University

This site is essentially a set of links to materials of interest to members of the British Society for the History of Science. Approximately 20 links cover the publications of the organization, including a newsletter, monographs and the British Journal for the History of Science, three prizes given by the group, special offers for members, and notes about its membership and administration. There are also educational links, including a list of courses offered on the history of science in British universities, policy papers and methodological statements for teachers of the history of science, and lists of other sites that cover the history of science.

This site from the University of Virginia Health System Historical Collection, provides documents relating to the last chapter of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a terrible example of racism and ethical lapses by officials of the United States Public Health Service. For forty years, almost 400 African-American males were denied proper treatment for syphilis as part of a controlled study. A commission was finally put together in the 1990s to deal with the legacy of this experiment, leading to a presidential apology in 1997. The commission's report, as well as the president's apology, are reprinted on the site.

This is the home page for Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science. An overview provides a sense of the museum's collection, and a paragraph describes its history (and the history of the building it is housed in) since 1683. There are seven excellent online exhibits with numerous graphics and photographs, including pieces on the history of photography, mathematics and astronomy. All are composed for a lay audience. For researchers, a remarkable searchable database of over 13,000 objects allows visitors to find and view artifacts in the museum's collection. These objects span the entire history of science and technology, and many of them are extremely rare. Another section of the site features some of the best portraits, instruments and illustrations in the archive.

This University of Virginia site contains one of Alexander Graham Bell's notebooks (1875-1876) from a critical phase in the invention of the telephone. The site primarily consists of about 100 quality images of diagrams from Bell's notebook. There are also data entries and brief notes (transcribed by the editor) available. Most of the experiments listed deal with electricity, magnetism and related metallurgic tests. Various circuits and electrical switches are explored in different configurations. While the site does not contain biographical material, it provides an interesting glimpse into the work of one of America's great inventors.

Uppsala University, in Sweden, is the oldest university in Scandanavia and a pioneering university in astronomy. This small site provides an overview of the history of the university from the fifteenth century to the present (in both English and Swedish). Included on the site are about 10 images (paintings, photographs and drawings) of the university observatories, listings of university publications from the early to middle twentieth century, a timeline of university professors in astronomy, since its origin, and a manuscript page of lecture notes from the 1480s. There are also links to related materials on astronomy and the scientists involved with the university and its discoveries.

This University of Virginia site uses flow charts to show Alexander Graham Bell's invention process for the telephone in the 1860s and 70s. The flow charts show which breakthroughs occurred when, and which innovations led to subsequent technological advances. Beyond showing Bell's invention process diagrammatically (and showing earlier Bell creations which helped him develop the telephone) the site contains a long essay on the historic invention of the telephone, with notes and references to offline works. The author has annotated the flow charts (in plain language) to help the reader understand what Bell was doing in each of his experiments. In addition, Bell's patent applications from the 1870s are reproduced on the site.

The Archives of Women in Science and Engineering is a collection in the library of Iowa State University. This site lists the contents of the collection, and includes brief biographies of the women whose papers are in the archive, however, does not present the collection online. There is an online exhibit on the impact of women nutritionists that contains longer biographies and photographs of 10 important female scientists involved in nutrition research. In addition, the site has an overview of the oral history project associated with the Archives of Women in Science and Engineering, which hopes to interview approximately 50 women to add to the collection.

This site, produced by the Massachusetts General Hospital, examines the history of the first anesthesia, ether. Discovered as an aid to sedate patients in the middle of the nineteenth century, its use was heralded as a breakthrough which would lead to a new, better age of surgery. The 7 short essays on this site, written for a general audience, discuss the discovery of ether, the doctors involved, its use at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the subsequent history and future of anesthesiology. A few photographs and drawings of related materials are included.

A project of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the site recounts a ten day research trip examining active volcanoes in Costa Rica. In addition to scientific background information concerning the processes of volcanoes and the earth's crust, the site includes a Q&A section, biographies of the researchers, links to a variety of sites with volcanic content, and a daily log of the trip. The log also provides profiles, pictures, and video from the various volcanoes visited. The content ranges from basic cursory explanations of volcanic activity geared toward children to in depth, technical studies for the scientific community.

The Iconographic Archives are a project of the University of Bologna's International Centre for the History of Universities and Science (CIS). The Archives are an online repository for images of people, artifacts, and places with corresponding descriptions and location information. The University, founded in 1088, has a long history as a center for scientific scholarship, and these images reflect this relationship. Though the CIS site is available in English, the archival information is in Italian, requiring some knowledge of the language to utilize the search functions. Searches can be made by year to circumvent this. Unfortunately, there also is no way to browse the images without using the search tool.