The Scientific Publications of Alexander Marcet
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Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 43, Number 2 (2018) 61 THE SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS OF ALEXANDER MARCET G. J. Leigh, University of Sussex, [email protected], and Carmen J. Giunta, Le Moyne College, [email protected] Supplemental material Abstract 1808 when he was elected to the Royal Society. French was his native language and this enabled him to maintain This paper lists all the publications which can be contacts with French and Swiss researchers, and to act as attributed to Alexander Marcet, a physician, chemist foreign secretary to, for example, the Geological Society and geologist active during the first two decades of the of London. He died in 1822. His scientific activities show nineteenth century. The contents of each publication are how, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, chem- described and assessed. Marcet was a practicing physi- istry in Britain was professionally and institutionally cian at a time and place when many chemists had medical intertwined with medicine, even while other chemists connections. His chemical work is primarily analytical were breaking free from it. and it also demonstrates how chemistry might eventu- Detailed information on Alexander and Jane Marcet ally shed light on how the human body deals with the is still easily available, and Jane’s life, in particular, has materials it has ingested. been described in considerable detail (1). However, Alex- ander’s professional career has been relatively neglected. Introduction This paper is an attempt to illustrate that he was no mere helper to his exceptional wife, but a significant figure in Alexander Marcet (1770-1822) and his wife Jane his own right. Indeed, Alexander’s interests included not Haldimand Marcet (1769-1858) were active in the circles only medicine but chemistry, geology, education, and of natural philosophers in London from about 1800 until public health (2). well into the nineteenth century. Alexander had been exiled from Geneva in 1794 as a consequence of the Once exiled, Marcet decided to study medicine at French Revolution, and he went to Edinburgh to study the School of Medicine of Edinburgh University. At the medicine under Joseph Black (1728-1799) and his col- time this was perhaps the foremost in Europe and it drew leagues. After graduation in 1797 he moved to London students from all over the Continent (3). The Head, Jo- where he practiced medicine and met Jane Haldimand, seph Black being concerned with the nature of heat and whom he married. Later he taught chemistry to medical fixed air (carbon dioxide), the properties of magnesium students at Guy’s Hospital. He always retained his inter- compounds (as distinct from those of calcium), and the est in the growing science of chemistry, and he built a use of the analytic balance (4), is recognized today by laboratory in each of two homes in London in which he chemists a major figure in the development of chemistry and his wife lived. In his publications he initially cited as an independent scientific discipline. Black had been his name as Alexander Marcet M.D., adding F.R.S. in appointed Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at Ed- 62 Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 43, Number 2 (2018) inburgh in 1766, and he continued to practice medicine to be found word-for-word in the “anonymous” 1823 for some time afterward. Modern chemists often do not obituary cited above (6). realize that he continued to be active as a physician while Alexander Marcet’s publications are listed below, in researching and teaching chemistry, and that he became numbered items, exactly as Roget described them in the principal physician in Scotland to King George III. Black obituary, though Roget did not number the items. Here eventually ceased research because of illness and then Roget’s citations are numbered, followed by a full biblio- devoted himself exclusively to teaching. His teaching was graphic citation (including Marcet’s by-line, if any), and very successful and attendance at his lectures increased summarized. Nearly all are available online at Google from year to year for more than thirty years. He had a Books or the Hathi Trust Digital Library. Supplemental powerful effect in popularizing chemistry, through his in- material to this paper gives the text of the bibliographic troduction in his chemistry lectures of new concepts and part of Roget’s obituary with links to online versions of ideas, and his students spread them and practiced them Marcet’s papers. when they left Edinburgh. In fact, one of those students, John Robison, published Black’s lectures on chemistry, Item 1: In 1799, he wrote an account of the His- based on his notes, after his death (5). tory and Dissection of a Diabetic Case (published in the London Medical and Physical Journal, vol. ii. p. 209.) Amongst the medical students whom Marcet had met in Edinburgh, and with whom he continued to “Case of Diabetes, with an Account of the Appear- interact in London were John Yelloly (1774-1842) and ances after Death, stated in a Letter to Dr. Rollo.” Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869). Roget was the son of By Alexander Marcet, M.D., member of the Royal a Genevan father and an English mother who was the College of Physicians, London; and Physician to the City Dispensary. London Medical and Physical sister of Sir Samuel Romilly, an eminent politician Journal, 1799, 2, 209-213. who paid for Roget’s university education. Another of Marcet’s London acquaintances was William Hyde Wol- Marcet came to London in 1797 and worked first at laston (1766-1828) who also started studying medicine the City Dispensary. The patient discussed here came to at Edinburgh, but did not complete his studies there, the dispensary in March 1798, suffering from diabetes moving to Cambridge. He also made his reputation as and phthisis pulmonaris (consumption or tuberculosis). a chemist. Another acquaintance was Smithson Tennant Marcet was not aware of the phthisis pulmonaris before (1761-1815), who had intended to study under Joseph he examined the patient. Dissection revealed nothing Black, but due to family circumstances finally took a which had not been observed before in diabetic cases. medical degree in Cambridge. Being financially secure, The patient customarily consumed “seven or eight he did not long practice medicine and soon spent his pounds of beer, or spirits and water in twenty-four time researching chemistry, identifying the new metals hours.” Although Marcet studied diabetes in Edinburgh osmium and iridium, for which he is still recognized and wrote his graduation thesis on the disease, this ac- today. At that time it was generally impossible to study count could not have been from his graduation thesis chemistry as an independent discipline in universities in because the case described here came from London. Britain, and where chemistry was taught it was usually The urine was sweet, and the patient also suffered from within a medical curriculum. Marcet’s professional career mesentery (the attachment of part of the digestive system was a prime example. to the stomach wall. Item 2: In 1801, a paper on the Medicinal Proper- Alexander Marcet’s Publications ties of the Oxyd of Bismuth. (Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, vol. vi. p. 155.) This paper, though A list of Marcet’s publications was published in read to the Society in 1801, was not published till 1805. the Annual Biography and Obituary (6). (A copy of “Observations on the Medical Use of the White Oxyd the obituary is available as Supplemental Material to of Bismuth.” By Alex. Marcet, M.D. &c. Sec. M.S., this paper.) As was usual at the time, this obituary was One of the Physicians to Guy’s Hospital. Memoirs published without the writer being identified, but it was of the Medical Society of London, 1805, 6, 155-173. certainly Roget, who was a great admirer of Marcet. This paper resulted from a visit to Dr. Odier in Ge- Nick Rennison, in an account of Roget’s life (7) quotes neva (Louis Odier, 1748-1817). It was read originally several sentences from an unidentified obituary which in 1801, but Marcet was later asked to publish it. He Roget wrote of Alexander Marcet. These quotations are discovered that Odier was using magistery (oxide) of Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 43, Number 2 (2018) 63 bismuth to relieve stomach pains, especially for women Item 4: In 1802, Translation of the Report to the used to carrying loads of water on their heads. Bismuth Institute of France respecting Paul’s Manufactory of was sold by perfumers, but Marcet describes its prepara- Mineral Waters; with a Preface written by himself. This tion and freeing it from a green color, said to be due to pamphlet was published anonymously. oxide of nickel. He includes many back references, some The Report Made to the National Institute of France, in German and French, and even presents a large chunk of in the Month of December, 1799, by Citizens Portal, Latin. Marcet describes several of his own cases, mainly Pelletan, Fourcroy, Chaptal, and Vauquelin, Respect- women, all with severe stomach pains and sometimes ing the Artificial Mineral Waters Prepared at Paris by difficulty in holding down food. Most recovered with the Nicholas Paul and Co. G. Woodfall, London, 1802. bismuth oxide in time, but one required more treatment The original was written for a session of the Na- with mercurial medicines. Many salts had been tried as tional Institute of Sciences and Arts on 21 Frimaire in medicines in such cases, most without success. Marcet Year 8 of the French Republic (December 1799). It lists cured four cases out of the six described, and later often many sources of mineral waters, apparently duplicated used the remedy at Guy’s.