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Theory and application: the early chemical work of J. A. C. Chaptal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

H. E. Le Grand
H. E. Le Grand
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3052, Vic., Australia.
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Extract

Jean Antoine Claude Chaptal was not only a chemical manufacturer and one of the first ‘industrial scientists’ but was also, according to his own testimony, one of the early supporters of Lavoisier's system of chemistry. It might be assumed that Chaptal's pioneering work in industrial chemistry was intimately linked with his acceptance of the oxygen system of chemistry; more specifically, that this theory served to direct and inform his applied research and contributed not a little to its success. Indeed, he himself in 1790 explicitly stated this to have been the case. A close study of his work prior to 1790 fails, however, to establish the importance of such a linkage. First, his selection of research topics proves to have owed little to the ‘new chemistry’ but much to the scientific and economic milieu of his province of Languedoc and of Montpellier, its administrative seat. Second, the significance of his acceptance of the ‘new chemistry’ appears rather problematic, not the least because of the rather hazy boundaries between the phlogistic and Lavoisian theories in the 1780s. Third, it is not clear from the evidence available how the new theory helped solve the various problems of industrial chemistry he faced, or could have done so, other than to offer alternative explanations for processes with which he was already familiar and indeed had often mastered. It will be suggested that it is precisely this less dramatic role which was filled by the new chemistry: that of ‘rectifying’ his ideas by providing alternative and more satisfactory rationalizations of his experiences and experiments in the laboratory and the factory, not that of enabling him to simplify and perfect old processes nor to invent new ones. To put the point more bluntly: Chaptal's early successes and reputation in industrial chemistry were not a by-product of his allegiance to the new chemistry; rather, his growing adherence to that system was a by-product of its ability to provide satisfactory post-hoc explanations of the chemical processes and products with which he was concerned.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 31 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1984

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References

This research was supported by Grant A 7815417 from the Australian Research Grants Committee and by a University of Melbourne Special Studies Programme. I wish to thank the staff of the Archives departementales de l'Hérault, the Bibliothèque municipale of Montpellier and the Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine of the University of Montpellier for their assistance. I owe a special debt to Dr. J. G. Smith for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.

1 The label is applied by Smith, J. G., The Origins and Development of the Heavy Chemical Industry in France, Oxford, 1979, p. 20Google Scholar, whose book provides a solid introduction to industrial chemistry in late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century France. Chaptal, J. A. C., Ma Souvenirs sur Napoléon, ed. Chaptal, A., Paris, 1893Google Scholar. The only published book-length treatment of Chaptal is that of Pigeire, J., La Vie et l'oeuvre de Chaptal (1756–832), Paris, 1931Google Scholar, which is heavily anecdotal and poorly documented but contains much useful detail.

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11 Ibid. For a general study of the development of the sulphuric acid industry in France see Smith, , op. cit. (1), pp. 5–112Google Scholar; especially pp. 20–24 and 59–61.

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22 Chaptal, , ‘Mémoire Sur une Mine d'Alun, découverte sur les Frontières du Languedoc & du Rouergue, le long de la Rivière d'Alrance’, Séance pub. Soc., 1784 (1785), 23–34.Google Scholar

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37 Chaptal, , ‘Observations Sur la distillation des vins dans la Province de Languedoc’, Séance pub. Soc., 1788, 35–48, reference to 35.Google Scholar

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48 Chaptal, , ‘Théorie des detonnations chymiques’, Obs. sur phys., 1783, 22, 61–62.Google Scholar

49 Montpellier, , 1783Google Scholar. Approbation was granted by the Société 4 09 1783.Google Scholar

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51 Ibid., pp. 97–98.

52 Ibid., p. 19.

53 Ibid., p. 98.

54 Crosland, M. P., ‘Chemistry and the Chemical Revolution’ in Rousseau, G. S. and Porter, Roy (eds.), The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science, Cambridge, 1981, 389–416Google Scholar, reference to p. 408; cf. Crosland, , ‘Lavoisier's Theory of Acidity’, Isis, 1973, 64, 306–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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59 Ibid., p. 22.

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83 Lavoisier, , ‘Mémoire Sur la Combination du Principe oxygine, Avec l'Ésprit-de-vin, l'Huile, & différens Corps combustibles’Google Scholar in ibid., ii, pp. 586–600, especially pp. 586–594.

84 Lavoisier, , op. cit (76), pp. 129–140.Google Scholar This section includes the much-quoted passage on the conservation of weight, the focus on which by some historians may have diverted attention from the marked clarity and specificity of Lavoisier's remarks on fermentation compared with those of most of his immediate predecessors.

85 Chaptal, , op. cit. (36, 37, 39, 63).Google Scholar

86 It is ironic that another conclusion which he drew, that water impregnated with carbonic acid and a small amount of ‘spiritous matter’ could be converted into vinegar, may have influenced Lavoisier, , op. cit. (76), p. 147Google Scholar, to obfuscate somewhat his clearer 1786 position that acetification was a simple oxygenation of alcohol.

87 Despite G. F. Venel's diatribe in the Encyclopédie in the article ‘Chymie’ against the incursions of physicists into chemistry, by the last quarter of the century the demarcation between the two sciences was increasingly ill-defined. Mention might be made of Lavoisier's own ‘physicalist’ interests, his collaboration with Laplace, and the favourable reception accorded his views by physicists in the Paris Academy.

88 E. g., Chaptal, , op. cit. (15, 36, 39).Google Scholar

89 Gillispie, , op. cit. (1), p. 405.Google Scholar

90 Chaptal, , op. cit. (2), i, pp. iv–v.Google Scholar

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