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In This IssueAuthor(s): Alan CookSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jul., 1997), pp. 159-160Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/531982 .
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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 51 (2), 159-160 (1997)
IN THIS ISSUE
An important function of Notes and Records is to record notable activities of the Society, appropriate lectures among them. In this issue we publish two lectures, one a celebration of Jenner and the miracle of vaccination and its worldwide consequences; the other, the Claude Bernard lecture on the uses of the history of science, in which Professor Debru draws on medical examples to demonstrate the lessons for today that may be drawn from historical studies.
The word, whether printed, written or recorded, is not the historian's only source; paintings, drawings, maps and charts may also have much to tell. They may in the first place record facts, the results of observations, but that is by no means all. Visual records may reveal, overtly or by implication, the methods used to obtain the observations, how sparse or dense they may be and how reliable; portraits may suggest the social and personal circumstances of scientists, what they thought was important in their work, how they saw themselves, what led them to be painted, and how others saw them. Robert Hooke, as a great microscopist, was concerned to make accurate drawings of the objects that he studied under his microscope: his study of the structure of Kettering stone that appeared in our January issue demonstrates his skill by the close comparison of his drawings with photographs made by the most up-to-date techniques.
Alas, no portrait of Hooke has come down to us to supplement the vivid descriptions of him by his contemporaries. Dr Fara, on the other hand, analyses the representation of Joseph Banks in the Society's portrait to illuminate his view of his position in the world of affairs and the world of science. By a tradition of long standing many scientists have themselves painted with some depiction of a notable achievement. Edmond Halley's portrait painted shortly after he was appointed Clerk to the Society shows him with a diagram related to his method for solving polynomial equations, something that particularly delighted the Society at the time. Rutherford, likewise, in the portrait that accompanies Dr Mackintosh's posthumous lecture, wears his MA gown and is accompanied by his books and his vacuum pump.
Unfortunately, our knowledge of the uses made of drawing and painting in the past is unbalanced. Paintings, etchings and drawings of people survive in large numbers, for instance in the possession of the Society. Other FIGURE 1. Edmond Halley's portrait at the drawings are less well preserved, and Royal Society.
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© 1997 The Royal Society
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160 Sir Alan Cook
original maps and charts are especially rare, no doubt because they were for use and not just show. Halley compiled many charts in his lifetime: of the southern stars, of the Thames approaches, of the trade winds, of the magnetic field over the Atlantic, of the tides in the English Channel, of the Croatian coast south of Rijeka (Fiume) and of harbours on it, and of the course of the total solar eclipse of 1715. Some were engraved and published, but none of the originals survive, and those that were not engraved are known only from verbal descriptions. It is frustrating in view of Halley's importance in cartography.
We aim whenever possible to illustrate articles in Notes and Records with material from the Society's collections, but we also welcome discussions of items from other sources.
Sir Alan Cook, F.R.S.
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