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The collection of the museum of Materia Medica of the Faculty of Pharmacy, consists of some 400 samples, including poppy capsules and opiums of various geographical origins (indigenous, Turkish, Persian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese) and numerous tools related to the production of these drugs. Most samples were collected during the XIXth and XXth centuries.

Lydia Becker (1827-1890) is known as a leader of the Women's Suffrage Movement but little is known about her work to include women and girls in science. Before her energy was channelled into politics, she aimed to have a scientific career. Mid-Victorian Britain was a period in which women's intellect and potential were widely debated, and in which the dominant ideology was that their primary role in life was that of wife and mother. Science was widely regarded as a "masculine" subject which women were deliberately discouraged from studying. The author concentrates on the two main areas in which important contributions were made, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Manchester School Board.

First the history of the appointment for a full professorship is described in the various stages of development of the School of Veterinary Medicine Dresden. Then the significance of the habilitation degree introduced in 1903 is discussed in terms of the development of the School of Veterinary Medicine Dresden and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Leipzig, respectively. Commentary follows on the current discussion about the discontinuation of further development of the habilitation and possible alternatives to it, the Ph.D. and the assistant professorship.

It has long been known that Nicole Oresme was a master of arts and a student in theology at Paris by 1348. A recently discovered papal letter of provision granting Oresme an expectation of a benefice establishes that he was already a regent master in arts by 1342. The text of the letter as copied in the papal registers also mentions those persons mandated to help implement the provision, thus revealing part of Oresme's early patronage network, which included an important regent master of theology from Normandy and a bachelor of theology who had been summoned to Avignon in 1340 along with Nicolas of Autrecourt. This earlier dating of Oresme's arts degree places him at Paris during the crisis over William of Ockham's natural philosophy.

Astronomy thrived in Europe during the early nineteenth century, but in the United States a utilitarian mind-set opposed it. John Quincy Adams's oratory in support of American astronomical discovery reached its peak during congressional debate over the Smithsonian Institution (1838-1846). During this debate Adams countered proposals to found a university with plans for an observatory. His addresses to congressional and public audiences about observatories and astronomy were intended to foster interest in the science and encourage the growing astronomical community in America. Although the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., was established before the Smithsonian debate ended, many considered Adams its political father. Adams composed his speeches on astronomy in a systematic manner, following neoclassical principles of rhetoric that he had taught at Harvard University. His speeches both in and outside of Congress show evidence of the rhetorical principles he conscientiously used in the service of astronomy.

In the last 25 years, the number of women pharmacists has increased. Some of the predictions concerning the impact of these women on the profession of pharmacy have proven to be true. The issues presented in the predictions, a decline in manpower, a decrease in pharmacists' salaries, and a lack of leadership, are discussed. Pharmacy education and the increased number of women faculty members illustrate the changes that have occurred. These changes will have a positive impact on the pharmacy profession.

The theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the intellectual basis for modern creation science. Yet Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, the theologian who more than any other defined modern biblical inerrancy, was throughout his life open to the possibility of evolution and at some points an advocate of the theory. Throughout a long career Warfield published a number of major papers on these subjects, including studies of Darwin's religious life, on the theological importance of the age of humanity (none) and the unity of the human species (much), and on Calvin's understanding of creation as proto-evolutionary. He also was an engaged reviewer of many of his era's important books by scientists, theologians, and historians who wrote on scientific research in relation to traditional Christianity. Exploration of Warfield's writing on science generally and evolution in particular retrieves for historical consideration an important defender of mediating positions in the supposed war between science and religion.

This is the story of the remarkable psychologist John E. Coover, who, in the early 1900s, was the first to advocate the comparison of experimental and control groups as a methodological necessity. Moreover, the author raises the issue of why control groups were launched about a century ago, and why psychology was comparatively early in codifying group comparison as a methodological routine. In dealing with these questions, the author discusses the relations between turn-of-the-century science and society as well as between psychophysical research and educational experimentation. Furthermore, the mystery is solved of how Coover's rightful place in the received history of experimental controls could be taken by precisely the authors whom he criticized for the lack of controls.

The biography of Carl Friedrich August Theodor Kastner (1797-after 1841), the brother of the famous chemist and teacher of Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner (1783-1857), is an interesting example of the difficult situation of outside lecturers at the universities in the first half of the 19th century; a big group of scientists, which are absolutely underrepresented in the source material and in the historiography too. This paper tries to show the facts and the backgrounds for the problems in the career of outside lecturers.