Alchemy Tried in the Fire

by Newman, William R.; Principe, Lawrence M.

• ISBN13: 9780226577111
• ISBN10: 0226577112
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Winner of the 2005 Pfizer Prize from the History of Science Society. What actually took place in the private laboratory of a mid-seventeenth century alchemist? How did he direct his quest after the secrets of Nature? What instruments and theoretical principles did he employ? Using, as their guide, the previously misunderstood interactions between Robert Boyle, widely known as "the father of chemistry," and George Starkey, an alchemist and the most prominent American scientific writer before Benjamin Franklin as their guide, Newman and Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory operations of a famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy. By analyzing Starkey's extraordinary laboratory notebooks, the authors show how this American "chymist" translated the wildly figurative writings of traditional alchemy into quantitative, carefully reasoned laboratory practiceand then encoded his own work in allegorical, secretive treatises under the name of Eirenaeus Philalethes. The intriguing "mystic" Joan Baptista Van Helmonta favorite of Starkey, Boyle, and even of Lavoisieremerges from this study as a surprisingly central figure in seventeenth-century "chymistry." A common emphasis on quantification, material production, and analysis/synthesis, the authors argue, illustrates a continuity of goals and practices from late medieval alchemy down to and beyond the Chemical Revolution. For anyone who wants to understand how alchemy was actually practiced during the Scientific Revolution and what it contributed to the development of modern chemistry,Alchemy Tried in the Firewill be a veritable philosopher's stone.

Author Biography

William R. Newman is professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University. He is the author of The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation, and Study and Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, An American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution. Lawrence M. Principe is professor of the history of science and technology and of chemistry at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest and coeditor of The Correspondence of Robert Boyle.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Preface	xiii
Abbreviations	xv
Introduction	1	(5)
Worlds Apart	6	(201)
Boyle's Portrayal of His Relationship to Chymistry	15	(15)
Conclusions	30	(5)
Number, Weight, Measure, and Experiment in Chymistry
From the Medievals to Van Helmont	35	(57)
Testing, Analysis, and Assaying in Late Medieval Alchemy	38	(12)
Alexander von Suchten and the Sixteenth-Century Synthesis of Chymical Traditions	50	(6)
Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Art, Nature, and Experiment	56	(34)
Conclusions	90	(2)
Theory and Practice
Starkey's Laboratory Methodology	92	(64)
The Use and Format of Starkey's Notebooks	94	(2)
Starkey's Laboratory	96	(4)
Starkey's Experimental Methodology: Conjectural Processes and Fiery Refutations	100	(18)
Quantitative Methods and Analyses in Transmutational Alchemy	118	(18)
The Volatilization of Alkalies and Starkey's Grand Design for Medicine	136	(18)
Conclusions	154	(2)
Scholasticism, Metallurgy, and Secrecy in the Laboratory
The Style and Origin of Starkey's Notebooks	156	(51)
Sources of Starkey's Industrial Chymistry	157	(4)
The Structure of Starkey's Laboratory Notebooks	161	(13)
Starkey and Textual Authority	174	(23)
The Place of Divine Authority in the Laboratory	197	(8)
Conclusions	205	(2)
Starkey, Boyle, and Chymistry in the Hartlib Circle	207	(108)
Starkey and the Development of Boyle's Early Chymistry	208	(28)
The Role of Benjamin Worsley in Boyle's ``Chymical Education''	236	(21)
Hartlib's ``Chymical Son'' Frederick Clodius and Boyle	257	(11)
Conclusions	268	(5)
The Legacy of Van Helmont's and Starkey's Chymistry
Boyle, Homberg, and the Chemical Revolution	273	(42)
The Chymistry of Salts in Boyle and Van Helmont	275	(21)
A Helmontian Background to the Chemical Revolution	296	(13)
Conclusions	309	(6)
Conclusion	315	(6)
Works Cited	321	(16)
Index	337