— C. P. Snow (1905 – 1980), footnote to The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, Rede Lecture, 1959.
The earliest known
piece of ‘chemical’ equipment is from 3600 BCE — a distillation apparatus for separating
perfume ingredients. The earliest chemical directions (written by a woman in 1200
BCE) tell how to make perfume. Never underestimate the power of a woman!
— J. Arthur Campbell (1916- ), Chemistry,
the Unending Frontier (1978), 19.
Bischoff, one of the
leading anatomists of Europe, thrived some 70 years ago. He carefully measured brain
weights, and after many years’ accumulation of much data he observed that the average
weight of a man’s brain was 1350 grams, that of a woman only 1250 grams. This at
once, he argued, was infallible proof of the mental superiority of men over women.
Throughout his life, he defended this hypothesis with the conviction of a zealot.
Being the true scientist, he specified in his will that his own brain be added to
his impressive collection. The postmortem examination elicited the interesting fact
that his own brain weighed only 1245 grams.
— Scientific American, March 1992, 8,
quoting from an unidentified source in Scientific
American, March 1942.
These rays which are
emitted spontaneously from some substances are called Becquerel rays, and we call
the substances emitting these rays radio-active.
Mme Curie and I have
discovered new radio-active substances which are present as traces in certain minerals,
but from which the radio-activity is very intense. We have separated polonium, a
substance with similar chemical properties to bismuth, and radium, a close chemical
neighbour to barium. Since then, M. Debierne has separated actinium, a radioactive
substance similar to the rare earths.
Polonium, radium and
actinium produce radiation a million times more intense than that of uranium and
thorium. With these substances, the phenomena of radio-activity may be studied in
detail, and many researches have been carried out by various physicists in recent
years. Tonight I wish to speak of radium, because we have recently proved that it
is an element which we have isolated in the pure state.
— Pierre Curie (1859 – 1906), lecture to the Royal Institution, June 19, 1903.
It would be impossible,
it would be against the scientific spirit … Physicists always publish their results
completely. If our discovery has a commercial future that is an accident from which
we must not profit. And if radium is found to be used in the treatment of disease,
it seems to me impossible to take advantage of that.
— Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867 – 1934), on the patenting of radium, as described
by her daughter Eve.
Every Autumn, in the
month of September, when the great heat is abated, people send to one another to
know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make parties
for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the
old Woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox,
and asks what vein you please to have opened.
— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letter to Mrs S. C. from Adrianople, 1717.
Aristotle maintained
that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred
to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.
— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), The Impact
of Science on Society, 1952.
The violence of the
weather lately washed down … and exposed a mass, which, on digging out, proved to
be the vertebrae of some animal, whose size must have been enormous. It is in excellent
preservation, every process and part being perfect… . Many are the conjectures with
respect to the animal; some imagine it to be the gigantic buffalo or the rhinoceros,
and others the elephant. That intelligent osteologist, Miss Anning, of Lyme, surmises
it to belong to either the behemoth or the hippopotamus, yet admits that it far
exceeds their acknowledged dimensions.
— The Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1824,
548.
… the extraordinary
thing in this young woman is that she had made herself so thoroughly acquainted
with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they
belong … by reading and application she has arrived to that greater degree of knowledge
as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men
on the subject, and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the science
than anyone else in this kingdom.
— Lady Harriet Silvester, who visited Anning in 1824, in her diary.
Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet
on birth control, which is addressed to working women, was declared obscene on the
ground that working women could understand it. Dr. Marie Stopes’ books, on the other
hand, are not illegal, because their language can only be understood by persons
with a certain amount of education. The consequence is that, while it is permissible
to teach birth control to the well-to do, it is criminate to teach it to wage-earners
and their wives. I commend this fact to the notice of the Eugenic Society, which
is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class
people, while carefully abstaining from any attempt to change the state of the law
which is the cause of this fact.
— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Marriage
and Morals, 12.
Marie Stopes was then
writing a book, Married Love, which was
to deal with the plain facts of marriage. She expected it to “electrify” England.
She then explained to me that, owing to her previous unfortunate marriage she had
no experience in matters of contraception nor any occasion to inform herself of
their use… Could I tell her exactly what methods were used? I replied that it would
give me the greatest pleasure to bring to her home such devices as I had in my possession.
Accordingly, we met again the following week for dinner in her home, and inspected
and discussed the French pessary which she stated she then saw for the first time.
I gave her my own pamphlets, all of which contained contraceptive information.
— Margaret Louise Sanger (1883 – 1966), My
Fight for Birth Control, 1931.
You will find an index to this blog at the foot of this link. Please be patient: I am pedalling as fast as I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment