627-91) was among the most important early modern British scientists, and is held to have been the chief progenitor of the experimental method. His notebooks of observations and experiments are here collected as "workdiaries". They cover the period from 1647 to 1691. They include: extracts from literary works; chemical or chymical recipes and notes; details of experiments; measurements; descriptions of curiosities recounted to Boyle by others, including travellers and artisans; and notes for treatises. These workdiaries are a most rich and valuable resource for students of early modern scientific culture and the history of science, and anyone interested in Boyle himself. The inclusion of images of the manuscripts in addition to transcriptions makes this website of even greater value to scholars. The diaries can be accessed in three formats: text only; text and image; and print-friendly. The text and image version presents a split screen, with the manuscript image on the left and the transcript on the right. This format involves some scrolling. Transcriptions are available in editorial and diplomatic versions for all formats. The workdiaries can be browsed using the View section of the site, and there is also a keyword search facility. The site includes useful supporting material. The Resources section contains: a bibliography; a list of place names; a biographical register of persons mentioned in the diary; and a handlist of Boyle's works. A Reader's Guide provides a brief introduction to the content of the workdiaries, while the Editorial section contains a discussion of the term "workdiary" and the selection of material. The Introduction provides background information on Boyle's use of the diaries and on the documents themselves, including an account of the various scribes who have been identified. The resource can also be order via the Oxford Text Archive (OTA) (formerly part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)) on completion of a request access form.
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