In the only history of its kind, Etheridge traces the development of the Centers for Disease Control from its inception as a malaria control unit during World War II through the mid-1980s . The ...eradication of smallpox, the struggle to identify an effective polio vaccine, the unraveling of the secrets of Legionnaires' disease, and the shock over the identification of the HIV virus are all chronicled here. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and source documents, Etheridge vividly recreates the vital decision-making incidents that shaped both the growth of this institution as well as the state of public health in this country for the last five decades.
We follow the development of the institution as it was transformed by the will and the imagination of remarkable individuals such as Dr. Joseph Mountin, one of the first heads of the CDC. Often characterized as abrasive and impatient, Mountin pushed the CDC to become a vital player in eradicating the threat of communicable disease in the United States. Others such as Dr. Alexander Langmuir brought the expertise necessary to establish epidemiology as one of the primary functions of the CDC.
Created to serve the states and to answer any call for help whether routine or extraordinary, the CDC is now widely recognized as one of the world's premier public health institutions.
•Germans deserve the primary credit for the proto- or early institutionalization of the history of science discipline.•History of science temporary displays and permanent exhibitions were prominent ...during the German Empire 1871–1918.•History of science activities during the German Empire served consolidation of the nation.•The bourgeoisie took the main initiative in history of science activities during the German Empire.•Nineteenth century German orientation to the historical dimension within many social and cultural realms stimulated the development of German Empire activities in the history of science.•The scholarship on historical scientific instruments dates back to the nineteenth century, including during the German Empire.
The history of science as a discipline took place in the period of the German Empire, but the historiography of its development insufficiently recognizes both its proto-institutionalization during this period and the critical role played by Germans in effecting its initial development. In this article, while alluding to the several areas in which Germans took the lead in establishing the discipline, the focus is on one representative area: the mounting of temporary and permanent exhibitions relating to the history of science during the Empire period. Reasons why Germans were motivators in these efforts include the importance of past and present excellence in science, eminence in and fascination with historical research to the new nation’s construction after German unification in 1871, and of the assertion of the nineteenth century German bourgeoisie in its role in advancing the culture of the nation. The larger argument, that subjects of the German Empire achieved critical institution-building in history of science, is supported by the incidence of displays organized by Germans, and buttressed by the fact that a number of these organizers also participated in the field’s enlarged late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship that was most marked among Germans of any national group.
The book publishes for the first time private letters from an to Leo Thun-Hohenstein, minister of education 1849–1860. In this periode Thun profoundly reformed the Austrian educational system.
Der ...Band veröffentlicht erstmals ausgewählte Briefe von und an Leo Thun-Hohenstein, Unterrichtsminister von 1849–1860. In seine Amtszeit fielen tiefgreifende Reformen des österreichischen Bildungssystem. Die Korrespondenz ist mit einer ausführlichen Einleitung versehen.
There are three components to boundary objects as outlined in the original 1989 article. Interpretive flexibility, the structure of informatic and work process needs and arrangements, and, finally, ...the dynamic between ill-structured and more tailored uses of the objects. Much of the use of the concept has concentrated on the aspect of interpretive flexibility and has often mistaken or conflated this flexibility with the process of tacking back-and-forth between the ill-structured and well-structured aspects of the arrangements. Boundary objects are not useful at just any level of scale or without full consideration of the entire model. The article discusses these aspects of the architecture of boundary objects and includes a discussion of one of the ways that boundary objects appeared as a concept in earlier work done by Star. It concludes with methodological considerations about how to study the system of boundary objects and infrastructure.
Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have revised received understanding of the political and economic significance of the city of Naples and ...its rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its importance in the history of science, however, has remained relatively unknown. * The Science of Naples* provides the first dedicated study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English language. Drawing on contributions from leading experts in the field, this volume presents a series of studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold contributions to European scientific culture in the early modern period and considers the importance of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories for the production of new knowledge. Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to debates within the Republic of Letters that continued until deep into the nineteenth century. They also show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters yielded unique insights that contributed to the development of fields such as medicine and earth sciences. Taken together, these studies resituate the city of Naples as an integral part of an increasingly globalised scientific culture, and present a rich and engaging portrait of the individuals who lived, worked and made scientific knowledge there.
The volcano that has fascinated scientists, writers, and
poets for two millennia Capricious, vibrant, and volatile,
Vesuvius has been and remains one of the world's most dangerous
volcanoes. In its ...rage, it has destroyed whole cities and buried
thousands alive. In its calm, its ashes have fertilized the soil,
providing for the people who have lived in its shadows. For over
two millennia, the dynamic presence of this volcano has fascinated
scientists, artists, writers, and thinkers, and inspired religious
fervor, Roman architecture, and Western literature. In
Vesuvius , Alwyn Scarth draws from the latest research,
classical and eyewitness accounts, and a diverse range of other
sources to tell the riveting story of this spectacular natural
phenomenon. Scarth follows Vesuvius across time, examining the
volcano's destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D., its
eruptions during the Counter-Reformation that were viewed as God's
punishment of sinners, and the building of the world's first
volcano observatory on Vesuvius in the 1840s. Scarth explores the
volcano's current position overlooking a population of more than
three million people and the complex attitudes maintained by the
residents, at once reverent, protective, and fearful. He also
considers the next major eruption of Vesuvius, which experts have
indicated could be the most powerful since 1631. The longer
Vesuvius remains dormant, the more violent its reawakening will be,
and despite scientific advances for predicting when this might
occur, more people are vulnerable than ever before. Exploring this
celebrated wonder from scientific, historical, and cultural
perspectives, Vesuvius provides a colorful portrait of a
formidable force of nature.
By means of a literature review, this article aims to present basic aspects of the scientific and educational history of Brazil, from the colonial period to the present day. The major goal is to ...understand how science education has developed and consolidated as an important component of school curriculum and a formal field of research. Four phases were defined (1549–1800; 1800–1950; 1950–1970; 1970–today) to encompass the pedagogical, methodological, curricular, investigative, and legal processes that took place over these different periods in history. By offering a comprehensive overview of the national events that occured over time and giving educators and researchers who are interested in the topic a view of the past, the historical perspective chosen aims to contribute to the composition of the memory of science teaching.
In 2004, Venus crossed the sun's face for the first time since
1882. Some did not bother to step outside. Others planned for
years, reserving tickets to see the transit in its entirety. But
even this ...group of astronomers and experience seekers were
attracted not by scientific purpose but by the event's beauty,
rarity, and perhaps--after this book--history. For previous
sky-watchers, though, transits afforded the only chance to
determine the all-important astronomical unit: the mean distance
between earth and sun. Eli Maor tells the intriguing tale of the
five Venus transits previously observed and the fantastic efforts
made to record them. This is a story of heroes and cowards, of
reputations earned and squandered, all told against a backdrop of
phenomenal geopolitical and scientific change. With a novelist's
talent for the details that keep readers reading late, Maor tells
the stories of how Kepler's misguided theology led him to the laws
of planetary motion; of obscure Jeremiah Horrocks, who predicted
the 1639 transit only to die, at age 22, a day before he was to
discuss the event with the only other human known to have seen it;
of the unfortunate Le Gentil, whose decade of labor was rewarded
with obscuring clouds, shipwreck, and the plundering of his estate
by relatives who prematurely declared him dead; of David
Rittenhouse, Father of American Astronomy, who was overcome by the
1769 transit's onset and failed to record its beginning; and of
Maximilian Hell, whose good name long suffered from the perusal of
his transit notes by a color-blind critic. Moving beyond individual
fates, Maor chronicles how governments' participation in the first
international scientific effort--the observation of the 1761
transit from seventy stations, yielding a surprisingly accurate
calculation of the astronomical unit using Edmund Halley's
posthumous directions--intersected with the Seven Years' War,
British South Seas expansion, and growing American scientific
prominence. Throughout, Maor guides readers to the upcoming Venus
transits in 2004 and 2012, opportunities to witness a phenomenon
seen by no living person and not to be repeated until 2117.
This innovative collection showcases the importance of the relationship between translation and experience in premodern science, bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to offer a ...nuanced understanding of knowledge transfer across premodern time and space. The volume considers experience as a tool and object of science in the premodern world, using this idea as a jumping-off point from which to view translation as a process of interaction between diff erent epistemic domains. The book is structured around four dimensions of translation—between terms within and across languages; across sciences and scientific norms; between verbal and visual systems; and through the expertise of practitioners and translators—which raise key questions on what constituted experience of the natural world in the premodern area and the impact of translation processes and agents in shaping experience. Providing a wide-ranging global account of historical studies on the travel and translation of experience in the premodern world, this book will be of interest to scholars in history, the history of translation, and the history and philosophy of science.
Thunder and lightning have been seen from time immemorial as God’s instruments of punishment. Until the invention of the lightning rod by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. In Lightning in the Age of ...Benjamin Franklin. Facts and Fictions in Science, Religion, and Art Jan Wim Buisman shows how the Enlightenment and Romanticism have changed our scientific, religious and artistic image of natural violence forever. In the eighteenth century, thunderstorms are experienced less and less as a threat and more and more as something extraordinary. The image of God and the image of nature changed radically. The religion of enlightened people, for example, was more determined by joy than by fear. And nature was almost experienced as a girlfriend. That had significant consequences because those who no longer had to be afraid of the thunderstorm could play with it without hesitation. That’s what poets, painters and musicians did to their heart’s content. Never before the beauty of the storm was depicted as much in the western culture as during the transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism.
