Themes > periodicals

Browsing through the medical weeklies and fortnightlies of the nineteenth century, as I often am these days, one encounters many different types of writing.

When I arrived in Leicester in early September I only had a vague idea of what I would be doing during the upcoming months.

Periodicals as a source base for research are endless fun. Victorian periodicals in particular are loaded with odd stories written by characters that you tend not to hear about that often in histories of science.

The Botanical Miscellany was the first in a series of periodicals established and edited by William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow.

Amidst the beautiful surroundings of the University of St. Andrews, the annual conference of the British Society for the History of Science took place between 3-6 July.

Professor Sally Shuttleworth and Dr Sally Frampton’s article on the medical strand of the Constructing Scientific Communities project has been published in The Lancet (Volume 385, Number 9987, 27 June 2015).

"Dear Mr Darwin", a lecture delivered by Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Dr Sally Frampton and Dr Geoff Belknap as part of the Oxford Martin School lecture series Trusting the crowd: solving big problems with everyday solutions.

The teenage entomologist Thomas Blackburn (1844-1912) was not easily discouraged.

‘Why do entomologists need a weekly newspaper?’ asked the very first number of the Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer in April 1856.

From Amateurs to Citizens: Periodicals, Images and Internet platforms in the 19th and 21st centuries a guest blog post for AHRC Science in Culture by Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Dr Gowan Dawson, Dr Sally Frampton and Dr Geoff Belknap.

The Gardener's Chronicle differs from other science periodicals in that it resembles a newspaper rather than a magazine, being printed in three columns and published on a weekly basis.

Well, Science Gossip is a self-determined toddler at 2 years old today.

Hardwicke's Science-Gossip took the first part of its title from Robert Hardwicke (1822-75), who was a prolific publisher of scientific books and journals.

Hooker's Journal of Botany is the fourth and final iteration in a series of periodicals edited by William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865).

My last blog post profiled the Indian Medical Gazette, a long-running journal affiliated with the Indian Medical Service (IMS). This week I’m looking at one of its major rivals, the Indian Medical Record, which proudly proclaimed its independence from the

My last blog post looked at the Indian Medical Record, a journal aimed at independent practitioners in British India.

The Journal of Botany, edited by William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), continued from where his previous periodical, the Botanical Miscellany (1830-33), had ended.

The Journal of Horticulture was edited by George William Johnson (1802-86), a writer on gardening subjects, and Robert Hogg (1818-97), a nurseryman and botanist (specialising in pomology, the cultivation of fruit).

The Microscopical Society of London was founded in 1839, becoming the Royal Microscopical Society in 1866. They began publishing their Transactions in the 1840s, but in 1878 the decision was made to launch a new journal that contained all the papers read

The Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club is unusual in that it would probably never have existed without another periodical, Hardwicke's Science-Gossip (1865-93).

In an earlier blog post, I profiled the Midland Medical Miscellany, a proudly provincial medical journal which was conducted by Kenneth William Millican.

This periodical is the third in a series of botanical journals to be edited by William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865). Once again, he changed the title and publisher, but much of the contents remained very similar to previous versions.

In 1893, the popular periodical The Nineteenth Century featured an article on ‘Medical Women in Fiction’, written by Sophia Jex-Blake, who was well-known as a pioneer in the movement for women in medicine.

One of the pleasures of working with a physical collection of journals is serendipity.

Science has escaped from the laboratory. It lives on our television screens and newspaper pages.

Professor Chris Lintott has featured on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science, taking part in a discussion on open access journal publishing with Fiona Godlee, Editor of the British Medical Journal and Lesley Anson, Chief Editor of Nature Communications.

Recreative Science was a short-lived periodical (even by nineteenth-century standards), and as its title suggests, it was aimed at a broad audience who were interested in natural history as an enjoyable hobby.

The life of a periodical editor in the nineteenth century was not an occupation for the easily discouraged.

In November 2015, the project held a symposium at the Royal Society on The End of the Scientific Journal? Transformations in Publishing 1800-2015.

A special issue of Notes and Records, the journal of the Royal Society, has been published.

The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine was not the only periodical launched in 1864 that catered exclusively to those who collected and studied insects.

In 1890, a schoolmaster and lepidopterist named James William Tutt (1858-1911) established a periodical intended to ‘supply a magazine devoted entirely to the wants of British entomologists’.

The Field Naturalist was established and edited by James Rennie, a Scottish naturalist who was Professor of Natural History at King's College, London, from 1830-34. He was therefore unusual in this period for earning a salary through his scientific work.

The Gardener's Magazine was edited by John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843), a Scottish botanist and influential garden designer.

The story of the Geologist is inseparable from that of its editor, Samuel Joseph Mackie (1823-1902), who is in many ways representative of so many individuals who attempted (and very often failed) to earn a living from science.

One of the earliest illustrated natural history periodicals in Britain, the Magazine of Natural History was established in 1828 by the influential Scottish botanist and garden designer John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843).

In 1876, natural history societies and 'field clubs' from across the British Midlands (and parts of Wales) formed into a network named the Midland Union of Literary and Scientific Societies.

The year 1864 was a busy one for the business of natural history periodical publishing.

The Geological Society of London was founded in 1807, essentially as a dining club where gentlemen could meet to enjoy scientific conversation over a good meal (and plenty of drink).

The first volume of the Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer ended in September 1856, having begun in April that year.

After five years of publication, the Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer was discontinued in 1861.

The readers of the Lancet were only too familiar with the ubiquity of the “medical-women question”, for it confronted them not only in their institutions and through popular culture, but in the pages of their medical journals as well.

The nineteenth century saw a proliferation of periodicals dedicated to natural history in its various forms.

The Medical Mirror was a general medical monthly, published in London. It was originally edited by metropolitan physician William Abbotts Smith.

The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine was (and remains) the official publication of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.

The workshop ‘Working with 19th-Century Medical and Health Periodicals’ was held on 30 May 2015 and co-organized by the ERC-funded ‘Diseases of Modern Life’ Project and the AHRC-funded ‘Constructing Scientific Communities’ Project.

For many medical historians, including myself, medical periodicals are a resource of critical importance.

With the rise of the ‘Impact’ agenda in contemporary Britain, and the requirement that researchers show how their work has influenced a wider public, a new breed of expert has sprung up -- the writer of “impact case studies”.

In 1958, the endocrinologist Richard Asher wrote a provocative article for the British Medical Journal lamenting the lacklustre and boring style of the modern medical journal.

The release of The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) – a film which tells the story of how Charles Dickens penned A Christmas Carol in 1843 – has reignited the popular myth that the Victorians ‘created’ the festive season.