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Zur Frühgeschichte der technischen Regelungen by Otto Mayr (review)

1970; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1970.a894173

1097-3729

R. S. Hartenberg,

Medical History and Innovations

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 321 Marton’s book is of interest, rather, as a personal account of one of the men who made the realization of a workable electron microscope a life goal. It conveys both the doubts in the minds of many early workers—which applied more to the potential usefulness than to the perfectibility of the electron microscope—and the competitiveness en­ gendered by parallel efforts in a number of different laboratories. Along with the memoirs of other electron microscope pioneers, which have appeared or are yet to be written, this book illuminates an exciting development in troubled times. E. G. Ramberg* One Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Academy of the History of Pharmacy, 1969. Pp. 38. $2.00. This is the record of a symposium held in 1967 during Canada’s cen­ tennial celebration. It contains three papers. The first, by Glenn Sonnedecker , on Canadian pharmaceutical education, demonstrates that this has paralleled developments in the United States, but with each step occurring at a somewhat later date. The second paper, by Ernest W. Stieb, on the organization of Canadian pharmacy, shows that during the 19th century it followed the British pattern of control by provin­ cial societies, but in the 20th century the national society has domi­ nated. The third paper, by D. R. Kennedy, deals with pharmaceutical legislation and shows that only recently has legal control of pharma­ ceutical products been successful. Taken together, the papers give a clear picture of how Canadian pharmacy has operated, though there is relatively little information on the technology of the pharmaceuticals themselves. HF.NRY M. LF.ICF.STERf Zw Fruhgeschichte der technischen Regelungen. By Otto Mayr. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1969. Pp. 150. DM. 20. Mayr, who is Curator of Mechanical Engineering at the Smithsonian Institution, presents the early history of automatic controls in mechani­ cal systems. It is an illuminating work, among other things setting aside the long-held contention that Watt provided the first automatic or feedback control for his engine in 1788, and moving the honor back to Ctesibios and his float-controlled clock of the 3rd century b.c. One can welcome this book wholeheartedly, for unlike some other studies of a technologically important development, this topic of con­ trols was examined by an engineer experienced in the field and subse- • Dr. Ramberg is on the staff of the RCA David Samoff Research Center in Princeton, N.J. f Dr. Leicester, professor of biochemistry at the University of the Pacific, is author of Historical Background of Chemistry and editor of two Source Books in Chem­ istry, 1400-1900, and 1900-19SO. 322 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE quently trained in the history of technology. The precise, careful, and lucid study is essentially Mayr’s doctoral dissertation at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, where his resources included Dr. Friedrich Klemm of the Deutsches Museum. This is a book of adventure and discovery, both organized in a tem­ poral framework. It brings together, for the first time, known but iso­ lated bits and pieces, while also presenting obscure and previously over­ looked efforts, ranging from antiquity to the time of Watt and the rotative and governor-equipped steam engine. The purely technical aspect is enlivened by notes on the personalities and enriched by stories of the older documents. Although the concept of automatic control of machinery is central to cybernetics, a history of the early development of mechanical con­ trol systems has been lacking. The substance of the present work is the critical examination and evaluation of the older inventions purporting to be control systems. With respect to cybernetics, Mayr remarks that when Norbert Wiener coined the word in 1947 to denote the entire field of control and communication theory in machine or animal, it was derived from the Greek word for steersman. We note, however, that neither the word nor its spirit are recent, for Ampère anticipated Wiener by over a century: in Ampère’s Essai sur la philosophie des sciences (1834), “cybernétique,” the science of civil government, had been derived from the same Greek word. An automatic control system is not of a type that starts or stops...