Tools And Sources For The History Of Science In The Netherlands

Tools and Sources for the History of Science in the Netherlands

The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820–1850)

The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies was one of the largest state-sponsored colonial collecting endeavours of the early nineteenth-century world. As a result, the newly founded ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (present-day Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden) was filled with countless specimens. The Commissie consisted of thirty naturalists and was active for thirty years (1820–1850). This book shows how its stakeholders had different objectives that evolved over time: what started as a collection vehicle to showcase the ‘glory’ of the Dutch colonial empire became a useful surveying tool for the Indies government. This volume is the first detailed study of the Commissie in English. It tells the story of naturalists from the Netherlands, France, and German-speaking lands and of countless indigenous people working alongside the Commissie as knowledge brokers, hunters, preparators, and porters. This long overlooked indigenous contribution to European knowledge was both substantial and fundamental.

The Afterlife of the Leiden Anatomical Collections

The Afterlife of the Leiden Anatomical Collections starts where most stories end: after death. It tells the story of thousands of body parts kept in bottles and boxes in nineteenth-century Leiden – a story featuring a struggling medical student, more than one disappointed anatomist, a monstrous child, and a glorious past. Hieke Huistra blends historical analysis, morbid anecdotes, and humour to show how anatomical preparations moved into the hands of students and researchers, and out of the reach of lay audiences. In the process, she reveals what a centuries-old collection can teach us about the future fate of the biobanks we build today.