Makers of Chemistry - nuovo libro

Makers of CHEM ISTR Y BY ERIC JOHN HOLMYARD MEMBRE CORRESPONDANT 1 U CO MITE INTERNATIONAL DlIISTOIRE DIiS SCIENCES OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN Assyrian tablet dealing with glass-making TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER PREFACE IN this book I have tried to tell the story of chemistry from its remote and obscure beginnings up to the establishment of the modern science by Dalton, Lavoisier, Avogadro and their con temporaries. Brief sketches of subsequent developments have been appended in order that the reader may perceive something of the wonderful efflorescence of chemical progress in the nine teenth and twentieth centuries, though a full treatment of this progress lay outside the present limits. Like the other volumes in this series of Makers of Science, Makers of Chemistry is primarily intended for the general reader, to whom a detailed account of the chemistry of the last hundred years would necessarily prove unintelligible unless he were equipped with more than a little technical knowledge. If my narrative enables those with no special scientific training to understand how the great and fascinating science of chemistry slowly took shape, until at length it was set firmly upon its present fruitful course, I shall have achieved the object with which I set out. Though I have had very large recourse to original authorities, I do not claim to have used no other. Students of the history of chemistry will recognize my debt to Kopp, Hoefer, Ferguson, Thomson, Stillman, von Meyer, von Lippmann, Berthelot and other scholars, which indeed I frankly and gratefully acknow ledge. Unfortunately, the new discoveries concerning the works of Jabir ibn Hayyan, announced a short timeago by Ruska and his collaborators, came too late for me to make use of them but it is still uncertain what their true import may be. I have much pleasure in expressing my sincere thanks to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press and their officers for their continued encouragement and special assistance in the problems of illustration and printing to Mr. R. B. Pilcher, Registrar of the Institute of Chemistry, who generously gave me the benefit of his unrivalled knowledge of portraits of chemists and kindly supplied several prints and photographs for reproduction to x Preface Mr. W. L. Cooper, Librarian of the University of Bristol, for assistance in procuring journals and works of reference to Messrs. Edward Arnold Co., who kindly gave me permission to quote passages from my Inorganic Chemistry in the section on the structure of the atom and to Miss Lilian Long, who prepared the index of names, assisted in the preparation of the subject-index, made a typescript of the manuscript and read the proofs. Several of the illustrations are reproduced from originals in the Stone Memorial Science Library of Clifton College, which is fortunate in possessing a large and valuable collection of alchemical and early chemical books and manuscripts. E. J. H. Clifton College, February 1931. CONTENTS SECTION IAUE i . Fancy and Fable ....... i 2-Egypt 2 3. Sumer, Assyria, Babylonia . . . . . .10 4. Greece . . . . . . . . 15 5. The Classical Atomic Theory . . . . .21 6. China ......... 24 7. India ......... 26 8. Rome ......... 27 9. The Ley den and Stockholm Papyri .... 29 10. The School of Alexandria . . . . . .32 11. Gnosticism ........ 33 12. Neo-Platonism . . . . . . . - 33 13. The Fusion of Practicewith Speculation ... 34 14. Zosimos the Panopolitan ...... 35 15. A Retrospect ........ 39 1 6. The Rise of Islam ....... 41 17. The Origins of Alchemy in Islam . . . .43 1 8. Jabir ibn Hayyan ....... 49 19. The Latin Works of Jabir or Geber . . . .60 20. Raxi ......... 63 21. Abu Mansur Muwaffak ...... 67 22. Avicenna ........ 68 23. The Sages Step ....... 77 24. Later Writers . . . . . . . .81 25. General Review of Muslim Chemistry .... 82 26. The Translators ....... 84 27. Robert of Chester 86 28. Vincent de Beauvais ....... 89 29...