Books by Author

Det Kongelige Norske VidenskabersSelskab—The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters—was established in 1760 in the city of Trondheim, Norway. This makes it among the oldest of its kind in the Nordic countries and the by far the oldest one in Norway. The present volume celebrates its 250th anniversary and is the first comprehensive study […]

The Accademia del Cimento, organized in Florence under Medici patronage, devoted itself for ten years (1657-1667) to the experimental investigation of a broad range of scientific matters, and provided a model and inspiration for many subsequent scientific societies. Despite its crucial position in the history of science, the Cimento’s work and diverse membership has remained […]

Digital Library of Italian editions of Linnaeus Uppsala Studies in History of Science, Volume 34

Published in 1975 and often cited as a significant contribution to the establishment of history of science as a discipline within the academic community, this paperback reprint of a long out of print title, including a brief preface by the surviving editor, reaffirms many of its primary scholarly objectives while commemorating the 40th anniversary of […]

“…All but one of the six conditions to be discussed in this book were once common in what has now come to be designated as developed countries, the Western world. They are diseases that reflect the ravages of poverty, ignorance, famine, superstition and bigotry, but the resolution of their mystery and the development of preventive […]

Sex in History: A Virgin Field; Attitudes toward Deviant Sex in Ancient Mesopotamia; Homosexuality as Submissive Behavior: Examples from Mythology; Medieval Medical and Scientific View of Woman; Transvestites in the Middle Ages; Heresy, Witchcraft, and Sexuality; An Early American Sex Manual; Problems and Methods for Research in Prostitution; Homosexuality and Its Confusion with “Secret Sin” […]

Tells the quintessentially American story of Billings and his achievements in gripping fashion, with glimpses of his defects as well as his virtues.

This personal account of Edward D. Churchill’s Moseley Travelling Fellowship for the academic year 1926-1927, taken from interviews recorded by Saul Benison, provides a unique view of the state of thoracic surgery in the institutions he visited and the conditions in Germany between the two World Wars. These included Blair Bell in Liverpool; Berlin and […]

About the Author  Appointed Headmaster of Saint James School in June of 1992 when he was only 33 years old, the Revd. Dr. D. Stuart Dunnan has presided over a remarkable revival of this historic Episcopal boarding school in Western Maryland. A teacher and chaplain at both the school and university levels before he came […]

Read Chapter 22 See also Champion of Women and the Unborn

In modern America, where the triumph over disease is often taken for granted and yellow fever has ceased to be a menace, it is difficult to appreciate the fear once engendered by this disease. The 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic was no mere round of sickness but a major public health emergency that paralyzed city […]

This limited English edition dedicated to, among others, the late Bern Dibner, contains a fascinating account of what little is known of Turriano and of the history of clock and automata making in the 16th century. Many illustrations. A few copies of the paperback edition remain. Contact Customer Service for availability.

Best known as the surgeon in Oliver Hazard Perry’s squadron during the War of 1812 and as a participant in the Battle of Lake Erie, Parsons remained in the Navy for nearly ten years. After obtaining a degree from the Harvard Medical School in 1818, he separated from the service and settled in Providence, Rhode […]

The Nobel Prizes is the official yearbook of the Nobel Foundation. This edition provides extensive information about the 2012 Laureates: their Nobel and Prize Lectures and their autobiographies, as well as presentation speeches and background about the Nobel festivities. *Also for sale at the Nobel Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.

The idea for this book took shape on a business trip to Ceylon the author made with Christopher Ondaatje, the brother of Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje. In the 1780’s two of their ancestors had championed the popular movement which brought to the Dutch Republic the first democratically elected government in Europe, a few years […]

The four nordic countries-Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden-although different in character share a common history. During some period two or three of them were joined politically. Today, they are all independent states but with close economic and cultural ties. They are modern, industrialized countries, depending to an ever-increasing degree on ties to the rest of […]

Norwegian medicine viewed from the inside– Because it possess detailed records on the life and career of virtually every one of its physicians from the earliest times until the present day, Norway is able to make a special contribution to the history of professional development. Based on this biographical information and an extensive amount of […]

*Major portions of this book originally appeared in Cultures of Creativity: The Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Prize published in 2001 and copyright Science History Publications/USA & The Nobel Museum. The book was first published in Swedish, Människor, miljöer och kreativitet: Nobelpriset 100 dr, earlier the same year. A revised English edition appeared in 2002. The current edition […]

William C. Moloney began practicing hematology long before it became a recognized medical specialty. Developing an interest in the disorders of the blood soon after graduating from Tufts Medical School in 1932, he spent the next six decades contributing to many of the advances that helped elevate the treatment and research of the diseases of […]

This remarkable book is the autobiography of one of the 20th century’s most honored surgeons, Joseph E. Murray, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990. In it, Dr. Murray describes his role in breakthrough research in human organ transplantation and his pioneering advances in surgical techniques to correct deformities of the […]

The third supplement to the Isis Cumulative Bibliography, 1913-1965, edited by Magda Whitrow cumulates the annual bibliographies published in the History of Science Society’s journal Isis in the years 1986 through 1995. The increase in the literature during the last decade necessitates publication in four volumes: Volume One (496pp.), Persons : A–L; Volume Two (480pp.), […]

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) spent parts of the nineteenth century as America’s best-known physician and best-selling author. Sir William Osler praised him as “the most successful combination which the world has ever seen, of the physician and man of letters.” Henry James, Sr., called him “intellectually the most alive man I ever knew.” Today, he […]

Chymistry (that is, alchemy and early chemistry) is currently receiving an unprecedented amount of scholarly attention. Long-held misunderstandings are being replaced by a wealth of fresh perspectives and discoveries, as scholars progressively reveal alchemy’s crucial place in early modern culture and its contributions to early modern science. This volume brings together the most recent work […]

Volume 2, The Princeton Years: November 1832-December 1835 (Washington, 1975: ISBN 0-87474-164-5) concerns Henry’s adjustment to a small college town and his attempts to develop a first-rate facility for teaching and research in the physical sciences. It details his excursions to New York City and Philadelphia in search of scientific apparatus and scientific fellowship, and reveals the […]

Volume 4, The Princeton Years: January 1838-December 1840 (Washington, 1981: ISBN 0-87474-792-9) demonstrates Henry’s growing concern with the nation’s intellectual image abroad. After returning from Europe, he was increasingly sensitive to American shortcomings, particularly to the problem of scientific charlatanism. His opposition to the physician-inventor Henry Hall Sherwood, documented in the volume, epitomized this delicate issue. His […]

In the second half of the twentieth century, chemistry underwent a profound transformation. Its object of examination, the chemical substance, was transmuted into abstract structure; its most important method, the chemical reaction, was supplemented by physical methods; and its practitioner, the chemist, was partially displaced by technical instruments. At the center of this transformation were […]

Volume 6, The Princeton Years: January 1844-December 1846 (Washington, 1992: ISBN 1-56098-112-1) further develops the theme of Henry as a consultant on technological problems of his day. He provided expert advice on the acoustics of public buildings, the protection of buildings from lightning, the electromagnetic telegraph, and Colt’s submarine battery. He also chaired the Franklin Institute committee […]

Volume 8, The Smithsonian Years: January 1850-December 1853 (Washington, 1998: ISBN 1-56098-891-6) reveals a difficult period in Henry’s life. During these years, he suffered constant personal and financial woes, clashed with subordinates, and faced significant public criticism of his leadership. When Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois attacked the Smithsonian for its preoccupation with research of “no […]

The period covered by this volume included some of the darkest years Joseph Henry would ever face. The country was torn apart by a devastating civil war. Washington was threatened with invasion, placing the Smithsonian Institution in jeopardy. Henry’s only son, William, died in 1862 from a sudden illness. Henry’s mentor and confidant, Alexander Dallas […]

Edited and with notes by Whitfield J. Bell, Jr. and L. H. Butterfield. Published in association with the Rosenback Foundation, Philadelphia.

Also in paperback

Paperback. A hardcover edition is available. During his comparatively brief life (he died at thirty-nine, the age Mozart was to die) Blaise Pascal devoted his unusual talents to mathematics, physics and religion. His religious views are still widely discussed, and the general interest in this aspect of his life may be responsible for the fact […]

“The list of sources for the history of fire fighting in the seventeenth century is frustratingly short. What information there is largely comes from doleful accounts of the conflagrations of the day. Their authors pay only fleeting attention to the tactics, organizations, or types of fire equipment used, concentrating isntread on the number of buildings […]

An increasing amount of Virchow’s work has been translated into English in the last decade, and the present work on pulmonary embolism is yet another welcome example. For those readers who cannot really appreciate the breadth of his vision or the depth of his learning so evident in his voluminous writings in German, they will […]

This is the autobiography of Thomas H. Weller, M.D., a research scientist who helped develop the technique of growing viruses in tissue culture, and who became a world leader in the study of tropical diseases. The development of tissue-culture techniques transformed the field of virology. It led to the identification of many new infectious agents—several […]

Horace Wells has come to be viewed over the years as an enigmatic figure. Owing to his death by suicide in early 1848, and his inability to participate in the debate that soon erupted over credit for the discovery of anesthesia, the literature on him is confused, fragmentary and incomplete. While he is considered by […]