Dorothea Waley Singer

Dorothea Waley Singer, nee Cohen ( born December 17, 1882 in London, † June 24 1964 in Par near St Austell, Cornwall ) was a British historian of science with a focus on medieval history and medical historian.

Life

Dorothea Waley Cohen came in 1882 as the second daughter of Nathaniel L. Cohen stockbroker and by Julia M. Waley London County Council ( LCC) to the world. After school she spent several years at London's Queen's College, which had been granted in 1853 as the first girls college of the Royal Charter. The training she finished with a degree that rivals the Bachelor.

1910 married Dorothea Waley Cohen the physician Charles Singer, a distinguished scientific and medical historian. On her husband's side, she worked extensively in the medical history. Together, the couple published various writings, first in 1913, a work for contagium vivum, one characterized by Lorenz von Crell and Jacob Henle concept to the theory of micro-organisms as the cause of infectious diseases. By 1927, the Singers published seven more common medical historical works, including studies on the physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro and the school of Salerno. Increasingly operation Dorothea Waley Singer also own studies, particularly the history of medicine of the pre-Renaissance, including works to Gilbertus Anglicus.

Special studies it is further operative to science and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. At Giordano Bruno in 1950 she published the work of Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought. The book under the title On the Infinite Universe and Worlds translates Bruno De l' infinito, universo e mondi from 1584 into English ( German: About the infinite, the universe and the worlds ) and a comment on this font.

In 1956 she was awarded jointly with her husband, the George Sarton Medal, the highest prestigious award for the History of Science, founded by George Sarton and Lawrence Joseph Henderson History of Science Society ( HSS). Dorothea Waley Singer was vice president of the HSS and a member of other scientific associations. She stood in close contact with various scientists of their time, such as the sinologist Joseph Needham and biochemist, the greatest authority in the field of Chinese history of science. With Needham led an intensive exchange of letters.

The Singers lived according to the stations in London and Oxford Kilmarth, a stately mansion from the 14th century, near the fishing village of Fowey at par on the south coast of Cornwall. Here Dorothea Waley Singer died four years after her husband on June 24, 1964. After her death, the novelist Daphne du Maurier bought the house. The property was the backdrop for Maurier's novel The House on the beach of 1969.

Works (selection)

  • Alchemical Texts Bearing The Name of Plato. In: Ambix, the Journal of the Society for the study of alchemy and early chemistry No. 2, London, 1946, pp. 115-128.
  • Catalogue of Latin and vernacular alchemical manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland. Publisher Lamertin, Brussels 1930.
  • Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought. With Annotated Translation of His Work - On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. Publisher Henry Schuman, New York 1950, ISBN 1-11731-419-7. online
  • Selections from the works of Ambroise Paré. In: Isis No. 7, 1924, p 208
  • Robert Steele (1860-1944) ( Obituary Notice ). In: Isis No. 38, 1947/48, p 103
  • The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno ( 1548-1600 ). In: Isis No. 33, 1941/42, pp. 187-196.
  • Directory of letters from Dorothea Waley Singer on Joseph Needham (English). Janus, Cambridge
Isis (journal) Integrated Authority File
291892
de