From Alchemy to Chemistry

BOOKS & ARTS NATURE|Vol 449|18 October 2007 From alchemy to chemistry Andreas Libavius and the Transformation kind of bitter, frequently scatological diatribes Parisian medical faculty. He seems almost to of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures that, while amusing at first, soon become tire- have courted enemies by taking positions that with Polemical Fire some. “You will never leave the contest unless were superficially contradictory. He wanted by Bruce T. Moran you have left behind a barb,” wrote the Parisian chymistry to be considered a serious liberal art, Science History Publications: 2007. doctor Jean Riolan in 1606 of Libavius. All this, yet called it “a bilge-flood and chaos of impurity 344 pp. $49.95 Moran admits, can make Libavius seem “more and human dregs”. His damning assessment like an off-putting sour-puss than a compelling was, however, aimed at chymistry as he saw it Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the or attractive historical figure”. being done, polluted by infernal Paracelsians. History of Alchemy and Early Modern Yet in these battles Libavius reveals a great He thought it should be a science that rejected Chemistry deal about the issues — philosophical, political mystical speculation and combined manual edited by Lawrence M. Principe and religious — on which the establishment of arts learnt through experience and philosophi- Chemical Heritage Foundation/Science chemistry as an academic discipline hinged. cal principles derived from Aristotle. History Publications: 2007. 274 pp. $45 Libavius’s sharp tongue recalls that of the The book isn’t an introductory read. You figure whose writings triggered much of the could be misled, for example, if you do not Philip Ball argument: the Swiss alchemical physician already know that by ‘Ramon Lull’ and ‘Roger The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist– Paracelsus (1493–1541). Medicine by the end Bacon’ Moran means a body of writings attrib- Leninist), it has been said, had no scorn for of the sixteenth century is often depicted as uted, often apocryphally, to those authors, or right-wingers to match that it reserved for the split into two camps: the traditionalists, who that Basil Valentine is probably a pseudonym parenthesis-free Communist Party of of a late-sixteenth-century writer. Britain. To judge from the writings And he takes it for granted that the of the German chymist Andreas reader will recognize Libavius’s por- Libavius, little has changed. The trayal of Paracelsianism to be mostly invective he hurled at, and received a caricature. But the book opens up a from, contemporaries whose views neglected period that chemical his- we now struggle to distinguish, is torians have been too eager to skate a sober reminder of how historical over in the rush to get from Paracel- distance turns violent academic spats sus to Robert Boyle. into hair-splitting. Indeed, the role of alchemy in the Libavius (c.1550–1616) has always genesis of chemistry has become a been a marginal figure in histories of hot topic, as Lawrence Principe says chemistry. He usually features as the in his introduction to Chymists and author of Alchemia (1597), commonly Chymistry. Time was when those called the first textbook of chemistry. who studied it risked being thought The book served as the model for of as lacking in judgement, or worse. ALFREDO DAGLI ORTI/PALAZZO VECCHIO FLORENCE/ART ARCHIVE FLORENCE/ART VECCHIO ORTI/PALAZZO ALFREDO DAGLI Jean Beguin’s Tyrocinium Chymicum Several recent books, such as Wil- (1610) and Nicolas Lémery’s Cours de liam Newman’s study of Daniel Sen- Chimie (1675), in which one can start nert’s atomistic theories, Atoms and to see something like early modern Alchemy, have shown that ‘modern’ chemistry taking shape. theories of matter and chemical As Bruce Moran argues in Andreas change actually grew from alchemy, Libavius and the Transformation rather than supplanting it. of Alchemy, his majestic survey of Chymists and Chymistry is the Libavius’s life and work, Alchemia product of a major conference, is by no means the key to Libavius’s hosted by the Chemical Heritage role in chemical history. By awarding Foundation in Philadelphia in 2006; it a place in chemistry’s lineage, hist- it brings together papers with an orians have imposed some apparent immense scope, straddling the eras order on the emergence of the sub- of Paracelsus and Antoine Lavoisier. ject from the sooty fumes of alchemy. Alchemy, depicted here by van der Straet, begat the study of chymistry. Particularly welcome are contribu- Moran makes a convincing case that tions on archaeological analyses of this is an artificial narrative. The transition relied on the humoral theory of Hippocrates alchemical equipment — a neglected arena in was unruly — in all respects — and mocks and Galen, and the chemical physicians (‘iatro- a subject usually reliant on text alone. As one of attempts to label its players as progressives or chemists’) who used Paracelsian cures. This is the contributors, Marcos Martinón-Torres of conservatives. too simple a picture, Moran shows. There were University College London, observes, pioneer Moran’s scholarly efforts are all the more “Hippocratic hermeticists, Galenochemists, historians of alchemy were often chemists who valuable because they could seem in some natural and hermetic chymiatrists” and others, could be historically naïve; the danger now ways unrewarding. Libavius was not an espe- all denouncing one another venomously. is that the subject be conducted only by hist- cially innovative thinker. He spent little time Libavius had to be pugnacious because he orians who ignore materials science. Libavius in the laboratory and what he wrote on chym- didn’t really fit into any camp. He despised was right in that respect: we need both books istry — the transitional discipline between Paracelsians, but was highly critical of the and benchtops. ■ alchemy and chemistry — was, he admitted, traditionalists and came to the defence of the Philip Ball is a consultant editor at Nature. His taken mostly from other sources. He expended Paracelsian court physicians to Henry IV of books include The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and much energy in furious disputes, involving the France when they were attacked by the Galenist the World of Renaissance Magic and Science. 788.

Load more