• Navigating the History of Science Blogosphere

    I’m writing a piece for the History of Science Society fall newsletter about history of science/medicine blogs and blogging on the blogosphere. It seems lately this has been a hot topic for discussion on the ‘net, especially after the New York Times Article which outlines possible web-alternatives to peer-review. Last year, our favourite history of… Continue Reading

  • Research Frustrations! RDDE and Lost Records

    In 1817, John Harrison Curtis founded the Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear, the first hospital in England offering specialized care for ear diseases. What was once a small practice aimed at introducing various modes of treatments for all kinds of ear diseases, the Dispensary grew to such a degree that a contemporary noted: “crowds… Continue Reading

  • History of Medicine Blogs

    After writing my post on links to several of my daily must-read blogs on history of science and general history, by the time I got to the end of my post, I realized I was missing the history of medicine! Did you know a quick Google search for “history of medicine blog(s)” does not provide… Continue Reading

  • UTSIC

    In this blog post, I want to share one of the projects I’ve been involved with: The University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection (UTSIC), a volunteer project at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, to catalogue, collect, and maintain all of the university’s scientific instruments collection. Several graduate students who… Continue Reading

  • Exploring Instruments: “Deafness in Disguise” Collection

    In 1993, historian A.J. Turner remarked that “[a]though studying instruments as part of science is an old pursuit, writing the history of scientific instruments is new.” Writing on the history of medical instruments is even newer, for since the 1990s, there has been a remarkable explosion of scholarship on the history of medical instrumentation. But… Continue Reading

  • Reading Artifacts: Summer Institute in Material Culture Research

    For one week last August, I had the pleasure at participating the inaugural launch of “Reading Artifacts: Summer Institute in Material Culture Research,” hosted by and located at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. Bringing together scholars and experts from all over the world, the Summer Institute aimed to break new ground on approaching… Continue Reading