History of Photography by Josef Maria Eder; Edward Epstean; History of Color Photographyby Joseph S. FriedmanReview by: I. Bernard CohenIsis, Vol. 37, No. 1/2 (May, 1947), pp. 103-104Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226188 .

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Reviews I03

in's book deals with the general classification of birds of prey, advice as to their capture, training and use in falconry;la the overall impression of these chap- ters is definitely one of hackneyed phrases and gen- eralities, truisms and statements, not backed by careful observation, adding up to a very diluted and fragmentary collection, much better and more fully represented by a work like Albertus Magnus' de animalibus. Much the same can be said about Ghatrif's shorter treatise, which also devotes about a fifth to general questions of falconry. In this sec- tion only the preeminence given to the sparrowhawk, usually held in low esteem in the West as a hunting falcon, is noteworthy. The preference for the spar- rowhawk may, in fact, be regarded as a Persian peculiarity.

As for the bulk of Moamin's and Ghatrif's work, dealing with the medical aspects of falconry, much the same type of lore as appeared in Daude is evi- denced here, only that the remedies seem to be even more predominantly herbal. Only a cursory and preliminary estimate of the true scientific, i.e., medi- cal, value of all three works seems possible now, since we lack the standard of comparison, afforded by such a "classic" as the de arte. With all three au- thors, current, often superstitious and cruelly in- effective, remedies seem to be the rule, combined with a number of common-sense practices gained in the experienced handling of many falcons; some of them read as if they might be both effective and practical, while the majority spell quackery in capital letters, doing little harm, but less good. At times in all these treatises one cannot escape the feeling that the idle and the rich, and but too often the learned, of the mid-13th century bestowed at least as great care upon their dogs and falcons as upon their suffer- ing fellowmen. A final verdict will have to be re- served for the day when the historians of medicine, the herbalists and perhaps even the trained scientific experimenters, are willing to examine and put to the test the more promising and less abhorrent recipes of Daude, Moamin and Ghatrif - for there are too few falconers alive today who could fairly testify from experience for or against our medieval authors, and none, probably, who would be willing to loan their precious studs for experiments such as "oil glands tipped with sulphur."

Hans J. Epstein The Society of Fellows Harvard University.

16 Moamin's rathcr brief book IV, dealing with hunting dogs, has purposely been omitted in this discussion.

JOSEF MARIA EDER. History of Photography. Translated by Edward Epstean. xx+86o pp. New York, Columbia University Press, I945. ($IO.OO).

JOSEPH S. FRIEDMAN. History of Color Photography. x+5 14 pp. Boston, The Amer- ican Photographic Publishing Company, I944.

($io.oo). The Herculean labors of Mr. Edward Epstean

to advance the cause of the history of photography in the United States are not so well known as they ought to be. His historical collection, given to Columbia University, has been described in a cata- logue.' He has also translated three major works on the history of photography,2 and now he has completed the translation of Eder's monumental volume. This translation has been made from the fourth and last German edition (1932) with the addition of many notes, paragraphs, and chapters supplied by the author to the translator for inclusion in this version. But, although this edition contains a good deal of textual material not available in the German edition, it does niot contain the many illus- trations which graced each of the German editions. It is to be regretted that all of the illustrations have been omitted. Some could easily be dispensed with, since they were merely portraits, but others illus- trated equipment and processes which helped to clarify the text. As a supplement to the volume, there is included a biography of Eder by Hinricus Liuppo-Cramer.

Eder's book has long been the standard reference work on the history of photography. Although it surveys the whole field it has many weak spots, such as the history of the camera obscura (to which a chapter is devoted), the history of lenses, and others. It has, throughout, a strong pro-German bias, car- ried in some instances to a point beyond the facts. Despite the date of the last edition (I932), there is no mention of the post-World War I trend in pho- tography toward the use of miniature cameras (35 mm), nor of the development of flash globes which have cotrapletely replaced flashlight powders, nor of

1 A catalogue of the Epstean collection on the history and science of photography. . . New York, Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1 93 7.

'The previous translations by Mr. Epstean are: Victor Fouque, The truth concerning the invention of

photographzy: Niciphore Niepce, his life, letters, and works. New York, Tennant and Ward, 1935.

Georges Potoniee, The history of the discovery of photography. New York, Tennant and Ward, 1936.

Erich Stenger, The history of photography, its rela- tion to civilization and practice. Easton, Pa., Mack Printing Company, 1939 [Jacket reads: New York, Barnes and Noble].

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104 Reviews

the development of the modern fast panchromatic and color films. If the weaknesses predominate in the early historical period and the recent past, the book is at its best in the middle period, from after the work of Daguerre until about the beginning of World War I, to which most of the book is devoted. The author knows this period intimately, having made his own contributions to the science and art of photography during the last years of the nine- teenth century and early part of the twentieth. Eder's volume remains the largest and best history of photography that we possess and we are all in- debted to Mr. Epstean for having made it available to us in a readable and reliable translation.

In a sense, an omnibus history of a subject such as the present one, defines the research of the future. Its weaknesses point out the fields in which research is needed. Some of these have been referred to above. Another is the history of color photography. About twenty years ago, that indefatiguable worker, E. J. Wall, published his history of three-color photography.3 But progress in this field has been so rapid that common practise of I944 received but scant mention in I925. The color monopack, which was discussed in a few paragraphs in I925, requires six chapters in Dr. Friedman's new book. This excellent new volume is at once a history of the development of color processes and a treatise on the modern practise of color photography. It presents an authoritative, accurate, and well-documented record of one of the most recent developments in photography and will certainly prove of great value to both the practical worker and the historian.

I. Bernard Cohen

PHILIPP FRANK: Foundations of Physics. v+ 78 pp. (International Encyclopedia of Unified Sci- ence, vol. I, no. 7). Chicago, University of Chi- cago Press, 1946.

The international movement for the unity of science was founded prior to the outbreak of the second World War. An organizing committee planned the "International Encyclopedia of Unified Science," and work was begun on the initial unit of two volumes, "Foundations of the Unity of Sci- ence," under the editorship of Otto Neurath(t), Rudolf Carnap, and Charles Morris. In Isis for June, I942, monographs which had already been published were reviewed by I. Bernard Cohen.

The present monograph is a further contribution to the total of twenty which will comprise the initial

'E. J. Wall, The history of three-color photography. Boston, American Photographic Publishing Co., i925.

work. The author, Philipp Frank, one of the founders of the Wiener Kreis and now on the Fac- ulty of Harvard University, is an eminent theoretical physicist whose critical discussions of physics have always been characterized by soundness. In this new work he gives an expert, succinct, and compre- hensive survey of physics in order to give it a form suitable for incorporation in a unified science. In a preliminary account of the "Logical Structure of Physical Theories," Professor Frank analyzes a theory into three parts: the equations between sym- bols, logical rules for the transformation of equa- tions, and semantical rules which are operational definitions of the symbols. His critical treatment of the conventionalist interpretation of the general laws of nature is of interest. Thus he points out that the employment of the principle of conservation of en- ergy for the definition of a new type of energy is practical only if an independent operational defini- tion is available.

The primary function of the monograph is to expound the operational definitions of symbols in various fields of physics. An analysis of classical Newtonian mechanics exhibits the operational mean- ings of force and mass. The significance of the force equation ma = f is shown to depend upon the circumstance that it has been found possible to find simple expressions for f in terms of distances, masses, etc., such as the law of gravitation. A section on "Heat, Irreversibility, and Statistics" explains how the statistical formulation of the second law of ther- modynamics can be based upon reversible molecular motions. An account of the "Theory of Relativity" shows the need for an unambiguous operational defi- nition of time and for a revised definition of mass. The contradiction between corpuscular and wave concepts for light affords the author a basis for introducing the concept of indeterminacy which characterizes quantum theory. In the section on the "Mechanics of Small Masses (Wave Mechanics)," he extends Bohr's concept of complementarity to matter.

According to Bohr, the physical world cannot be described by one coherent language. There are two lan- guages which 'complement' each other. . . . The cor- rect statement of the 'relation of uncertainty' is not that 'position and velocity cannot be measured simultaneously' but that 'there is no law of prediction which contains reference to the simultaneous position and velocity of a particle. . . . The position and momentum of a particle are two physical properties which reveal themselves on different occasions which exclude each other.

Finally, the section on the "Structure of Matter" presents the bases of atomic and nuclear physics.

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