Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

on the history of classical biochemistry, and that of institutional history in this field. The history of modern science calls for special knowledge. We must say about the informational structure, elaboration of new additional methods and creation of informational data-bank for the cluster analysis. Method of cluster analysis was elaborated by I. Marshakova in Moscow and H. Small in USA. A new measure of relationship between two documents or articles depends on the number of simultaneous quotations in other documents. This method is used for the construction of maps and atlases of science on this basis of data of E. Garfield's Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). However, it may be used for search of clusters in the remote past. This possibility appears at that very instant when a stable order of quoting appears. Naturally, this method in historical sphere of application is labour-consuming. Besides, it has a methodological feature: when applied to the present situation it acquires an informational significance but loses the capacity of discerning the details. Therefore, we must overcome its statistical nature. These general principles were employed in studying evolution of cognitive and institutional structures of organic chemistry in 19th century and evolution of the structure of the field of interaction of biology and medicine with chemistry, physics and mathematics in 20th century. This field is now often referred to as „the physico-chemical biology". In the first case we studied two massives of publications. One of them was the articles and monographs on the history of organic chemistry, while the other - the whole massif of scientific articles in this field (the first period from 1800 to 1850, second from 1850 to 1900, now in preparing). This work was done by our post-graduate students. In the work allied with the history of organic chemistry we are studying the frequency of quoting the specific ideas, theoretical and empirical discoveries, as well as authors contributing to science. In original works we are studying the frequency of quoting the key-words, i.e. methods, substances, objects of scientific research, groups of its classification, and theories. In all cases we are studying the distribution of authors. As a result, we have obtained two different pictures. The real structure has differed from the structure given by historians. In the historian's structure, the theoretical elements predominate or are equal to empirical elements (except when the author differentiates between development of theory and that of empirical research). For the first half of 19th century, the real structure is made up of the following quantitative ratios: theoretical elements (only 4%), preparative, analytical, and descriptive elements (about 80%), and classificative ones (about 4%). In the second half of the century, the synthetic elements in the theoretical structure increase and level with empirical elements. These structures were compared with the institutional structure of organic chemistry for several countries, first of all for Germany and Russia. A basic element was an institute at a university or a laboratory in a research institute (Kaiser Wilhehn Gesellschaft or Institute of Experimental Medicine in S. Petersbourg). A system of communications (scientific periodicals) was included into this structure. Connections with elements were fixed by informational indications and by administrative subordination.