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Many of the "signs and tokens" described in alchemical texts relate to colour, from the Crow's Bill signifying putrefaction to the philosophical solvents disguised as Green Lions, Red Dragons, and Grey Wolves. While the process of yellowing, or citrination, often appears in medieval recipes, it seems to have interested commentators less than the more familiar processes of blackening, whitening, or reddening. Yet beyond these canonical colours, yellowness turns out to be ubiquitous in alchemy and its associated craft practices, both in Latin texts and vernacular translations. This paper uses source criticism and experimental reconstruction to interrogate the role of yellowness at the beginning, middle, and end of practice, focusing on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England. As starting ingredients, yellow vitriol and litharge offered the potential for transmutation but also posed problems for identification and preparation. As an intermediate stage, yellowness offered promising signs of future success, in the form of dramatic colour changes and unexpected products. But yellowness also offered an end in itself, as appears from the many citrination processes attested in recipe collections which aimed to imitate the properties of gold – suggesting that yellowing was prized as a significant indicator of chemical change across diverse areas of craft practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editors discuss papers on the role in chemical investigation and documentation of paper tools presented in the fall 2016 national meeting of the American Chemical Society during the 2016 History of Chemistry Division's Award to Ursual Klein for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in the History of Chemistry.

This essay elaborates on Ursula Klein’s methodological concept of “paper tools” by drawing on several examples from the history of the periodic table. Moving from John A. R. Newlands’s “Law of Octaves,” to Dmitrii Mendeleev’s first drafts of his periodic system in 1869, to Mendeleev’s chemical speculations on the place of the ether within his classification, one sees that the ways in which the scientists presented the balance between empirical data and theoretical manipulation proved crucial for the chemical community’s acceptance or rejection of their proposed innovations. This negotiated balance illustrates an underemphasised feature of Klein’s conceptualisation of the ways in which a paper tool generates new knowledge [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two books published in 1969 and 1973, the philosopher François Dagognet articulated a sharp contrast between the verbal and the visual in the history of chemical representation. Ursula Klein took up Dagognet’s argument as both inspiration and foil in her account of Berzelian formulas as productive “paper tools.” Building on Klein’s work, I show how Dagognet portrayed chemical names and formulas not just as representations and paper tools, but as material abstractions that were objects of inquiry in themselves. Dagognet associated this way of doing chemistry with chemists’ use of computers, citing the work of the physical organic chemist Jacques-Émile Dubois. However, I show that chemical editors and mathematicians had begun to treat chemical names and formulas in this way long before anyone used computers for such studies. Indeed, some of the techniques of graph theory central to the application of computers to chemistry in the mid-twentieth century were themselves in part derived half a century earlier from the application of chemical formulas to mathematical reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life of the Imperial College-trained Robert Fergus Hunter (1904–1963) was a Bildungsroman of a gifted chemist who appeared destined for a prominent academic career in organic chemistry. Two circumstances spoiled his chances. In the first place, he became associated with the declining fortunes of the weekly Chemical News. More seriously, as a professor at the Aligarh Muslim University in British India (1930–1936), he published papers on valence theory with the German-Jewish physicist Rudolf Samuel that fatally destroyed his chance of further academic preferment. Instead he became a research chemist in the food and plastics industries. The paper critically assesses Hunter's work on valence and also provides new light on science in India during the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alchemical language has been addressed in several lexicographical studies, historically and recently. This paper discusses the current state of the field and proposes a digital distant-reading approach to the issue of decoding alchemical Decknamen. This paper presents an algorithm for the digital analysis of alchemical language using the corpus of printed works by Michael Maier (1568–1622). Alchemical language was used as a medium for negotiating authority, inclusion, and exclusion in alchemical and chymical communities and also as a tool for social and scholarly knowledge-making. This paper addresses the historical problem of understanding early modern alchemical language by computational analysis. Previous studies have applied close reading methodologies to decode Decknamen; however, this paper offers a machine reasoning approach to analyse patterns in alchemical language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses fourteen letters that Heinrich Will (1812–1890), Justus Liebig's (1803–1873) successor at the University of Giessen, sent to Robert Warington (1807–1867), the chemical operator at Apothecaries' Hall in London, between 1842 and 1854. The correspondence illuminates a range of topics related to the development of the British chemical community in mid-Victorian Britain – its organisations, networks, and commercial opportunities, as well as offering insights into the importance of family, friendship, and collegiality in sustaining scientific careers. Studying such an exchange of material and textual knowledge helps to further understand how science was organised and ideas disseminated in a key period for institutional development in chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the identification of chemical elements using mineral analysis, focusing on the controversy surrounding the "tantalum metals" between 1801 and 1866. Of these metals, only tantalum and niobium are still recognised as elements today; the discovery claims of columbium, pelopium, ilmenium and dianium were all retracted or refuted. Despite the theoretical and institutional changes that chemistry underwent during this time, the debates on the tantalum metals point towards a continuity in the identification of metals. For most of the nineteenth century, chemists continued to use the same types of analytical procedures as their mid-eighteenth-century predecessors. These analytical methods enabled the identification of metals based on the chemical behaviour of their compounds, without requiring their isolation in the form of simple substances (that is, as metals). Accordingly, the central questions in all of the debates on the tantalum metals were the correct identification of the properties of compounds and the elimination of impurities, rather than the simplicity of the new metals. The story of the tantalum metals therefore illustrates the fact that, despite the definition of chemical elements as simple substances, the discovery of new (metallic) elements only rarely coincided with the isolation of new simple substances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a collection of papers on women, gender, and chemistry in eighteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and the United States. After briefly surveying previous research on women and gender in science and outlining the long history of women in chemistry, we present this special issue's main findings concerning several key themes, including the identities and strategies of women engaged in chemical activities and the enabling circumstances and networks that helped these women gain entry into male-dominated institutions and fields of study. We suggest that these overarching themes are equally relevant to the Enlightenment era and the late nineteenth- and early to mid-twentieth-century age of professional science, thus illustrating the benefits of jointly treating cases that might otherwise seem to have little in common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his only known historical sketch addressing the origin of the chemical atomic theory, John Dalton stated that different atoms have different sizes, a conclusion which led him to an investigation of combining number of atoms and relative weights. Although he stated the idea occurred to him in 1805, his laboratory notes show he developed the first table of atomic weights in 1803. Historians over the years have provided conflicting narratives to explain the different dates. In this paper, I examine Dalton's activities as a creative individual and a practicing chemist, arguing that Dalton's concept of atomic size was not an "aha" moment occurring in 1805, but one that he used right from the start in 1803 to develop his chemical atomic theory. The concepts of atomic size and relative atomic weights emerged in 1803 from his investigations into caloric and the composition of nitric acid, respectively, not from his studies on gaseous solubility. In 1805, Dalton applied his 1803 concept of atomic size to explain a different problem, one of gaseous diffusion. Dalton's 1805 epiphany should join the stage with other great insights in the history of science, such as those of Archimedes, Kekulé, and Poincaré. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper publishes the sixty-nine surviving very personal letters that Reichsgraf von Rumford wrote to Viscountess Palmerston after they met in Milan in 1793. The letters draw attention to the private domestic spaces of science and the critical importance of the aristocracy in scientific developments, topics that have both received some discussion recently. They were, however, not written with the purpose of providing historical evidence, but as part of a decade-long friendship which the letters trace, revealing, among other things, Rumford's other amours. They also describe in some detail his thoughts about his activities as a member of the governing elite in Bavaria, his scientific and engineering researches (especially the writing and publication of his Essays), as well as what he would have termed his philanthropic efforts in Bavaria, Northern Italy, Britain, and Ireland. All this is framed within the context of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that in so many ways, directly and indirectly, affected Palmerston's and Rumford's lives and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Baltic-German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in chemistry between 1904 and 1909. Many of these nominations were based on his pedagogical works. The appreciation of Ostwald's pedagogical activity can shed light on how science pedagogy was seen in the early twentieth century and how Ostwald was considered by his contemporaries. Based on sources from the Nobel Prize archives and other documents, in this paper we discuss the views of the Nobel Prize nominators on Ostwald's pedagogical works as presented in the nomination letters and the evaluation of The Nobel Committee for Chemistry on the merits of pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the continuing role of consultants within the profession of chemistry in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Consultants were a prominent part of the profession in the late nineteenth century, but were overtaken in numerical terms by chemists working in academia, government and industry in the first half of the twentieth century. The paper demonstrates, however, that numbers later stabilised and then goes on to examine the characteristics of those chemists who worked as consultants as compared to the wider chemical community. It argues that the survival of consultancy is best explained in terms of a number of differing models of consultancy work. Whilst for some chemists, consultancy was their main occupation, for others it was a phase in their careers or a secondary occupation alongside another post. The continuing value of consultancy work was related to its very versatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mercellis remarks that Baekeland "crossed boundaries between the spheres of science, technology, and industry - to the extent that they were separated" (p. 17), and his analysis reveals some of the divisions that Baekeland was keen to cross, overcome, or wilfully ignore when the occasion merited it. Mercellis dispels some myths, notably that Baekeland earned $750,000 by selling his invention of Velox photographic paper in 1899 to Eastman Kodak. Beyond Bakelite: Leo Baekeland and the Business of Science and Invention: By Joris Mercellis. [Extracted from the article]

Mediaeval Arabic technical literature shows a keen interest in yellow dyes, paints, varnishes, inks, and even perfumes. Recipes reveal that yellow was viewed as just one step away from gold, with preparations for these two colours often sharing ingredients and techniques. In the unfolding of procedures and applications to different materials, from skin to textiles, Arabic sources also offer a glimpse into daily life and shared tastes, presenting luxury objects along with their imitations. This paper traces the role played by yellow and gold in inks, cosmetic dyes, and coloured, scented fabrics, exploring the textual dimension of these recipes, their technical features, and their social role between the court and the street. It also presents translations of several important recipes for yellow and gold dyes, which illustrate their diversity of applications, while also addressing such material problems as durability and substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitric acid became commonly available in the seventeenth century. Since then, it held the interest of chemists, especially those interested in the art of dyeing. Due to what is now called the xanthoproteic reaction (from Greek xanthós, describing shades of yellow), nitric acid produces a stable yellow colouration in proteinaceous materials, such as wool, silk, and bones. The chemistry of this reaction is well understood today. Less well-known is that it held the interest of dyers in the past. Dyers considered the ability of nitric acid to give a yellow colour to certain substances a solution to giving materials a durable, that is, a lasting, yellow colour. Yellow, indeed, posed a problem in the art of dyeing. Before the discovery of synthetic dyes in the mid-nineteenth century, there were no organic yellow dyes with long-term colour stability. Using historical dyeing manuals and chemistry treatises, combined with our practical engagement with the processes they describe, this paper traces how, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, dyers explored nitric acid while examining the durability of yellow colourations. Based on these explorations into nitric acid, the chemical arts developed theories about the nature of colour, and about the causes for its relative permanence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until now, the only known source on a curious incident in Robert Boyle's life was the account of his laboratory assistant Ambrose Godfrey regarding one anonymous "Crosey-Crucian." It survives only in excerpts and paraphrases published in 1858. Based on the recent identification of this adept as Peter Moritz, a German alchemist and religious dissenter, this paper presents his own perspective as expressed in an epistolary document originally addressed to Boyle. It emerges that the stock tale of alchemical fraud dominating Godfrey's account does not do justice to the episode's complexities. Instead, it becomes possible to perceive how the fraud narrative itself – construed as an implicit and increasing scepticism towards the claims of alchemical practitioners – affected events as they unfolded. Boyle initially offered modest support yet soon reduced it, as he observed that Moritz's behaviour did not correspond to that expected of a paid labourer. Despite this, most of the experiments Moritz conducted in London clearly reflected Boyle's long-standing interests. As Godfrey had promised financial assistance without Boyle's backing, Moritz accused the laboratory assistant of embezzling funds and of undermining his livelihood by extracting arcana for payments that were subsequently discounted or withheld altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the resources, scientific spaces, and experts involved in the study of a mass poisoning caused by the drinking of arsenic-contaminated wine exported from Spain to France in 1932. Local and international periodicals record the poisoning of 300 French sailors, and stressed the commercial implications of the case. We discuss the reports prepared by different experts (mainly physicians, agricultural engineers, and customs chemists). Their work was not limited to preparing technical publications or chemical analyses; they also actively defended the quality of their local wine, and played a major role in the discussions regarding the regulation of the international wine market in the 1930s, when new standards regarding the analysis of wine were being considered. Curiously, this well-publicised case of mass poisoning did not have any noticeable consequences in the international regulation of wine. This absence of subsequent regulatory action and the role of experts are central topics of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an episode of the history of chemistry, the campaign for the promotion of so-called "new chemistry," dating to the second half of the 1780s, to investigate the ways in which women could build their own reputation. I focus on the case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1758–1836), today known as the wife and scientific associate of the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794). Drawing on a wide set of published and unpublished sources – laboratory notebooks, travel diaries, letters, and drawings – I will delve deeper into their collaboration, showing how Paulze-Lavoisier appropriated the campaign for the new chemistry to appear as a visible actor in the scientific circles of the time. I will then highlight the multiple self-representations she produced while participating in these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He is one of the few historians who are able to combine an internalist perspective on the history of science and technology with a contextual one, thanks to his deep understanding of chemistry and chemical technology. The Society for the History of Chemistry wishes to announce that the Morris Award for 2021 has been given to Ernst Homburg for his outstanding work on the history of the chemical industry, specifically for his work on the history of the madder industry (mostly in Dutch); his papers on the white lead industry; his seminal paper on the early history of industrial R&D laboratories which appeared in I BJHS i in 1992; his comprehensive history of twentieth century modern chemistry and the chemical industry embedded within a broader history of the Netherlands in I Techniek In Nederland in the Twintigste Eeuw; i his pioneering study of the history of chemical engineering contractors (with Arjan van Rooij) I Building the Plant: A History of Engineering Contracting in the Netherlands; i and in particular (in the context of this award) I ," i The Era of Diversification and Globalization (1950-2012)" in I Solvay: History of a Multinational Family Firm i , a book he co-edited with Kenneth Bertrams and Nicolas Coupain. The next award will take place in 2024 and nominations from all with a track record of publishing on the history of modern chemistry and/or the history of the chemical industry are warmly welcomed. [Extracted from the article]

The New Chemistry, as practised by its early proponents in late eighteenth-century France, is often associated with quantification and a move away from sensorial perceptions. In this paper, I argue that the sensory, far from being discarded by the practitioners of the New Chemistry, thrived in one of their major productions: the Annales de Chimie. Viewing the New Chemistry through its relation to the sensory highlights the diversity of chemical applications and offers a new way of examining the connection of chemistry to state and industrial actors. Chemists utilised a precise vocabulary which allowed them to productively interact on the subject of the senses. Sensorial impressions were used for distinct purposes, including the identification of substances, and to track the progress of ongoing chemical transformations. Most important, the senses were frequently tied to the purpose of chemical work. As chemists put their expertise in support of the state, industry, medicine, and commerce, they aimed to improve the sensory qualities of their objects of study, be they dairy products or fabric dyes. Remaining attuned to the senses, therefore, was an essential prerequisite of the New Chemistry's claim to utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andreas Libavius (ca. 1560-1616) is a well-known early modern physician and alchemist, who involved himself in various disputes. For example, in several of his writings he rejected the heterodox texts related to the Rosicrucian episode. This paper analyses Libavius's refutation of the Rosicrucian manifestos (1614-16), and aims to show that, in his response, Libavius presented himself not just as a member of the scholarly community, which is a well known facet of his life and career, but also as a Lutheran who aimed to protect his confession from attacks by heterodox sects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Harold Hartley, who had turned historian in his retirement, was a wonderful patron for historians of science in the 1960s, and Colin Russell was publishing a paper on Davy's electro-chemistry. It mentions John Davy augmented his inner life in the dissertation, but just to sort out the logic and chronology of his work after what he called Volta's alarm-bell aroused a host of researchers to experiment. It also mentions Davy's deepest feelings and beliefs.

This special issue of Ambix brings together eight new studies on Humphry Davy together with an appreciation of the life and work of David Knight, much of whose scholarship was devoted to understanding Davy. Taken together they provide a much richer and more nuanced account of aspects of Davy's life, showing how he and his work fitted into the very complex and difficult social, cultural and political contexts of the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Taking as our starting point Thomas Carlyle's 1829 critique of modern science, in this introduction we weld together the themes that emerge from these papers, many of which ground their results in the project to publish Davy's Letters. This project has provided evidence that helps us critique the disciplinary boundaries that led to Davy becoming seen mostly as a chemist, while his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge has generally been categorised as a poet. Such boundaries are now breaking down fruitfully as these essays all illustrate in their different ways. A consequence of the new understandings being produced, is that we need to consider anew what constitutes chemistry and chemists, how reputations and commemorations are constructed, the role of audiences (especially women) in developing knowledge and the use of language and literature, which, among other things, are key elements linking chemistry with other parts of society and culture. Davy provides an excellent location by which to address the historical issues involved, giving us an opportunity to balance carefully these and other components (such as human agency) in understanding how knowledge is constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how gluten was discussed by chemists in the nineteenth century in Great Britain and France as a proxy for both nutritive and baking quality. It examines the role of gluten in the broader quest to measure and render the quality of wheat and flour through a set of objective and quantifiable criteria. The paper also shows how measuring quality proved to be an extremely complex task, and how chemistry was, by itself, unable to reduce the complexity of the wheat grain, and the various demands made upon it, to a simple numerical indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solvay's Centre de Recherches in Aubervilliers (CRA), north of Paris, has been one of the leading institutions in rare earths research in the world for the last sixty years. In the 1960s and 1970s, its pioneering studies in liquid–liquid separation of rare earths made it possible to obtain a new level of purity of final products, opening the door to a vast number of applications in fields as varied as phosphors (for colour TV sets and trichromatic lamps) or catalysis (for exhaust emission control). Generations of researchers, many of whom were educated by the leading French figures in solid-state chemistry, worked behind the centre's walls creating a unique critical mass of rare earths in the French industrial chemical community. Today, the place of rare earths has dwindled in the centre's overall structure, but the trajectory still lingers on. This paper follows the complex life of the rare earths research trajectory in the CRA and tries to understand the factors that contributed to its evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors talk about the papers discussed in the issue including "Johann Andreas Cramer and Chemical Mineral Assay in the Eighteenth Century", "Teaching the Chemistry of Platinum", and "The Chemistry of Diet: Medicine, Nutrition, and Staple Foods in Imperial Brazil".

As a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Hare actively shaped early American science. He participated in a large network of scholars, including Joseph Henry, François Arago, and Jacob Berzelius, and experimented with and wrote extensively about electricity and its associated chemical and thermal phenomena. In the early nineteenth century, prominent chemists such as Berzelius and Humphry Davy proclaimed that a revolution had occurred in chemistry through electrical research. Examining Robert Hare’s contributions to this discourse, this paper analyzes how Hare’s study of electricity and the caloric theory of heat led him to propose a new theory of galvanism. It also examines the reception of Hare’s work in America and Great Britain, highlighting the contributions of early American chemists to the development of electrochemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the extent to which Louvain (Leuven) teaching could provide the foundations of a new learning and philosophy that included Paracelsianism and alchemy. The particular lens is through Van Helmont's studies in Louvain, taking place in the 1590s. It shows that teaching at Louvain had a profound impact on Van Helmont's thought. The paper further points out that Van Helmont's learning process did not include only traditional university courses, but also classes at the Jesuit college, and practical learning through Jesuits and artisans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to the history of chemistry can help us recognise the characteristics of chemistry that have helped to maintain it as a separate scientific discipline with a unique identity. Three such features are highlighted in this paper. First, chemistry has maintained a distinct type of theoretical thinking, independent from that of physics even in the era of quantum chemistry. Second, chemical research has always been shaped by its ineliminable practical relevance and usefulness. Third, the lived experience of chemistry, spanning the laboratory, the classroom and everyday life, is distinctive in its multidimensional sensuousness. Furthermore, I argue that the combination of these three features makes chemistry an exemplary science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores George Davis's editing of the Chemical Trades Journal (CTJ) between 1887 and 1906, a period during which he was also working as a consultant chemist and consultant chemical engineer. Davis had worked from 1870 in various sectors of the chemical industry before becoming a sub-inspector in the Alkali Inspectorate between 1878 and 1884. It was during this period that the British chemical industry was facing severe economic pressure and to remain competitive was having to adapt to less wasteful and more efficient production. Drawing on this wide industrial experience, Davis developed a framework for chemical engineering with the broad aim of making chemical manufacture as economic as the latest science and technology would allow. Several important issues are raised by Davis's editorship of the weekly CTJ alongside his extensive consultancy work and other responsibilities: Davis's motivation given the likely impact on his consultancy work; the community the CTJ hoped to serve; competitive periodicals addressing the same market niche; the degree of focus on his chemical engineering framework; the changing content of the CTJ; and Davis's role as editor over a period of nearly twenty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auguste Laurent began his work on morphine, nicotine, and other intoxicating alkaloids hopeful that he could reproduce them artificially from the byproducts of coal tar. After successfully creating artificial alkaloids, he collaborated with Jean-Baptiste Biot to determine that while plant-derived alkaloids were optically active, his artificial ones were not, further establishing a link between the action of molecules upon polarised light and their action upon the animal economy, and a firm line between natural and artificial products later taken up in the work of Louis Pasteur. This paper places this work in the context of a long tradition in which chemists, naturalists, and pharmacists variously used "active principles" to refer both to the particular living nature of substances, and to their ability to act on the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his paper "The Escape to the Cage", Wengenroth argues that Germany's self-sufficiency policies during the First World War and the Nazi period led to an innovation culture that did not focus on economic viability, but almost solely on making the country less dependent on imports. Morris argues convincingly that the market for natural rubber played a dominant role, and that Adolf Hitler promoted the synthetic rubber industry for reasons of national pride, despite poor economic prospects. The second contribution to this section, by Sandra Fehr, focuses on the scarcity of nitrogen products in Germany during the First World War. [Extracted from the article]

The Chemical Club (fl.1806–1828) was a small scientific dining club in London. Among its members were Sir Humphry Davy, William Hyde Wollaston, and Alexander Marcet. Other accomplished men of science, including John Dalton, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, and Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, also attended its meetings as guests. This article, drawing on the unpublished papers of Lionel Felix Gilbert, as well as a range of contemporary sources in print and manuscript, presents the first substantial history of the Chemical Club, and situates it in the context of the scientific and social networks of the period. It aims to enrich our understanding of the scientific culture of the early nineteenth century in Britain by tracing the Club's influence on, orconnection to, some of the most pioneering and transformative scientific work of the first quarter of the 1800s, such as the discovery of nitrogen trichlo-ride, the invention of the miners' safety lamp, and Hans Christian Ørsted's work on electromagnetism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals primarily with the identification of an inaccurately catalogued alchemical poem attributed to the famous Umayyad prince Khālid b. Yazīd (d. 705), edited, translated, and commented upon here for the first time. The paper also addresses the authenticity of Khālid's interest in alchemy and connects that interest to the need of the early Islamic empire to develop its own gold coinage as a sign of political independence from Byzantine coinage that was up till then the currency of the lands occupied by early Muslims in the regions of modern-day Egypt and Syria. On the matter of the legendry character of Khālid which was apparently started by Ibn Khaldun and passed on after him to most nineteenth-century and early twentiethcentury orientalists, the paper exposes here the inner contradictions in Ibn Khaldun's theorising on the matter, and his failure to understand why someone like the historical Prince Khālid would be interested in alchemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The private book collection of David Lindsay, First Lord Lindsay of Balcarres (1587-1641), was one of the largest in early modern Scotland. Despite being dispersed during the following three centuries, this collection still provides evidence for Lindsay's scientific interests and approach to the study of alchemy. In this paper we seek to partially reconstruct his library by describing and, where possible, identifying the sources of Lindsay's own transcriptions of alchemical texts, as well as works mentioned in a book-list written in his hand. We conclude that Lindsay was not just an important early modern collector, but also a careful reader, part of an extensive network of contacts with whom he exchanged books and information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

8 For an examination of the "dramatically different" properties of mercury and gold and of the mercury-gold amalgam, see Lars J. Norrby, "Why Is Mercury Liquid? Mercury will also form organic compounds, including the extremely toxic compound, methylmercury.[12] But unlike most mixtures of metals, which form solid I alloys i , when mercury combines with certain other metallic elements, such as gold, it forms an I amalgam i . A mercury-gold amalgam consists of multiple small crystals made of the two metals floating in the excess mercury. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the relationship between Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), the company that discovered tamoxifen, and Dr Craig Jordan, who played a major part in its success as a breast cancer drug, and who worked as a consultant for the company, but without ever being paid a consultancy fee. Instead, ICI funded junior staff working in his laboratory on topics of his choice. They later paid his expenses as an expert witness in patent-litigation cases, as a result of which the US became a major lucrative market for tamoxifen, and ICI's other anti-cancer drugs. This case study illustrates that, like consultants, drugs play an important part at the boundary between the academic and industrial spheres. However, even if it is blurred, the boundary remains. Owing to the secrecy that often surrounds industrial research, this boundary may lead to a different understanding of what constitutes innovation, and to different narratives with regard to respective contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) was established in Trondheim in 1910, shortly after the country had gained its independence from Sweden. The establishment of NTH coincided with the beginning of large-scale industry in Norway, and expectations were high as to what the Institute could contribute in terms of competence to establish new industries. Its professors were expected to be not just teachers or academics, but also to be involved in projects with industry. Consultancy was one way of exercising authority in relevant areas, and to acquire experience with industrial projects. Historical accounts about NTH often mention that its professors were consultants for industry, but what this entailed is rarely discussed. In this paper, I will investigate how two chemistry professors, appointed around 1910, formed their roles as consultants: Peder Farup, who experimented with the pigment titanium white for the successful company Elektrokemisk (now Elkem) in the 1910s; and Sigval Schmidt-Nielsen, who became the country's authority on nutrition, and served both the state and the margarine industry as a consultant from World War I into the 1930s. I will argue that both Farup and Schmidt-Nielsen created "hybrid careers," using a concept introduced by Eda Kranaki in 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Julius Lothar Meyer, John Newlands, and Dmitrii Mendeleev were amongst the discoverers of the periodic system of the elements. Although their systems are similar enough to be recognised as the precursors for the modern periodic system, they were also different. Here, I argue that many of their differences can be explained in terms of how the chemists emphasised different values in the process of developing their systems. In particular, Newland highlighted the simplicity of his arrangements; Meyer was more careful about the quality of data that gave rise to his system of elements; and Mendeleev sought to make his system more complete. By shedding light as to how the values of simplicity, completeness and carefulness guided the development of early periodic systems, this paper contributes to a broader understanding of how values influence science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basilisk of the pseudo-Paracelsian De natura rerum is the evil twin of the homunculus. Created from menstrual blood by artificial ectogenesis in an alchemical laboratory, the basilisk embodies the poisonous character traditionally ascribed to catamenial women, but magnified and concentrated by its mode of generation to the degree that it can kill by its glance alone. How does this remarkable thought experiment relate to other instances of the basilisk in the genuine and pseudonymous corpus of Paracelsus? The present paper outlines two primary uses which emerge repeatedly: first, in works other than De natura rerum, the basilisk is used by Paracelsus and his imitators as a means of explaining action at a distance, especially in the case of plague. Relying on a medieval association between the basilisk's deadly gaze and the putative ability of menstruating women to damage mirrors, the genuine Paracelsus links contagious disease to the deleterious action of the female imagination. Second, because the basilisk was traditionally held to be the product of an unnatural birth, being born from an egg laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad, the Paracelsian corpus frequently invokes the monster as a model for unnatural generation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper publishes, for the first time, Humphry Davy's June 1798 "An Essay on Heat and the Combinations of Light" written in Penzance. It is the manuscript that he sent to Thomas Beddoes which secured for him the position of Superintendent of the Medical Pneumatic Institution in Bristol while aged only nineteen. It is thus a crucial document that increases our understanding about how Davy made that move from Cornwall to Bristol, without which it is highly unlikely that he would have followed the spectacular career trajectory that he did. The "Essay" provides new insights into Davy's very early chemical reading (especially the English translations of Antoine Fourcroy's Elémens d'histoire naturelle et de chimie), the extent to which Davy read this (and other texts) in French, the chemical apparatus he used, the experiments he made and the development and retraction of his theory of phosoxyd (later phosoxygen). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius is best known for the influentialNovum lumen chymicum, a work composed of three separate texts. Sendivogius's authorship was questioned in the mid-seventeenth century, and these reservations are still held by some modern historians. On the other hand, other early modern and modern readers not only accepted his authorship of all three texts, but also ascribed as many as eleven texts to him. This paper discusses the key works published under the anagrammatised name of Sendivogius with the aim of resolving the authorship question. Newly discovered evidence makes it possible to trace the circumstances leading to the publication of these works in much greater detail than previously, and to present new arguments affirming Sendivogius's authorship. In theTractatus de sulphure, Sendivogius promised to write another two treatises, which readers sought to identify and (in some cases) to write themselves. This paper sets out, and rejects, the arguments for including them in the corpus of genuine Sendivogian writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of science and medicine have rarely applied themselves to reproducing the experiments and practices of medicine and pharmacy. This paper delineates our efforts to reproduce “Swedish Bitters,” an early modern composite medicine in wide European use from the 1730s to the present. In its original formulation, it was made from seven medicinal simples: aloe, rhubarb, saffron, myrrh, gentian, zedoary and agarikon. These were mixed in alcohol together with some theriac, a composite medicine of classical origin. The paper delineates the compositional history of Swedish Bitters and the medical rationale underlying its composition. It also describes how we go about to reproduce the medicine in a laboratory using early modern pharmaceutical methods, and analyse it using contemporary methods of pharmaceutical chemistry. Our aim is twofold: first, to show how reproducing medicines may provide a path towards a deeper understanding of the role of sensual and practical knowledge in the wider context of early modern medical culture; and second, how it may yield interesting results from the point of view of contemporary pharmaceutical science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following colonisation of South America by the Spanish, many new naturally occurring substances were sent to Europe. One of these was the silvery, unreactive metal, platinum, discovered in New Grenada in the mid-eighteenth century. It was often found in granular form, associated with gold, and the challenge to chemists was to refine it, produce it as wire or sheet, and determine its chemical properties. This interested the professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, Joseph Black, who was able to obtain samples from London-based Spanish contacts, particularly Ignacio Luzuriaga. This paper examines how Black transmitted his knowledge of the metal to large numbers of students attending his annual course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I sketch the institutional interactions between the Board of Agriculture and the Royal Institution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This includes analysing the composition of memberships and committees of both bodies in which, inter alia, I challenge Morris Berman's account of their institutional relations. A key figure was Humphry Davy who, because of his career ambitions, occupied a slightly uncomfortable position as Professor of Chemistry to both organisations. Davy's lecture notebooks and his subsequent publication Elements of Agricultural Chemistry reveal that he drew almost all his direct knowledge of the subject from Britain and Ireland. Yet, despite such parochial shortcomings that might be expected of an infant science at time of war, the popularity of his book, particularly in North America, provided continuity between the end of the Board of Agriculture in 1822 and the start of the impact of Justus Liebig's work in the 1840s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the start of the 1920s, the situation of female chemists in the photographic manufacturing industry was literally and figuratively explosive, for their record in conducting hazardous organic syntheses made the research director of the largest photographic firm conclude that chemistry was not an appropriate field for women. About two decades later, by contrast, the photographic industry had developed into one of a relatively small number of industries where female chemists had obtained recognition and promotions not only as librarians, patent professionals, and chemical analysts but also as experimental and theoretical investigators in research and development laboratories. This article suggests that to make sense of this turnabout, it is crucial to carefully examine the position of women chemists in corporate organisational structures and hierarchies, including the possible unintended consequences of segregating women into separate scientific labs and/or teams. This study's findings also point to the value of using scientific groups and labs as units of analysis in historical research on women scientists in industry, an approach that could be extended to other cases and might help stimulate more dialogue between historians of corporate science and R&D on one hand and historians of women and gender in science on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, which is also a contribution to the somewhat understudied area of the history of biography, discusses a couple of short accounts of Humphry Davy's life and the three major biographies published in the years following his death. These were an "anti-biography" by John Ayrton Paris (1831) and two admiring biographies by Davy's younger brother John Davy (1836, 1858). By examining the processes surrounding their writing and publication, this study illustrates how Davy's biographical reputation was constructed, how his surviving manuscripts and related documents came to be collected and preserved and so help us understand the effects they continue to exert on Davy scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]