Charles Singer

Charles Joseph Singer (2 November 1876 – 10 June 1960) was a British historian of science, technology, and medicine. He served as medical officer in the British Army.

Biography

Early years Singer was born in Camberwell in London, where his father Simeon Singer was a rabbi and Hebraist. He was educated at City of London School, University College London, and Magdalen College, Oxford (Zoology 1896–99, Honorary Fellow 1953). Trained in zoology and medicine, he qualified for medical practice in 1903. He was appointed medical officer on an expedition led by Sir John Harrington to the border region between Abyssinia and Sudan on the same day his medical qualification was announced. He returned to England and took a position at Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, and in 1907 left for Singapore. Forced to return to England on his father's death in 1908, he held positions at various hospitals in London until he moved to Oxford in 1914 to work with Sir William Osler, then Regius Professor of Medicine at the university.

Later years Singer was married in July 1910 to Dorothea Waley Cohen, distinguished in her own right as an historian of the Medieval period. She provided valuable assistance in his publications for the remainder of his life. In the period leading up to World War I, Singer published several monographs, for which he was awarded the D.Litt. degree by Oxford.

Singer accepted a commission as medical officer in the British Army in 1916, first as a pathologist and then as part of an archaeological expedition. At war's end, he returned to Oxford to lecture on the history of biology. In 1920 he was appointed to a lectureship in the history of medicine at University College of the University of London. He became president of the History of Medicine Society at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, in 1920. He and his wife were co-awarded the Sarton Medal from the History of Science Society in 1956. He was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1958.

Partial bibliography Studies in the history and method of science (1917) Greek Biology and Greek Medicine, Chapters in the History of Science, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922. From Magic to Science: Essays on the Scientific Twilight (1928) A Short History of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1928. A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century (1941) As editor, A History of Technology (5 vols, between 1954 and 1958), together with Eric John Holmyard and A. R. Hall. Galen on Anatomical Procedures (1956) A History of Biology to About the Year 1900 (1959)