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Book Reviews fundamental science, the boundaries of which Liebig became obsessed with nutrition, not just he tried to extend from about 1840 into intellectually but also commercially. Though enterprises which he regarded as contiguous. In his extract of meat was quickly shown to be a series of thematic chapters we learn about less nutritious than he supposed, he founded Liebig's activities in industry, agriculture, the Liebig Extract of Meat Company which physiology, pathology, and public health. He made a fortune for him; after his death it was thus the chemical gatekeeper of Brock's became famous for its Fray Bentos Corned sub-title. He was also an effective popularizer Beef and Oxo. Sadly Liebig's diet of cognac, of chemistry and a philosopher of science, who wine, and his own meat extract did not prevent condemned what he regarded as the naive his death from pneumonia. As a business man, inductive philosophy of Francis Bacon. Liebig was also involved in successful ventures Brock is particularly revealing about with baking powder and with malted and dried Liebig's medical interests. His agricultural milk sold as infant foods. chemistry was based on the idea of giving Brock's is the first English-language mineral medicine, and not manure, to the land; biography of Liebig since William Shenstone's this view was stoutly opposed by John Bennet hagiographic account of 1895. Those who read Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert (a former German fluently may still turn with profit to pupil of Liebig) working together at the biography published in 1909 by Jacob Rothamsted. Liebig's contributions to animal Volhard, a pupil and friend of Liebig. Brock or physiological chemistry, now called says modestly that his book should be regarded biochemistry, were equally contentious. His as complementing but not replacing Volhard. I views about fat metabolism, protein beg to demur. Drawing on a wide range of degradation, and fermentation generated primary and secondary sources, Brock gives us sustained and acrimonious controversies. For new insights and information about the familiar example, Jons Berzelius publicly criticized and unfamiliar aspects of Liebig's personality Liebig's physiological chemistry as facile and career. With meticulous but easily carried because it was created at the writing table; scholarship he quietly corrects errors made by privately he denounced it as drivel. At the end other historians including myself. His prose is of Liebig's life Pasteur had pushed him into a lucid, flowing, and sequacious. Without any paradoxical position: though Liebig accepted Latourian jargon he depicts the Liebigization that yeast was a living organism, he maintained of not just Germany but much of Europe. his original stance on the essentially chemical There is no doubt that this accomplished book nature of fermentation. In the field of public deserves to be the standard biography of Liebig health, Liebig had the temerity to pen Letters for many years to come. on the subject ofthe utilization ofthe metropolitan sewage addressed to the Lord Jack Morreli, Bradford, Yorkshire Mayor ofLondon in 1865. Comfortably ensconced in Bavaria from 1852 as professor of chemistry at the University of Munich, Andrea A Rusnock (ed.), The where he did little laboratory work, and from correspondence ofJames Jurin (1684-1750): 1858 as perpetual president of the Bavarian physician and secretary to the Royal Society, Academy of Sciences, he advocated Clio Medica 39, Wellcome Institute Series in unsuccessfully the intermittent hosing and the History of Medicine, Amsterdam and spraying of land with town sewage and Atlanta, Rodopi, 1996, pp. viii, 577, Hfl. opposed using it to irrigate sandy areas to 275.00, $171.00 (hardback 90-420-0039-2), create sewage farms. In the vexed matter of Hfl. 75.00, $46.50 (paperback 90-420-0047-3). theories of disease Liebig was influential: from the 1840s until the 1880s many theorists used The correspondence of James Jurin, a his chemical process model. In the 1860s mathematician and physician who served as

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 28 Sep 2021 at 00:36:40, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300064541 Book Reviews secretary of the Royal Society of London xample, Francesco Bianchini appears as during the last six years of Newton's "physicist and mathematician", whereas his presidency, has several claims on the attention chief occupation at the time of the of historians. It chronicles Jurin's campaign correspondence was supervisor of the during the 1720s in favour of inoculation antiquities of Rome. Perhaps the most against smallpox and his simultaneous instructive feature of Jurin's correspondence, organization of an international network for the apart from the odd facts important for one or collection of meteorological information; many another specialist, is how much the distinctions of the same correspondents provided data on and pigeonholes necessary to our the effectiveness of inoculation and the understanding of our time miss the realities of capriciousness of the weather. Jurin was one of the first half of the eighteenth century. the leading defenders of Newtonian thought But there is much for the specialist too. from a few years before until long after his Readers of this journal will probably find spell as the Royal Society's secretary; the Jurin's work on smallpox most interesting; his correspondence tracks his defence of Newton's calculations of the relative risk of dying from mathematics and fluid dynamics and his battle the disease contracted naturally and by against challengers, to priority and to principle, inoculation appear to be the first of their kind. from Liebniz to Mme du Chatelet. As editor of He considered this work, together with his the Philosophical Transactions, Jurin had to version of a cure for the stone, to be his determine what the readership regarded as monument. Also, his meteorological survey, falling within the Royal Society's purposes; in promoted through physicians persuaded of a many of the letters published by Andrea link between climate and disease, touches Rusnock, Jurin offered advice to would-be significant themes in the history of medicine. contributors, amending, correcting, and Rusnock has enriched her edition with a delimiting their material. The scope of his good beginning of a biography of Jurin. She work staggers the modern underfurnished emphasizes his education at Christ's Hospital mind. Jurin was at home with analytical in London and Trinity College, Cambridge; his mechanics, natural philosophy, medical contributions to the spread of Newtonianism practice, and Greek inscriptions, among other outside England; his passages at arms with things. Bishop Berkeley closer to home; and, of Since Jurin kept copies of his outgoing course, his championing of inoculation. letters, his surviving correspondence is unusual Although, as she says, the choice of 270 letters not only in its scope and size, but also in from 700 involves arbitrariness, most readers presenting both sides. Some 700 letters by or will agree with her decision to print all of those to him are known; of these, Rusnock prints from well-known figures like Buffon, 270, covering the years 1703 to 1749; all are Fontenelle, Leeuwenhoek, Cotton Mather, and calendared in an appendix with indications of Voltaire. The exchanges with Fontenelle are by their contents. The transcriptions from English far the most interesting as indicating the originals seem to be accurate; letters written in perplexities into which consideration of the French or Latin are present only in English infinite in mathematics still involved translations, which read well, and, we must arithmeticians on the eve of the Age of suppose, faithfully. The annotations consist Englightenment. If I understand Fontenelle mainly of brief identifications of people and correctly, he would have said that the price of publications mentioned in the letters. That is Rusnock's book in paperback is finite and that no doubt helpful, but also misleading; brevity of the hardback as close to infinity as the has encouraged use of titles and concepts publisher dared to go. foreign to the eighteenth century, like "physicist" and "biologist", which introduce an J L Heilbron, inappropriate sense of professionalism. For Worcester College, Oxford

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