Catalogue of an exhibition of scientific apparatus pertaining to medicine and surgery.

Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catalogue of an exhibition of scientific apparatus pertaining to medicine and surgery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Ashmolean building. The collection was placed there in 1924 and has since - been much augmented. The Colleges, most of which had acquired historic ‘philosophical apparatus’ of one kind or another, have deposited much of this in the Museum: these loans, with numerous purchases and benefactions, have together built up a remarkable and, indeed, unique collection of historic scientific apparatus. In 1935 the Lewis Evans Collection became the Museum of the History of Science, and a further stage was reached in 1939 when it was decided to hand over to it the whole of the Old Ashmolean Building. A brief survey of the collections may be of value. The most venerable and distinguished part is the magnificent series of astrolabes, which from the beginning of the Christian era until the sixteenth century were the most important instruments of astronomical observation and calculation. Almost equally impressive is the collection of sundials, of which almost every con- ceivable type is represented. ‘There is also an exceptional collection of astro- nomical instruments, including unique specimens from the University Obser- vatories. There are three very fine orreries—machines for representing by wheel-work the motions of the heavenly bodies—which are interesting, not only as scientific instruments, but also as pieces of furniture. The collection of mathematical instruments includes drawing instruments of great beauty, and a series of calculating instruments such as sectors, adding-machines, Napier’s Bones—the precursor of logarithms—and slide- _ rules of all periods from 1620 onwards. There are also very fine examples of surveying instruments and of way-wisers, the precursors of the taximeter. The development of Electricity and Magnetism is illustrated by lode- stones, compasses, a variety of eighteenth-century frictional machines, early batteries, and electrical apparatus in general. Air-pumps and other pneumatic devices of the eighteenth century are well represented, as are the numerous ‘models which were employed in that century for the teaching of the simple principles of mechanics. The collection of microscopes and telescopes is exceptional, the University having recently acquired the collection of Dr. Reginald Clay, amounting to some 700 instruments. This collection affords an almost complete history of the microscope and telescope from the seven- teenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The Museum likewise includes collec- tions of chemical apparatus, of materia medica, and of surgical instruments; there is also a library of works, dealing with the history of science, which can be used by students on application to the Curator. |
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