Chemical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (Osiris, Volume 29)

The last 25 years have witnessed some provocative transmutations in our understanding of early modern chemistry.  The alchemist, once marginalized as a quack, now joins the apothecary, miner, humanist, and natural historian as a practitioner of “chymistry.” In a similar vein, the Chemical Revolution of the 18th century, with its focus on phlogiston and airs, has been expanded to include artisanal, medical, and industrial practices.

Mauskopf, Duke history professor emeritus, and his co-editors have assembled this collection of essays which builds on these reappraisals and excavates the affinities between alchemy, chymistry, and chemistry from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The book reveals a rich world of theory and practice in which instruments, institutions, inscriptions and ideas were used to make material knowledge. More generally, the volume will catalyze wide-ranging discussions of material and visual cultures, the role of expertise, and the religious and practical contexts of scientific inquiry.