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London, 1868: visiting Australian Aboriginal cricketer Charles Rose has died in Guy's Hospital. What happened next is shrouded in mystery. The only certainty is that Charles Rose's body did not go directly to a grave. Written with clarity and verve, and drawing on a rich array of material, Possessing the Dead explores the disturbing history of the cadaver trade in Scotland, England and Australia, where laws once gave certain officials possession of the dead, and no corpse lying in a workhouse, hospital, asylum or gaol was entirely safe from interference. With a rare blend of curiosity, delight in the unexpected and an eye for detail, award-winning historian Helen MacDonald brings to life this gruesome past to reveal the chicanery at play behind the procuring of bodies for dissections, autopsies and collections.
Catherine Helen Spence, an unparalleled advocate of women's rights in Australia and the world, is now recognized as an important predecessor to the Feminist movement. Her autobiography, composed while on her deathbed and enhanced with scholarly annotation from two Spence scholars, reveals a woman both in and ahead of her time.
When Archibald Liversidge first arrived at Sydney University in 1872 as reader in Geology and Assistant in the Laboratory he had about ten students and two rooms in the main building. In 1874 he became professor of geology and mineralogy and by 1879 he had persuaded the senate to open a faculty of science. He became its first dean in 1882. In 1880 he visited Europe as a trustee of the Australian Museum and his report helped to establish the Industrial, Technological and Sanitary Museum which formed the basis of the present Powerhouse Museum's collection. Liversidge also played a major role in the setting up of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science which held its first congress in 1888. For anyone interested in Archibald Liversidge, his contribution to crystallography, mineral chemistry, chemical geology, strategic minerals policy and a wider field of colonial science.
Sydney geologist Georgina King gave her life to science, and was rewarded with every kind of skullduggery to prevent her success. The 'unmarriageable' Miss King was excluded by the professionals, the (all-male) Royal Society of New South Wales. Through determination and persistence, she acquired an honourable place in the history of science.