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History of Science

Featured Items

Detail of a printed book shows a full-page illustration on the frontispiece showing a child carrying the world on their shoulders.

Atlas des Enfans, ou nouvelle methode pour apprendre la geographie,...

1784
Detail of a printed book shows text in English reading "Appendix" at the top of the page.

Medical Inquiries and Observations

Benjamin Rush
1789
Detail of a hand colored map, engraved in copper, shows Latin text.

Claudii Ptolemaei Cosmographaie [sic]

Ptolemy
1477
Detail from a printed book shows text in Spanish reading "Los aguacates es uno fruta en las Indias muy preciada, y medicinal."

Secretos de chirurgia

Pedro Arias de Benavides
1567
Detail of a printed book shows a decorative head piece on the title page written in Spanish.

Historia natural, civil y geográfica de las naciones situadaes en las riveras del Rio Orinoco

Joseph Gumilla
1791
Detail of a printed book shows a colored illustrated dragons on a circular diagram with text in Latin.

Astronomicum cæsareum

Peter Apian
1540
Detail of a hand colored, engraved print of Grenada shows a scene of naval warfare, as seen by smoke engulfing one ship.

Prise de l'isle de la Grenade...

Roger fils
1782
Detail of an engraved map shows the direction of flow of the "Golfe de Floride." Other text in French labels nearby landmarks such as "Isles de Bahama.'

The Gulf Stream flowing northwards…

Benjamin Franklin
1778

Related

Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum. Seu, Historia rerum rariorum, 1655.

Natural History Collecting in Late Colonial New Spain: Highlights from the JCB Collection

Image of an artificial flower clock, with two hands emerging from clouds on either side holding a numbered circle, and a thorn stemming from the flower's circle pointing at the time.
Fellow's Talk

Earthquakes and Timekeeping Practices in New England, 1600-1800

Portrait of Graman Quacy
Fellow's Talk

Studying Absence: Archival Fragments and Interdisciplinary Methods in the History of Medicine in the Atlantic Slave Trade

agnese closeup

Air America

April - June, 2016
A map showing the Americas and a constellation over them

Constellations: Reimagining Celestial Histories in the Early Americas

November 2020 - August 2021
map of the world with continents upside down
Exhibition opening

Constellations exhibition launch and guided tour with Historian of Science Simon Schaffer

illustration of sixteenth-century technological developments

Drugs from the Colonies: The New American Medicine Chest

Fall - Winter 2011
Europeans and Africans at the shore

Voyage to the Islands: Hans Sloane, Slavery, and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean

Spring - Summer 2012

See Also

Massachuset

English