Genre:

Essay, Serial

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [6]

Subjects:

Physiology, Natural Law, Induction, Error, Vitalism, Analogy, Machinery, Physiological Chemistry, Organicism, Heat, Energy, Force, Design, Neurology, Sound, Photography, Electricity, Creation

People mentioned:

Samuel Rogers, Rogers, Samuel (1763–1855) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> William R Grove Grove, Sir William Robert (1811–96) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>

Publications cited:

Grove 1846 Grove, William Robert 1846. On the Correlation of Physical Forces: Being the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered in the London Institution in the Year 1843, [London]: London Institution
Close   View the register entry >>

    Attempting to establish 'physiological laws [...] based on a sufficiently wide induction to give them authority as standards, like the laws of gravitation in chemistry', Hinton firstly considers the origins of the 'active power' in animal bodies (21). He concludes that the body resembles a machine, and maintains an equilibrium between the chemical affinities of its elements and a force opposed to these affinities. This equilibrium is constantly overthrown by various stimuli, thereby inducing the performance of the body's functions. The functions of the animal body, he insists, are part of the 'ceaseless round of force-mutation throughout nature, each one generating, or changing into, the other' (23). In this view of physiology 'the vital organism ceases to be contrasted with the rest of nature, and becomes to us an example of universal and familiar laws' (32). Hinton nevertheless maintains that the complex organism is 'a divinely made machine' (24), while the laws of energy conservation are merely 'the plan on which the animal creation is constructed'. Furthermore, the action of forces 'perpetually destroyed and perpetually renewed' operates throughout the universe, and is 'the bond which ties all in one Brotherhood, [and] proclaims one Author'. (32)

Reprinted:

Hinton 1862 Hinton, James 1862. Life in Nature, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Electromagnetism, Electricity, History of Science, Instruments, Experiment, Invention, Telegraphy, Internationalism, Progress, Hypothesis, Physiognomy, Wonder

People mentioned:

Francis Bacon (1st Viscount St Alban), Bacon, Francis, 1st Viscount St Alban (1561–1626) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Edmond Halley, Halley, Edmond (1656?–1743) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Charles F de C Dufay, Dufay (Du Fay), Charles-François de Cisternai (1698–1739) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Stephen Gray, Gray, Stephen (1666–1736) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Otto von Guericke, Guericke (Gericke), Otto von (1602–86) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Benjamin Franklin, Franklin, Benjamin (1706–90) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Luigi Galvani, Galvani, Luigi (1737–98) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Alessandro G A A Volta, Volta, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio (1745–1827) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Hans C Oersted, Oersted, Hans Christian (1777–1851) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Dominique F J Arago, Arago, Dominique François Jean (1786–1853) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> William Sturgeon, Sturgeon, William (1783–1850) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Michael Faraday Faraday, Michael (1791–1867) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>

Institutions mentioned:

Royal Society Royal Society of London
Close   View the register entry >>

Publications cited:

Gilbert 1628 Gilbert, William 1628. Tractatus, sive, physiologia nova de magnete, magneticisque corporibus et magno magnete tellure: sex libris comprehensus, Stettin: Excusus Sedini typis Gotzianis sumptibus authoris
Close   View the register entry >>

    In order to make 'the question of the application of electricity to telegraphy [...] more intelligible to the uninitiated' (65), Stephen traces the long history of the scientific understanding of electricity right back to William Gilbert Gilbert, William (1544–1603) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>. The 'first electric telegraph', he avers, was 'invented' in 1753 by the 'obscure' Scottish inventor Charles Marshall Marshall, Charles () CM1/2/1/2
Close   View the register entry >>, another in the line of 'humble Scotchmen, who gave to civilization the steam-engine, the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, and the gas with which we light our houses and our streets' (66). In the nineteenth century, it is 'the "needle" instrument of Cooke Cooke, William (1785/6–1873) WBI NSTC
Close   View the register entry >> and Wheatstone Wheatstone, Charles (1802–75) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>, the electro-magnetic one of Morse Morse, Samuel Finley Breese (1791–1872) CBD
Close   View the register entry >>, and the electro-chemical one of Bain Bain, Alexander (1810–77) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>' (67) which 'form the grand type of the telegraphic system, and are more extensively used than any other' (67–68). The needle instrument, for example, is 'now in operation over probably 25,000 miles of wire in England and Scotland alone' (69). With the rapid spread of the telegraphic system, 'science, in this her most brilliant achievement' can bridge over the 'chasms which separate nation from nation and race from race' and will have an 'influence on the future of civilization it is impossible to estimate'. Nevertheless, the man of science remains in the position of a 'physiognomist' who 'may indeed decipher something of Nature from the aspect of her countenance, but [...] cannot see the workings of her inmost heart'. (73)

Genre:

Novel, Serial

Subjects:

Supernaturalism, Psychology, Mental Illness, Mesmerism

    The existence of a peculiar 'rapport' between the minds of the narrator and Lady Alice Hilton, which 'generate[s] in the brain of the one the vision present in the brain of the other', means that both witness the fulfilment of the prevision of his elderly nurse maid. The story closes with Lady Alice, who earlier exhibits the same mesmeric powers as the narrator, apparently confined in 'an asylum for the insane' on the Continent (83).

Reprinted:

Macdonald 1864 Macdonald, George 1864. The Portent: A Story of the Inner Vision of the Highlanders, Commonly Called the Second Sight, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Adulteration, Public Health, Chemistry, Microscopy, Wonder, Government, Medical Practitioners, Pharmaceuticals

People mentioned:

William Scholefield Scholefield, William (1809–67) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>

Institutions mentioned:

Select Committee to Inquire into Adulteration of Food, Drinks and Drugs Select Committee to Inquire into Adulteration of Food, Drinks and Drugs
Close   View the register entry >>

Publications cited:

Hassall 1857 Hassall, Arthur Hill 1857. Adulterations Detected, or, Plain Instructions for the Discovery of Frauds in Food and Medicine, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts
Close   View the register entry >>

    The threat to public health posed by the 'strange, disgusting, and poisonous demon' (86) adulteration has recently been brought to 'almost universal attention' by the campaign waged by the Lancet Lancet (1823–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >> (88). Traditionally, chemistry has been used for 'the detection of the various chemical substances and salts used for adulteration' (89), but more recently it has been surpassed by the microscope. The first applications of this 'wonder-revealing instrument [...] created no little surprise and alarm amongst the perpetrators of such frauds. Hundreds of sophistications were brought to light which had for years escaped discovery' (90). Lampoons the Parliamentary Bill for Preventing Adulteration of Articles of Food and Drink as 'weak, diluted, and itself adulterated' (96), and notes that it omits the adulteration of drugs by doctors whose 'best friends [...] prove to be the adulterator', a practice which introduces the 'greatest uncertainty and confusion' into medicine (91).

Genre:

Essay, Polemic, Serial

Subjects:

Political Economy, Analogy, Electricity, Physiology, Mathematics, Manufactories, Soul

    Ruskin's condemnation of political economy draws on several analogies with natural science. Wealth and riches, for instance, are 'a power like that of electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself' (278). Similarly, the 'circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the natural body', an analogy, Ruskin claims, which 'will hold, down even to minute particulars' (281). In conclusion, he asks whether 'among national manufactures, that of Souls of a good quality may not at least turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one?' (286).

Reprinted:

Ruskin 1862 Ruskin, John 1862. "Unto This Last": Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay, Serial

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [14]

Subjects:

Wonder, Physiology, Design, Natural Law, Theology of Nature, Discovery, Popularization, Neurology, Creation, Romanticism, Imagination, Force, Physiological Chemistry, Organicism

People mentioned:

Francis Bacon (1st Viscount St Alban), Bacon, Francis, 1st Viscount St Alban (1561–1626) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Herbert Spencer, Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> George Rainey, Rainey, George (1801–84) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> John W Draper Draper, John William (1811–1882) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>

Publications cited:

Spencer 1859 Spencer, Herbert 1859. 'The Laws of Organic Form', British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 23, 189–202
Close   View the register entry >>

    Celebrating the wonder and mystery of 'nature's inmost being' (313), Hinton advises that the study of the 'unity of the vital and other laws', and of 'the organic and inorganic worlds', leads to a higher appreciation of the Creation because it prevents us from putting 'asunder in our thought what God has joined together' (314). The main determinant of organic form, he contends, is 'the resistance of the structures which surround the growing organism'. This is 'the simple means employed by the Creator for bringing into being the marvels of the organic world' (319). Organic bodies develop in accordance with the 'universal law' of taking 'the direction of least resistance' (320), and invariably assume a 'spiral form' which is 'a general characteristic both of the vegetable and animal creation'. This is illustrated by a passage from John Ruskin's Ruskin, John (1819–1900) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> 'recent volume' of Modern Painters Ruskin, John 1857–60. Modern Painters, 6th edn, 5 vols, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>. (321)

Reprinted:

Hinton 1862 Hinton, James 1862. Life in Nature, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Statistics, Disease, Analogy

    Details the uses of crime statistics, though remaining sceptical as to their actual impact on the reduction of criminality. The 'virus of future thieving' is 'like the worm in the naked foot of the negro, the reptile can never be killed until its head is drawn out' (340).

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Invention, Political Economy, Domestic Economy, Health

    Notes that the post-Waterloo process of wealth accumulation has been 'dignified by the application to it of a vast number of scientific inventions'. Political economy is 'the only branch of inquiry [...] which, being conversant with human action, has attained anything approaching to the precision of a science'. (346) Also remarks upon the 'extreme costliness' of modern standards of health which require 'a roomy house, good drainage, plenty of food, careful nursing, proper medical attendance, and occasional change of air' (348).

Genre:

Essay, Travelogue

Relevant illustrations:

eng.

Subjects:

Ethnography, Imperialism

    Details various customs and practices of the Druse and Maronite tribes of Lebanon in order to 'throw some light upon the causes' of the recent sectarian massacre (370).

Genre:

Essay, Polemic, Serial

Subjects:

Political Economy, Adulteration, Utilitarianism, Human Species, Soul

    The 'science of getting rich' includes the 'adulteration of food of people of small estates', a method 'employed largely now' (409). In a footnote Ruskin avows that it is 'the privilege of the fishes, as it is of rats and wolves, to live by the laws of demand and supply; but the distinction of humanity, to live by those of right' (410n.).

Reprinted:

Ruskin 1862 Ruskin, John 1862. "Unto This Last": Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay, Serial

Subjects:

Physiology, Physiological Psychology, Physiological Chemistry, Botany, Force, Energy, Nutrition, Analogy, Political Economy, Machinery, Natural Law, Vitalism, Magnetism, Romanticism, Organicism, Astronomy, Design, Theology of Nature

People mentioned:

Francis Bacon (1st Viscount St Alban), Bacon, Francis, 1st Viscount St Alban (1561–1626) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> John W Draper, Draper, John William (1811–1882) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Isaac Newton, Newton, Sir Isaac (1642–1727) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> Antonio J Cavanilles Cavanilles, Antonio José (1745–1804) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>

Publications cited:

Cosmos Cosmos: Revue encyclopedique hebdomadaire des progres des sciences (1852–70) BUCOP
Close   View the register entry >>

    Although conceding that the 'union of mind and body is in our experience so intimate, that we naturally think of them together', Hinton insists that the 'purely physical life of the body' remains 'subservient' to 'the spiritual faculties of feeling and will', and proposes that physiology must continue 'distinguishing the mental and the material life, [...] fixing our thoughts upon the body, over which, as over an obedient instrument, the conscious man bears sway' (421). In this examination of the animal body, Hinton locates it within the universal system of energy conservation that operates in accordance with the law: 'Every giving off of force has for its necessary effect the storing up of force in equal amount elsewhere' (424). The perpetual process of 'an equal loss and gain' of force is analogous to the principles of political economy: 'Nature in this respect is like the books of a commercial firm [...]. We are but borrowers from Nature's store, and what she showers on us with open hand, with a stern clutch she snatches from our fellows. But we are honest debtors, and pay to the last farthing' (425). Samuel T Coleridge Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> in his posthumous book Hints Towards the Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory of Life Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 1848. Hints Towards the Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory of Life, ed. by Seth B Watson, London: John Churchill
Close   View the register entry >> is seen to have 'anticipated, so far as his general view is concerned, almost the entire advance of physiological knowledge since his day' (426). The essential unity of the organic and inorganic worlds, expressed by Coleridge and others, leads to the necessary conclusion that 'the apparently inorganic world is truly living too' (428). All structures are made up of lifeless atoms ('The ultimate atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, for example, are the same in the human brain as they are in water'), and the existence of life depends only upon their mode of organization (429). In this view, inorganic planets might be considered as atomic particles that are organized into the living whole of a galaxy. Hinton concludes his series of articles by explaining to the reader, who has remained 'tolerant of the abstruse discussions which some of the papers contain' (431), that 'the name "Riddles" has not been given to them without meaning, or merely to stimulate a jaded curiosity' (430–31), but in order to signify our still 'feeble powers' of comprehension with regard to the 'laws and methods of the Highest and Universal Worker' (431).

Reprinted:

Hinton 1862 Hinton, James 1862. Life in Nature, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Ethnography, Race, Imperialism, Morality, Steamships, Military Technology, Progress, Adulteration

    Describes the instinctual cowardice, avarice and criminality of the Chinese people, which means that 'you cannot easily persuade a Chinese that there is anything objectionable in piracy' (435). In that vast country 'There are so many mouths to feed that human life is a drug in the market, and every man's head [...] sits loosely on his shoulders' (436). The deceitful cunning of Chinese pirates, however, cannot overcome the steam-powered might of 'an English cruiser'. In any battle 'Discipline, race, and civilization are too much for fierceness and greed [...] the deep British cheer rising louder and clearer over the yells of the savages'. (435)

Genre:

Essay, Rejoinder

Relevant illustrations:

wdct. [4]

Subjects:

Military Technology, Government, Telegraphy, Railways, Discovery, Electricity, Steamships, Experiment, Invention, National Efficiency, Dynamics

People mentioned:

Josiah Jones, Jones, Josiah (fl. 1860) CM1/2/4/4
Close   View the register entry >> Cowper P Coles Coles, Cowper Phipps (1819–70) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>

    The various governmental shortcomings revealed by the Royal Commission on State Fortifications for Defence of UK Royal Commission on State Fortifications for Defence of the United Kingdom
Close   View the register entry >> are contrasted with scientific contributions to the defence of England. For example, 'we have a power of concentrating our forces, by means of our railways and telegraphs, unrivalled in any other country' (496). Furthermore, 'Our natural advantages are great; and it seems now to be admitted that those arising from scientific improvements and discoveries are greater for our defence than for any attack upon our shores'. Among these advances is 'the new portable electric light' for which the 'Scientific Committee of the War Department are now busily engaged in devising a system of signals by light-flashes'. Most importantly, successful 'experiments' have been made on 'steel and iron armour for ships, scientifically constructed with the view of diverting the shot and causing it to glance off, instead of clumsily attempting to resist it by mere strength of material alone'. (497) With these 'invulnerable vessels of a new and scientific construction [...] what enemy will dare approach us?'. The article concludes that 'our future Bulwarks must be of IRON'. (500)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Steamships, Transport, Technology, Progress, Aeronautics, Invention, Futurism, Zoological Gardens, Palaeontology

    Reflects that 'your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one [...]. We are of the age of steam. We have stepped out of the old world on to Brunel's Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (1806–59) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> vast deck, and across the waters ingens patet tellus. Towards what continent are we wending?'. The narrator relates how he 'used to know a man who had invented a flying-machine', but who failed to make it for the want of five hundred pounds, and then remarks, 'somebody else must make the flying-machine. But that will only be a step forward on the journey already begun since we quitted the old world'. Suggests that 'We who lived before railways [...] are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark'. (504) These 'prærailroadites' are compared with 'the hippopotamus, and the elephant, and the long-necked giraffe' in a zoological gardens, who, 'when the keepers are asleep [...] lay their heads together and have a colloquy about the great silent antediluvian world which they remember, where mighty monsters floundered around the ooze, crocodiles basked on the banks, and dragons darted out of the caves and waters before men were made to slay them' (504–05).

Reprinted:

Thackeray 1863 Thackeray, William Makepeace 1863. Roundabout Papers: Reprinted from 'The Cornhill Magazine', London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay, Polemic, Serial

Subjects:

Political Economy, Heterodoxy, Boundary Formation, Natural Law, Energy, Human Species, Population, Utilitarianism, Environmentalism, Theology of Nature

    Contends that 'the real science of political economy', which teaches the love of virtue and life, 'has yet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology' (547). Ruskin also invokes the laws of energy conservation to invalidate the assertion that everybody can make a profit: 'by the unfortunate constitution of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion have quite rigorously forbidden universal acquisition of this kind [...] for every plus there is a precisely equal minus' (551). While for Thomas R Malthus Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766–1834) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> and his followers 'Man [is] considered as an animal [...] limited by the same laws' that check the 'multiplication of animals' like gnats and swallows, Ruskin insists that 'the law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life', and it is 'limited only by the limits of his courage and his love' (559). Expressing his environmental concerns, Ruskin alleges that although 'All England may, if it so chooses, become one manufacturing town [...] the world cannot become a factory or a mine'. Rather, 'so long as men live by bread, the far away vallies must laugh as they are covered with the gold of God', and men will always continue to love the 'triplets of birds, and murmur and chirps of insects'. (562)

Reprinted:

Ruskin 1862 Ruskin, John 1862. "Unto This Last": Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Meterology, Climatology, Prognostication, Observation, Animal Behaviour, Electricity, Instruments, Magnetism, Telegraphy, Astronomy, Agriculture, Gas Chemistry, Amateurism, Progress, Immaterialism, Force

People mentioned:

John F W Herschel Herschel, Sir John Frederick William (1792–1871) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>

    Begins by defining the difference between weather and climate. Even without complex instruments, 'our own observations of the external world' can help us become 'weather-wise' (567). Indeed, the 'life-long observation of small signs' made by the 'weather-beaten sailor or the old shepherd [...] combine all that a dozen instruments and as many careful meteorologists could discover' (575). Reports that a 'great magnetic storm' in August 1859 caused 'an extraordinary disturbance of currents along telegraph wires' (572). The 'ultimate causes of weather' are traced back to the sun (576), the varieties of climate being determined by 'those rays which communicate light, heat, chemical action and electricity'. It has recently been observed, moreover, that the appearance of 'large dark spots' obscuring the face of the sun are accompanied by 'magnetic disturbances on the earth ' which induce a 'great general derangement of the weather over large areas'. (577) The 'study of the weather', then, involves the observation of 'the course of vegetation and the habit of animals' as well as 'some of the highest problems and most remarkable speculations of physical astronomy'. Furthermore, there is 'probably no department of science in which more real advance has been made within the last quarter of a century than in meteorology'. (578) Noting the 'mutual dependence that exists between the material and immaterial parts of the great system of creation', speculates that 'we may almost recognize the reality of an existence unhampered by material impediments, when we find an instantaneous response of our innermost sense and sensations to a material stimulus applied within the burning atmosphere of the sun'. The 'peculiarities of constitution' endured by 'persons of high nervous organization' may have their origin in 'a more ready sensibility to these real but indefinable natural forces'. (579)

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Health, Physiology, Nutrition, Scientific Practitioners, Amateurism

    Alleges that 'there is a vis medicatrix in work as there is in nothing else' (603). Work is 'verily a coat of mail' against all the minor sicknesses and bodily ailments which are 'the common lot of us poor worldlings' (604–05). Even though some 'theorists have written or declaimed about animal food clogging or deadening the intellectual faculties', insists that 'intellectual labour demands good physical support even more than bodily work', and recommends 'Beefsteaks' rather than 'salad' (607). Also considers the work patterns of 'men occupying an important position in an "office"' who 'do supplementary work, write books or articles, or solve mighty problems in science', as well as those who 'having no official labours, choose their own time for literary labour or scientific research' (611).

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Photography, Status

    Warns that 'a cheap and obtrusive photographer' will make a bad neighbour (621). He will 'get cheaper still, and more obtrusive; his operations will spread from the house and garden to the public pathway, where he will stand with an inky specimen of his art, and stop the passers-by' (621–22).

Reprinted:

Hollingshead 1900 Hollingshead, John 1900. According to My Lights, London: Chatto & Windus
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Spiritualism

    Reflecting that 'Bodily, I may be in 1860, inert, silent, torpid; but in the spirit I am walking about in 1828', the narrator asks, 'Have you read Mr. Dale Owen's Owen, Robert Dale (1801–77) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> Footsteps on the Confines of Another World Owen, Robert Dale 1860. Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World: With Narrative Illustrations, Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott & Co
Close   View the register entry >>?—(My dear sir, it will make your hair stand quite refreshingly on end). In that work you will read that when gentlemen's or ladies' spirits travel off a few score or thousand miles to visit a friend, their bodies lie quiet and in a torpid state in their beds or in their arm-chairs at home. So, in this way, I am absent' (625).

Genre:

Letter

Subjects:

Education, Schools, Mathematics, Scientific Practitioners, Status

    Reports that 'although a rather pompous pretence has at last been made of teaching the Eton Eton College, Berkshire
Close   View the register entry >> boys arithmetic, mathematics, and modern languages, it is but a pretence' (643), and the subjects remain 'systematically neglected' (644). As a consequence 'the most eminent Englishmen in every art and science [...] have not been educated at our public schools' (648). Also notes that undistinguished tutors at Eton earn more than 'three or four times as much as Professor Owen Owen, Richard (1804–92) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> himself' (646), whose salary as 'Superintendent of Natural History' at the British Museum British Museum
Close   View the register entry >> is 'but 800l. a-year' (647n.)

Reprinted:

Higgins 1861 Higgins, Matthew James 1861. Three Letters to the Editor of "The Cornhill Magazine" on Public School Education By Paterfamilias, London: Smith, Elder and Co
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Novel, Serial

Subjects:

Disease, Religion, Sanitation, Medical Practitioners, Status

    When his wife contracts typhus, Josiah Crawley resolves to 'take upon himself the duties of [...] a nurse'. In his 'absolute ignorance of all sanatory measures', however, he merely 'throw[s] himself on his knees to pray'. The charitable Lucy Lufton considers that, as well as prayer, 'other aid [is] also wanting to' Crawley's wife (656). She reports that although a 'doctor's assistant' has visited the sick woman 'they are greatly in want of better advice' (658).

Reprinted:

Trollope 1861 Trollope, Anthony 1861. Framley Parsonage, 3 vols, London: Smith Elder and Co.
Close   View the register entry >>

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Pollution, Mineralogy, Chemistry, Experiment, Patents

    Warns that, as well as hostile nations, 'we have other enemies'. These are the agents of pollution—'worms or boring animals [...]; the fungus called dry rot [...]; and the moisture and gases in the air'—which threaten even the most prestigious buildings in the country (709). Advises that 'if there be any defence, it must come from the mineral kingdom' and that the 'architect and builder must appeal to the chemist' for a protective substance that will penetrate behind the surface of stone (713). Such a substance, based on a solution of flint called water-glass, was pioneered in France by Charles F Kuhlmann Kuhlmann, Charles Frédéric (1803–81) WBI
Close   View the register entry >>, and has recently been further developed in England by Frederick Ransome Ransome, Frederick (1818–93) WBI
Close   View the register entry >>. The initial trials of Ransome's 'patented [...] method' (716) have been successful, although they are 'manifestly too recent to justify an opinion' (717). Also notes that 'any allusion to chemical technicalities' has been 'purposely avoided' in the main text of the article (instead they are dealt with in a brief footnote) (715–16n.).

Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Specialization, Medical Practitioners, Status, Health, Darwinism

    Applauds the 'universal tendency amongst us to go in search of specialities'. For example, 'General practitioners seldom get beyond a respectable mediocrity, whilst your specialists attain to eminence and wealth. If an eye or an ear be affected, we seek out the man who has made that particular organ the study of his life'. (734) Also comments on the importance of good health in 'the great Olympics of life' (736).