Textbooks: British

In December 1765 Priestley journeyed to London, hoping to make the acquaintance of some of his fellow British scientists. By this time, he had attained some prominence as the author of a number of textbooks that were based on the courses he taught at his school. While in London, he performed his first experiments, some of them under the direction of Benjamin Franklin, who was in London at the time as a representative of the government of Pennsylvania. 

By the end of the seventeenth century, then, scientists were not really any closer to enumerating the elements than were the Greek philosophers. Yet a hundred years later the British chemist John Dalton (1766-1844) wrote a textbook that outlined a recognizably modern atomic theory and gave a list of elements that, while still very incomplete and sometimes plain wrong, is in content and in spirit a clear precursor to today s tabulation of the hundred and more elements. Why had our understanding of the elements changed so fast ... 

The evolution of Malay-language textbooks at British hands demonstrates the changing ways in which educational administrators handled the conflict between polyglot British Malaya and the protected Land of the Malays . In marked contrast with the nervousness of colonial administrators in Vietnam, Burma or Indonesia about the nationalism of the core ethnie, British Malayan officials encouraged the construction of a... 

G.P.Thring of GtBritain was the first to use a different type of spring and to record its displacement thru an optical system employing a tilted mirror (Ref 36, pl69)> His gage was designed for use on small arms and has been employed for some time at Woolwich Arsenal (Ref 15, pl5) and it was described in the British "Textbook of Small Arms (1929 edition)... 

Cross, Charles F (1855 1935) British scientist, a pioneer in modern cellulose chemistry his prepn of acetyl benzoyl celluloses (1889-90) was a prelude to the great achievement of his career, the discovery of cellulose Na xanthate (viscose) which Was patented under the names of Cross, Bevan Beadle (1892). Cross E.J. Bevan published "Textbook of Papermaking (1887), "Cellulose, an Outline of the Structural Elements of Plants (1895), Wood Pulp and Its Applications (1911), and numerous other Works on every aspect of cellulose. The pioneer work and the persistent successful efforts of Cross were duly recognized during his life. He was awarded the medal of the Society of Chemical Industry... 

The Editors feel that they should note other positive responses by mathematicians to Ya.B. s book as well. In 1968 the RSFSR Ministry of Education, on the recommendation of the Scientific Council of the AS USSR Institute of Applied Mathematics chaired by M. V. Keldysh, recommended the book Higher Mathematics for Beginners and its Applications to Physics as a textbook for physico-mathematical schools and elective study. A very prominent American mathematician, Lippman Bers, wrote, Finally, I would like to indicate how I was influenced by two very nonstandard books on mathematical analysis a historical survey written by the outstanding mathematician O. Toeplitz, and a textbook written by a well-known physicist, Ya. Zeldovich (unfortunately not yet available to the British or American reader). ... 

Psychiatric journals of the time were mostly concerned with the classification and causation of mental disorders, including ideas about hereditary and chronic infection, and from the 1920s there was an interest in hormonal disturbance as a cause of madness (Moncrieff Crawford 2001). There were few papers about treatments. Textbooks contained only short discussions of treatment. Even when more optimistic attitudes were displayed, they usually emphasised the naturally remitting nature of some psychiatric conditions and the importance of general supportive and social measures, such as fresh air, massage, sunlight, rest and an atmosphere of hopefulness (Hutton 1940). These attitudes were summed up by authors of the foremost British textbook... 

However more biologically enthusiastic psychiatrists were less hesitant. Authors of another major British textbook admitted that a therapy which fails in two fifths of cases cannot very well be specific, but were still confident that hypoglycaemic treatment obviously touches the physical basis of schizophrenia more closely than all earlier modes of physical attack (Mayer-Gross, Slater, Roth 1954, p. 286). Attempts were made to explain its actions in terms of its effects on electrical circuits in the brain, an explanation that had become fashionable since the invention of the electroencephalograph (EEG), which measured brain waves, and was also applied to ECT (Fink Karliner 2007 Paterson 1963). In 1966, a German textbook emphatically stated ... 

A similar sentiment was expressed in a later British textbook of psychopharmacology Antidepressant drugs, like imipramine and the monoamine oxidase inhibitors differ from euphoriant drugs such as amphetamine in that they appear to act specifically against depressive symptoms (Dally 1967, p. 10). 

Burr, a Lecturer in Chemistry at the Royal Technical College, Salford.67 She had first met Burr at the H.M. Factory in Litherland, where he, too, had worked in 1916. She continued to be an active researcher at Leeds after marriage in addition, the famous British chemist, J. Newton Friend, invited her to author one volume of the classic series A Textbook of Inorganic Chemistry and to co-author another.68... 

Lead was also used in medicines, and in pastes for the treatment of skin diseases 2,000 years ago. In the nineteenth century some doctors recommended lead acetate and opium mixtures for the treatment of diarrhoea. This was described in early versions of the British Pharmacopoeia (Pil. Plumbi cum Opio). Certain lead salts were believed to be powerful astringents which would help in the treatment of wounds and promote healing. Thus Goulard s extract (liquor plumbi subacetatis fortis, or lead acetate) was still recommended in textbooks in the early twentieth century in dilute form for the treatment of ulcers, acute inflammatory skin conditions, and eczema and as a gargle in tonsillitis. Lead compounds have also been used to treat inoperable cancer. 

Major S.J.M. Auld, MC, was a witness to the first mihtary gas attack early in WWI, and after his service on the front, he served as a member of the British Mihtary Mission to the USA as part of the Liaison Effort between the defense organizations of the USA and her allies. While the war stiU raged, he reported on the effects of mustard gas in his textbook Gas and Flame in Modem Warfare. According to Dr Auld, the effects of mustard gas... 

Lavoisier, Sur la maniere d enseigner la chimie (1792) [Dossier Lavoisier Ms. 1259, archive of Academie des Sciences] printed in Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, A view of the chemical revolution through contemporary textbooks Lavoisier, Fourcroy and Chaptal, British Journal for the History of Science 23, 1990, 435-460, at 456-460. 

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, A View of the Chemical Revolution through Contemporary Textbooks Lavoisier, Fourcroy and Chaptal, British... 

New England Journal of Medicine 342 101-114 British Cardiac Society (and other Societies) 2000 Joint British recommendations on prevention of coronary heart disease in clinical practice summary. British Medical Journal 320 705-710 Brown M J 1995 Phaeochromocytoma. In Weatherall D, Ledingham J, WarreU D (eds) Oxford textbook of medicine. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.2553-2557... 

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