Naturalis, the Dutch national museum of natural history, celebrated its bicentennial in 2020 by launching the special exhibition, Nature’s Treasure Trove, featuring 25 ‘crown jewels’ from the... Show moreNaturalis, the Dutch national museum of natural history, celebrated its bicentennial in 2020 by launching the special exhibition, Nature’s Treasure Trove, featuring 25 ‘crown jewels’ from the collection – of which five are extinct. As a celebratory look back on the museum’s history of collecting, the exhibition navigates tensions between national culpability and national pride: culpability for colonialism and species loss, and pride in the Dutch tradition of scientific discovery. We argue that the exhibition can be seen as an exercise in repurposing a cultural memory that is essential to Dutch national identity, in a world that can no longer ignore the harm done by humans, including the Dutch. Show less
Javaid, M.K.; Mordenti, M.; Boarini, M.; Sangiorgi, L.; Group, E.B.W.; Westerheim, I.; ... ; Grasemann, C. 2021
Background Understanding the natural history of rare bone and mineral conditions is essential for improving clinical practice and the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Recruitment... Show moreBackground Understanding the natural history of rare bone and mineral conditions is essential for improving clinical practice and the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Recruitment and long-term participation in registries are key challenges for researchers. Methods To understand the user needs, the European Reference Network on Rare Bone Diseases (ERN BOND) and European Patient Advocacy Groups developed and implemented a multinational survey about the patient's preferred database content and functionality through an iterative consensus process. The survey was disseminated by national and international patient groups and healthcare professionals. The findings were analysed using descriptive statistics and multivariate regression. Results There were 493 eligible responses from 378 adults, 15 children and 100 parents, guardians or carers (PGC) across 22 rare bone and mineral conditions. Osteogenesis imperfecta constituted 53.4% of responses. Contents related to improving treatment and medical services scored the highest and contents about anxiety and socializing scored less highly. Additional content was recommended by 205 respondents. Respondents preferred data entry by their Healthcare Provider (HCP). However, less than 50% of adults received followup from their specialist HCP at least annually and 29% were followed up as needed. Conclusions This survey of individuals, their family, guardians and carers has prioritised the key components for an EU-based rare bone and mineral condition research database. The survey highlights issues around collecting psychosocial impacts as well as measures of HCP trust. The survey demonstrated that using only specialist centre visits for data collection, while preferred by patients, will miss a substantial number of individuals, limiting generalisability. Combined HCP and patient platforms will be required to collect representative and complete natural history data for this patient group. Show less
This essay focuses on the 16th-century Bolognese naturalist and collector Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) and his enormous image collection of naturalia. Do these images present a specifically... Show moreThis essay focuses on the 16th-century Bolognese naturalist and collector Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) and his enormous image collection of naturalia. Do these images present a specifically Bolognese form of visual natural science, and was his visual format of truthfulness new at the time? Did local visual culture leave clear marks on Aldrovandi’s image collection? Show less
“Temminck’s Order” is the scientific biography of Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778–1850), a Dutch naturalist and the first director of ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden. It embeds... Show more“Temminck’s Order” is the scientific biography of Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778–1850), a Dutch naturalist and the first director of ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden. It embeds Temminck’s career in the context of the development of nineteenth-century zoological classification, which has been explored only partially. Addressing this historiographic silence, this book examines, among other things, Temminck’s law on the geographical distribution of animals, his classification systems, his definitions of type and genus, and his debates with fellow naturalists. From this study, three main issues emerge as the most relevant at that time: the development of systematics as a discipline, the rise of a meritocracy in natural history and the status of systematics within natural history and natural philosophy. “Temminck’s Order” provides a more detailed view of the complex history of zoological classification, with the conclusion that systematics came of age between 1800 and 1850. Show less
