Public-domain ebook
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In: History - Other·Science - Physics·Science - Chemistry/Biochemistry
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #46572.
This volume, Studies in the History and Method of Science, is a scholarly collection of essays edited by Charles Singer and published by Oxford University Press in 1917. The opening pages explain that the work is a “ballon d’essai” produced by a small group of Oxford students intent on stimulating the study of scientific history. It begins with a detailed introduction that frames the growth of ideas, from religious explanations to the Greek‑born pursuit of natural knowledge, and argues for a historian’s role in linking the fragmented specialties of modern science. The book’s front matter also provides extensive technical notes on the transcription, noting the presence of Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic passages, the use of Roman numerals and archaic monetary symbols, and the need for Unicode‑compatible fonts to render the text correctly.
The prose reflects the early‑20th‑century academic tone of its editors, mixing formal exposition with occasional literary flourish. Its style is dense, footnote‑heavy, and richly illustrated with plates ranging from medieval codices to early anatomical sketches. Readers with an interest in the historiography of science, the evolution of medical thought, or the interplay of language, religion, and early modern scholarship will find it rewarding, especially those accustomed to navigating scholarly apparatus and primary‑source reproductions.
The opening · free to read
The text contains numerous foreign and uncommon typographic characters. In addition to Greek, there are passages of Hebrew and Arabic text (which read from right-to-left and are normally right justified) that will not necessarily display correctly with all devices. The book is most easily read with a browser using the HTML version of the transcription. If some of the characters look abnormal, first ensure that the ‘character encoding’ of your device/browser is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You might also need to change the default font. Standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Georgia or Lucida Sans Unicode are sometimes adequate, but it might be necessary to use a less-common font such as Arial Unicode MS, DejaVu, Segoe UI Symbol or FreeSerif to see all characters correctly. Right alignment of the Hebrew and Arabic paragraphs will generally only be apparent with a monospaced font such as DejaVuSansMono.
Some diacritics don’t display consistently. For example, the Greek letter υ̑ occurs in several words and with some browsers and fonts the inverted breve is displaced towards the following letter; the same anomaly occurs with macrons above letters in some old English words. The Hebrew passage contains several letters with single or double overhead dots (of uncertain significance) that can’t be replicated on screen – the HTML version has a hyperlinked image of the original for anyone wishing to see it.
Roman numerals are widely used and often in archaic ways. Numerals followed by an italicised l, s, or d indicate monetary values in imperial pounds shillings and pence units, e.g. xxxiii_l_. vi_s_. viii_d_. represents 33 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence (a space sometimes separates the numeral from the unit). The last ‘i’ (‘one’) in a roman numeral was often represented by the letter ‘j’; hence iiij_d_ is equivalent to 4 pence, and ‘ij holownesses’ should be read as ‘two holownesses’.
Numerous portions of text enclosed within square brackets were inserted by the author (not the transcriber) for clarification or translation, as were several (sic) entries in the Hebrew and Arabic texts.
The index has many references to both page numbers and footnote numbers, e.g. 24 n. (a single unnumbered footnote), 93 n. 3, 126 nn. 4, 5, (pages containing multiple footnotes), and also to numbered figures and plates. The original footnote numbering began afresh at 1. on each page, but in this transcription footnotes are numbered sequentially from the beginning of the book and the numbers no longer correspond to those shown in the index. Many of the illustrations have been moved from their original location to be closer to the relevant text discussion.
Punctuation anomalies have been corrected silently (e.g. missing periods, commas and semicolons, incorrect or missing quotation marks, unpaired parentheses).
Unambiguous typographic errors such as the following, have been corrected silently:
Lexico nder-->Lexicon der Aa-->As [a matter of fact] Chiru gie-->Chirurgie Weisbaden-->Wiesbaden
but inconsistent spellings such as those below have not been altered: paniculi/panniculi paniculo/panniculo feçe/fece Literatur/Litteratur literae/litterae aligati/alligati cf./cp. dilatare/dillatare dilitano/dillitano diuidendo/dividendo judgement/judgment
Inconsistent capitalisation of Fig. and Plate has been standardised, as has inconsistent spacing of expressions such as A.D. i.e. and § 6 (a paragraph number).
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