Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities PDF
Preview Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities
Science Periodicals in Nineteenth- Century Britain Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-C entury Britain Constructing Scientific Communities Edited by Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham The University of Chicago Press Chicago & London The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2020 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2020 Printed in the United States of America 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 67651- 7 (cloth) ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 68346- 1 (e- book) DOI: https:// doi .org /10 .7208 /chicago /9780226683461 .001 .0001 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Dawson, Gowan, editor, author. | Lightman, Bernard V., 1950– editor, author. | Shuttleworth, Sally, 1952– editor, author. | Topham, Jonathan R., editor, author. Title: Science periodicals in nineteenth- century Britain : constructing scientific communities / edited by Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth and Jonathan R. Topham. Other titles: Science periodicals in 19th century Britain Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019035334 | ISBN 9780226676517 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226683461 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Science—Great Britain—Periodicals—History—19th century. | Medicine— Great Britain—Periodicals—History—19th century. | Science journalism—Great Britain— History—19th century. Classification: LCC PN5124.S35 S353 2020 | DDC 505—dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2019035334 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). For Gillian Beer C o n t e n t s Introduction: Constructing Scientific Communities 1 Gowan Dawson and Jonathan R. Topham Part 1 New Formats for New Readers 1 Scientific, Medical, and Technical Periodicals in Nineteenth- Century Britain: New Formats for New Readers 35 Gowan Dawson and Jonathan R. Topham 2 Redrawing the Image of Science: Technologies of Illustration and the Audiences for Scientific Periodicals in Britain, 1790– 1840 65 Jonathan R. Topham 3 Proceedings and the Public: How a Commercial Genre Transformed Science 103 Alex Csiszar Part 2 Defining the Communities of Science 4 “An Independent Publication for Geologists”: The Geological Society, Commercial Journals, and the Remaking of Nineteenth- Century Geology 137 Gowan Dawson 5 Natural History Periodicals and Changing Conceptions of the Naturalist Community, 1828– 65 172 Geoffrey Belknap 6 “The Sympathy of a Crowd”: Imagining Scientific Communities in Mid- Nineteenth- Century Entomology Periodicals 205 Matthew Wale viii Contents 7 Periodical Physics in Britain: Institutional and Industrial Contexts, 1870– 1900 238 Graeme Gooday 8 Late Victorian Astronomical Society Journals: Creating Scientific Communities on Paper 274 Bernard Lightman Part 3 Managing the Boundaries of Medicine 9 “A Borderland in Ethics”: Medical Journals, the Public, and the Medical Profession in Nineteenth- Century Britain 311 Sally Frampton 10 “National Health Is National Wealth”: Publics, Professions, and the Rise of the Public Health Journal 337 Sally Shuttleworth Acknowledgments 371 Select Bibliography 373 List of Contributors 387 Index 389 I n t r o d u c t i o n Constructing Scientific Communities Gowan Dawson and Jonathan R. Topham In March 1828 the Scottish landscape gardener and author John Claudius Loudon outlined the vision for his new Magazine of Natural History. First, with individuals the world over being occupied in “discovering new objects, or in explaining the nature of those already known,” the periodical would assist active “students of nature” in keeping up “their state of knowledge with the progress of science.” Secondly, it would “extend a taste for this . . . knowledge among general readers and observers, and especially among gardeners, farm- ers, and young persons resident in the country” by subjecting every part of the science to discussion, in a language in which all technicalities are explained as they occur; by inviting every reader to commu- nicate every circumstance, even the most trivial, respecting the native habits and habitations of plants, the localities of minerals and strata, and peculiar or striking states of the atmosphere; by encouraging all who are desirous of infor- mation to propose questions, to state their doubts, the kind of information they desire, or their particular opinion, on any part of the subject.1 Loudon’s eager hope was that his periodical would not only become a tool to make new scientific observers, but would also draw those observers to- gether with others who were already proficient into an enlarged community of interconnected practitioners. Observations that might be thought “trivial” would be rendered “truly valuable when viewed in reference to general con- clusions.” Thus might “persons wholly unacquainted with Natural History as
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