1.
Swedish Museum of Natural History
–
The Swedish Museum of Natural History, in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The museum was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and these collections had first been made available to the public in 1786. The Museum was separated from the Academy in 1965, one of the keepers of the collections of the Academy during its earlier history was Anders Sparrman, a student of Carl Linnaeus and participant in the voyages of Captain James Cook. The present buildings for the museum in Frescati, Stockholm, was designed by the architect Axel Anderberg and completed in 1916, as of 2014 it is the largest museum building in Sweden. The main campus of Stockholm University was later built next to the museum, the museum has an IMAX cinema called Cosmonova. The cinema is also the largest planetarium in Sweden, cary Karp Swedish Museum of Natural History official website
2.
Animal
–
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
3.
Plant
–
Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
4.
Fungus
–
A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of plants, a characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria and some protists, is chitin in their cell walls. Similar to animals, fungi are heterotrophs, they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, growth is their means of mobility, except for spores, which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems and this fungal group is distinct from the structurally similar myxomycetes and oomycetes. The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology, in the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants. Abundant worldwide, most fungi are inconspicuous because of the size of their structures. Fungi include symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi and they may become noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as molds. Fungi perform a role in the decomposition of organic matter and have fundamental roles in nutrient cycling. Since the 1940s, fungi have been used for the production of antibiotics, Fungi are also used as biological pesticides to control weeds, plant diseases and insect pests. Many species produce bioactive compounds called mycotoxins, such as alkaloids and polyketides, the fruiting structures of a few species contain psychotropic compounds and are consumed recreationally or in traditional spiritual ceremonies. Fungi can break down manufactured materials and buildings, and become significant pathogens of humans, losses of crops due to fungal diseases or food spoilage can have a large impact on human food supplies and local economies. The fungus kingdom encompasses a diversity of taxa with varied ecologies, life cycle strategies. However, little is known of the biodiversity of Kingdom Fungi. Advances in molecular genetics have opened the way for DNA analysis to be incorporated into taxonomy, phylogenetic studies published in the last decade have helped reshape the classification within Kingdom Fungi, which is divided into one subkingdom, seven phyla, and ten subphyla. The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus, used in the writings of Horace, a group of all the fungi present in a particular area or geographic region is known as mycobiota, e. g. the mycobiota of Ireland. Like plants, fungi grow in soil and, in the case of mushrooms, form conspicuous fruit bodies. The fungi are now considered a kingdom, distinct from both plants and animals, from which they appear to have diverged around one billion years ago. Fungi have membrane-bound cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria, sterol-containing membranes and they have a characteristic range of soluble carbohydrates and storage compounds, including sugar alcohols, disaccharides, and polysaccharides
5.
Ecosystem
–
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles, as ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces. Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun and it generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and they also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have different characteristics simply because they contain different species. The introduction of species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present, although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance, classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as The whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment. Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as mental isolates, Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope. G. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas one step further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the driver of the ecosystem. Most mineral nutrients, on the hand, are recycled within ecosystems. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, external factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem
6.
Geology
–
Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
7.
Paleontology
–
Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms evolution and interactions with each other, paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuviers work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i. e. old, ancient, ὄν, on, i. e. being, creature and λόγος, logos, i. e. speech, thought, study. Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics. The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition is the study of ancient life, paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself. This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past, hence it has three main elements, description of the phenomena, developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change, and applying those theories to specific facts. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by an accident during other research. Paleontology lies on the boundary between biology and geology since paleontology focuses on the record of past life but its source of evidence is fossils. In addition paleontology often uses techniques derived from other sciences, including biology, osteology, ecology, chemistry, techniques developed in engineering have been used to analyse how ancient organisms might have worked, for example how fast Tyrannosaurus could move and how powerful its bite was. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions, vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils of vertebrates, from the earliest fish to the immediate ancestors of modern mammals. Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils of such as molluscs, arthropods. Paleobotany focuses on the study of plants, but traditionally includes the study of fossil algae. Palynology, the study of pollen and spores produced by plants and protists. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong, one example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere, together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built
8.
Climatology
–
Climatology or climate science is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time. This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the sciences and a subfield of physical geography. Climatology now includes aspects of oceanography and biogeochemistry, Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate. Weather is known as the condition of the atmosphere over a period of time, while Climate has to do with the atmospheric condition over an extended to indefinite period of time. Early climate researchers include Edmund Halley, who published a map of the winds in 1686 after a voyage to the southern hemisphere. Benjamin Franklin first mapped the course of the Gulf Stream for use in sending mail from the United States to Europe, francis Galton invented the term anticyclone. Helmut Landsberg fostered the use of analysis in climatology, which led to its evolution into a physical science. Climatology is approached in various such as Paleoclimatology, which seeks to reconstruct past climates by examining records such as ice cores. Paleotempestology uses these same records to help determine hurricane frequency over millennia, the study of contemporary climates incorporates meteorological data accumulated over many years, such as records of rainfall, temperature and atmospheric composition. Knowledge of the atmosphere and its dynamics is also embodied in models, either statistical or mathematical, modeling is used for understanding past, present and potential future climates. Historical climatology is the study of climate as related to human history, Climate research is made difficult by the large scale, long time periods, and complex processes which govern climate. Climate is governed by laws which can be expressed as differential equations. These equations are coupled and nonlinear, so that solutions are obtained by using numerical methods to create global climate models. Climate is sometimes modeled as a process but this is generally accepted as an approximation to processes that are otherwise too complicated to analyze. Scientists use climate indices based on several climate patterns in their attempt to characterize, Climate indices are generally devised with the twin objectives of simplicity and completeness, and each index typically represents the status and timing of the climate factor it represents. El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon, the Pacific Ocean signatures, El Niño and La Niña are important temperature fluctuations in surface waters of the tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean. La Niña means the little girl and their effect on climate in the subtropics and the tropics are profound. The atmospheric signature, the Southern Oscillation reflects the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in the air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin, the most recent occurrence of El Niño started in September 2006 and lasted until early 2007
9.
Cabinet of curiosities
–
Cabinets of curiosities were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, the Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patrons control of the world through its indoor, the term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving in Ferrante Imperatos DellHistoria Naturale, some of the volumes doubtless represent his herbarium. Every surface of the ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases, above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with square polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with pigeonhole compartments for specimens. Below them, a range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars, two of the most famously described seventeenth-century cabinets were those of Ole Worm, known as Olaus Wormius, and Athanasius Kircher. Often they would contain a mix of fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures, Worms collection contained, for example, what he thought was a Scythian Lamb, a woolly fern thought to be a plant/sheep fabulous creature. However he was responsible for identifying the narwhals tusk as coming from a whale rather than a unicorn. The specimens displayed were often collected during exploring expeditions and trading voyages, Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. The catalog of Worms collection, published as the Museum Wormianum, used the collection of artifacts as a point for Worms speculations on philosophy, science, natural history. Cabinets of curiosities were limited to those who could afford to create, many monarchs, in particular, developed large collections. A rather under-used example, stronger in art than other areas, was the Studiolo of Francesco I, frederick III of Denmark, who added Worms collection to his own after Worms death, was another such monarch. A third example is the Kunstkamera founded by Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg in 1714, many items were bought in Amsterdam from Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch. The fabulous Habsburg Imperial collection included important Aztec artifacts, including the feather head-dress or crown of Montezuma now in the Museum of Ethnology, similar collections on a smaller scale were the complex Kunstschränke produced in the early seventeenth century by the Augsburg merchant, diplomat and collector Philipp Hainhofer. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, the curio cabinet, as a modern single piece of furniture, is a version of the grander historical examples. In 1714, Michael Bernhard Valentini published an early work, Museum Museorum
10.
Conrad Gessner
–
Conrad Gessner was a Swiss naturalist and bibliographer. He was well known as a botanist, physician and classical linguist and his five-volume Historia animalium is considered the beginning of modern zoology, and the flowering plant genus Gesneria and its family Gesneriaceae are named after him. A genus of moths is also named Gesneria after him and he is denoted by the author abbreviation Gesner when citing a botanical name. Gessner was born on March 26,1516 in Zürich, Switzerland, he was the son of Ursus Gessner, Gessners father realized he was clever, and sent him to live with a great uncle, who grew and collected medicinal herbs for a living. Here the boy became familiar with many plants and their medicinal purposes which led to a lifelong interest in natural history, Gessner first attended the Carolinum in Zürich, then he entered the Fraumünster seminary. In school, he impressed his teachers so much that a few of them helped him so he could further his education at universities such as Strassburg. One even acted as a father to him after the death of his father at the Battle of Kappel. After the death of his father he left Zürich and traveled to Strasbourg, here he broadened his knowledge of ancient languages by studying Hebrew at the Strasbourg Academy. In 1535, religious unrest drove him back to Zürich, where he made an imprudent marriage and his friends again came to his aid and enabled him to study at Basel. Throughout his life Gessner was interested in history, and collected specimens and descriptions of wildlife through travel and extensive correspondence with other friends. His approach to research consisted of four components, observation, dissection, travel to distant lands. This rising observational approach was new to Renaissance scholars because people usually relied completely upon Classical writers for their research and he died of the plague, the year after his ennoblement on December 13,1565. In 1537 his sponsors obtained for him the professorship of Greek at the newly founded academy of Lausanne, here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially botany. After three years of teaching, Gessner was able to travel to the medical university of Montpellier. He then settled down to practice medicine in Zürich, where he obtained the post of lecturer of Aristotelean physics at the Carolinum, the precursor of the University of Zürich. After 1554 he became the city physician and it is there, apart from a few journeys to foreign countries and he devoted himself to preparing works on many subjects of different sorts. Gesners great zoological work, Historiae animalium, is a 4, a fifth folio on snakes was issued in 1587. A German translation of the first 4 volumes titled Thierbuch was published in Zürich in 1563 and this book was considered to be the first modern zoological work
11.
National Museum of Natural History (France)
–
The main museum is located in Paris, France, on the left bank of the River Seine. It was founded in 1793 during the French Revolution, but was established earlier in 1635, the museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution. Its origins lie, however, in the Jardin royal des plantes médicinales created by King Louis XIII in 1635, the royal institution remarkably survived the French Revolution by being reorganized in 1793 as a republican Muséum national dHistoire naturelle with twelve professorships of equal rank. Some of its early professors included eminent comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier and evolutionary pioneers Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, the museums aims were to instruct the public, put together collections and conduct scientific research. It continued to flourish during the 19th century, and, particularly under the direction of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, for example, during the period that Henri Becquerel held the chair for Applied Physics at the Muséum he discovered the radiation properties of uranium. A decree of 12 December 1891 ended this phase, returning the museum to an emphasis on natural history, after receiving financial autonomy in 1907, it began a new phase of growth, opening facilities throughout France during the interwar years. In recent decades, it has directed its research and education efforts at the effects on the environment of human exploitation, in French public administration, the Muséum is classed as a grand établissement of higher education. In the 19th century Argentine naturalist Francisco Javier Muñiz developed a collection that he intended to be used to create a history museum. The artifacts were sent to Juan Manuel de Rosas, the dictator of the Argentine Federation, Rosas, in an attempt to build alliances overseas, sent collected fossils to Jean Henri Dupotet, Rear Admiral of the French Navy. Dupotet then sent them to Paris, in France, the Muñiz collection ended up in the National Museum of Natural History where they were studied by Paul Gervais. When Fusée Aublet died at Paris in 1778, he left his herbarium to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and it was eventually acquired by the Muséum national dHistoire naturelle in 1953. The museum has as its mission both research and public diffusion of knowledge and it is organized into seven research and three diffusion departments. The museum comprises fourteen sites throughout France with four in Paris, the museums Menagerie is also located here. The herbarium of the museum, referred to by code P, the designation at CITES is FR 75A. It publishes the botanical periodical Adansonia and journals on the flora of New Caledonia, Madagascar and Comoro Islands, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Cameroon, the Musée de lHomme is also in Paris, in the 16th arrondissement. It houses displays in ethnography and physical anthropology, including artifacts, fossils, the transformation of the Jardin from the medicinal garden of the King to a national public museum of natural history required the creation of twelve chaired positions. Over the ensuing years the number of Chairs and their subject areas evolved, the list of Chairs of the Muséum national dhistoire naturelle includes major figures in the history of the Natural sciences. Early chaired positions were held by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, René Desfontaines and Georges Cuvier, the Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy and other parts of Jardin des Plantes was a source of inspiration for French graphic novelist Jacques Tardi
12.
Paris
–
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
13.
Ashmolean Museum
–
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the worlds first university museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677, the museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment. In November 2011, new galleries focusing on Egypt and Nubia were also unveiled, in May 2016, the museum opened new galleries of 19th century Art. The museum opened on 24 May 1683, with naturalist Robert Plot as the first keeper, the first building, which became known as the Old Ashmolean, is sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren or Thomas Wood. After the various specimens had been moved into new museums, the Old Ashmolean building on Broad Street was used as space for the Oxford English Dictionary. The present building dates from 1841–45 and it was designed by Charles Cockerell in a classical style and stands on Beaumont Street. One wing of the building is occupied by the Taylor Institution and this wing of the building dates from 1845–48 and was also designed by Charles Cockerell, using the Ionic order of Greek architecture. The main museum contains collections of archaeological specimens and fine art. It has one of the best collections of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, majolica pottery, the archaeology department includes the bequest of Arthur Evans and so has an excellent collection of Greek and Minoan pottery. The department also has a collection of antiquities from Ancient Egypt and the Sudan. Charles Buller Heberden left £1,000 to the University, which was used for the Coin Room at the museum, in 2012, the Ashmolean was awarded a grant of $1. 1m by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish the University Engagement Programme or UEP. The programme employs three Teaching Curators and a Programme Director to develop the use of the Museums collections in the teaching, the interior of the Ashmolean has been extensively modernised in recent years and now includes a restaurant and large gift shop. In 2000, the Chinese Picture Gallery, designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects, the gallery was inserted into a lightwell in the Grade 1 listed building, and was designed to support future construction from its roof. Apart from the original Cockerell spaces, this gallery was the part of the museum retained in the rebuilding. It houses the Ashmolean’s own collection, but is used from time to time for the display of loan exhibitions. It is the museum gallery in Britain devoted to Chinese paintings. Between 2006 and 2009, the museum was expanded to the designs of architect Rick Mather, the $98.2 million rebuilding resulted in five floors instead of three, with a doubling of the display space, as well as new conservation studios and an education centre. The renovated museum re-opened on 7 November 2009, on 26 November 2011, the Ashmolean opened to the public the new galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia
14.
Natural history
–
Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
15.
Classical antiquity
–
It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
16.
Aristotle
–
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
17.
History of Animals
–
History of Animals is one of the major texts on biology by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who had studied at Platos Academy in Athens. It was written in the fourth century BC, Aristotle died in 322 BC, generally seen as a pioneering work of zoology, Aristotle frames his text by explaining that he is investigating the what prior to establishing the why. The book is thus an attempt to apply philosophy to part of the natural world, throughout the work, Aristotle seeks to identify differences, both between individuals and between groups. A group is established when it is seen all members have the same set of distinguishing features, for example, that all birds have feathers, wings. This relationship between the birds and their features is recognized as a universal, some of these were long considered fanciful before being rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Aristotle has been accused of making errors, but some are due to misinterpretation of his text and he did however make somewhat uncritical use of evidence from other people, such as travellers and beekeepers. The History of Animals had a influence on zoology for some two thousand years. It continued to be a source of knowledge until in the sixteenth century zoologists including Conrad Gessner, all influenced by Aristotle. Aristotle studied at Platos Academy in Athens, remaining there for some 17 years and this study made him the earliest natural historian whose written work survives. No similarly detailed work on zoology was attempted until the sixteenth century and his writings on zoology form about a quarter of his surviving work. Aristotles pupil Theophrastus later wrote a book on botany, Enquiry into Plants. In the History of Animals, Aristotle sets out to investigate the existing facts, the book is thus a defence of his method of investigating zoology. Aristotle investigates four types of differences between animals, differences in body parts, differences in ways of life and types of activity. On the other hand, some animals that have red blood have lungs, here one can rightly conclude that if something has lungs, it has red blood, but Aristotle is careful not to imply that all red-blooded animals have lungs, so the reasoning here is not bidirectional. Book I The grouping of animals and the parts of the human body. Aristotle describes the parts that the body is made of, such as the skull, brain, face, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, thorax, belly, heart, viscera, genitalia. Book II The different parts of red-blooded animals, Book III The internal organs, including generative system, veins, sinews, bone etc. He moves on to the blood, bone marrow, milk including rennet and cheese, Book IV Animals without blood – cephalopods, crustaceans, etc
18.
Theophrastus
–
Theophrastus, a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at an age and initially studied in Platos school. After Platos death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus his writings, when Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as at the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants, after his death, the Athenians honoured him with a public funeral. His successor as head of the school was Strato of Lampsacus, the interests of Theophrastus were wide ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on Renaissance science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sensation, On Stones, in philosophy, he studied grammar and language and continued Aristotles work on logic. He also regarded space as the arrangement and position of bodies, time as an accident of motion. In ethics, he regarded happiness as depending on external influences as well as on virtue and he was a native of Eresos in Lesbos. His given name was Tyrtamus, but he became known by the nickname Theophrastus, given to him, it is said. After receiving instruction in philosophy in Lesbos from one Alcippus, he moved to Athens and he became friends with Aristotle, and when Plato died Theophrastus may have joined Aristotle in his self-imposed exile from Athens. When Aristotle moved to Mytilene on Lesbos in 345/4, it is likely that he did so at the urging of Theophrastus. It seems that it was on Lesbos that Aristotle and Theophrastus began their research into science, with Aristotle studying animals. Theophrastus probably accompanied Aristotle to Macedonia when Aristotle was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 343/2, around 335 BC, Theophrastus moved with Aristotle to Athens where Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum. Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, including Nicomachus with whom he was close, Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum. Eudemus of Rhodes also had claims to this position. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for years, and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes
19.
Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus)
–
Theophrastus looks at plant structure, reproduction and growth, the varieties of plant around the world, wood, wild and cultivated plants, and their uses. Book 9 in particular, on the uses of plants, is one of the first herbals, describing juices, gums and resins extracted from plants. Historia Plantarum was written some time between c.350 BC and c.287 BC in ten volumes, of which nine survive. In the book, Theophrastus described plants by their uses, and attempted a biological classification based on how plants reproduced and he continually revised the manuscript, and it remained in an unfinished state on his death. Historia Plantarum was first translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza, the translation was published in 1483, Johannes Bodaeus published a frequently cited folio edition in Amsterdam in 1644, complete with commentaries and woodcut illustrations. The first English translation was made by Sir Arthur Hort and published in 1916, the Enquiry into Plants is in Horts parallel text a book of some 400 pages of original Greek, consisting of about 100,000 words. It was originally organised into ten books, of which nine survive, though it is possible the text represents all the material. Along with his other surviving work, On the Causes of Plants. On the strength of these books, the first scientific inquiries into plants and one of the first systems of plant classification, Linnaeus called Theophrastus the father of botany. However, he went beyond Aristotle in describing seeds as parts of the plant, Aristotle, French argues, Theophrastus made use of a variety of sources for the book, including Diocles on drugs and medicinal plants. Theophrastus claims to have gathered information from drug-sellers and root-cutters, Plants described include poppy, hemlock, wild lettuce, and mandrake. The surviving texts are the notes that Theophrastus used in teaching and he referred to earlier books in the Lyceum library including Democritus, sometimes preserving fragments of books otherwise lost. He mentions about 500 species of plant, the Enquiry into Plants was first translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza by 1454, circulated in manuscript, and then published at Treviso in 1483. In its original Greek it first appeared from the press of Aldus Manutius at Venice, 1495–98, wimmer identified two manuscripts of first quality, the Codex Urbinas in the Vatican Library, which was not made known to Johann Gottlob Schneider, who with H. F. Link made the first modern edition, Leipzig 1818–1821. A good and often-cited edition is that of Johannes Bodaeus, published in Amsterdam in 1644 and this folio edition has the Greek and Latin texts printed in parallel, along with commentaries on the text by Julius Caesar Scaliger and Robert Constantine, and woodcut illustrations of plants. Sir William Thiselton-Dyer described the commentary as botanically monumental and fundamental, the first translation into English, with an introduction and parallel Greek and English texts, was made by Sir Arthur Hort. Enquiry into Plants classifies plants according to how they reproduce, their localities, their sizes, and their practical uses including as foods, juices, and herbs
20.
Claudius Aelianus
–
Claudius Aelianus, commonly Aelian, born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called honey-tongued, Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors and he is more attentive to marine life than might be expected, though, and this seems to reflect first-hand personal interest, he often quotes fishermen. At times he strikes the modern reader as thoroughly credulous, but at others he states that he is merely reporting what is told by others. Aelians work is one of the sources of natural history. The portions of the text that are extant are badly mangled and garbled. Conrad Gessner, the Swiss scientist and natural historian of the Renaissance, made a Latin translation of Aelians work, an English translation by A. F. Scholfield has been published in the Loeb Classical Library,3 vols. The first printing was in 1545, the standard modern text is Mervin R. Diltss, of 1974. Considerable fragments of two works, On Providence and Divine Manifestations, are preserved in the early medieval encyclopedia. Twenty letters from a farmer after the manner of Alciphron are also attributed to him, thus conclusions about actual agriculture in the Letters are as likely to evoke Latium as Attica. The fragments have been edited in 1998 by D. Domingo-Foraste, the Letters are available in the Loeb Classical Library, translated by Allen Rogers Benner and Francis H. Fobes. Historiae animalium by Gessner Aelian, On Animals, ISBN 978-0-674-99491-1, ISBN 978-0-674-99493-5, and ISBN 978-0-674-99494-2 Aelian, Historical Miscellany. ISBN 978-0-674-99535-2 Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus, The Letters, translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. ISBN 978-0-674-99421-8 Aelian, On the Nature of Animals
21.
Pliny the Elder
–
In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
22.
Natural History (Pliny)
–
The Natural History is an early encyclopedia in Latin by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the works subject area is thus not limited to what is today understood by natural history, Pliny himself defines his scope as the natural world, or life. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into ten volumes, the Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Plinys close friend and it is the only work by Pliny to have survived and the last that he published. He began it in 77, and had not made a revision at the time of his death during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. Plinys Natural History was written alongside other substantial works, Pliny combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother, Hail to thee, Nature. And do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, the Natural History is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia. However, it does have structure, Pliny uses Aristotles division of nature to recreate the world in literary form. The work is unified but varied, My subject is the world of nature, or in other words, life, he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy which underlies much of his thought. But the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race, nature, that is life is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race and this teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History. The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value, the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, painting and jewellery. Plinys premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the sentiment of his time. Pliny repeated Aristotles maxim that Africa was always producing something new, natures variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite, When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible. This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on the edges of the world and these monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae, whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi, who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – shaped like an umbrella pine, according to his nephew – rising from the mountain
23.
Pedanius Dioscorides
–
He was employed as a medic in the Roman army. The name Pedanius is Roman, suggesting that an aristocrat of that name sponsored him to become a Roman citizen, in the medieval period, De Materia Medica was circulated in Greek, as well as Latin and Arabic translation. While being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, it was supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic. A number of illustrated manuscripts of De Materia Medica survive, the most famous of these is the lavishly illustrated Vienna Dioscurides, produced in Constantinople in 512/513 AD. Densely illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, De Materia Medica is the prime historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian and Thracian names for some plants, the Dioscorea genus of plants, which includes the yam, was named after him by Linnaeus. De Materia Medica, Being an Herbal with many other materials, Englished by Tess Anne Osbaldeston, year 2000. De Materia Medica, translated by Lily Y. Beck, Englished by John Goodyer A. D.1655, edited by R. T. De Materia medica, libri V Eiusdem de Venenis Libri duo, interprete Iano Antonio Saraceno Lugdunaeo, Medico, translated by Janus Antonius Saracenus. In Voltaires Candide, the characters injuries received at the hands of the Bulgarian army. Pedanius Dioscorides in, Health and Well Being, A Medieval Guide, hamilton, J. S. Scribonius Largus on the medical profession. Bulletin of the history of medicine, lazris, J. Stavros, V. Limage paradigmatique, des Schémas anatomiques dAristote au De materia medica de Dioscoride. Riddle, John M. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine, the Arabic materia medica of Dioscorides. Québec, Canada, Les Éditions du sphinx, the Preface of Dioscorides Materia Medica, introduction, translation, and commentary. Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Dioscurides Neapolitanus, Codex ex Vindobonensis Graecus 1. Medic, Catalogue des textes en ligne, Dioscoride/Dioscodirides, Pedanius, bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine et dodontologie, Université Paris Descartes. Diosc. de la materie medicinale, Lyon, French edition
24.
De Materia Medica
–
De Materia Medica is a pharmacopoeia of herbs and the medicines that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work describes many drugs known to be effective, including aconite, aloes, colocynth, colchicum, henbane, opium, in all, about 600 plants are covered, along with some animals and mineral substances, and around 1000 medicines made from them. The work was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted by revised herbals in the Renaissance, De Materia Medica was circulated as illustrated manuscripts, copied by hand, in Greek, Latin and Arabic throughout the mediaeval period. From the sixteenth century on, Dioscorides text was translated into Italian, German, Spanish, and French, and in 1655 into English. It formed the basis for herbals in these languages by men such as Leonhart Fuchs, Valerius Cordus, Lobelius, Rembert Dodoens, Carolus Clusius, John Gerard, gradually such herbals included more and more direct observations, supplementing and eventually supplanting the classical text. Sir Arthur Hill saw a monk on Mount Athos still using a copy of Dioscorides to identify plants in 1934. Between 50 and 70 AD, Dioscorides wrote a book in his native Greek, Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς Peri hules iatrikēs. It became the reference work on pharmacology across Europe and the Middle East for over 1500 years. In contrast to classical authors, De Materia Medica was not rediscovered in the Renaissance, because it never left circulation, indeed. In the medieval period, De Materia Medica was circulated in Latin, Greek, in the Renaissance from 1478 onwards, it was printed in Italian, German, Spanish, and French as well. In 1655, John Goodyer made an English translation from a printed version, while being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, the text was often supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic and Indian sources. Several illustrated manuscripts of De Materia Medica survive, densely illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries. De Materia Medica is the historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans. The work also records the Dacian names for plants, which otherwise would have been lost. The work presents about 600 plants in all, along with animals and mineral substances. This meant that people attempted to force a match between the plants they knew and those described by Dioscorides, leading to what could be catastrophic results. After this brief description, he moves at once into pharmacology, saying that they sleep, other uses are to treat inflammation and erysipela
25.
Renaissance
–
The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
26.
Gaspard Bauhin
–
He was a disciple of the famous Italian physician Girolamo Mercuriale and he also worked on human anatomical nomenclature. Linnaeus honored the Bauhin brothers Gaspard and Jean in the genus name Bauhinia, Jean and Gaspard were the sons of Jean Bauhin, a French physician who had to leave his native country on becoming a convert to Protestantism. Gaspard was born at Basel and studied medicine at Padua, Montpellier, returning to Basel in 1580, he was admitted to the degree of doctor, and gave private lectures in botany and anatomy. In 1582 he was appointed to the Greek professorship in the University of Basel and he was later made city physician, professor of the practice of medicine, rector of the university, and dean of his faculty. The Pinax theatri botanici is a landmark of history, describing some 6,000 species. He did correctly group grasses, legumes, and several others and his most important contribution is in the description of genera and species. He introduced many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. For species he carefully pruned the descriptions down to as few words as possible, in many cases a single word sufficed as description, however, the single-word description was still a description intended to be diagnostic, not an arbitrarily-chosen name. He also gave a copious catalogue of the growing in the environs of Basel, its flora. His principal work on anatomy was Theatrum Anatomicum infinitis locis auctum, 49–52 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Bauhin, Gaspard. Images from Theatrum anatomicum From The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library Caspari Bauhini, Proromos Theatri Botanici Digitized Copy on Archive. org
27.
Otto Brunfels
–
Otto Brunfels was a German theologian and botanist. Carl von Linné listed him among the Fathers of Botany, after studying theology and philosophy at the University of Mainz, Brunfels entered a Carthusian monastery in Mainz and later resettled to another Carthusian monastery at Königshofen near Strasbourg. In Strasbourg he got in contact with a learned lawyer Nikolaus Gerbel, Gerbel drew Brunfels attention to the healing powers of plants and thus gave the impetus to the further botanical investigations. After the conversion to the Protestantism, upon the insistence of the Dean of Frankfurt Johann Indagine, Brunfels became a minister at Steinau an der Straße and later, after that he served for eight years as the head of a Carmelite school in Strasbourg. In the list of most important heretics published by the order of the Emperor by the University of Leuven, in one of his works he defended Ulrich von Hutten against Erasmus of Rotterdam and published the manuscripts from the Jan Hus heritage. Brunfels Catalogi virorum illustrium 1527 is considered to be the first book on the history of evangelical Church, after his friend Ulrich von Hutten had died, Brunfels religious views brought him into a controversy with Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli. Later on he began to study medicine at the University of Basel, in 1532 Brunfels became a City physician in Bern, where he stayed till the end of his life. Besides of his numerous works, Brunfels published treatises on pedagogics, Arabic language, pharmaceutics, entomology. He is often called a father of botany, because, in his writings, he relied not so much on the ancient authors as on his own observations. In his Herbarum vivae eicones and Contrafayt Kräuterbuch, the German plants he found during his botanical studies are represented with woodcuts under their German vernacular names. However, Duane Isely attributes much of Brunfels popularity to Weiditz, whose woodcuts set a new standard technically, Brunfels also introduced information about German plants not found in Dioscorides, and described them independently of their medical values, although the descriptions are often poorly written. A plant genus Brunfelsia is named after him, othonis Brvnfelsii Pro Vlricho Hutteno defuncto ad Erasmi Roter. Spongiam Responsio Processus consistorialis Martyrii Io, catalogus illustrium medicorum seu de primis medicinae scriptoribus Iatron medicamentorum simplicium Contrafayt Kreüterbuch,2 Vols. Onomastikon medicinae, continens omnia nomina herbarum, fruticum etc. wie, gülfferich, Frankfurt am Main Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm. One hundred and one botanists, pp. 17–19 Jahn, I
28.
Hieronymus Bock
–
The details of his life are unclear. In 1519 he inscribed at the university of Heidelberg and he married Eva Victor in 1523, and was schoolteacher in Zweibrücken for nine years. The first edition of his Kreutterbuch appeared in 1539 unillustrated, his objectives were to describe German plants, including their names, characteristics. Instead of following Dioscorides as was traditional, he developed his own system to classify 700 plants, Bock apparently traveled widely through the German region observing the plants for himself, since he includes ecological and distributional observations. His 1546 Kreutterbuch or herbal was illustrated by the artist David Kandel, in the wine world, Bock is noted for having the first documented use of the modern word Riesling in 1552 when it was mentioned in his Latin herbal. Bocks description of oak apples is noted in the data base. The grass genus Tragus and spurge genus Tragia are both named after him, new Kreuterbuch von Underscheidt, Würckung und Namen der Kreuter, so in teutschen Landen wachsen. - Heidelberg, Berlin - Spektrum Akademischer Verlag 1, 1-497, fig. Hieronymus Bock info from the Hauck Botanical online exhibit Digital copy of Bocks Kreutterbuch on dLib. si Bock, Jerome. Digital images from Bocks Kreutterbuch at the Smithsonian Kräuterbuch 1551
29.
Andrea Cesalpino
–
Andrea Cesalpino was an Italian physician, philosopher and botanist. In his works he classified plants according to their fruits and seeds, in 1555, he succeeded Luca Ghini as director of the botanical garden in Pisa. The botanist Pietro Castelli was one of his students, Cesalpino also did limited work in the field of physiology. He theorized a circulation of the blood, Cesalpino was born in Arezzo, Tuscany. For his studies at the University of Pisa his instructor in medicine was R. Colombo, after completing his course he taught philosophy, medicine, and botany for many years at the same university, besides making botanical explorations in various parts of Italy. At this time the first botanical gardens in Europe were laid out, the earliest at Padua, in 1546, the next at Pisa in 1547 by Ghini, Ghini was succeeded by Cesalpino, who had charge of the Pisan garden 1554–1558. When far advanced in years Cesalpino accepted a call to Rome as professor of medicine at University of Rome La Sapienza and physician to Pope Clement VIII. It is not positively certain whether he became the chief superintendent of the Roman botanical garden which had been laid out about 1566 by one of his most celebrated pupils. All of Cesalpinos writings show the man of genius and the profound thinker and his style, it is true, is often heavy, yet in spite of the scholastic form in which his works are cast, passages of great beauty often occur. No comprehensive summing up of the results of Cesalpinos investigations, founded on a study of all his works has appeared. Seven of these are known, and most of the seven have been printed several times. In the following list the date of publication given is that of the first edition and his most important philosophical work is Quaestionum peripateticarum libri V. Cesalpino proves himself in this to be one of the most eminent and original students of Aristotle in the 16th century. A Protestant opponent of Aristotelean views, Nicolaus Taurellus wrote several times against Cesalpino, the work of Taurellus entitled Alpes cæsae, etc. is entirely devoted to combating the opinions of Cesalpino, as the play on the name Cæsalpinus shows. Nearly one hundred years later Cesalpinos views were attacked by Samuel Parker. In Italy he was in high favour both with the secular and spiritual rulers, Cesalpinos physiological investigations concerning the circulation of the blood are well known, but even up to the present time they have been as often overestimated as undervalued. Besides the work Quæstionum peripateticarum already mentioned, reference should be made to Quaestionum medicarum libri duo and his most important publication was De plantis libri XVI. The date of its publication,1583, is one of the most important in the history of botany before Carl Linnaeus, the work is dedicated to the Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici. Unlike the herbals of that period, it contains no illustrations, the first section, including thirty pages of the work, is the part of most importance for botany in general
30.
Valerius Cordus
–
Valerius Cordus was a German physician and botanist who authored one of the greatest pharmacopoeias and one of the most celebrated herbals in history. He is also credited with developing a method for synthesizing ether. Cordus wrote prolifically, and identified and described several new plant species and varieties, the plant genus Cordia is named for him. In 1515, Valerius Cordus was born either in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia and his father, Euricius Cordus, was an educated physician and an ardent Lutheran convert. Valerius began his education in 1527, at the young age of 12, studying botany. In the same year he enrolled at the University of Marburg. He completed his bachelors degree in 1531, whereupon he furthered his studies by enrolling in the University of Leipzig, in 1539 he relocated to Wittenberg in order to lecture and study medicine at the University of Wittenberg. His lectures proved popular, and Cordus lecture notes were published posthumously in 1549 as Annotations on Dioscorides, among the research outlined in the lectures were the results of his own systematic observations of many of the same plants described by Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century CE. Direct observation of specimens was one of Cordus strengths. In 1540 Cordus discovered and described a technique for synthesizing ether. In 1542 he began travelling back and forth between Germany and Italy for his research and studies, and also presented his great pharmacopoeia, Dispensatorium, the council presented him with 100 gold guilders following the presentation, and published the work posthumously as a single volume in 1546. Later that same year, Cordus, his friend Hieronymus Schreiber, Cordus ventured into a marsh in search of novel plants. Soon after, he exhibited the symptoms of malaria, Schreiber and party brought the feverish Cordus to Rome before embarking on a trip to Naples. Cordus, aged 29, died in their absence, when the band returned, they scarcely managed to prevent the body of Cordus, a Protestant, from being thrown into the Tiber River. He was interred at Santa Maria dellAnima, the German Catholic church in central Rome, throughout his short life, Cordus travelled extensively, visited many universities, and was widely acclaimed by his colleagues and other associates. He was an impressive linguist, and also spoke eloquently on philosophy, as a botanist, he observed with a breadth and depth that surpassed most of his contemporaries, as a scientist, his methodology was systematic and thorough. After the death of Cordus, Conrad Gessner published a considerable amount of Cordus remaining unpublished work, including De Extractione, version 4.15, Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut,2010 Media related to Valerius Cordus at Wikimedia Commons
31.
Leonhart Fuchs
–
Leonhart Fuchs, sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs, was a German physician and botanist. His chief notability is as the author of a book about plants and their uses as medicines. It was first published in 1542 in Latin and it has about 500 accurate and detailed drawings of plants, which were printed from woodcuts. The drawings are the books most notable advance on its predecessors, although drawings were in use beforehand in other Herbal books, Fuchs Herbal book proved and emphasized high-quality drawings as the most telling way to specify what a plant name stands for. The botanical genus Fuchsia is named in his honour, and consequently the colour fuchsia, Fuchs was born in 1501 in Wemding in the Duchy of Bavaria. After attending a school in Heilbronn, Fuchs went to the Marienschule in Erfurt, Thuringia at the age of twelve, in 1524 he became Magister Artium in Ingolstadt, and received a doctor of medicine degree in the same year. From 1524-1526 he practiced as a doctor in Munich, until he received a chair of medicine at Ingolstadt in 1526, from 1528-1531 he was the personal physician of Georg, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach in Ansbach. Fuchs was called to Tübingen by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg in 1533 to help in reforming the University of Tübingen in the spirit of humanism. He created its first medicinal garden in 1535 and served as chancellor seven times, Fuchs died in Tübingen in 1566. Like his medieval predecessors and his contemporaries, Fuchs was heavily influenced by the three Greek and Roman writers on medicine and materia medica, Dioscorides, Hippocrates, and Galen. He wanted to fight the Arab hegemony in medicine, as it had been transmitted by the Medical School of Salerno, but he saw the importance of practical experience as well and offered botanical field days for the students, where he demonstrated the medicinal plants in situ. He founded one of the first German botanical gardens, Fuchs name is preserved by the plant Fuchsia, discovered in the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean in 1696/97 by the French scientist and Minim monk Charles Plumier. He published the first description of Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo in 1703 and it is sometimes thought that the color fuchsia is also named for Fuchs. The name of the color fuchsia actually derives from fuchsine, a trade name for the dye, rosaniline hydrochloride. Magenta is another competing trade name for the dye in England. An 1861 article in Répertoire de Pharmacie in fact confirms that the name was chosen for these two reasons and irrelevant of the actual colors of any flowers in the genus Fuchsia. Errata recentiorum medicorum, his first publication, in which he argued for the use of rather than the noxious compounds of arcane ingredients concocted in medieval medicine. Fuchs tried to identify the plants described by the classical authors, over a decade, Fuchs began to prepare for the publication of his herbal
32.
Historia animalium (Gessner)
–
Historia animalium, published at Zurich in 1551–58 and 1587, is an encyclopedic inventory of renaissance zoology by Conrad Gessner. Gessner was a doctor and professor at the Carolinum in Zürich. The Historia animalium is the first modern work that attempts to describe all the animals known. The five volumes of history of animals cover more than 4500 pages. There was extreme religious tension at the time Historia animalium came out, the Historia animalium was Gessners magnum opus, and was the most widely read of all the Renaissance natural histories. The work was so popular that Gessners abridgement, Thierbuch, was published in Zurich in 1563, and in England Edward Topsell translated and condensed it as a Historie of foure-footed beastes. Gessner’s monumental work attempts to build a connection between the ancient knowledge of the world, its title the same as Aristotles work on animals. He then adds his own observations, and those of his correspondents, gessner’s Historia animalium is based on classical sources. It is compiled from ancient and medieval texts, including the knowledge of ancient naturalists like Aristotle, Pliny the Elder. Gessner was known as the Swiss Pliny, for information he relied heavily on the Physiologus. The work included extensive information on mammals, birds, fish and it described in detail their daily habits and movements. It also included their uses in medicine and nutrition, Historia animalium showed the animals places in history, literature and art. Sections of each chapter detailed the animal and its attributes, in the tradition of the emblem book, Gessners work included facts in different languages such as the names of the animals. Volume 1 is on live-bearing four-footed animals, volume 2 is on egg-laying quadrupeds. Volume 4 is on fish and aquatic animals, volume 5 is on snakes and scorpions. The colored woodcut illustrations were the first real attempts to represent animals in their natural environment and it is the first book to illustrate fossils. Gessner acknowledges one of his main illustrators was Lucas Schan, an artist from Strasbourg and he likely used other illustrators as well as himself, the book is however famous for copying illustrations from other sources, including Durers Rhinoceros from a well-known woodcut. Gessners natural history was unusual for sixteenth century readers in providing illustrations, wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750
33.
Frederik Ruysch
–
Frederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, remembered for his developments in anatomical preservation and the creation of dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts. Ruysch came to recognition with his proof of valves in the system, the Vomeronasal organ in snakes. He was also the first to describe the disease that is known as Hirschprung disease. Frederik Ruysch was born in The Hague as the son of a government functionary, fascinated by anatomy he studied at the university in Leiden, under Franciscus Sylvius. His co-students were Jan Swammerdam, Reinier de Graaf and Niels Stensen, corpses to dissect were rather scarce and expensive, and Ruysch became involved to find a way to prepare the organs. In 1661 he married the daughter of a Dutch architect, named Pieter Post and he graduated in 1664 on pleuritis. Ruysch became praelector of the Amsterdam surgeons guild in 1667, in 1668 he was made the chief instructor to the citys midwives. They were no longer allowed to practice their profession until they were examined by Ruysch, in 1679 he was appointed as a forensic advisor to the Amsterdam courts and in 1685 as a professor in botany in the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, where he worked with Jan and Caspar Commelin. Ruysch specialized on the indigenous plants, Ruysch researched many areas of human anatomy, and physiology, using spirits of Zeus and Poseidon to preserve organs, and assembled one of Europes most famous anatomical collections. His chief skill was the preparation and preservation of specimens in a secret liquor balsamicum and is believed to be one of the first to use arterial embalming to this effect. In her early years, his daughter Rachel Ruysch, a painter of still lifes, had helped him to decorate the collection with flowers, fishes, seashells and the delicate body parts with lace. In 1697 Peter the Great and Nicolaes Witsen visited Ruysch who had all the specimens exposed in five rooms and he told Peter, who had a keen interest in science, how to catch butterflies and how to preserve them. They also had a common interest in lizards, together they went to see patients. Ruysch refused to help when everything had to be packed and labelled and it took Albert Seba more than a month. The 100 colli were not sent immediately, but because of the Great Nordic War in the year after, the collection was intact, and the rumours about the sailors that drunk the alcohol, are untrue. Ruysch immediately began anew in his house on Bloemgracht, in the Jordaan, after his death this collection was sold to August the Strong. While some of his preserved collections remain, none of his scenes have survived and they are only known through a number of engravings, notably those by Cornelius Huyberts. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1715 and he was painted by his son-in-law Jurriaen Pool
34.
William Turner (naturalist)
–
William Turner MA was an English divine and reformer, a physician and a natural historian. He studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist and he was an early herbalist and ornithologist, and it is in these fields that the most interest lies today. Turner was born in Morpeth, Northumberland in or around 1508 and his father was probably a tanner of the same name. He studied at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge University from 1526 to 1533 and he was a Fellow and Senior Treasurer of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he published works, including Libellus de re herbaria. He spent much of his leisure in the study of plants which he sought for in their native habitat. In 1540, he began traveling about preaching until he was arrested, after his release, he went on to study medicine in Italy, at Ferrara and Bologna, from 1540 to 1542 and was incorporated M. D. at one of these universities. He married Jane Auder, perhaps a widow of a Mr Cage when they married and they were married by 1542 when is the year his son Dr Peter Wells was born. After completing his degree, he became physician to the Earl of Emden. Back in England he became Chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset, the position as Somersets physician also led to practice among upper society. He was prebendary of Botevant in York Cathedral in 1550, and Dean of Wells Cathedral from 1551 to 1553, when Mary I of England acceded to the throne, Turner went into exile once again. From 1553 to 1558, he lived in Weißenburg and supported himself as a physician and he became a Calvinist at this time, if not before. After the succession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, Turner returned to England and his attempts to bring the English church into agreement with the reformed churches of Germany and Switzerland led to his suspension for nonconformity in 1564. Turner died in London on 7 July 1568 at his home in Crutched Friars, in the City of London, an engraved stone on the south-east wall of this church commemorates Turner. Thomas Lever, one of the great preachers of the period. Quite early in his career, Turner became interested in history and set out to produce reliable lists of English plants and animals. This is the first printed book devoted entirely to birds, in 1545, Turner published The Rescuynge of the Romishe Fox, and in 1548, The Names of Herbes. In 1551, he published the first of three parts of his famous Herbal, on which his fame rests
35.
John Gerard
–
John Gerard, also spelt John Gerarde, was a botanist and herbalist. He maintained a large garden in London. His chief notability is as the author of a large illustrated Herball, first published in 1597, it was the most widely circulated botany book in English in the 17th century. Two decades after Gerards death, his Herball was corrected and expanded to about 1700 pages, the botanical genus Gerardia is named in Gerards honour. Gerard was born at Nantwich, Cheshire, towards the end of 1545, receiving his early and only schooling at nearby Willaston, nothing is known of his parentage, but the coat of arms on his Herball implies he was a member of the Gerards of Ince. Around the age of 17, in 1562 he became an Apprentice to Alexander Mason, Mason had a large surgical practice and had twice held the rank of Warden in the company, and later became Master. Gerard did well there, and after seven years was admitted to the freedom of the company on 9 December 1569, although he claimed to have learned much about plants from travelling to other parts of the world, his actual travels appear to have been limited. He married Anne, who died in 1620, and by her had five children, of only one, Elizabeth. He spent his adult life in Holborn, London, close to Barnards Inn. It is thought that he resided in a tenement with garden belonging to Lord Burghley, after his death in February 1612 he was buried at St Andrews, Holborn on February 18, but the grave is unmarked. Gerard had a career with the Barber–Surgeons Company. In the Annals of the company, published in 1890, a biography of Gerard appears under a list of Eminent Members. While he was studying he developed the tenement garden in Holborn, that he refers to frequently in his work and this became popular, and he received gifts of seeds and plants from around the world. He also received offers to supervise the gardens of noblemen, in 1577, he began work as superintendant at the gardens of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley at the Strand and Theobalds, Hertfordshire, a position he continued in for more than 20 years. In 1586, the College of Physicians established a garden with Gerard as curator. Amongst his qualifications he wrote by reason of his travaile into farre countries his great practise, there is no evidence for this claim and nothing seems to have come of his application. In 1596 he requested that the Barber–Surgeons Company establish a physic garden in East Smithfield and it was reported that Queen Elizabeth held his achievements in high regard. According to Anna Pavord, Gerard was a doer, not a thinker, deborah Harkness notes that Gerard was not part of the community of Lime Street naturalists in London at the time
36.
Age of Enlightenment
–
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private
37.
Robert Hooke
–
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. Allan Chapman has characterised him as Englands Leonardo, Robert Gunthers Early Science in Oxford, a history of science in Oxford during the Protectorate, Restoration and Age of Enlightenment, devotes five of its fourteen volumes to Hooke. Hooke studied at Wadham College, Oxford during the Protectorate where he became one of a tightly knit group of ardent Royalists led by John Wilkins. Here he was employed as an assistant to Thomas Willis and to Robert Boyle and he built some of the earliest Gregorian telescopes and observed the rotations of Mars and Jupiter. In 1665 he inspired the use of microscopes for scientific exploration with his book, based on his microscopic observations of fossils, Hooke was an early proponent of biological evolution. Much of Hookes scientific work was conducted in his capacity as curator of experiments of the Royal Society, much of what is known of Hookes early life comes from an autobiography that he commenced in 1696 but never completed. Richard Waller mentions it in his introduction to The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, the work of Waller, along with John Wards Lives of the Gresham Professors and John Aubreys Brief Lives, form the major near-contemporaneous biographical accounts of Hooke. Robert Hooke was born in 1635 in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight to John Hooke, Robert was the last of four children, two boys and two girls, and there was an age difference of seven years between him and the next youngest. Their father John was a Church of England priest, the curate of Freshwaters Church of All Saints, Robert Hooke was expected to succeed in his education and join the Church. John Hooke also was in charge of a school, and so was able to teach Robert. He was a Royalist and almost certainly a member of a group who went to pay their respects to Charles I when he escaped to the Isle of Wight, Robert, too, grew up to be a staunch monarchist. As a youth, Robert Hooke was fascinated by observation, mechanical works and he dismantled a brass clock and built a wooden replica that, by all accounts, worked well enough, and he learned to draw, making his own materials from coal, chalk and ruddle. Hooke quickly mastered Latin and Greek, made study of Hebrew. Here, too, he embarked on his study of mechanics. It appears that Hooke was one of a group of students whom Busby educated in parallel to the work of the school. Contemporary accounts say he was not much seen in the school, in 1653, Hooke secured a choristers place at Christ Church, Oxford. He was employed as an assistant to Dr Thomas Willis. There he met the natural philosopher Robert Boyle, and gained employment as his assistant from about 1655 to 1662, constructing, operating and he did not take his Master of Arts until 1662 or 1663
38.
Micrographia
–
Micrographia, or Some Phyſiological Deſcriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. is a significant book by Robert Hooke about his observations through various lenses. It is particularly notable for being the first book to illustrate insects, plants etc. as seen through microscopes. Published in January 1665, the first major publication of the Royal Society, it became the first scientific best-seller and it is also notable for coining the biological term cell. Hooke most famously describes a flys eye and a plant cell, known for its spectacular copperplate engravings of the miniature world, particularly its fold-out plates of insects, the text itself reinforces the tremendous power of the new microscope. The plates of insects fold out to be larger than the large folio itself, Hooke also selected several objects of human origin, among these objects were the jagged edge of a honed razor and the point of a needle, seeming blunt under the microscope. His goal may well have been as a way to contrast the flawed products of mankind with the perfection of nature, gallery Published under the aegis of The Royal Society, the popularity of the book helped further the societys image and mission of being the UKs leading scientific organization. Micrographias illustrations of the miniature world captured the imagination in a radically new way. Similarly his specimens required a deal of manipulation and preparation in order to make them visible through the microscope. Additionally, Hooke often enclosed the objects he presented within a round frame, micrographia, or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. London, J. Martyn and J. Allestry,1665
39.
Marcello Malpighi
–
Marcello Malpighi was an Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the Father of microscopical anatomy, histology, physiology and embryology. The splenic lymphoid nodules are often called the Malpighian bodies of the spleen or Malpighian corpuscles, the botanical family Malpighiaceae is also named after him. He was the first person to see capillaries in animals, Malpighi was one of the earliest people to observe red blood cells under a microscope, after Jan Swammerdam. His treatise De polypo cordis was important for understanding blood composition, in it, Malpighi described how the form of a blood clot differed in the right against the left sides of the heart. The use of the microscope enabled Malpighi to discover that invertebrates do not use lungs to breathe, Malpighi also studied the anatomy of the brain and concluded this organ is a gland. In terms of modern endocrinology, this deduction is correct because the hypothalamus of the brain has long recognized for its hormone-secreting capacity. Because Malpighi had a knowledge of both plants and animals, he made contributions to the scientific study of both. The Royal Society of London published two volumes of his botanical and zoological works in 1675 and 1679, another edition followed in 1687, and a supplementary volume in 1697. In his autobiography, Malpighi speaks of his Anatome Plantarum, decorated with the engravings of Robert White and his study of plants led him to conclude that plants had tubules similar to those he saw in insects like the silk worm. Malpighi was born on 10 March 1628 at Crevalcore near Bologna, the son of well-to-do parents, Malpighi was educated in his native city, entering the University of Bologna at the age of 17. He completed these studies about 1649, where at the persuasion of his mother Frances Natalis, when his parents and grandmother became ill, he returned to his family home near Bologna to care for them. Malpighi studied Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Bologna while he was very young, despite opposition from the university authorities because he was non-Bolognese by birth, in 1653 he was granted doctorates in both medicine and philosophy. He later graduated as a doctor at the age of 25. Subsequently, he was appointed as a teacher, whereupon he immediately dedicated himself to study in anatomy. For most of his career, Malpighi combined an intense interest in research with a fond love of teaching. He was invited to correspond with the Royal Society in 1667 by Henry Oldenburg, in 1656, Ferdinand II of Tuscany invited him to the professorship of theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa. There Malpighi began his friendship with Giovanni Borelli, mathematician and naturalist. Malpighi questioned the prevailing medical teachings at Pisa, tried experiments on changes in blood, and attempted to recast anatomical, physiological
40.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
–
Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch businessman, scientist, and one of the notable representatives in the golden age of Dutch science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is known as the Father of Microbiology. Van Leeuwenhoek is best known for his work in the field of microscopy. Raised in Delft, in the Dutch Republic, Van Leeuwenhoek worked as a draper in his youth and he made a name for himself in municipal politics, and eventually developed an interest in lensmaking. Using his handcrafted microscopes, he was the first to observe and describe microorganisms, most of the animalcules are now referred to as unicellular organisms, though he observed multicellular organisms in pond water. He was also the first to document microscopic observations of muscle fibers, bacteria, spermatozoa, Van Leeuwenhoek did not write any books, his discoveries came to light through correspondence with the Royal Society, which published his letters. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Dutch Republic, on 24 October 1632, on 4 November, he was baptized as Thonis. His father, Philips Antonisz van Leeuwenhoek, was a maker who died when Antonie was only five years old. His mother, Margaretha, came from a well-to-do brewers family, and remarried Jacob Jansz Molijn, Antonie had four older sisters, Margriet, Geertruyt, Neeltje, and Catharina. When he was ten years old his step-father died. He attended school in Warmond for a time before being sent to live in Benthuizen with his uncle. At the age of 16 he became an apprentice at a linen-drapers shop in Amsterdam owned by the Scot William Davidson. Van Leeuwenhoek left after six years, Van Leeuwenhoek married Barbara de Mey in July 1654, with whom he would have one surviving daughter, Maria. That same year he returned to Delft, where he would live and he opened a drapers shop, which he ran throughout the 1650s. His wife died in 1666, and in 1671, Van Leeuwenhoek remarried to Cornelia Swalmius with whom he had no children and his status in Delft had grown throughout the years. In 1660 he received a job as chamberlain for the Delft sheriffs assembly chamber in the City Hall. Van Leeuwenhoek was a contemporary of another famous Delft citizen, the painter Johannes Vermeer and it has been suggested that he is the man portrayed in two of Vermeers paintings of the late 1660s, The Astronomer and The Geographer. However, others argue that there appears to be little physical similarity, while running his drapers shop, Van Leeuwenhoek wanted to see the quality of the thread better than the then-current magnifying lenses available allowed
41.
William Derham
–
William Derham FRS was an English clergyman, natural theologian and natural philosopher. He produced the earliest, reasonably accurate estimate of the speed of sound, William Derham was the son of Thomas Derham. He was born at Stoulton, in Worcestershire, England and he was educated at Blockley, Gloucestershire and at Trinity College, Oxford from 1675 to 1679. He was ordained on 29 May 1681, in 1682, he became vicar of Wargrave, Berkshire and from 1689 to 1735 he was Rector at Upminster, Essex. While at Upminster, in 1716 he became a Canon of Windsor, the parish registers of Upminster record his burial at St. Laurences in 1735. However, the site of his grave is unknown and, in accordance with his wishes. In 1696, he published his Artificial Clockmaker, which went through several editions, the best known of his subsequent works are Physico-Theology, published in 1713, Astro-Theology,1714, and Christo-Theology,1730. All three of these books are teleological arguments for the being and attributes of God, and were used by William Paley nearly a century later, however, these books also include quantities of original scientific observations. For example, Physico-Theology contains his recognition of natural variation within species and it also includes one of the earliest theoretical descriptions of a marine chronometer, accompanied by a discussion of the use of vacuum seals to reduce inaccuracies in the operation of timepieces. Similarly, Astro-Theology includes several newly identified nebulae and his 16-feet long telescope was at the top of the tower of St Laurences Church, where the necessary doors are still in place. On 3 February 1703, Derham was elected Fellow of the Royal Society and he was Boyle lecturer in 1711–1712. His last known work, entitled A Defence of the Churchs Right in Leasehold Estates, but besides the works published in his own name, Derham contributed a variety of papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society. He edited the correspondence and wrote a biography of John Ray, whose physico-theology tradition he continued and he edited Eleazar Albins Natural History, and published some of the manuscripts of the scientist Robert Hooke. His meteorological observations at Upminster are amongst the earliest series in England, in 1709 Derham published a more accurate measure of the speed of sound, at 1,072 Parisian feet per second. Measurements were made of gunshots from a number of local landmarks, the distance was known by triangulation, and thus the speed that the sound had travelled was calculated
42.
Hans Sloane
–
His name was later used for streets and places such as Hans Place, Hans Crescent and Sloane Square in London, and also to Sir Hans Sloane Square in his birthplace, Killyleagh. Sloane was born on 16 April 1660 at Killyleagh in County Down and he was the seventh son of Alexander Sloane, agent for James Hamilton, second Viscount Claneboye and later first Earl of Clanbrassil. Sloanes family had migrated from Ayrshire in Scotland, but settled in the north of Ireland under James I and his father died when he was six years old. As a youth, Sloane collected objects of natural history and other curiosities and this led him to the study of medicine, which he went to London, where he studied botany, materia medica, surgery and pharmacy. His collecting habits made him useful to John Ray and Robert Boyle, after four years in London he travelled through France, spending some time at Paris and Montpellier, and stayed long enough at the University of Orange-Nassau to take his MD degree there in 1683. He returned to London with a collection of plants and other curiosities, of which the former were sent to Ray. Sloane was elected to the Royal Society in 1685, at the same time attracted the notice of Thomas Sydenham, who gave him valuable introductions to practice. Jamaica was fast emerging as a source of profit to British merchants based on the cultivation of sugar. He became secretary to the Royal Society in 1693, and edited the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for twenty years, Sloane married Elizabeth Langley Rose, the widow of Fulke Rose of Jamaica, and daughter of alderman John Langley. They had three daughters, Mary, Sarah and Elizabeth, and one son, Hans, of the four children only Sarah and Elizabeth survived infancy. Sarah married George Stanley of Paultons and Elizabeth married Charles Cadogan, Sloane encountered cacao while he was in Jamaica, where the locals drank it mixed with water, though he is reported to have found it nauseating. Many recipes for mixing chocolate with spice, eggs, sugar, after returning from Jamaica, Sloane may have devised his own recipe for mixing chocolate with milk, though if so, he was not the first. By the 1750s, a Soho grocer named Nicholas Sanders claimed to be selling Sloanes recipe as a medicinal elixir, by the nineteenth century, the Cadbury Brothers sold tins of drinking chocolate whose trade cards also invoked Sloanes recipe. His practice as a physician among the classes was large, fashionable. He served three successive sovereigns, Queen Anne, George I and George II, in 1716, Sloane was created a baronet, making him the first medical practitioner to receive a hereditary title. In 1719 he became president of the Royal College of Physicians, in 1722, he was appointed physician-general to the army, and in 1727 first physician to George II. In 1727 he succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society and he was a founding governor of Londons Foundling Hospital, the nations first institution to care for abandoned children. Sloanes fame is based on his judicious investments rather than what he contributed to the subject of science or even of his own profession
43.
Jan Swammerdam
–
Jan Swammerdam was a Dutch biologist and microscopist. His work on insects demonstrated that the various phases during the life of an insect—egg, larva, pupa, as part of his anatomical research, he carried out experiments on muscle contraction. In 1658, he was the first to observe and describe red blood cells and he was one of the first people to use the microscope in dissections, and his techniques remained useful for hundreds of years. Swammerdam was baptized on 15 February 1637 in the Oude Kerk Amsterdam and his father was an apothecary, and an amateur collector of minerals, coins, fossils, and insects from around the world. His mother Baertje Jans Corvers died in 1661, the same year, when he was 24, Swammerdam entered the University of Leiden to study medicine. After qualifying as a candidate in medicine in 1663, he left for France, spending time in Issy, Saumur and Paris with Melchisédech Thévenot. He returned to Leiden in September 1665, and earned his M. D. on February 22,1667 Once he left university and this choice caused a rift between Swammerdam and his father, who thought his son should practice medicine. The relationship between the two deteriorated, Swammerdams father cut off his support for Swammerdams entomological studies. As a result, Swammerdam was forced, at least occasionally and he obtained leave at Amsterdam to dissect the bodies of those who died in the hospital. From 1667 through 1674, Swammerdam continued his research and published three books, in 1675, he came under the influence of the Flemish mystic, Antoinette Bourignon, renounced his work, and decided to devote the remainder of his life to spiritual matters. Niels Stensen, a gifted anatomist, and once his co-student, invited him to work for the Duke of Tuscany, the grand duke of Tuscany offered 12,000 florins for Swammerdams collection, on condition of Swammerdam coming to Florence to continue it. There is evidence, however, that Swammerdam did not completely give up his scientific studies, the papers, which he wished to be published posthumously, appear to have been revised during the last two years of his life. Swammerdam died at age 43 of malaria and was buried in the Église Wallonne, in 1737–1738, a half century after his death, Herman Boerhaave translated Swammerdams papers into Latin and published them under the title Biblia naturae. An English translation of his works by T. Floyd was published in 1758. His entomological collection was divided at his death and sold in small portions, as a naturalist of his time, he has been compared with Anton Leeuwenhoek. No authentic portrait of Jan Swammerdam is extant nowadays, the portrait shown in the header is derived from the painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp by Rembrandt and represents the leading Amsterdam physician Hartman Hartmanzoon. Knowledge of insects in the 17th century was to a great extent inherited from Aristotle, according to this classical paradigm, insects were so insignificant they werent worthy of the types of investigations done on fish, reptiles, and mammals. Much of Swammerdams entomological work was done to show that the difference between insects and the animals was one of degree, not kind
44.
Carl Linnaeus
–
Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
45.
Systema Naturae
–
Systema Naturae is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. The first edition was published in 1735, the tenth edition of this book is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In 1766–1768 Linnaeus published the much enhanced 12th edition, the last under his authorship, another again enhanced work in the same style and entitled Systema Naturae was published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin between 1788 and 1793. Since at least the early 1900s zoologists commonly recognized this as the last edition belonging to this series and it was also officially regarded by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature in Opinion 296 as the 13th edition of Systema Naturae. Linnaeus published the first edition of Systema Naturae in the year 1735, as was customary for the scientific literature of its day, the book was published in Latin. In it, he outlined his ideas for the classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom. Linnaeuss Systema Naturae lists only about 10,000 species of organisms, Linnaeus developed his classification of the plant kingdom in an attempt to describe and understand the natural world as a reflection of the logic of Gods creation. His sexual system, where species with the number of stamens were treated in the same group, was convenient. Linnaeus believed in Gods creation, and that there were no deeper relationships to be expressed and he is frequently quoted to have said. The classification of animals was more natural, for instance, humans were for the first time placed together with other primates, as Anthropomorpha. As a result of the popularity of the work, and the number of new specimens sent to him from around the world, Linnaeus kept publishing new and it grew from eleven very large pages in the first edition to 2,400 pages in the 12th edition. In this same edition, he introduced two-part names for animal species, the system eventually developed into modern Linnaean taxonomy, a hierarchically organized biological classification. After Linnaeus health declined in the early 1770s, publication of editions of Systema Naturae went in two directions, another Swedish scientist, Johan Andreas Murray issued the Regnum Vegetabile section separately in 1774 as the Systema Vegetabilium, rather confusingly labelled the 13th edition. Meanwhile, a 13th edition of the entire Systema appeared in parts between 1788-1793 and it was as the Systema Vegetabilium that Linnaeus work became widely known in England following translation from the Latin by the Lichfield Botanical Society, as A System of Vegetables. In his Imperium Naturæ, Linnaeus established three kingdoms, namely Regnum Animale, Regnum Vegetabile and Regnum Lapideum. This approach, the Animal, Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms, survives today in the popular mind, notably in the form of parlour games, Is it animal. The classification was based on five levels, kingdom, class, order, genus, while species and genus was seen as God-given, the three higher levels were seen by Linnaeus as constructs. The concept behind the set ranks being applied to all groups was to make a system that was easy to remember and navigate, Linnaeuss work had a huge impact on science, it was indispensable as a foundation for biological nomenclature, now regulated by the Nomenclature Codes
46.
Georg Wilhelm Steller
–
Georg Wilhelm Steller was a German botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer, who worked in Russia and is considered a pioneer of Alaskan natural history. Steller was born in Windsheim, near Nuremberg in Germany, son to a Lutheran cantor named Johann Jakob Stöhler and he then traveled to Russia as a physician on a troop ship returning home with the wounded. He arrived in Russia in November 1734 and he met the naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Two years after Messerschmidts death, Steller married his widow and acquired notes from his travels in Siberia not handed over to the Academy, Steller knew about Vitus Bering’s Second Kamchatka Expedition, that had already left Saint Petersburg in February 1733. He volunteered to join it and was accepted and he then left St Petersburg in January 1738 with his wife who decided to stay in Moscow and go no farther. Steller met Johann Georg Gmelin in Yeniseisk in January 1739, Gmelin recommended that Steller take his place in the planned exploration of Kamchatka. Steller embraced that role and finally reached Okhotsk and the expedition in March 1740 as Berings ships the St. Peter. In September 1740, the sailed to the Kamchatka Peninsula with Bering. Steller went ashore on the east coast of Kamchatka to spend the winter in Bolsherechye, where he helped to organize a local school and began exploring Kamchatka. When Bering summoned him to join the voyage in search of America, after Berings St. Peter was separated from its sister ship the St. Paul in a storm, Bering continued to sail east, expecting to find land soon. Steller, reading sea currents and flotsam and wildlife, insisted they should sail northeast, after considerable time lost they turned northeast and made landfall in Alaska at Kayak Island on Monday 20 July 1741. Bering wanted to stay long enough to take on fresh water. Steller argued Captain Bering into giving him time for land exploration and was granted 10 hours. Of the 6 species of birds and mammals that Steller discovered during the voyage, Stellers jay is one of the few species named after Steller that is not currently endangered. In his brief encounter with the bird, Steller was able to deduce that the jay was kin to the American blue jay, although Steller tried to treat the crews growing scurvy epidemic with leaves and berries he had gathered, officers scorned his proposal. Steller and his assistant were some of the few who did not suffer from the ailment. On the return journey, with only 12 members of the able to move and the rigging rapidly failing. Almost half of the crew had perished from scurvy during the voyage, Steller nursed the survivors, including Bering, but the aging captain could not be saved and died
47.
Joseph Banks
–
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural history expedition to Newfoundland and he took part in Captain James Cooks first great voyage, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and, after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years and he advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the worlds leading botanical gardens. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the named after him, Banksia. Approximately 80 species of plants bear his name and he was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti which helped to establish the Royal Academy. Banks was born on Argyle Street in London to William Banks, a wealthy Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons and he had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744. Banks was educated at Harrow School from the age of 9 and at Eton College from 1756, as a boy, Banks enjoyed exploring the Lincolnshire countryside and developed a keen interest in nature, history and botany. When he was 17, he was inoculated with smallpox, but he became ill, in late 1760, he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he matriculated at Christ Church, where his studies were focused on natural history rather than the classical curriculum. Determined to receive instruction, he paid the Cambridge botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford in 1764. Banks left Oxford for Chelsea in December 1763 and he continued to attend the university until 1764, but left that year without taking a degree. He began to make friends among the men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus. As Bankss influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands and he became a Freemason sometime before 1769. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and his diary, describing his expedition to Newfoundland, was rediscovered recently in the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia. Banks also documented 34 species of birds, including the great auk, on 7 May, he noted a large number of penguins swimming around the ship on the Grand Banks, and a specimen he collected in Chateau Bay, Labrador, was later identified as the great auk. Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour and this was the first of James Cooks voyages of discovery in that region. Banks funded seven others to him, the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, bougainvillea, and to other parts of South America
48.
Johan Christian Fabricius
–
Johan Christian Fabricius was a Danish zoologist, specialising in Insecta, which at that time included all arthropods, insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. Johan Christian Fabricius was born on 7 January 1745 at Tønder in the Duchy of Schleswig and he studied at the gymnasium at Altona and entered the University of Copenhagen in 1762. Later the same year he travelled together with his friend and relative Johan Zoëga to Uppsala, on his return, he started work on his Systema entomologiæ, which was finally published in 1775. Throughout this time, he remained dependent on subsidies from his father, during his time in Kiel, Fabricius repeatedly travelled to London in the summer to study the collections of British collectors, such as Joseph Banks and Dru Drury. On hearing of the British attack on Copenhagen in 1807, Fabricius returned to Kiel and he died on the 3rd of March 1808, at the age of 63. His daughter died in an accident in Paris, but he was survived by two sons, who studied medicine. Fabricius is considered one of the greatest entomologists of the 18th century and he was a greater observer of insects than his more botanically-minded mentor, Carl Linnaeus. Fabricius named 9,776 species of insects, compared to Linnaeus tally of around 3,000 and he identified many species of Tenebrionidae from the Egyptian Sinai on the basis of other entomologists collections. Fabricius added two distinct areas to the classification system and he considers both artificial and natural characteristics. Artificial characteristics allow for the determination of a species, and natural ones allow for the relationship to other genera, the evolutionary ideas of Fabricius are not as well known. He believed that new species could be formed by the hybridization of existing species and he also has been called the Father of Lamarckism because of his belief that new species can form from morphological adaptation. This agrees with Lamarcks theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, in contrast to Linnaeus classification of the insects, which was based primarily on the number of wings, and their form, Fabricius used the form of the mouthparts to discriminate the orders. He stated those whose nourishment and biology are the same, must then belong to the same genus, Fabricius system remains the basis of insect classification today, although the names he proposed are not. Fabricius also foresaw that the male genitalia would provide useful characters for systematics, Fabricius was the first to divide the Staphylinidae, which Linnaeus had considered a single genus that he called Staphylinus, establishing in 1775 the genus Paederus. He also described 77 species of Staphylinidae and his major works on systematic entomology were, Systema entomologiæ Genera insectorum Species insectorum. Fabricius also wrote a few works on economics, although these are less important than his zoological works. They include Begyndelsesgrundene i de økonomiske Videnskaber, Polizeischriften and Von der Volksvermehrung, prominent Danish Scientists through the Ages. University Library of Copenhagen 450th Anniversary, levin & Munksgaard, Copenhagen. Complete and many supported by images
49.
James Hutton
–
James Hutton FRSE was a Scottish geologist, physician, chemical manufacturer, naturalist, and experimental agriculturalist. He originated the theory of fundamental principle of geology—which explains the features of the Earths crust by means of natural processes over geologic time. Huttons work established geology as a science, and thus he is often referred to as the Father of Modern Geology. His theories of geology and geologic time, also called time, came to be included in theories which were called plutonism and uniformitarianism. Some of his writings anticipated the Gaia hypothesis, Hutton was born in Edinburgh on 3 June 1726 OS as one of five children of William Hutton, a merchant who was Edinburgh City Treasurer, and his wife, Sarah Balfour. His father died in 1729, when James was only three. e and he was apprenticed to the lawyer George Chalmers WS when he was 17, but took more interest in chemical experiments than legal work. At the age of 18, he became a physicians assistant, after three years he went to the University of Paris to continue his studies, taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leiden University in 1749 with a thesis on blood circulation. After his degree Hutton returned to London, then in mid-1750 went back to Edinburgh and resumed chemical experiments with close friend, Hutton owned and rented out properties in Edinburgh, employing a factor to manage this business. Hutton inherited from his father the Berwickshire farms of Slighhouses, a farm which had been in the family since 1713. In the early 1750s he moved to Slighhouses and set about making improvements, introducing farming practices from other parts of Britain and experimenting with plant and he recorded his ideas and innovations in an unpublished treatise on The Elements of Agriculture. This developed his interest in meteorology and geology, in a 1753 letter he wrote that he had become very fond of studying the surface of the earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every pit or ditch or bed of a river that fell in his way. Clearing and draining his farm provided ample opportunities and his theoretical ideas began to come together in 1760. While his farming activities continued, in 1764 he went on a tour of the north of Scotland with George Maxwell-Clerk. In 1768 Hutton returned to Edinburgh, letting his farms to tenants but continuing to take an interest in farm improvements and he developed a red dye made from the roots of the madder plant. He had a built in 1770 at St Johns Hill, Edinburgh. This later became the Balfour family home and, in 1840, Hutton held no position in Edinburgh University and communicated his scientific findings through the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was particularly friendly with Joseph Black, and the two of them together with Adam Smith founded the Oyster Club for weekly meetings, at this time he is listed as living on Bernard Street in Leith. In 1777 he published a pamphlet on Considerations on the Nature, Quality and Distinctions of Coal, in 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
