The idea that smallpox could be eradicated was not necessarily the ultimate aim when inoculation was introduced in Europe in the 1720s. This potentiality was not clearly articulated as an aim until the end of the eighteenth century. This article argues that during most of the eighteenth century, the main aim of inoculation was to lead people as safely as possible through what was regarded as an...

In order to understand the reception of Newton in biology in the eighteenth century we must first decide what we mean by biology and characterize those aspects of Newton’s work that can plausibly be thought to have had some impact on the life sciences in the eighteenth century. When Immanuel Kant at the end of the eighteenth century despaired of a ‘Newton’ of the organic world, ‘who could make ...

The key to understanding law and authority in late eighteenth-century Ireland lies in extraordinary cases. Some historians have dismissed the political trials of reformers and activists as unrepresentative of the "typical" processes of the Irish judicial system. They argue that the majority of Irishmen in the eighteenth century did not believe that their society was particularly violent and tha...

This article outlines the history of the commerce in medicinal plants and plant-based remedies from the Spanish American territories in the eighteenth century. It maps the routes used to transport the plants from Spanish America to Europe and, along the arteries of European commerce, colonialism and proselytism, into societies across the Americas, Asia and Africa. Inquiring into the causes of t...