Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T04:43:22.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Operational Practice and the Emergence of Modern Chemical Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Robert P. Multhauf
Robert P. Multhauf
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Institution, Retired
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Both “early chemistry” and “modern concepts” are imprecise. The earliest references to the materials involved in metallurgy, painting, ceramics, and the like, reveal an awareness that one group of materials were called “salts” because of their similarities. I consider this a chemical “concept.” Seeking another example I claim to have found it in the so-called “mineral acids.” The evidence for the existence of this concept is cumulative during the period just before the emergence of “modern chemistry,” of which it may be considered a cause. That evidence is particularly found in the literature of pharmacy and of medicine, both of which belong to the practical arts.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1996 , pp. 241 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agricola, Georg. 1546. De natura fossilium.Google Scholar
Agricola, Georg. 1556. De re metallica.Google Scholar
Barner, Jacob. 1689. Chymnia philosophica…con brevi sed accurata et fundamentali salium doctrina. Augsburg.Google Scholar
Beguin, Johannes. [1608]1656. Tyrocinium chymicum (in Latin). Wittebergae.Google Scholar
Biringuccio, Vanoccio. 1540. PirotechniaGoogle Scholar
Boerhaave, H. 1741. Elementa chemiae. English translation as New Method of Chemistry, London.Google Scholar
Dittberner, Helga. 1971. “Zur Geschichte der Kenntnis und Ordnung der Salze.”. Ph.D.diss. Wolfgang Geothe Iniversität, Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Ercker, Lazarus. 1574. Bescheibung allerführnehmsten mineralischen Ertzt.Google Scholar
Ferguson, John, [1906] 1954. Bibliotheca chemica. London.Google Scholar
Fernel, Jean. 1567. Universa medicina. Paris.Google Scholar
Fester, Gustave. 1923. Entwicklung der chemischen Technik. Berlin.Google Scholar
Forbes, R. J. 1948. Short History of Distillation. Leiden.Google Scholar
Gesner, Conrad. 1555. Thesaurus Euonymi. Lugduni.Google Scholar
Macquer, Pierre. 1778. Dictionnaire de Chimie. Paris.Google Scholar
Multhauf, R. P. 1953. “The Relationship between Technology and Natural Philosophy, ca. 1250–1650, as Illustrated by the Technology of the Mineral Acids”. Ph.D.diss. Berkeley. University of California,Google Scholar
Multhauf, R. P. 1965. “John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Chemistry”.Bulletin of The History of Medicine 45: 359–67.Google Scholar
Multhauf, R. P. 1965. “Sal Ammoniac, a Case History in Industrialization”. Technology and Culture 6: 569–86.Google Scholar
Multhauf, R. P. 1966. The Origins of Chemistry. London.Google Scholar
Needham, Joseph, 1969. The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West. Toronoto.Google Scholar
Rosentha, Bergcommissarius. 1804. Die Kunst Vitriol—Öl und Scheidewasser zu distilliren… Gotha.Google Scholar
Sarton, George. 1927. Introduction to the History of Science. Vol. 1. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Smith, John Graham. 1979. The Origins and Early Development of the Heavy Chemical Industry in France. Oxford.Google Scholar
Stahl, G. E. 1697. “Spiritus vitrioli volatilis in copia parande”. In his Observation um chymico-physicomedicarum curiosum, 57–102. Frankfurt.Google Scholar
Telesco, Bernardino. 1586. De rerum nature. Naples.Google Scholar
Von Lippman, E. O. 1954. Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Vol. 3. Weinheim.Google Scholar