Who was... Mary Kingsley?

Mary Kingsley was an archetype, if not the archetype, of the formidable Victorian lady. Despite her physical frailty she managed to face the most hair-raising encounters in remote West Africa with an unshakeable aplomb that almost defies belief. She also made a number of not inconsiderable contributions to biology.

Food on foot: long-distance trade in slaughter oxen between Denmark and the Netherlands (14th-18th century)

This paper presents a short review of the long-distance trade in slaughter oxen in Northwest Europe. The long-term development of the trade is described against the social-economic background of the production and consumption areas. In the 14th century, the Danes obtained the right to sell cattle in certain Dutch cities. From 1500 onwards, the export of oxen from Denmark and the adjacent duchy of Schleswig-Holstein increased considerably. The export reached its peak in the first quarter of the 17th century; registered export in 1612 amounted to more than 52.000 oxen over land and, in 1624, about 10.000 oxen over sea. Part of that export was destined for the Dutch market. Protectionist tax measures taken by the Dutch government and the outbreaks of rinderpest put an end to the regular ox trade in the first half of the 18th century. By decree, local authorities tried to prevent the spread of contagious animal diseases. The history of international cattle trade and hauling, however, indicates that economic motives largely outweighed animal welfare issues. Thus, in addition to addressing the logistics of the trade, this paper also addresses veterinary aspects and animal welfare issues related to the transport of cattle.

Erasmus Darwin's improved design for steering carriages and cars

Carriage journeys in England during the eighteenth century were notoriously dangerous. Rutted and pot-holed roads exacerbated the deficiencies in steering, springing and stability. In 1758 the young Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802; F. R. S. 1761) was travelling about 10,000 miles a year in visits to patients from his house at Lichfield. To alleviate the danger and discomfort of his journey, he developed a design for improved carriage steering and stability, which he road-tested over 20,000 miles on two carriages. In 1765 Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817; F. R. S. 1718) heard about Darwin's design, urged the Society of Arts to enquire about it, and then visited Darwin himself. With the aid of manuscripts from the Archive of the Royal Society of Arts and elsewhere, I offer a reconstruction of Darwin's improved method of steering, which relies on four jointed rods, initially in the form of an isosceles trapezium. The mechanism was reinvented more than 50 years later, and came to be used widely in early modern cars.

[Flückiger and Italy: travels to Italy by the Swiss pharmacist and pharmacognostic Friedrich August Flückiger]

The Swiss pharmacist and professor of pharmacy, F.A. Flückiger, made eleven trips to Italy. His first journey took him to Naples but he also visited Rome, Venice, Florence, Sicily and the coast of the Liguria several times. His diary as well as his documented voyage reports allow us to reconstruct his routes, the places visited and the means of transportation used. They show the wide range of interests of Flückiger who observed nature, history and geography of the places visited.

Alberta's provincial Travelling Clinic, 1924-42

Providing health services to sparsely populated, geographically isolated areas was a major challenge in many Canadian provinces before the advent of universal hospital insurance in the late 1950s, and universal physician insurance in the late 1960s. The task was especially daunting during the interwar depression years. Nonetheless, from 1924 to 1942, Alberta's Department of Public Health sponsored an itinerant Travelling Clinic during the summer which conducted physical examinations, dental examinations and treatment, tonsillectomies and other minor surgery, and vaccination against smallpox to children in frontier areas of the province. This article analyses Alberta's Travelling Clinic from a public policy perspective and concludes that through the Travelling Clinic, the Alberta government provided a health service valued by many settlers at nominal cost to itself.