CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: A Comparison

Abstract

As a discipline, the history of science is comparatively young. Although Baden‐Powell's Historical view of the progress of the physical and mathematical sciences from the earliest ages to the present time and Whewell's History of the inductive sciences from the earliest to the present times, both pioneer works in the field, were published in 1834 and 1837 respectively, the history of science as a subject in its own right may be said to have only come into existence in this century. Interest in the history of individual sciences, particularly mathematics and medicine, began much earlier and quite a few periodicals devoted to them were inaugurated during the last century. On the other hand, most of the periodicals dealing with the history of science as a whole were begun during the last two decades and only a few go back to the beginning of this century. The first volume of Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften was published in Leipzig in 1902; Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik followed in 1909, and Rivista di Storia (critica) delle Scienze mediche e naturali in 1910. Isis, originally subtitled Revue consacrée à l'histoire de la science (now An international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences), was founded in 1912 by George Sarton, the first number appearing in March 1913. It began its life in Belgium, but after the invasion of that country moved with its first editor to the United States. Volume 2, begun in June 1914, was completed in September 1919. From the beginning an international review, it changed its ‘editorial language’, as it were, from French to English in 1920, but it continued to publish articles and papers in the main European languages. From the first issue, one of its principal features was a bibliography of the literature of the history of science.

Citation

WHITROW, M. (1964), "CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: A Comparison", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 120-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026344