With the new year upon us, scholars in the history of science gathered at the British Society for the History of Science annual postgraduate conference, held at University College London. Although I can’t hope to make a dent in the variety of subjects on show, here are just a few highlights:
Mad Dogs & English Flour
An eclectic mix of subjects made an appearance at the conference, including Jennifer Adlem’s “Mad Dogs and English flour: The work of Edward Mellanby on canine hysteria and public health.” Sir Edward Mellanby is best remembered for his work on rickets and discovery of vitamin D in 1919. However, he also turned his attention towards “canine hysteria,” a mysterious affliction that appeared in British dogs during the 1920s. Thought to be the result of dietary deficiencies or toxins, afflicted dogs twitched, cowered, ran in circles (or into walls) and foamed at the mouth. For the owners of working dogs, the condition was an economic issue, leading to the minister of agriculture being questioned in the House of Commons in 1929. Mellanby’s experiments with dogs led him to the conclusion that toxins in flour were to be blame – by 1945, treated British flour was filled with a spectrum of chemicals. This raised issues of public health and national pride – if British bread was a toxic substance that made you run into walls, repercussions for food quality would be a bit embarrassing.
Results from Edward Mellanby, “Diet and Canine Hysteria: Experimental Production by Treated Flour,” BMJ (1946), 2, pp. 885-887.
Why Global Warming makes Wizards
Jessica Price’s “Witchcraft and the East India Company, 1668-1736” introduced witchcraft trials on a truly international scale. One intriguing point raised was European explanations for incidences of witchcraft abroad. Rather than considering a one-sided colonial justice system or bigotry, the governor of Bombay blamed the “hot” climate of India for local “pagan religions.” By contrast, Indian children who were brought to England would be far more likely to embrace Protestantism, driven by the cooler British climate. These ideas of climate determining national character have been around since ancient Greece, but it was fascinating to see them applied in a such a bizarre context, as East India Company officials find themselves inundated by complaints of a wizard in Bombay. Clearly magical affinity varies with heat, leading to worrying consequences for our warming planet.
Microscopes & Manganese: All aboard the Challenger Expedition (1872-1876)
The voyage of HMS Challenger laid the foundation of marine geography and oceanography, according to Erika Jones’s “Microscope Images from the Challenger Expedition (1872-1876): Constructing the Oceans for Science and Empire.” The expedition involved strong imperial ambitions, mapping the ocean floor for telegraph cables and searching for new resources on the seabed. As such, the voyage involved cooperation between the Royal Society and the British Admiralty. The ship worked as a kind of floating laboratory, creating precise images of geological and natural history specimens via the microscope. Manganese nodules dredged from the oceans provided some excitement, as combining the metal with steel can create a stronger alloy. On the minus side, the global trip found so much that twenty years were needed to analyse its discoveries, involving dozens of international experts.
The extensive scientific results from the Challenger voyage are freely available at: http://www.19thcenturyscience.org/
Noxious Insects in World War One
Arik Clausner introduced attendees to the “The Minor Horrors of War”: Insects, the British Empire, and the First World War.” His talk traced the history of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology, tasked with the identification of noxious insects across the British Empire. The bureau emerged in 1913, drawing together imperial entomologists from across the empire – but a planned 1915 conference (and the entire institution itself) was almost scuppered by the outbreak of war. Applied entomology needed to develop its own programs and initiatives to prove itself to the war effort, initially trying to combat flies and fleas that infected or demoralised soldiers. Finding little appreciation in this sector, the bureau then led efforts to improve agriculture at home and in British colonies, through the use of insects as biological controls against pests. This collaboration saved the bureau, which survived the war and emerged as premier institution of imperial science.
Thinking Like A Mountain 