A overview of scientific institutions that facilitated the advances, particularly the Royal Society. Some of teh major scientists and some of the less well known scientist who contributed to their work.

2. 16th-17th Century Institutions
• Anatomy theater
– Bologna (late 15th century); Leiden (1593)
– London (1557), Oxford (1623)
• Botanical garden
– Padua (1545); Leiden (1577, 1601)
– Oxford (1621); Edinburgh (1670s); Chelsea (1673)
• Public natural history museum
– Aldrovani, Bologna (1601)
– Ashmolean, Oxford (1683)

3. Anatomical Theater, Leiden 1609

4. Inigo Jones Barber Surgeons Theatre 1636

5. Gustavium, Uppsala, 1662

6. Hooke – Royal College of Physicians (1673-
77)

7. Cutlerian Anatomical Theatre, Warwick Lane, London
Robert Hooke ~1679

8. Experimental Medicine
Blood Circulation
Harvey (1578-1657) De Motu Cordis showed roles of
arteries and veins (but did not observe capillaries)
Materialist view of human physiology
Pharmacology
New medicines from new worlds.
Ability to use alchemical tools such as distillation to
extract components.

9. Transfusion
1628 Giovanni Colle (1558-1631), Professor of
Medicine at Padua, suggested use to prolong life
1654 Francesco Folli (1624-1685), a physician of
Florence claimed to perform an experiment
using transfusion
1656 Christopher Wren injected wine and beer
into the veins of a dog
Maluf, Noble Suydam R. "History of Blood Transfusion The Use of Blood from
Antiquity Through the Eighteenth Century." Journal of the history of medicine and
allied sciences 9.1 (1954): 59-107.

10. Transfusion
1663 Timothy Clarke, physician to Charles II transfused
blood between two dogs; 1665 Repeated by Dr. Wilkins
1665 Richard Lower reported direct transfer between
dogs using silver tubes to connect the carotid artery of
an animal with the jugular vein of another.

11. Transfusion−Humans
Questions about inter-species transfer
“ “ “ Effects on behavior
Use of sheep blood to make a man more docile
Reaction to such a transfusion in France led to
prohibition in France and discrediting in England

12. Oxford Botanical Garden
• Medicinal garden
• Planted for “the glorification
of God” and “for the
furtherance of learning.”
• New discoveries – impetus
for natural history studies
• Jacob Bobart, first curator
– Unpaid and earned income by
selling produce
1645 English Yew

13. Chelsea Physic
Garden

14. Institutions
Experimentation and Communication
• 1579 Gresham College
• 1660 Royal Society
• 1673 Christ's Hospital Mathematical School
• 1675 Royal Observatory, Greenwich

15. Gresham College
• Money left to City of London
• Free public lectures
• Professorships of Astronomy, Divinity,
Geometry, Law, Music, Physic and Rhetoric.

16. Gresham – Original Grounds

18. Observatory
Physic Professor Laboratory

19. Natural History
Collections
• Individuals
• Royal Society collection
• Tradescant collection
– Collected in Virginia
– Keeper of his Majesty's
Gardens, Vines, and
Silkworms
– Opened to public for a fee

20. Tradescant Collection
• Garden of foreign plants
• Birds, reptiles, mammals, stones, shells, a
mummy’s hand
• A small piece of wood from the cross of Christ
• Pictures from the church of S. Sophia in
Constantinople copied by a Jew into a book
• The passion of Christ carved on a plumstone

21. Retaining the Collection
Catalog produced with help
from Elias Ashmole
1659 Bequeathed to
Ashmole with his wife to
benefit during her lifetime
Chancery prevents sale
1678 Ashmole gives to
Oxford w. a building

22. Hawking glove of
Henry VIII
Russian Bead Calculator
Rhino
horn
cup

23. Science Societies
1603 Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of Lynxes),
Rome, founded by Duke Frederico Cesi was the
first that appears to have published any
proceedings.
1660 The Royal Society, London
Invisible College for the promoting of Physico-
Mathematical Experimental Learning
1666 Académie des Sciences, Paris

24. Samuel Hartlib (1600-62) Intelligencer
• An agent for the agent for the dissemination
of Science news, books, and manuscripts
• Advocate for an ideal institution of learning
(Bacon New Atlantis; Hartlib Macaria)
• The “Hartlib circle,” a group of enthusiasts
whose ideas were circulated through copies of
letters and manuscripts
DNB

25. Royal Society
for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge
1645 Discussion groups begin; split into Oxford
and London groups
1660 Formal meetings at Gresham College
No profitable thing shall seem too mean for
consideration, seeing that they have some amongst
them, whose life is employ’d about little things, as
well as great.
By this they have broken down the partition
wall…for all conditions of men to engage in these
Studies
1662 Royal charter

26. Contributions
• Experiments tried at home or laboratories
• Experiments performed at meetings
– In principle, all levels of society
– In practice, merchants excluded because of issues of
trade secrets and disdain of profit motives
– Skilled technicians employed but only acknowledged
when mistakes occurred
• Publication of results
– Transactions
– Works published by the Society’s printers

27. Members
Include foreign and colonial members who were
exempted from dues and attendance
Colonial members from 13 colonies in the 17th C.
– John Winthrop (1662)
– William Penn (1681)
– William Byrd (1696)
In addition there were correspondents from the
colonies in the eighteenth century

28. William Brouncker, first president
• An Irish mathematician
who worked on
continued fractions and
calculated logarithms by
infinite series.

29. Publication
1/1665 Journal des sçavans (later
Journal des savants), Paris, est. by
Denis de Sallo
3/1665 Transactions
Procedures worked out in letters
from the first editor, Oldenburg
• Submission date for precedence
• Open dissemination of research

30. Henry Oldenburg (1609-1697)
• Born in Bremen
• Educated in Bremen,
Utrecht and Oxford
• Secretary of the Royal
Society with fluency in
English, Dutch, French,
German, Italian and
Latin
• Published on spec.
• Translated and published
letters from continent
• Sought comments

31. Some leading contributors
Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, and
Robert Hooke
Astronomers: Johannes Hevelius (lunar
topography), Giovanni Domenico Cassini (moons of
Saturn, distance to Mars) and Adrien Auzout,
Microscopy: Antony van Leeuwenhoek,
Mathematicians: Christiaan Huygens (wave theory
of light) and Gottfried Leibnitz (calculus, relativity of
space and time)

32. Issue 1

33. Royal Mathematical School at
Christ's Hospital School
• Fostered by Samuel Pepys
• Inadequate navigational skills of naval officers
• Mathematical basis of navigation

34. Royal Observatory, Flamsteed House, 1676

35. Octagon Room at the Royal Observatory, c.1676

36. Observational Astronomy
• William Gascoigne, minor gentry
• Jeremiah Horrocks, teacher
• William Crabtree, cloth dealer

37. William Gascoigne (1612-44)
• Education, unknown
• Add eyepiece micrometer to
telescope to make precise
measurements
• Worked with Horrocks and
Crabtree
• Ideas later used by Towneley
and Flamsteed
• Killed at Marston Moor
Drawn by Robert Hooke –” A Description of an Instrument for Dividing a Foot into Many Thousand
Parts, and Thereby Measuring the Diameters of Planets to a Great Exactness, &c. as It Was
Promised,” Numb. 25. In: Philosophical Transactions, 11. November 1667, S. 541–556.

38. Findings using projected images
• 1637 Horrocks and Crabtree watch the dark
edge of the Moon obscure the individual stars
of the Pleiades and conclude that the stars
were points of light and not disks
• 1638 Horrocks concluded lunar orbit is
elliptical
• 1639 Observe transit of Venus
– Calculate distance of sun – 59,600,000 miles
Chapman, Allan. "Jeremiah Horrocks, William Crabtree, and the Lancashire observations of the transit of
Venus of 1639." Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2004.IAUC196 (2004): 3-26.

39. Reflecting Telescope
“An Accompt of a New Catadioptrical Telescope Invented by Mr. Newton, Fellow of the R.
Society, and Professor of the Mathematiques in the University of Cambridge, 1672”
James Gregory
Optica Promota
1663
Cassegrain

40. Great Comet of 1680

41. Great Comet (“Newton’s Comet”)
• Comets (?) observed by Flamsteed in 1680
and 1681
– Predicted to be same comet; erroneously said to
be repulsed by the sun
• Path explained by Newton; one comet in a
parabolic orbit (possibly elliptic)

42. Edmund Halley (1656-1742)
1675 Assistant to Flamsteed
Encouraged and financed
Newton’s publication of
Principia
Improved diving bell and suit
Calculated path of 1682
comet in 1705; predicted
1768 return
2nd astronomer royal

44. Successes of Newton’s Gravitation
Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 19 (1695 - 1697), 445-457

45. To a Theory of Gravitation
• Ether pushing objects down
• Flamsteed suggests magnetic attraction by
sun
• Inverse square law – who said what when?
• Halley encourages Newton

46. Newton
Principia, 1st edition

47. Robert Boyle
1660 New Experiments Physio-Mechanical,
Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects
– 2nd edition has Boyle’s law
1661 The Sceptical Chymist .
1663 Some Considerations Touching the
Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy
“Luciferous and fructiferous” experiments

48. Uses - Mathematics
• Quadrants, Sectors, Astrolabes , Globes, Maps,
• Lutes, Viols, Organs, and other musical
instruments
• Applications in mechanical trades

49. Uses-Health
• Defense against diseases
• Improvements in agriculture

50. Uses-Chemistry, Materials
• Refine gold and silver
• Improve crops through inorganic supplements
• Counterfeit marble
• Writing without “blacking fingers” with ink

51. Papin Digester
Safety valve
with pressure
limited by
weight, W

52. Papin Digester, version 2

53. Clocks
1656 Huygens, Pendulum clock
~1670 William Clement
– Anchor escapement
– Tall case
Verge escapement
Tompion, 1675-78

54. Clockmakers
• 1631 Worshipful Company of Clockmakers
given a royal charter on manufacture and sale
• Richard Towneley – deadbeat variation of
anchor escapement
• Thomas Tompion – Pendulum clocks wound
yearly
• Hooke – Balance springs

55. Use of Mortality Statistics to
Calculate Annuities
• Improved on prior observations of William
Petty
• Data from Breslau

56. Christopher Wren (1632–1723)
• Early work
– Alphabet for the deaf
– Pasteboard anatomical models for lectures
– Device to make two copies of a document at one
time
– Professor of astronomy, Oxford

57. Wren as Scientist
• First drawings made from microscope
• Relief globe of the moon
• Attempt to solve mathematical problems
posed by Pascal
• 1661 Advised on repair of old St Paul's
Cathedral

58. 1669 Surveyor of the King’s Works
Continued scientific work
– Physiology of flies
– Muscular action
– Collisions of bodies
– Machine to grind aspherical lenses
– Rain gauge

59. Century of Inventions
Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of
Worcester

60. Earliest Straight Slide Rule, 1654
Gunter’s scales, Described 1623

61. Aids to Calculation
Everard, Excise officers’ slide rules, 1684
Oughtred, 1700

62. Marquess of Worcester
Water-Commanding Engine, Raglan Castle
Reported in 1663 to lift buckets of water 40’

63. Savery Engine
(1827 drawing)
D boiler
X condensing water
P condensing vessel
Various valves and connecting tubes
• Uses vacuum and high pressure
steam to pump water
• 1698 patent covers mines, mills,
drainage, water supply

64. Savery Engine
• Defects
Limited to a pumping height of ~20 feet
Water mostly driven by atmospheric pressure
Inefficient as each stroke required recreating
steam
Safety – strength of boilers