The Record of the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge.

Isis ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-288
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Hernando Gaitán-Duarte ◽  
Jorge Andrés Rubio-Romero ◽  
Carlos Fernando Grillo-Ardila

Las sociedades científicas tienen como uno de sus más nobles objetivos la promoción de la ciencia en los diferentes campos del conocimiento. La primera sociedad científica fue la Royal Society of London, fundada en 1660 en el Reino Unido, también conocida como la Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. La sociedad fue creada como “un colegio para la promoción del aprendizaje físico-matemático experimental” que publicó, en el año de 1666, la primera revista científica, Philosophycal Transactions (1, 2) y fue la publicación científica más importante hasta el siglo XIX, cuando aparecieron las revistas científicas especializadas. En Philosophycal Transactions se publicaron inicialmente noticias, cartas y descripciones de informes experimentales sin un formato o estilo estandarizado (3). La primera entidad en publicar una revista médica fue el Edinburgh Medical School, que divulgó el Medical Essays and Observations en 1731, que se transformó dos años más tarde en el Edinburgh Medical Journal y contó con revisión por pares desde el año de 1733 (4). La primera revista médica en Estados Unidos fue la Medical Repository, que apareció en 1797 (5). En el Reino Unido aparecen The Lancet en 1823, para publicar el trabajo desarrollado en las escuelas médicas de Londres y el reporte de casos, y el British Medical Journal en 1853, como resultado de la creación de la British Medical Association (4). En el año 1887, Philosophycal Transactions se dividió en dos nuevas revistas: una dedicada a la publicación de temas de matemáticas y física, y la segunda a temas de biología. A partir de 1989 realizó una importante innovación: la revisión anónima de los contenidos por pares. Los hechos enunciados recuerdan que las revistas científicas médicas se han originado en las sociedades científicas y en las escuelas de medicina con el objetivo de presentar tanto la metodología como los resultados de las investigaciones realizadas, con la característica desde sus inicios de realizar un proceso anónimo y riguroso de revisión por pares.


Sir, Though the Royal Society heard with the greatest concern the resolution taken by their late worthy President, to decline being any longer chosen into that office


The President informed the Meeting that the Council had voted the following Address of Condolence to Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of the demise of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex:— “To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. “The humble Address of the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge. “Most Gracious Sovereign, “ We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge, beg leave to approach Your Majesty with the expression of our heartfelt condolence on the loss which Your Majesty has sustained by the lamented death of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex. In the expression of our sorrow we are sure that all Your Majesty’s subjects must unite with us, when they regard the public and private virtues of His Royal Highness. We are bound to feel additional grief as a Society over which His Royal Highness had presided, and where he had uniformly shown the greatest zeal for the cause of knowledge, and the most amiable condescension and kindness to every cultivator of Physical Science.


The reasons for the establishment of Dr Croone’s lecture, as set out in the Year Book of the Society, include ‘the advancement of natural knowledge. . . of. . . such. . . subjects as, in the opinion of the President for the time being, should be useful in promoting the objects for which the Royal Society was instituted’. When you approved the title of my lecture for this purpose, Mr President, I trust that you were not misled and that when I have completed my survey of the nature of insulin and of its biological action, you will think that at least I have not frustrated these objects for which the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge is justly distinguished.


On 5 October 1664 Council of the Royal Society resolved ‘that the following form be offered to the king for his subscription; CHARLES R . Founder, Patron and one of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. That the following form be offered to the duke of York and prince Rupert, for their subscriptions; JAMES D. Fellow of the Royal Society. RUPERT P. Fellow of the Royal Society.’ Also at this meeting ‘It was ordered, that Dr. Goddard give directions for the preparing of a book, to be called the Charter book, wherein forthwith is to be fairly written a copy of the charter, the statutes, and the register of the fellows and benefactors o f the Society, according as is provided by statute . . .’ (2) . Some months later, on 9 January 1664/5, Samuel Pepys, at work in the Navy Office as Clerk of the Acts of the King’s Ships, with the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, recorded in his diary: ‘To the Duke, and there did our usual worke. Here I saw the Royal Society bring their new book, wherein is nobly writ their charter and laws, and comes to be signed by the Duke as a Fellow; and all the Fellows’ hands are to be entered there, and lie as a monument; and the King hath put his with the word Founder’ (3). Pepys did not himself become a Fellow until 15 February o f that year. But, two days after the Charter Book had been taken to the Navy Office for the Duke’s signature, it was produced at a meeting o f the Society on 11 January 1664/5, the record reading: ‘The charter-book of the society was produced, wherein his Majesty, on the 9th of January, had written himself CHARLES R . FO UND ER, and his Highness the duke of York JAMES, Fellow; the duke of Albemarle also having entered his name at the same time. The president was desired to kiss his Majesty’s hand for this honour’ (4) .


Three hundred years ago, on Wednesday 28 November 1660, the Royal Society of London, although not then so entitled, was formally constituted at Gresham College in the City of London by ‘these persons following’, as the Journal Book of the Society records, namely, ‘The Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, Mr. Hill’, and ‘according to the Manner in other Countryes, where there were voluntary associations of men into Academies for the advancement of various parts of learning, So they might doe something answerable here for the promoting of Experimentall Philosophy.’ By a First Charter, granted by King Charles II on 15 July 1662, the Society became the Royal Society, and by a Second, dated 22 April 1663, the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge. The movement that led to these events originated in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts: it was the English expression of those scientific interests and activities that were developing generally in western Europe and we therefore turn to that wider scene.


Gentlemen, I regret extremely that my absence from England will prevent my having the honour and pleasure of meeting you at the Anniversary of the Royal Society. The Council will therefore perform the duty, which would otherwise have fallen on me, of adverting to the con­tinued prosperity of our Society, to the losses which it has, however, undergone in the course of nature, and to the adjudication of our Medals. This duty I am sure that they will perform better than I could do, so that, in that point of view, you will be no losers ; the loss of a great pleasure in meeting so many scientific friends will fall on myself ; but I look forward to the spring, when I hope again to meet you, both in my own house and at our ordinary weekly Meetings. Meanwhile the Royal Society has, as it ever will have, my most earnest wishes for its prosperity and its success, in carrying forward the great object for which it was established—the increase of human knowledge in every department of physical science. The Vice-President in the Chair informed the Meeting that the Council had voted the following Address to Her Majesty the Queen :— “ To the Queen's most Excellent Majesty . “ The humble Address of the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge.


The Anniversary Dinner for 1946 was held at the Savoy Hotel on 30 November 1946. The Society’s guests included Sir Stafford Cripps, the Chinese Ambassador, the Belgian Ambassador, the Peruvian Ambassador, the French Ambassador, the Danish and Swedish Ministers and the Lord Mayor of London. The Dominions were represented by their High Commissioners. Grace was said by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Rising to propose the toast of ‘ The Royal Society of London,’ Sir Stafford Cripps said: ‘ Mr President, Your Excellencies, Your Eminence, my Lord Mayor, my Lords and Gentlemen: ‘ It is a very great pleasure to me this evening to be asked to propose the toast of the Royal Society of London, and when I was thinking over what I might say by way of introduction I came across a passage written by Addison in the Spectator which seemed to me to be very true of distinguished scientists. He as you know was not very friendly in his criticism of the Royal Society in its early days. He said that natural philosophy had a very good effect on them as it turned many of the geniuses of that age to the dispositions of natural knowledge who, if they had engaged in politics with the same power and application, might have set their country aflame !


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