91TV

The records of the Royal Society throw up surprisingly frequent instances of scientists subjecting themselves to the tortures of the damned in pursuit of new knowledge, as well as the occasional laboratory accident.

A large number of Phil Trans papers ended up circulating as separate texts. New research looks at the distribution of these offprints: where and to whom were they sent?

The early Royal Society appears to have been curiously fascinated with bladder-stones; there are numerous reports of unusually large calculi, as they were also known, being shown in meetings.

When inoculation against smallpox was introduced to Britain from the Middle East in the early 1720s, members of the Royal Society found themselves on the wrong side of both conventional wisdom and contemporary piety.