Scientific instruments which survive as artefacts often do so in collections; many will have spent far longer in a museum than anywhere else. This Special Issue discusses how these collections are instrumental in the history, heritage, and historiography of science.

ARTICLES:

Shaping scientific instrument collections: A historiography
Samuel J M M Alberti

What is a scientific instrument, now?
Liba Taub

Instruments and relics: The history and use of the Royal Society’s object collections c.1850–1950
Rebekah Higgitt

Modern physics in the museum: Shaping a UK national collection in the twentieth century
Alison Boyle

Scientific instrument collections in the creation of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Richard Dunn, Megan Barford

Scientific instrument curators in Britain: Building a discipline with material culture
Samuel J M M Alberti

The next level of play: How Cartesian Devils, volcanoes, and quantum toys taught general science at Harvard, 1730–1970
Jean-François Gauvin

Sharp and telling: Surgical collections as instruments of medicine, history and culture
Karin Tybjerg

https://academic.oup.com/jhc/issue/31/3