Science History Institute

🪵 Sandalwood has been valued for its sweet smell and rich wood for millennia. It drove the expansion of Indian empire, and the Western colonial empires that followed. Industrialization then turned sandalwood into a luxury commodity and a scarce, illicit good. ⁠
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In the latest Distillations story, former fellow Nikhil Dharan unpacks how sandalwood smuggling became a crime, revealing the tangled connections between natural resources, politics, law, chemical industries, and criminality.⁠

Tap the link below to read now.
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The Soapy Origins of a Sandalwood Smuggler A war between police and a notorious outlaw riveted South India for more than a decade. At the conflict’s roots was a centuries-old saga of scarcity and control.

🎉 NEW at the Science History Institute!⁠
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💐 Our new exterior exhibition First-Class Flora: A Stamp Collection of Medicinal Plants, can now be seen on our building's façade!⁠
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🌸 The botanical stamps featured in First-Class Flora are part of a larger collection known as The World of Chemistry in Stamps. They were compiled over a 40-year period by Richard Marston Lawrence (1906–1991), a market researcher for the chemical industry. Lawrence collected hundreds of stamps from more than 90 countries related to the history of chemistry. ⁠
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🪻 Most of the collection consists of stamps commemorating famous scientists and chemical discoveries, but a portion is devoted to stamps of plants with medicinal uses.⁠
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📅 On view through April 2027⁠
Come see it for yourself!⁠
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To learn more about First-Class Flora, tap the link below!

➡️ https://www.sciencehistory.org/visit/exhibitions/first-class-flora/