A Company of Scientists. Botany, Patronage and Community at the Seventeenth-Century Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences. 1990. IV, 387 p. gr8vo. Cloth.

Contents (main headings): The Setting (Portrait of an Institution)/The Institution and Its Patronage (Members and Protectors/ Models for aCompany of Scientists/ The Material Benefits of Membership: Pensions andQuarters/ Chemical and Mechanical Explanation of Physiological Processes/ The New Instruments and Botany)/ The Academy and the Larger Community(Medical Motivations and Social Responsibility/ Scientific Paris at theEnd of the Century/ Academicians and the Larger Scientific Community)/The Effects of Patronage (The Academy as an Instrument of the Crown/Research Subventions and Ministerial Control)/ Botanical Research at theAcademy (The Natural History of Plants: Rival Conceptions/ Justifyingthe Chemical Analysis of Plants/ Ministerial Intervention and anUnexpected Outcome/ Analogical Reasoning: The Model/ AnalogicalReasoning: The Theory)/ Appendix: The Record of Expenditure, 1666-1699/Notes/ Bibliography/ Index.