author
Charles Singer
1876–1960
A physician by training who became one of Britain’s leading historians of science, Charles Singer traced the development of medicine, biology, and technology across the centuries. His books helped make the history of science accessible to a broad audience.
2 Audiobooks
Greek Biology & Greek Medicine
by Charles Singer
About the author
Born in Camberwell, London, in 1876, Charles Joseph Singer was the son of Rabbi Simeon Singer. He studied zoology at University College London and Magdalen College, Oxford, trained in medicine, and qualified for medical practice in 1903. He later served as a medical officer on an expedition to the borderlands of Abyssinia and Sudan and worked in several London hospitals.
In 1914, Singer moved to Oxford at the invitation of the physician and scholar Sir William Osler, turning increasingly from clinical medicine to the history of medicine and science. He became a lecturer in the history of medicine at University College London in 1920 and wrote widely on subjects ranging from Greek medicine and biology to the development of scientific ideas.
His major works include A Short History of Medicine, A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century, and A History of Biology to About the Year 1900. He also co-edited the five-volume A History of Technology, published between 1954 and 1958. Singer died in 1960.