The Relationship Between a Plant and Its Place in Sixteenth
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Scaliger Conference Program (With Abstracts)
Julius Caesar Scaliger and Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen, 26/27 June 2015 Organized by Kuni Sakamoto and Christoph Lüthy Program Day 1, Friday, June 26 Erasmusplein1, Room 15.39/41 09.00 - 09.15 Welcome 09.15 - 09.30 Introduction Session 1 09.30 - 10.15 The Scaliger-Cardano Debate Revisited Ian Maclean, All Souls College, Oxford Julius Caesar Scaliger’s hypertrophic Exercitationes exotericae liber XV de Subtilitate of 1557 provoked a riposte from Girolamo Cardano, the author of the impugned De subtilitate, which appeared in 1559 with the title Actio prima in calumniatorem librorum de Subtilitate. From the time of the appearance of this polemic, there have been attempts to adjudicate whether one thinker secured a victory over the other, and if so, in respect of which issues. This paper will not approach the debate from this point of view, but rather will set out to investigate the difference in intellectual habitus of the protagonists, and will further enquire whether Cardano modified in any way his philosophical positions as a result of this bruising encounter. 10.15 - 11.00 “The Element of Fire is Quite Put Out ...”: Girolamo Cardano’s Exclusion of Fire from the Elements, and Contemporary Responses John Henry, University of Edinburgh Writing about fire in the late 1590s, in his unpublished De mundo, William Gilbert wrote “That ‘subtlety’ of Scaliger does not counter Cardano’s subtle arguments…” By 1611, when the poet John Donne lamented the doubts wrought by the new philosophies, Cardano’s insistence that fire should not be included among the elements seems to have been well known. -
Invented Herbal Tradition.Pdf
Journal of Ethnopharmacology 247 (2020) 112254 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Ethnopharmacology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jethpharm Inventing a herbal tradition: The complex roots of the current popularity of T Epilobium angustifolium in Eastern Europe Renata Sõukanda, Giulia Mattaliaa, Valeria Kolosovaa,b, Nataliya Stryametsa, Julia Prakofjewaa, Olga Belichenkoa, Natalia Kuznetsovaa,b, Sabrina Minuzzia, Liisi Keedusc, Baiba Prūsed, ∗ Andra Simanovad, Aleksandra Ippolitovae, Raivo Kallef,g, a Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172, Mestre, Venice, Italy b Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tuchkov pereulok 9, 199004, St Petersburg, Russia c Tallinn University, Narva rd 25, 10120, Tallinn, Estonia d Institute for Environmental Solutions, "Lidlauks”, Priekuļu parish, LV-4126, Priekuļu county, Latvia e A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 25a Povarskaya st, 121069, Moscow, Russia f Kuldvillane OÜ, Umbusi village, Põltsamaa parish, Jõgeva county, 48026, Estonia g University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, 12042, Pollenzo, Bra, Cn, Italy ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Ethnopharmacological relevance: Currently various scientific and popular sources provide a wide spectrum of Epilobium angustifolium ethnopharmacological information on many plants, yet the sources of that information, as well as the in- Ancient herbals formation itself, are often not clear, potentially resulting in the erroneous use of plants among lay people or even Eastern Europe in official medicine. Our field studies in seven countries on the Eastern edge of Europe have revealed anunusual source interpretation increase in the medicinal use of Epilobium angustifolium L., especially in Estonia, where the majority of uses were Ethnopharmacology specifically related to “men's problems”. -
The Discovery of Pulmonary Circulation: from Imhotep to William Harvey
The discovery of pulmonary circulation: From Imhotep to William Harvey Mohamed ElMaghawry1,2 *, Alberto Zanatta2, and Fabio Zampieri2 1: Department of Cardiology, Aswan Heart Centre, Aswan, Egypt 2: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Science, University of Padua, Padua, Italy * [email protected] Abstract In his quest to comprehend his existence, Man has long been exploring his outer world (macro- cosmos), as well as his inner world (micro-cosmos). In modern times, monmental advances in the fields of physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences have reflected on how we understand the anatomy and physiology of the human body and circulation. Yet, humanity took a long and winding road to reach what we acknowledge today as solid facts of cardiovascular physiology. In this article, we will review some of the milestones along this road. “The history of the pulmonary circulation provides a measure of Man’s thinking about himself and his place in the Universe.” (1) Alfred P. Fishman (1918-1990), president of American Physiological Society. The heart in ancient Egyptian medicine The ancient Egyptians considered the heart as the central organ of the body, both physiologically and spiritually. The earliest hieroglyphic depiction of the heart was as an organ with eight vessels attached to it (Figure 1A). After the third Dynasty, the heart was modified to a simpler jar-shape (Figure 1B) (2). The Smith papyrus (ca. 1600 BC) is the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. It was named after Edwin Smith, the American Egyptologist who purchased the scroll in Luxor in 1862. Many historians believe that the text of the Smith papyrus was copied from a much older document originally written by Imhotep, the prominent high priest and physician of the Old Kingdom (ca.3000-2500 BC). -
Introduction the Age of Biology
INTRODUCTION THE AGE OF BIOLOGY An organism is the product of its genetic constitution and its en- vironment . no matter how uniform plants are genotypically, they cannot be phenotypically uniform or reproducible, unless they have developed under strictly uniform conditions. — Frits Went, 1957 A LITERARY and cinematic sensation, Andy Weir’s The Martian is engi- neering erotica. The novel thrills with minute technical details of com- munications, rocket fuel, transplanetary orbital calculations, and botany. The action concerns a lone astronaut left on Mars struggling to survive for 1,425 days using only the materials that equipped a 6-person, 30-day mission. Food is an early crisis: the astronaut has only 400 days of meals plus 12 whole potatoes. Combining his expertise in botany and engineer- ing, the astronaut first works to create in his Mars habitat the perfect Earth conditions for his particular potatoes, namely, a temperature of 25.5°C, plenty of light, and 250 liters of water. Consequently, his potatoes grow at a predicted rate to maturity in 40 days, thus successfully conjur- ing sufficient food to last until his ultimate rescue at the end of the novel. Unlike so many of the technical details deployed throughout the novel, the ideal conditions for growing potatoes are just a factoid. Whereas readers of the novel get to discover how to make water in a process oc- cupying twenty pages, the discovery of the ideal growing conditions of the particular potatoes brought to Mars is given one line.1 Undoubtedly, making water from rocket fuel is tough, but getting a potato’s maximum 3 © 2017 University of Pittsburgh Press. -
De Plantis, Once Belonging to Maimonides’.[3]
Fragment of the Month: January 2017 Plants on Maimonides’ bookshelf: T-S Ar.41.41 by Gabriele Ferrario Which were the favourite books of Moses Maimonides? Which titles would have found space on his bookshelf? Maimonides’ letter to the Hebrew translator of most of his Judaeo-Arabic production, Samuel ibn Tibbon, contains revealing passages regarding the books that Maimonides considered the basis of any solid philosophical education.[1] No wonder the place of honour is occupied by the works of Aristotle, which became available to the Arabic-speaking world thanks to the spectacular effort of Arabisation of Greek sciences conducted under the Abbasid caliphs. Maimonides describes Aristotelian treatises as ‘the roots and foundations of all works on the sciences’. But Aristotle’s philosophy was not always easy to understand for a medieval reader, and Maimonides recognised the utility of later commentaries and systematisations of Aristotelian works produced by philosophers of Late Antiquity and Islam, in particular the works by Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd–3rd c.), Themistius (d. 390 CE), and Averroes (d. 1198). As much as praising his favourite authors, Maimonides is very keen on downplaying the importance of authors he fancied less, and writes to Ibn Tibbon that reading commentaries by Abū Yaḥyā ibn al-Biṭrīq (9th century), Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (10th c.) and by Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Tayyib (11th c.) would be a waste of time. A similarly dismissive approach characterises Maimonides’ stance towards Plato and other Greek classical philosophers: Aristotle said it all, why should one look for anything else? Among Muslim philosophers, Maimonides praises Al-Fārābī (10th c.), particularly for his logical works, Ibn Bajja (the Latin Avempace, 11th–12th c.) and Averroes (12th c.) for his numerous Aristotelian commentaries; he also remarks that books by Avicenna (11th c.) are worth studying, even if they are not as good as Al- Fārābī’s. -
Julius Caesar Scaliger and Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophy Radboud University, Nijmegen, 26/27 June 2015 Organized by Kuni
Julius Caesar Scaliger and Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophy Radboud University, Nijmegen, 26/27 June 2015 Organized by Kuni Sakamoto and Christoph Lüthy Day 1, Friday, June 26 Erasmusplein1, Room 15.39/41 09.00 - 09.15 Welcome 09.15 - 09.30 Introduction 09.30-10.15 Ian Maclean (All Souls College, Oxford): The Scaliger-Cardano Debate Revisited 10.15-11.00 John Henry (University of Edinburgh): “The Element of Fire is Quite Put Out ...”: Girolamo Cardano’s Exclusion of Fire from the Elements, and Contemporary Responses 11.00-11.30 Coffee break 11.30-12.15 Guido Giglioni (The Warburg Institute, London): Who’s the Real Averroist Here? Cardano and Scaliger on Radical Aristotelianism 12.15 - 13.45 Lunch break 13.45-14.30 José Manuel García Valverde (University of Seville): Cardano vs. Scaliger on the Conception of God and the Relation between Him and His Creation 14.30-15.15 Kuni Sakamoto (Radboud University): Anti-Naturalism and the “Religion of Form” in Julius Caesar Scaliger 15.15 - 15.45 Coffee break 15.45-16.30 Stefano Perfetti (University of Pisa): Julius Caesar Scaliger on Aristotle’s Animals and Theophrastus’ Plants Day 2, Saturday, June 27 Faculty Club Huize Heyendael Geert Grooteplein-Noord 9, 6525 EZ 9.30-10.15 Leen Spruit (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”): Roman Censorship of Cardano and Scaliger 10.15-11.00 Simone De Angelis (University of Graz): The Reception of J.C. Scaliger in Germany: Rudolph Goclenius’ Adversaria ad exotericas exercitationes 11.00-11.30 Coffee break 11.30-12.15 Andreas Blank (University of Paderborn): Antonio Ponce Santacruz vs. -
The Early Book Herbaria of Leonhard Rauwolf (S. France and N
Rendiconti Lincei. Scienze Fisiche e Naturali (2021) 32:449–461 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-021-01012-1 RESEARCH PAPER The early book herbaria of Leonhard Rauwolf (S. France and N. Italy, 1560–1563): new light on a plant collection from the ‘golden age of botany’ Anastasia Stefanaki1,2,3 · Tilmann Walter4 · Henk Porck5 · Alice Bertin1 · Tinde van Andel1,2,6 Received: 18 January 2021 / Accepted: 21 June 2021 / Published online: 10 July 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract The sixteenth century was a golden age for botany, a time when numerous naturalists devoted themselves to the study and documentation of plant diversity. A very prominent fgure among them was the German physician, botanist, and traveler Leonhard Rauwolf (1535?–1596), famous for his travel account and luxurious book herbarium containing plants from the Near East. Here, we focus on the less studied, early book herbaria of Rauwolf. These form a three-volume plant collection bound in leather and gold, which contains over 600 plants that Rauwolf collected between 1560 and 1563 in S. France and N. Italy when he was a student of medicine. We show the botanical value of Rauwolf’s early book herbaria, exemplifed by two exotic American specimens, namely one of the oldest surviving specimens of tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), collected in Italy, and the oldest known French record of prickly pear (Opuntia fcus-indica). These well-preserved specimens indicate that Rauwolf was eager to collect exotic plants already in his early botanical steps. We further discuss Rauwolf’s professional botanical network during his student years and suggest that the famous Swiss botanist Johann Bauhin (1541–1613), friend and companion of Rauwolf during his feld excursions and their medical studies in Montpellier, has played a signifcant role in the compilation of this precious historical plant collection. -
Plant Life MagillS Encyclopedia of Science
MAGILLS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE PLANT LIFE MAGILLS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE PLANT LIFE Volume 4 Sustainable Forestry–Zygomycetes Indexes Editor Bryan D. Ness, Ph.D. Pacific Union College, Department of Biology Project Editor Christina J. Moose Salem Press, Inc. Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey Editor in Chief: Dawn P. Dawson Managing Editor: Christina J. Moose Photograph Editor: Philip Bader Manuscript Editor: Elizabeth Ferry Slocum Production Editor: Joyce I. Buchea Assistant Editor: Andrea E. Miller Page Design and Graphics: James Hutson Research Supervisor: Jeffry Jensen Layout: William Zimmerman Acquisitions Editor: Mark Rehn Illustrator: Kimberly L. Dawson Kurnizki Copyright © 2003, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner what- soever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. Some of the updated and revised essays in this work originally appeared in Magill’s Survey of Science: Life Science (1991), Magill’s Survey of Science: Life Science, Supplement (1998), Natural Resources (1998), Encyclopedia of Genetics (1999), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (2000), World Geography (2001), and Earth Science (2001). ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Magill’s encyclopedia of science : plant life / edited by Bryan D. -
Historical Review of Systematic Biology and Nomenclature - Alessandro Minelli
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE FUNDAMENTALS AND SYSTEMATICS – Vol. II - Historical Review of Systematic Biology and Nomenclature - Alessandro Minelli HISTORICAL REVIEW OF SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE Alessandro Minelli Department of Biology, Via U. Bassi 58B, I-35131, Padova,Italy Keywords: Aristotle, Belon, Cesalpino, Ray, Linnaeus, Owen, Lamarck, Darwin, von Baer, Haeckel, Sokal, Sneath, Hennig, Mayr, Simpson, species, taxa, phylogeny, phenetic school, phylogenetic school, cladistics, evolutionary school, nomenclature, natural history museums. Contents 1. The Origins 2. From Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance Encyclopedias 3. From the First Monographers to Linnaeus 4. Concepts and Definitions: Species, Homology, Analogy 5. The Impact of Evolutionary Theory 6. The Last Few Decades 7. Nomenclature 8. Natural History Collections Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary The oldest roots of biological systematics are found in folk taxonomies, which are nearly universally developed by humankind to cope with the diversity of the living world. The logical background to the first modern attempts to rationalize the classifications was provided by Aristotle's logic, as embodied in Cesalpino's 16th century classification of plants. Major advances were provided in the following century by Ray, who paved the way for the work of Linnaeus, the author of standard treatises still regarded as the starting point of modern classification and nomenclature. Important conceptual progress was due to the French comparative anatomists of the early 19th century UNESCO(Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire) – andEOLSS to the first work in comparative embryology of von Baer. Biological systematics, however, was still searching for a unifying principle that could provide the foundation for a natural, rather than conventional, classification.SAMPLE This principle wasCHAPTERS provided by evolutionary theory: its effects on classification are already present in Lamarck, but their full deployment only happened in the 20th century. -
Guide to Plant Collection and Identification
GUIDE TO PLANT COLLECTION AND IDENTIFICATION by Jane M. Bowles PhD Originally prepared for a workshop in Plant Identification for the Ministry of Natural Resources in 1982. Edited and revised for the UWO Herbarium Workshop in Plant Collection and Identification, 2004 © Jane M. Bowles, 2004 -0- CHAPTER 1 THE NAMES OF PLANTS The history of plant nomenclature: Humans have always had a need to classify objects in the world about them. It is the only means they have of acquiring and passing on knowledge. The need to recognize and describe plants has always been especially important because of their use for food and medicinal purposes. The commonest, showiest or most useful plants were given common names, but usually these names varied from country to country and often from district to district. Scholars and herbalists knew the plants by a long, descriptive, Latin sentence. For example Cladonia rangiferina, the common "Reindeer Moss", was described as Muscus coralloides perforatum (The perforated, coral-like moss). Not only was this system unwieldy, but it too varied from user to user and with the use of the plant. In the late 16th century, Casper Bauhin devised a system of using just two names for each plant, but it was not universally adopted until the Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) set about methodically classifying and naming the whole of the natural world. The names of plants: In 1753, Linnaeus published his "Species Plantarum". The modern names of nearly all plants date from this work or obey the conventions laid down in it. The scientific name for an organism consists of two words: i) the genus or generic name, ii) the specific epithet. -
HUNTIA a Journal of Botanical History
HUNTIA A Journal of Botanical History VOLUME 16 NUMBER 2 2018 Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, a research division of Carnegie Mellon University, specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science and serves the international scientific community through research and documentation. To this end, the Institute acquires and maintains authoritative collections of books, plant images, manuscripts, portraits and data files, and provides publications and other modes of information service. The Institute meets the reference needs of botanists, biologists, historians, conservationists, librarians, bibliographers and the public at large, especially those concerned with any aspect of the North American flora. Huntia publishes articles on all aspects of the history of botany, including exploration, art, literature, biography, iconography and bibliography. The journal is published irregularly in one or more numbers per volume of approximately 200 pages by the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. External contributions to Huntia are welcomed. Page charges have been eliminated. All manuscripts are subject to external peer review. Before submitting manuscripts for consideration, please review the “Guidelines for Contributors” on our Web site. Direct editorial correspondence to the Editor. Send books for announcement or review to the Book Reviews and Announcements Editor. All issues are available as PDFs on our Web site. Hunt Institute Associates may elect to receive Huntia as a benefit of membership; contact the Institute for more information. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation Carnegie Mellon University 5th Floor, Hunt Library 4909 Frew Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Telephone: 412-268-2434 Email: [email protected] Web site: http://www.huntbotanical.org Editor and layout Scarlett T. -
A Translation of the Linnaean Dissertation the Invisible World
BJHS 49(3): 353–382, September 2016. © British Society for the History of Science 2016 doi:10.1017/S0007087416000637 A translation of the Linnaean dissertation The Invisible World JANIS ANTONOVICS* AND JACOBUS KRITZINGER** Abstract. This study presents the first translation from Latin to English of the Linnaean disser- tation Mundus invisibilis or The Invisible World, submitted by Johannes Roos in 1769. The dissertation highlights Linnaeus’s conviction that infectious diseases could be transmitted by living organisms, too small to be seen. Biographies of Linnaeus often fail to mention that Linnaeus was correct in ascribing the cause of diseases such as measles, smallpox and syphilis to living organisms. The dissertation itself reviews the work of many microscopists, especially on zoophytes and insects, marvelling at the many unexpected discoveries. It then discusses and quotes at length the observations of Münchhausen suggesting that spores from fungi causing plant diseases germinate to produce animalcules, an observation that Linnaeus claimed to have confirmed. The dissertation then draws parallels between these findings and the conta- giousness of many human diseases, and urges further studies of this ‘invisible world’ since, as Roos avers, microscopic organisms may cause more destruction than occurs in all wars. Introduction Here we present the first translation from Latin to English of the Linnaean dissertation published in 1767 by Johannes Roos (1745–1828) entitled Dissertatio academica mundum invisibilem, breviter delineatura and republished by Carl Linnaeus (1707– 1778) several years later in the Amoenitates academicae under the title Mundus invisibi- lis or The Invisible World.1 Roos was a student of Linnaeus, and the dissertation is important in highlighting Linnaeus’s conviction that infectious diseases could be trans- mitted by living organisms.