A not so Pacific voyage: the 'floating laboratory' of Nicolas Baudin

Nicolas Baudin's voyage to Australia in 1800 was particularly fractious. Many officers and scientists deserted. When stories of mission mismanagement leaked back to France, Baudin's reputation--and the public reputation of the expedition as a whole--was left in tatters. All was not Baudin's fault, however. Scientific rivalries--disputes over credit and quarrels over mission priorities--undermined his mission from the start, and explain why his attempt to use a 'public' journal to foster teamwork backfired. Unable to control his floating laboratory's paperwork, Baudin became an 'invisible commander'. After the expedition returned, naturalist François Péron assumed credit for its work.

[Brazilian scientists visit the Amazon: The scientific journeys of Oswaldo Cruz and Carlos Chagas (1910-13)]

The article analyzes reports from two scientific journeys into the Amazon conducted by the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, in 1910 and 1913, under the leadership of Oswaldo Cruz and Carlos Chagas, respectively. These reports contributed to the construction of representations and images of the region. Field observations not only provided data for the study and control of tropical diseases but also had a hand in the movement to denounce the serious sanitation conditions under which rubber workers labored. Journeys through the Amazon valley put the scientists in direct contact with the environment and with sick populations; these travels also made them face the huge challenges of learning about malaria and trying to control it. Analyses of these reports are part of studies on 'portraits of Brazil', which raise issues within the history of public health policies. In this endeavor to reveal the process by which scientific records are constructed, we worked with primary sources,from manuscripts to official texts.

Stone adze compositions and the extent of ancient Polynesian voyaging and trade

The last region on Earth settled by humans during prehistory was East Polynesia. Hawaiian oral histories mention voyaging from Hawai'i to Tahiti and back via the Tuamotus, an open ocean journey of several thousands of kilometers. The trace element and isotope chemistries of a stone adze recovered from the Tuamotu Archipelago are unlike those of sources in central Polynesia but are similar to the Kaho'olawe Island hawaiite, in the Hawaiian Islands, supporting the oral histories. Other adzes collected from the low coral islands of the northwest Tuamotus have sources in the Marquesas, Austral and Society Islands, and the Pitcairn Group, confirming that trade was widespread within East Polynesia.

[Travels and memory: the sciences in Spain before and after the Civil War]

This essay revisits the influence of the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), the effect in the trajectory of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas of JAE grants and scholarships policy for Spanish young graduates to study abroad. It proposes grantee's travel as a source of knowledge and its practices. It develops the argument that institutional memory, as that of ideas, is not blurred by either a civil war or a dictatorship, repressive as it was. It also suggests genealogy of scientific practices and training during the 20th century in Spain.

Mathematics in narratives of Geodetic expeditions

In eighteenth-century France, geodesy (the measure of the earth's shape) became an arena where mathematics and narrative intersected productively. Mathematics played a crucial role not only in the measurements and analysis necessary to geodesy but also in the narrative accounts that presented the results of elaborate and expensive expeditions to the reading public. When they returned to France to write these accounts after their travels, mathematician-observers developed a variety of ways to display numbers and mathematical arguments and techniques. The numbers, equations, and diagrams they produced could not be separated from the story of their acquisition. Reading these accounts for the interplay of these two aspects--the mathematical and the narrative--shows how travelers articulated the intellectual and physical difficulties of their work to enhance the value of their results for specialist and lay readers alike.

British medicine in the Peruvian Andes: the travels of Archibald Smith M.D. (1820-1870)

This article traces the travels of the Scottish physician Archibald Smith through the Peruvian Andes between the 1820s and 1860s. Despite his prominent role in the nineteenth-century Peruvian medical scene, almost nothing has been written on Archibald Smith. By exploring Smith's medical activities, publications, and debates, this article intends to uncover unexplored areas of Peruvian medical history, such as the animosity between local and foreign physicians during the post-Independence war era and the important role played by medical geography as a scientific discipline for redefining ethnical and regional issues.

"Cattle car complexes": a correspondence with historical captivity and post-Holocaust witnesses

This article explores critical complexes relating to the construction of historical captivity in deportation train journeys by examining fictional and testimonial accounts of that experience. Using Thane Rosenbaum’s short story "Cattle Car Complex," the author shows that fiction is a prism through which to view victims’ experiences of deportation-experiences that tend to be overlooked in interpretive literature about the Holocaust. Historians have examined deportations above all as a perpetrator narrative, utilizing contemporaneous documents and sources. Their treatment neglects the numerous testimonies about the debilitating effects of deportation travel, as well as the evocation of that traumatic transit in post-Holocaust texts and contexts such as fiction, film, art, and museological and commemorative practice. The author argues that sensory witness is a compelling paradigm that can reveal the silences and elisions in representations of historical captivity.

A world apart: geography, Australian quarantine, and the mother country

In many respects the Australian colonies were what one person called "the proud offspring of a grand old mother." Yet when it came to the prevention of imported infectious disease, Britain's Australian colonies were not a chip off the old block. British opposition to the lengthy and costly imposition of quarantine had intensified throughout the nineteenth century, eventuating in the abolition of human quarantine in 1896. The Australian colonies, on the other hand, which had based their first quarantine regulations on British law and remained constantly aware of changing medical trends in the mother country, gradually expanded the breadth and capabilities of their maritime quarantine as the century progressed. Although other European powers and British colonies progressively adopted systems of medical inspection more in line with British port prophylaxis and away from quarantine, the Australian colonies invested increasing amounts of time and money into more elaborate quarantine stations and regulations. In this article I examine some of the basic features of coastal disease prevention in the Australian colonies and how they differed from British controls. Australia's distance from Britain was emphasized in the quarantine debates geographically as well as in policy. I argue that the often controversial differences in quarantine policy were for the most part a product of Australia's geographical location. The natural prophylactic of Australia's remoteness was not a reason to minimize quarantine in the colonies but rather served to increase it; whereas, it was argued that "the geographical position of England deprived it of the advantages...derived from a comprehensive quarantine system." I discuss this seeming anomaly in light of other arguments that have claimed that the close proximity of a state to the acknowledged origin of a disease was likely to increase its eagerness to quarantine.

A Roman correspondence: George Ent and Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1637-55

George Ent (FRS 1663), a distinguish physician, was in Rome in 1636, visited the notable collector Cassiano dal Pozzo and saw his Paper Museum. After he returned to London he carried on a correspondence with Cassiano in letters of more than ordinary interest. Cassiano had sent Ent specimens of fossil wood and a table made from fossil wood. They had come from the estates at Acquasparta belonging to Prince Federico Cesi, the founder of the Accademia dei Lincie. The specimens and the table were shown to early meetings of The Royal Society and had a significant part in the developing debate on the origin of fossils. The letters also record exchanges of books between London and Rome. Among medical matters there is news of William Harvey and his works.

[Albert Neisser's expeditions to Java in 1905 and 1907. Syphilis research and travel experiences]

Albert Neisser, the noted dermatologist from Breslau, went on study tours to Java in 1905 and 1907 in order to conduct experiments on monkeys to investigate a number of open questions concerning etiology, course and therapy of syphilis. These large-scale research efforts brought many results, which were somewhat overshadowed by more up-to-date investigations of other groups. Neisser considered his main achievement to be new insights into the immunity and therapy of syphilis.

[Paul D. Choy: A life for learning]

Paul D. Choy was born on February 26th, 1896. He spent his childhood in Japan and America, and he returned to Korea when he turned twenty one years old. He graduated from Severance Union Medical College in 1921. After graduating the college, he went to Peking Union medical College to study parasitology. He came back to Korea after one year as the first parasitologist in Korea. On returning, he took the charge of the clinical laboratory of Severance Hospital. Before long he made another journey for study to Canada. He spent two years in Toronto University studying pathology. After studying pathology, he challenged a new field of medicine. It was medical jurisprudence. He stayed two years in Japan in order to earn his doctorate in medical jurisprudence in Tohoku Imperial College. This time he returned as the first specialist in medical jurisprudence in Korea. His field of study was not confined to medical field. He had a deep interest in current situation in Manchuria and Mongol, and wrote a book on this matter. His interest also extended to the history of ancient Korean people. He made extensive studies on this subject, which resulted in publishing a huge work on the origin of Korean people and it ancient history. He was a true pioneer of medicine in Korea and his life was characterized by endless quest for learning.

The Alps and the imagination

In the late 19th century, mountaineer and essayist Sir Leslie Stephen wrote that the Alps were "Europe's Playground." His words were prescient: the Alps are today one of the continent's most valued recreation areas. However, the importance of Stephen's words can only be appreciated when set in historical context. One hundred years earlier, his remark would have been laughed at. Until the late 18th century the Alps were a source of fear to travellers and of mystery to scientists. They were an uncharted wilderness at the heart of the world's most crowded continent. Yet, within a remarkably short space of time, they were mapped, developed and exploited. Their current status as "playground" is bound intrinsically to a shift in imagination, beginning in the 16th century and accelerating dramatically between the years 1800 and 1914, that has transformed them, in popular perception, from a realm of terror and superstition to one of beauty, relaxation and contemplation. Driven by fresh perspectives in the fields of science, music, literature and aesthetics, the metamorphosis has affected our appreciation not only of the Alps but of every mountain range in the world.

Malaria: from prehistory to present

Malaria is a protozoan (Plasmodium) infection transmitted by the biting female Anopheles mosquito. The disease affects approximately 40% of the world's population, and an estimated 50 to 70 million Western travelers are exposed to malaria infection annually. Malaria and travelers are inextricably linked since the dawn of time. Malaria owes its distribution worldwide to human travelers, and travelers are linked with the discovery, refinement, and development of several antimalarial drugs. In the year 2003 the genomes for humans, mosquito, and Plasmodium have been completed, but no malaria vaccine is available as yet.

The Anaesthetists' Travel Club: a transformation of the Society of Clinical Surgery?

There is a remarkable similarity between the purposes and formats of the Society of Clinical Surgery and the Anesthetists' Travel Club. The Travel Club's founder, John Lundy, worked closely with two charter members of the Society of Clinical Surgery,William J. and Charles Mayo.

[The voyage in 1547 to Stamboul (Constantinople) by the pharmacist-naturalist Pierre Belon from Mans]

Pierre Belon was born in Le Mans in 1517. After he had worked as apothecary assistant and he had studied botany, he was chosen to join in the embassy sent by French King François I to the Turkish Sultan in 1546. From 1553 he wrote his impressions upon his tour "Comments upon different peculiarities and memorable things". In Stamboul he dawdled around the typical Turkish drugstores and he observed and recorded the hygienic habit of the Turks. Not only are his "Comments" about the Eastern Countries a mine of useful information but they can be also considered as the foundation of renewal in the relationship between Europeans travellers and the Middle East.