Tag: Lunar Society
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The other Charles Darwin (1758–1778)
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom “’Precursoritis’ is the bane of historiography.”– Stephen Jay Gould One of the best-known and important discoveries in the practice of medicine was the introduction of digitalis by William Withering (Fig 1). It was the subject of controversy that involved the Darwin family. For almost two hundred years digitalis was the…
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The X Club
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig. 1 TH Huxley Wikipedia: This work is in the public domain Charles Babbage, who conceived the first automatic digital computer, published in 1830 Reflections on the Decline of Science in England. This stimulated the formation of several new groups that aimed to further scientific progress and exchange…
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The Lunar Society legacy
JMS Pearce United Kingdom Mention “Lunar Society” and most academics will stare vacantly, despite the society’s fame during the eighteenth century. Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin, was a founder of the Lunar Society in Birmingham (c. 1765–c. 1800), which counted several physicians in its numbers. The original “Lunarmen” comprised a select club,…