Product Description: Chemistry is intimately involved in the development of the oldest known civilizations, resulting in a range of chemical technologies that not only continue to be part of modern civilized societies, but are so commonplace that it would be hard to imagine life without them...read more

In Inventing Chemistry, historian John C. Powers turns his attention to Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), a Dutch medical and chemical professor whose work reached a wide, educated audience and became the template for chemical knowledge in the eighteenth century. The primary focus of this study is Boerhaave’s educational philosophy, and Powers traces its development from Boerhaave’s early days as a student in Leiden through his publication of the Elementa chemiae in 1732. Powers reveals how Boerhaave restructured and reinterpreted various practices from diverse chemical traditions (including craft chemistry, Paracelsian medical chemistry, and alchemy), shaping them into a chemical course that conformed to the pedagogical and philosophical norms of Leiden University’s medical faculty. In doing so, Boerhaave gave his chemistry a coherent organizational structure and philosophical foundation and thus transformed an artisanal practice into an academic discipline. Inventing Chemistry is essential reading for historians of chemistry, medicine, and academic life.

With Eighteen Illustrations "It is neither religious nor wise to judge that of which you know nothing." A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby by PHILALETHES (17th century) (From Original Title Page)

Product Description: For nearly 20 years, the author, Mary Virginia Orna has led Science History tours to Europe and other parts of the world. Given the broad popularity of her tours among those in the scientific community, the ACS initiated a symposium on the topic as well as this book...read more

Product Description: Bridging Traditions explores the connections between apparently different zones of comprehension and experience magic and experiment, alchemy and mechanics, practical mathematics and geometrical mysticism, things earthy and heavenly, and especially science and medicine by focusing on points of intersection among alchemy, chemistry, and Paracelsian medical philosophy...read more

Product Description: Our world would be a much different place without the groundbreaking work of scientific visionaries such as Hennig Brand, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Antoine Lavoisier, to name a few. This volume offers readers a vivid and colorful history of chemistry, highlighting some of field's most notable discoveries...read more

Product Description: This book is a collection of essays, written by an international group of historians of chemistry, about some of the most interesting chemists dating back into the 18th century. The contributing authors are well-established biographers, and their subjects make a diverse cast of chemistry characters...read more

Product Description: This book is written as a result of a personal conviction of the value of incorporating historical material into the teaching of chemistry, both at school and undergraduate level. Indeed, it is highly desirable that an undergraduate course in chemistry incorporates a separate module on the history of chemistry...read more

Product Description: This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work...read more

In this examination of the ways in which alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700, the author looks to determine what alchemists were doing in the context of early modern science.

Considers that Napoleon's 1812 Russian campaign may have failed because cold temperatures caused his army's tin buttons to disintegrate, identifying other important moments and traditions in history that were influenced by molecular properties. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

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Describes seventeen chemical compounds in spices, textile fibers, dyes, explosives, medicines, and other substances--including the drugs that account for witches flying on broomsticks--and how they affect civilization.

An illustrated history of chemistry introduces the unique characters, sometimes bizarre theories, and novel experiments that produced the modern science. (view table of contents)

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Unravels the history of chemistry, from the ancient Greek philosophers to the Age of Enlightenment and beyond, focusing on the life of the Russian chemist who conceived the periodic table of elements marking the birth of modern chemistry.

Much of Duhem's work as a professional scientist was closely related to the newly emerging discipline of physical chemistry. The book and associated papers translated here revolve around his concomitant philosophical and historical interests in chemistry-topics largely uncovered by Duhem's writings hitherto available in English. He understood contemporary concerns of chemists to be a development of the ancient dispute over the nature of mixture. Having developed his historical account from distinctions drawn from the atomists and Aristotelians of antiquity, he places his own views of chemical combination squarely within the Aristotelian tradition. Apart from illuminating Duhem's own work, it is of interest to see how the ancient dispute can be related to modern science by someone competent to make such comparisons. The book is lucid and logically stringent without assuming any particular mathematical prerequisites, and provides a masterly statement of an important line of nineteenth century thought which is of interest in its own right as well as providing insight into Duhem's broader philosophical views. (view table of contents)