Historical context

The Royal Society strives to make our archives and historic journals digitally available and useful for researchers, students and the general public.

The Centre for History of Science and Royal Society Publishing offer access to a wide range of documents, including historical materials containing some content that is now unacceptable, including offensive language, negative stereotypes, prejudiced scientific concepts, unethical experiments and disproven hypotheses.

Such materials reflect the attitudes and perspectives of the relevant time period and provide the opportunity for study in order to understand the origins of contemporary racism, sexism, and other discriminatory attitudes.