Images and words, a dynamic duality for scientific communication

Abstract

This communication deals with a topic which has always attracted the interest of the author: the usage
of inwges and words in human communication, particularly in his scientific endeavour. It presents some
historical and anthropological data in order to point out briefly that images, expresed in the way of sculptures,
engravings, and paintings, are as old as man itself, much older than communication by means of writing. The
core of the work focuses on the evolution undergone by the duality images-words in the mycological field; it
does not pretend to cover the whole theme, but gives information about the first naturalistic illustrations of
fungi, the development in drawing and printing techniques, the surging of instruments as fundamental as the
microscope and telescope, which allowed a better observation by naturalists and scientists, and the invention
of photography, advances that produced a tremendous impact in the development of both microbiology and
mycology. Along the technical progress related with the observation, registration, and interpretation of
images, it was created an ex tense terminology used to transmit this scientific knowledge