Early Science in Oxford

Abstract

DR. GUNTHER must be praised for the enthusiasm and hard work which have led him in the period between the Wars to found a museum for the history of science in Oxford and to give to science eleven volumes of part of its history. Some of this work has not escaped criticism, but the reception of most of it has been good. The present work is one that deserves a friendly welcome and an accessible place in the libraries of men of science and especially of Oxford men. Dr. Gunther has worked at his task with great energy and purpose, amassing from many sources, many of them little known (unfortunately not listed here), a large amount of interesting information on the personalities, aims and achievements of Oxford men of the past. Dr. Gunther happens to be more attracted to the antiquarian than to any other aspect of the past, to the biological sciences than to the physical, to instruments than to scientific ideas, to museums, perhaps, than to laboratories, and all he writes reflects the man. If we agree to accept Dr. Gunther as he is, and not to expect a cold, impartial historian, we shall have little to criticize and much to praise in this, his eleventh, volume.

Early Science in Oxford

By R. T. Gunther. Vol. 11: Oxford Colleges and their Men of Science. Pp. xvi + 430 + 50 plates. (Oxford: The Author, The Old Ashmolean, 1937.) 30s.