Mathematical Worthies

Some Plymouth Worthies, Part 1

Most towns in this country have produced distinguished sons who have made valuable contributions to art and science in their time. Plymouth is no exception. This paper deals with some names, well-known or less recognised, who practised medicine and surgery in Plymouth during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Nearly all were Plymouth men, a few came from outside and one or two made their names ...

From Poison Peddlers to Civic Worthies: The Reputation of the Apothecaries in Georgian England

Trust is not automatically granted to providers of professional services. The doctors of Georgian England were, by later standards, deficient in medical knowhow, particularly before the mid-nineteenth-century scientific understanding of antiseptics, and much satirised. Nonetheless, the emergence of a coherent medical profession indicates that the picture was far more intricate and positive than...

Medical Worthies of the West Country *Presidential address to Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society, 12th October 1955.

Some Plymouth Worthies (Part 2) *Part 1 appeared in the previous number.

Three Towns'. They were separated by long sea inlets and marshy areas, now bridged or filled in. There was some rivalry between the three, but this did not extend to the medical men in practice in each town. Fifteen of them met in 1794 and formed the Plymouth Medical Society to promote professional knowledge, and later to dine together. It is either the 6th or 7th earliest Medical Society in th...

Mathematical Mathematical User Interfaces

Taking Mathematica and xThink as representatives of the state of the art in interactive mathematics, we argue conventional mathematical user interfaces leave much to be desired, because they separate the mathematics from the context of the user interface, which remains as unmathematical as ever. We put the usability of such systems into mathematical perspective, and compare the conventional app...