Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

that shaped the landscape of Chinese natural history, influenced European natural history and embodied
a particular means of classifying plants, animals and other natural objects and products. How did this
singular text incorporate many diverse epistemological tools into a single system of ordering nature?
This paper will investigate the use of literary allusions, mythical accounts, lexicographical data and
empirical observation in creating a textual landscape for the Bencao gangmu, and will explore the
influence naming in this varied literary topology on the natural classification scheme that resulted.
Neal,Katherine
E-mail Address: kneal@scifac.usyd.edu.au
Putting Astrology and its Patrons in their Place: Professor Henry Briggs, Sir Christopher Heydon
and King James on Astrology
In the early 1600s the Gresham Professor of Geometry Henry Briggs and the astrologer Sir Christopher
Heydon corresponded about astrology and astronomy. These letters are particularly interesting in
that in a period where astrology was generally considered a viable scholarly pursuit, Briggs was firmly
opposed to it. The astrologer William Lilly called Briggs "the most satirical man against it [astrology]
that hath been known." This paper argues that Briggs's stance should be seen as an early effort towards
pushing astrology away from any association with astronomy and mathematics. Briggs drew sharp
boundaries between these subjects, and he would only collaborate with Heydon on purely astronomical
and mathematical work. This refusal is made more telling by the differences in their respective ranks.
Briggs's arguments against astronomy will be analyzed in the context of King James's disapproval of the
subject together with the increasing number of tracts, including Heydon's, discussing astronomy's validity.
The episode will be viewed as an instance of early 17th century negotiations over the proper boundaries
and articulations among the mixed mathematical and practical mathematical fields, and tensions
regarding the roles of mathematicians as practitioners, protégés and men of gentlemanly, natural philosophical
learning.
Nelligan, James
E-mail Address: jnelliga@uiuc.edu
Reimagining Anthrax: Science, Perception, and the Construction of Biological Threat
When Major Leon Fox of the Army Medical Corps published his authoritative treatise on biological
weapons (BW) in 1933, scientific knowledge about disease and disease transmission was in many ways
still very primitive. The production of biological weapons demanded the strict command of every aspect
of a pathogen's life cycle. For Fox and most scientists of the interwar period interested in organic weapons
systems, the science and engineering necessary to fuse biology to technology in order to produce
useful and effective biological ordinance was seemingly too complex and too costly for a BW program
to be practical or possible. Intelligence reports in 1941-42 concerning the efforts of foreign BW research
forced the American government, and subsequently American scientists, to reconsider biological weapons.
By 1943, Camp Detrick, the future hub of the America's bioweapons program, was conducting
weapons research near Frederick, Maryland. By 1945, the construction of a full-scale BW weapons
facility was well underway. This paper investigates the fundamental shift in perception that occurred in
the early war years, the critical period when biological weapons ceased to be viewed as science fiction
and American scientists began aggressively pursuing the production of field-grade BW ordinance.
Similarly, it explores the role that the perception of external threats played in shaping the science of
biological warfare.
Norris, Katharine
E-mail Address: khnorris@hss.caltech.edu