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VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20140929T182547Z
DTSTART:20141021T120000Z
DTEND:20141021T130000Z
SUMMARY:Resurrecting Frozen Fish: Competing Traditions of Experiment and 
 Observation in Natural History\, 1775-1851
UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}l54-i0o5d0d
 c-1u5s9s
DESCRIPTION:This seminar is part of the lunchtime seminar series for the 
 Centre for the History of Science\, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Lun
 chtime seminars are typically no more than 30 minutes in length\, follow
 ed by a period for audience questions (ending before 2pm). All are welco
 me.\n\n\nResurrecting Frozen Fish: Competing Traditions of Experiment an
 d Observation in Natural History\, 1775-1851\n\nMatthew Holmes (Universi
 ty of Leeds)\n\nAbstract:\nAcross eighteenth-century Europe\, a commonly
  held fact of natural history was that various organisms\, notably fish\
 , could be revived from a frozen state. This myth was apparently debunke
 d in an experimental program designed by John Hunter (1728-1793)\, anato
 mist and Fellow of the Royal Society.  However\, despite Hunter’s seemin
 gly enlightened rebuke of popular lore\, resuscitated fish persisted in 
 natural history journals and periodicals into the mid-nineteenth century
 . Part of the explanation for this durability can be found in accounts o
 f Arctic exploration.  The case of frozen fish was leant scientific resp
 ectability with the approval of Dr John Richardson (1787-1865)\, a Scott
 ish surgeon and naturalist who encountered the phenomena on John Frankli
 n’s first overland expedition along the Coppermine River (1819-1822) and
  later in Franklin’s second expedition of 1825-1827. Richardson’s natura
 l history accounts of the voyages appeared in his Fauna Boreali-American
 a (1836)\, where the ability to survive freezing was attributed to the G
 rey Sucking-carp (listed as Cyprinus (Catastomus) Hudsonius). This paper
  examines the role of field observation and experiment as competing trad
 itions in natural history\, questioning how these differing approaches t
 o the examination of natural phenomena influenced scientific convictions
 . While Hunter’s experimental program was misinterpreted or merely ignor
 ed\, observational or second-hand accounts of resuscitated fish were rou
 tinely carried in nineteenth-century natural history literature.  The pr
 estige attached to exploration over the metropolitan lab bench\, combine
 d with the process by which natural history knowledge was communicated\,
  allowed both observational discovery and error to become embedded in sc
 ientific understanding.  \n\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:2.57\, Simon Building\, Manchester
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