Medical Investigation
in Seventeenth Century
England
Embryological Thought in
Seventeenth Century England
by Charles W. Bodemer
Robert Boyle as an Amateur Physician
by Lester S. King
Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar,
October 14, 1967
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California, Los Angeles/1968
Foreword
Although the collection of scientific literature in the Clark Library has already served as the background for a number of seminars, in the most recent of them the literature of embryology and the medical aspects of Robert Boyle's thought were subjected to a first and expert examination. Charles W. Bodemer, of the Division of Biomedical History, School of Medicine, University of Washington, evaluated the embryological ideas of that remarkable group of inquiring Englishmen, Sir Kenelm Digby, Nathaniel Highmore, William Harvey, and Sir Thomas Browne. Lester S. King, Senior Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, dealt with the medical side of Robert Boyle's writings, the collection of which constitutes one of the chief glories of the Clark Library. It was a happy marriage of subject matter and library's wealth, the former a noteworthy oral presentation, the latter a spectacular exhibit. As usual, and of necessity, the audience was restricted in size, far smaller in numbers than all those who are now able to enjoy the presentations in their present, printed form.