Book Reviews 131 mistakes and unrealized possibilities, is ALLEN G. DEBUS : and always worthwhile in history; and here Medical Debate. Van Helmont to it pays off too, and allows authors to Boerhaave , Science History Publica- raise the question whether (as biog- tions, Canton MA, 2001, xvii + 277 raphers of Lavoisier have wondered) the pp. [ISBN 0-88135-285-3]. honor and glory goes to the ambitious bastards. We also meet conservatism about innovations, theoretical or in- In the field of the history of science Al- strumental, which historians have len G. Debus deserves to be ranked learned to expect at all times and places. among the innovators. In his pioneering One unsurprising feature is that whereas studies, he has presented such figures as (as Wurtz in fact ruefully realized) nine- and Robert Fludd as subjects teenth-century chemistry was a German worthy of study. Within a domain that science, the twentieth was the American was dominated by physics and astrono- century – important things happened my, he saw a space for chemistry. He elsewhere, but it was the research has placed the history of medicine with- schools in the American universities and in a wider scientific, religious, and phil- their links with industry, brought out osophical context and has characterized particularly by Nicolas Rasmussen, that the ‘chemical philosophy’ as a third were dominant. force between the declining Aristoteli- We look at the rise of cosmochemis- anism and the rising mechanical philos- try, at radiochemistry, polymer science, ophy. He has always highlighted the and biotechnology, with authors who close relationship between the spread of are good guides into these territories – humanistic ideals, the increase in philo- though some of the papers would have logical skill, and scientific progress in benefited from a read-through by a na- the early-modern period (from this tive speaker of English. And we end point of view, his Man and Nature in the with BERNADETTE BENSAUDE -VINCENT Renaissance is exemplary). He has never looking at materials science and raising missed the opportunity to emphasize the question whether chemists have a the connections among such cultural future in this new world. Chemistry has factors as religious humanism, biblical such a long past that it would be sur- studies, and textual authority in the prising if like some dinosaur it were to making of the scientific enterprise, most become extinct; but while sciences are of all the cross-referencing of the great not social constructions, the boundaries book of nature and the Scriptures. Last between them clearly are – and ‘chemis- but not least, he has never undermined try’ might cease to be a useful label. But the role of the educational establish- we can infer from these studies that ment and the pedagogical implications chemists are likely to continue to be of the new science. crucial figures in the research teams In this volume, Debus retraces the which, to the continuing bafflement of principal results of his studies, specifi- lay people, will carry science forward as cally focusing on the debate between an intellectual, a practical, and a social chemistry and medicine, a debate that activity. was triggered in the 16 th century by the appearance of the Paracelsian œuvre and David Knight: that was far from concluded at the end Department of Philosophy, University of of the eighteenth century. One of the Durham, 50, Old Elvet, great merits of Debus’ book is its far- Durham DH1 3HN, UK; ranging scope and the attention to long- [email protected] term developments in the history of sci- ence. It is indeed the case that teleology has become anathema in the field of his- torical studies of late. One ought to ask

HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 8 (2002), No. 2. Copyright  2002 by HYLE and the authors. 132 Book Reviews whether teleology implies, as it is sup- cartes’ advocacy of dualism? Was chem- posed, a linear account of history. One istry a Trojan horse in the philosophical might ask whether teleology may be citadel of the mechanical philosophy used to indicate instead a tension to- (especially when dealing with such elu- ward a potential meaning in the unfold- sive topics as respiration, combustion, ing of human events. (The question and digestion)? Was the mechanical phi- whether this meaning is inherent in his- losophy so unmoved by the chemical tory or it is only a reasonable projection philosophy? Borelli, Malpighi, and Bel- by the historian can here be left aside lini, for instance, were sincere believers being a matter of and phi- in the validity of the iatrophysical ap- losophy of history rather than of histo- proach in medicine, and yet they made riography.) The philosopher may be frequent use of the chemical armory – content with a view of history as the both from a theoretical and an experi- domain of chance, arbitrariness, and ir- mental point of view – to explain the rationality, but the historian, in recount- origin and maintenance of within ing a meaningful story, looks for a se- the bodily engine. quence of events, that is, a plot. And By way of dialectical counterpoint, plots have prologues and aftermath. the establishing of the mechanical medi- This is quite apparent, for example, cine is an important component of De- when dealing with Jan Baptiste van bus’ book. Iatrophysics was a complex Helmont’s work and its fortunes and variegated phenomenon. It could through the 17 th and 18 th centuries. De- represent the introduction of quantifica- bus tells us that if we want to follow the tion and measurement into the domain Wirkungsgeschichte of Helmont’s chemi- of physiology up to the most refined cal and medical thought we need to bear use of the calculus in matters of animal well in mind the writings of Hermann economy. It could advocate reliance on Boerhaave, , Joseph mathematics and on the universal laws Black, Gabriel François Venel, Antoine of motion, fluids and solids for the Lavoisier, and , and not study of the life processes. Albeit reluc- confine ourselves to the parochial set- tantly, some iatrophysicists agreed to ting of late 17 th -century English medi- reserve some space for chemical applica- cine. Big pictures, macro-histories, and tions in the medical field, but even sa- the widening of geographical horizons vants like Boerhaave and Stahl were in- produce sense. And not only that: in van terested in what we would call inorganic Helmont’s case, the diachronic pattern chemistry rather than the chemical in- is more reliable than the typical syn- terpretation of life; that is to say, they chronic, contextual device traditionally did not embark on any attempt to un- adopted by historians, namely, the battle derstand the vital functions of the body between mechanists and vitalists. and the processes of living matter in The rich historical reconstruction chemical terms. Referring to Boerhaa- provided by Debus’ book makes the ve’s and Stahl’s position, Debus rightly reader question more than once the le- notes that it was “a fundamental break gitimacy of the hackneyed polarization with the Paracelsian-Helmontian tradi- between mechanism and in ear- tion” (p. 222). Before Lavoisier’s grand ly modern medicine. Can we still label synthesis, the separation between chem- Boerhaave a mechanist when we learn istry and medicine, apart from the spe- that, especially in the last part of his life, cific section of materia medica, re- he devoted so much energy to under- mained common among medical and standing the alchemical legacy? Can we chemical practitioners. It may seem a refer to Stahl as a vitalist when his belief paradox, but the division between medi- in the inertia of matter and the mechan- cine and chemistry – medicine and ical arrangement of the body has the chemistry being understood as the re- same clarity and presumption as Des- spective domains of the ensouled body Book Reviews 133 and inert matter – could be justified as try as a product of the Egyptian wisdom the result of a far-fetched interpretation on the other. With an eye for the tech- of Helmont’s philosophy. In the Hel- nological side of the chemical practice, montian system, life and matter were Boerhaave argued that chemical theoriz- incommensurable entities, and the vital ing originated from the fabulous stories spark was a transcendent accident super- made up by miners eager to make sense imposed on prime matter by a divine of the terrifying and inexplicable sides command. Whilst the contingent nature of their job. Platonic and Hermetic ele- of the manifestations of life in the creat- ments were added later to give an aura ed world had not prevented Helmont of mysticism and philosophy. Depend- from viewing chemistry as the privileged ing on the specific idelogical need, the access to knowledge of life in the new Arabs (Rhazes and Avicenna, in particu- foundation of medicine, the great ma- lar) were extolled to the detriment of jority of and anatomists, in Paracelsus’ contribution, or vice versa. keeping with the more reassuring tenets In his Histoire de la médicine (1696) of the chemical Galenism à la Sennert, Daniel LeClerc restated the belief that preferred to maintain the foundations of “Hermes, or Mercury, or Toth” was the medicine and chemistry separated and to “Inventor of Physick” and repeated the relegate the chemical contribution to the traditional genealogy from the Arabic manufacture of metallic-based remedies. alchemists to Paracelsus via Roger Ba- We have to wait for the medical theore- con and Arnald of Villanova. John ticians of the school (a re- Freind replied to LeClerc’s alchemical- nowned center of vital medicine) such ly-biased account with his History of as François Bossier de Sauvages, Théo- Physick (1744) in which he presented phile Bordeu, and Paul-Joseph Barthez, medicine and chemistry as evolving to- to find a deliberate attempt to bridge the ward a fully realized Newtonian system. speculative gap between Helmont’s vital In this sketch of successive views of philosophy and Stahl’s animism. medico-chemical history, Debus devotes The conflictual nature of the relation- a certain attention to the figure of Hip- ship between chemistry and medicine pocrates, and deservedly so. Inde- notwithstanding, the history of chemis- pendently of all the theoretical differ- try from the 16 th to the 18 th century can ences, everyone agreed that the Hippo- be seen as part of the history of medi- cratic tradition represented a mature in- cine. But it is not just a history of the stance of clinical medicine and experi- salient events and discoveries of the re- mental natural philosophy. Significantly, spective disciplines. Another merit of Hippocrates was the only author in the Debus’ volume is the constant attention medical canon to be appreciated even by to the meta-historical and ideological the iconoclastic iatrochemists. In medi- aspects of the early modern chemists’ cine, the revival of the pre-Galenic natu- and physicians’ self-understanding and ral philosophy had the same meaning self-portraying. Throughout the book and function as the recovery of the pre- we can follow a fascinating ‘history of Socratic wisdom in philosophy. A clear histories’, that is, a narrative of the suc- example of Hippocratic renaissance at ceeding 16 th -, 17 th -, and 18 th -century mid-17 th century is Otto Tachenius, views concerning the beginnings of both who in 1666 published his influential the medical art and the chemical prac- Hippocrates Redivivus . But Debus also tice. The debate between Hermann remembers the different meanings that Conring and Olaus Borrichius in the Hippocratism could convey for such second half of the 17 th century, for in- different people as Helmont, Sydenham, stance, was a clash between a secularized or the Spanish physicians who between and philologically-reliable reconstruc- the 17 th and the 18 th century sought to tion of the medical origins of chemistry introduce new ideas into their conserva- on the one hand, and the idea of chemis- tive medical setting. Even Boerhaave, in

HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 8 (2002), No. 2. Copyright  2002 by HYLE and the authors. 134 Book Reviews his 1701 inaugural address for his ap- The German Chemical Industry in pointment as lecturer in medicine at the the Twentieth Century , ed. by JOHN University of Leiden, reconfirmed the E. LESCH , Kluwer Academic Pub- need to return to Hippocrates for the lisher, Dordrecht, 2000, viii + 472 advancement of medical studies in an pp., EUR 163.50 [ISBN 0-7923- experimental direction. The early modern appropriations of 6487-2]. Hippocrates lay bare the ideological us- es of history. The hermeneutical pliabil- One of the interesting issues for the ity of the Hippocratic figure made it philosophy of chemistry is identifying possible for the legendary Greek physi- the forces that have shaped chemical de- cian to become at once the champion of velopment. Why is one type of research iatrophysics and the original iatrochem- pursued vigorously while at the same ist. But the variegated gallery of the ear- time a similar topic is largely ignored? ly modern Hippocrates reminds us once In the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, more that dealing with the medico- interactions involving industry, gov- chemical debate in terms of a polariza- ernment, the public, and academic re- tion between vitalism and mechanism is search were responsible for creating the unsatisfactory and misleading. In medi- modern discipline of chemistry. Aca- cine, the adoption of the reassuring di- demics often focus mainly on research chotomy between Aristotelian natural- discoveries, even though it can be ar- ism and mechanical philosophy is not so gued that these other influences were as easy as in the physical sciences. Debus’ important as the success or failure of re- introduction of the notion of ‘chemical search programs. Only by giving appro- philosophy’ was timely and it still is be- priate weight to each of these constitu- cause it aids the development of a more ents is it possible to gain a balanced un- complex historical panorama. But pre- derstanding of the forces that have cre- cisely because of this complexity, the ated modern chemistry. category of chemical philosophy, not The German chemical industry in the merely a heading for spagiric naturalism, 20 th century provides an excellent op- turns out to be more varied than the portunity to see all these forces at work. Paracelso-Helmontian one: one has only The inorganic chemical industry that to think of reluctant alchemists like developed in Britain in the late 19 th cen- Robert Boyle, of ‘chymical Galenists’ tury did not place a strong emphasis on like George Castle and Francis Glisson, research and development. The dye- and of chemical iatrophysicists like Gio- stuffs and pharmaceutical companies vanni Alfonso Borelli and Marcello that were established later on in Germa- Malpighi. The principal merit of Debus’ ny emphasized research in order to re- book lies precisely in relieving readers of spond to a public demand for new col- their ‘isms’ and exposing them to the ors and drugs. depended heav- complexity of the early modern inter- ily upon imports for basic raw materials, play between medicine and chemistry, so during the two World Wars the rising mechanical philosophies and still chemical industry had to respond to influential naturalisms. governmental needs for alternative sources of raw materials. Thus, it was Guido Giglioni: Germany that first displayed the strong Dibner Institute for the History of interactions among industry, govern- Science and Technology, 38 Memorial ment, public demand, and academic re- Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.; search that are typical of the modern [email protected] chemical industry. Research on Germa- ny is also informative because the af- termath of the two world wars made a great deal of documentation available,