Karl Kreil (1798–1862), astronomer, meteorologist, and geomagneticist, was a scientist in Austria whose work deserves particular attention. He was the founder of the K. K. Central-Anstalt für Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus in Vienna, which still exists today, though the name has been modified slightly to Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG). Born in Ried in Upper Austria, Kreil received his first relevant scientific education in the convent of Kremsmünster. During the years...

The anonymous Cod. Vind. phil. gr. 65 is one of the numerous Greek manuscripts bought by Augerius von Busbeck, a Habsburgian ambassador, in Constantinople in the middle of the 16th century. Since then, the codex has been kept in the Hofbibliothek of Vienna (today Österreichische Nationalbibliothek). Although it constitutes one of the most important mathematical manuscripts from the later Byzantine period, the two first chapters were transcribed by J. L. Heiberg only in the year 1899. In 1963...

The development of the modern hygiene in all Crown Countries of the Austrian monarchy and thereafter in the Republic of Austria is stated in detail. Originally the dietetics which cared for the personal health of the individual were in the foreground of interest. Hence in the Medico-surgical Schools of the k. k. (imperial-royal) lyceums of this time dietetics, means of succour of individuals in sudden mortal danger and for economic reasons also epizootology (animal epidemiology) primarily were...

With the stock market collapse of 1873, the euphoric progressive optimism of the liberal era reached its limits. The following economic crisis also confronted the famous Viennese Medical School with severe cost savings and increasing pressure on its performance. In order to retain its scientific level, it focused entirely on a 'German' elite, which was preferred to the other ethnic groups of the Habsburg Monarchy in medical studies and appointments. Interculturalism was not considered...

Johann Natterer (1787-1843) was one of the first european naturalists who succeeded to advance to the then almost unknown interior of Brazil. For 18 years he continued to explore the country in order to search unkown aminal species, out of “love for Natural History”. Johann Natterer was not a traveling genius, „no Humboldt“, as he himself admits. Working in the „wilderness“, far away from all important places of knowledge as museums and universities, he was one of many European naturalists,...

This volume presents four lectures given in connection with the symposium "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosoph - Mathematiker - Physiker - Techniker", which took place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was accompanied by an exhibition from July 10 to October 4, 2002. The lecturers were professors Erwin Stein (Hannover), Jürgen Mittelstraß (Konstanz), Heinz Zemanek (Wien) und Günter Fettweis (Leoben). The main part of the volume consists of the results of the project "Leibniz in Vienna",...

On June 4, 2008, the Austrian Academy of Sciences organized a symposium in memory of the 150th birthday of Carl Auer von Welsbach. Life and work of this famous Austrian scientist and businessman was discussed from many points of view. Participants included experts in physics and chemistry who presented many of the inventions and discoveries of Auer von Welsbach, but also members of his family, the director of the Auer Welsbach Museum, and the current director of the Chemische Werke Althofen...

The intensive exchange of letters between 1912 and 1946 between the physicist Lise Meiner, born in Vienna in 1878, and the botanist Elisabeth Schiemann, born in 1881 and raised in Berlin, cannot be seen merely as the documentation of a friendship between two highly gifted scientists. In many passages, the letters are also an important contemporary document. During WWI, Lise Meitner was an X-ray nurse and helped in operating rooms. In 1938, she became a refugee fleeing Hitler’s persecution of...

In 1994, the late Alistair Crombie published his monumental work “Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition”. As it reads in the publisher’s prospectus, he distinguished between six “styles of inquiry, demonstration and explanation diversified by their subject-matters, by their general conceptions of nature, and by scientific experience”. These inquiry styles included postulation, experimental argument, hypothetical modelling, taxonomy, probabilistic and statistical analysis, and...

Der erste ernsthafte Versuch einer allumfassenden Theorie der Mikrostruktur der Materie und ihrer Eigenschaften stammt von dem 1711 in Ragusa/Dubrovnik geborenen Jesuiten und Universalgelehrten Ruder Josip Boškovic/Boscovich, den Werner Heisenberg "der kroatische Leibniz" nannte. Nach langjährigen Vorarbeiten fasste er die Grundlagen seiner Theorie und ihre Anwendungen in seinem Hauptwerk PHILOSOPHÆ NATURALIS THEORIA zusammen, das 1758 in Wien erschien. Aus Anlass der 250. Wiederkehr des Jahres...

All orders and rules concerning infections (especially the plague) in the Austria of the 16th century found in the archives of Austria, Southern Tyrolia, the former Austrian "Vorlande", Slovenia, Hungary and Bavaria were investigated and are stated in the book. The first ones for Graz, Innsbruck, Wien, Salzburg and Innviertel go back to 1521, 1534, 1540, 1547 and 1585 respectively. Causes of the appearance of the plague were considered to be the just anger of God, evil air, foodstuff, grown in...