"Edinburgh's Place in Scientific Progress", 1921

Un livre déniché sur une étagère de la Darwin Library, à Edimbourg.

D’après le compte-rendu paru dans la revue Nature le 15 septembre 1921 :

In this small volume of 263 pages we find  comprehensive epitome of what has been done by Edinburgh men and men traind in Edinburgh schools towards the advancement of science in all its recognised branches. (…)

Black, Rutherford, and Hope receive particular notice; the share the industrial chemists of Edinubrgh took, and still take, in the production of certain important drugs is duly chronicled, and also the remarkable work of James Young in initiating the manufacture of paraffin. (…)

Section 5, zoology, is from the pen of Dr. James Ritchie, who brings out (what is further established by the later articles on botany, geography, and medicine) how greatly the study of natural history was fostered by the teachers and students in Edinburgh’s medical schools. The most conspicuous names among these are Edward Forbes, Allman, Wyville Thomson, and charles Darwin, who spent two years studying natural science at Edinburgh. (…)

It is interesting to note that the first chair of medicine in the university was the chair of botany and medicine, and that the founding of this chair followed the institution of the “Medicine Garden”, which ultimately developed into the Royal Botanic Garden. (…) In section 8, on agriculture, Mr. J. A. S. Watson records the invention of the threshing machine by Meikle, of East Lothian, and the important work done by Shireff in the improvement of cereals. The Edinburgh chair of agriculture, founded in 1790, seems to have been the earliest in any country. (…)

The chairs of botany, natural history, and chemistry were all originally chairs in the medical faculty of the university, a fact which explains the valuable work done in pure science by leading Edinburgh physicians and others trained in the medical school; and the same keenness was shown down the centuries in the scientific study of anatomy, physiology, materia medica, and other branches of medical and surgical knowledge. (…)

The whole record of scientific work as presented in these contributions to “Edinburgh’s Place in Scientific Progress” is one of which any city may well be proud. The work done in Ediburgh and by Edinburgh men does not stand alone, but is closely linked with the labours of of science in other lands (…).

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