Paper 1: Early Science and Medicine
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from Section A and
three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal weighting.
You should spend no more than three hours on answering all the questions, and a
word limit is set of no more than 1,500 words per answer.
All your answers for this paper should be submitted in one DOC, DOCX or PDF
document. Each answer should be clearly headed with the question number and the
question.
Put your Blind Grade Number (BGN) at the start of the document. Do not put your
name anywhere in the document.
SECTION A
1. In 1620, Francis Bacon listed printing, gunpowder, and the magnet as recent
inventions that had changed the face of the Earth. Discuss the relevance of
these inventions for the development of scientific knowledge in the early
modern period.
2. Describe the impact of processes of translation between European and nonEuropean languages on early science and medicine.
3. How did colonization shape the development of science and medicine in the
early modern period?
SECTION B
4. What made poetry an effective medium for communicating scientific ideas in
antiquity?
5. Discuss the relationship between the home as a space of healing and the
“medical marketplace”.
6. How did early modern people differentiate between kinds of human bodies?
7. Describe the significance of state patronage to the production and exchange of
scientific knowledge in premodern Asia.
8. “Newton is at number one, because almost out of nothing, out of an era of
witchcraft and sorcery, he comes up with the mathematics of the universe.
That’s incredible” (Michio Kaku interviewed in The Observer, 2021). Is it
incredible?
9. What was the role of ships in the development of early modern science?
10. Why were local contexts so important in the long-distance drugs trade during
the early modern period?
11. How did philosophical theories and religious practices shape pre-modern
concepts of the body in Chinese and Islamic societies?
12. In what ways did visual cultures shape medicine in the early modern period?