Boerhaave’s Mineral Chemistry and Its Influence on Eighteenth-Century Pharmacy in the Netherlands and England

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, the use of mineral or fossil substances was relatively common in European medicine and pharmacy. However, this period also saw profound changes in ideas about the nomenclature, chemistry, and curative properties of minerals. Jonathan Simon has recently argued that an increasing orientation towards the mineral kingdom and the chemical transformation of minerals, and a rise in the number of mineral preparations demanded of the pharmacist, were characteristic for eighteenth-century chemistry within pharmacy. Yet in the Netherlands, and to a certain extent in England, another pattern is visible: although there certainly was an interest in the mineral kingdom and the chemical transformation of nonorganic materials, nothing suggests that this resulted in a strong increase in the demand for mineral-based pharmaceutical preparations – rather the contrary. Unlike English and French eighteenth-century pharmacy, Dutch pharmacy and its relation to academic medicine and chemistry have hardly received attention from historians of science thus far. This paper aims to fill that gap and argues that Herman Boerhaave’s (1668–1738) view on mineral medicine was crucial in the development of a certain wariness of “mineral medicine” in the eighteenth-century Netherlands and England, especially among apothecaries.

Acknowledgements

I would particularly like to thank my colleagues at the University of Groningen, Rina Knoeff and Ruben Verwaal, for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and comments.

Notes on contributor

Marieke M.A. Hendriksen is a historian of art and science and postdoctoral fellow with the ARTECHNE project, Utrecht University. Her research focus is the intersection of material culture and the history of ideas in medicine, chemistry, and art in the long eighteenth century. Previously, she worked at Leiden and Groningen universities, and was awarded grants and prizes by the National Maritime Museum London, the MPIWG Berlin, the Wellcome Trust, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry amongst others. For more information, see www.mariekehendriksen.nl. Email: [email protected]

ORCID

Marieke M. A. Hendriksen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7347-4432

Notes

1 Marieke M.A. Hendriksen, “The Disappearance of Lapidary Medicine: Skepticism about the Utility of Gemstones in 18th-Century Dutch Medicine and Pharmacy,” in Gems in the Early Modern World: Materials, Knowledge, and Global Trade, 1450–1800, ed. Michael Bycroft and Sven Dupré (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018) (accepted chapter, forthcoming).

2 Jonathan Simon, “Pharmacy and Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century: What Lessons for the History of Science?” Chemical Knowledge in the Early Modern World, OSIRIS 29 (2014): 293–97. I find Simon’s description of mineral substances as “nonorganic materials” somewhat confusing – supposedly he means inorganic materials in the modern sense of “molecules not containing carbon”, but this seems anachronistic. In this article, I therefore will only use the term “mineral” as an early to mid-eighteenth-century, shifting actor’s category, namely to designate substances other than vegetable and animal, found in or on the surface of the earth – including fossils. On these shifts see Susannah Gibson, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?: How Eighteenth-Century Science Disrupted the Natural Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). On the division of the three kingdoms, see Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre, Materials in Eighteenth-Century Science. A Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 11–14. On the anachronistic use of the terms organic and inorganic chemistry, see Frederic L. Holmes, Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise (Berkeley, CA: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California at Berkeley, 1989), 61.

3 For Boerhaave’s reputation as “teacher of Europe”, see G.A. Lindeboom, “Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) Teacher of All Europe,” JAMA 206, no 10 (1968): 2297–301.

4 John Powers, Inventing Chemistry. Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

5 Herman Boerhaave, Elementa Chemiae, Quae Anniversario Labore Docuit in Publicis, Privatisque Scholis (Leiden: Isaak Severinus, 1732), vol. I, 65. The edition used for quotations here is Herman Boerhaave, A New Method of Chemistry: Including the History, Theory, and Practice of the Art: Translated from the Original Latin of Dr. Boerhaave’s Elementa Chemiæ, as Published by Himself. To Which Are Added, Notes; and an Appendix, transl. Peter Shaw (London, 1741), which is a reliable translation of the Elementa.

6 Rina Knoeff, Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738): Calvinist Chemist and Physician (Amsterdam: Edita, 2002), 116. Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 2. This stance forms a stark contrast to the French situation as described by Simon, “Pharmacy and Chemistry,” 284–86, where repeated attempts were made to limit the definition of chemistry to the processes directly useful for pharmacy.

7 Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. II, 174–7.

8 Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 94. Also see Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 68: “Iron. ♂Likewise denotes gold at the bottom, but attended with a great proportion of sharp corrosive, sometimes amounting to half of the whole; whence half the character expresses acrimony, which accordingly both alchemists and physicians observe of iron. And hence that common opinion of the adepts; that the aurum vivium, or gold of the philosophers, is contained in iron; and that the universal medicine is rather to be sought in this metal than in gold itself.”

9 For Boerhaave’s discussion of the use of symbols for metals and their corrosive nature see Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 67–70.

10 “[Turbith of Mercury] seems an extraordinary medicine in stubborn and obstinate cases; but it requires a skilful physician, and should not be used when safer remedies may suffice.” Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. II, 311.

11 Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 486.

12 Knoeff, Herman Boerhaave, 183.

13 Herman Boerhaave, A Treatise on the Venereal Disease (London: T. Cox and J. Clarke, 1729), 50–51.

14 Gerrit Arie Lindeboom and Herman Boerhaave, Boerhaave’s Brieven aan Bassand (Haarlem: Erven F. Bohn, 1957), 212–13, 246.

15 This point of view is reflected in numerous remarks Boerhaave made throughout his work. On Boerhaave’s ideas about the limited medicinal use of (gem) stones, see Hendriksen, “The Disappearance of Lapidary Medicine.”

16 Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. I, 152.

17 John Powers has demonstrated that Boerhaave’s increasing scepticism about the possibility of metallic transmutation was at least partly founded in practical experimentation. Lawrence Principe has suggested, and I substantiated, that the rhetoric with which Boerhaave and other Dutch academics rejected the “excesses of chemistry” was not only empirically, but also at a morally and socially motivated. See John Powers, “From Alchemy to Chemistry,” in Inventing Chemistry. Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts, ed. John Powers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 170–91. Lawrence Principe, “The End of Alchemy? The Repudiation and Persistence of Chrysopeia at the Académie Royale des Sciences in the Eighteenth Century,” Osiris 29 (2014): 96–116. Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 84–89. Marieke M.A. Hendriksen, “Criticizing Chrysopoeia? Alchemy, Chemistry, Academics and Satire in the Northern Netherlands, 1650–1750,” Isis 109, no 2 (2018): 235–53.

18 Herman Boerhaave, “Praefatio studioso,” Materia Medica (London, 1718). This is most likely also the reason Boerhaave only published in Latin.

19 Simon, “Pharmacy and Chemistry,” 288.

20 Compare Herman Boerhaave, Elementa Chemiae: Quae Anniversario Labore Docuit, in Publicis, Privatisque, Scholis, 3 vols. (Lugduni Batavorum: Isaac Severinus, 1732) to Herman Boerhaave, Elementa Chemiae: Quae Anniversario Labore Docuit, in Publicis, Privatisque, Scholis, 1 vol. (Lugduni Batavorum: Joannis Rudolphi Imhof, 1732).

21 Compare Herman Boerhaave, Elementa Chemiae: Quae Anniversario Labore Docuit, in Publicis, Privatisque, Scholis, 3 vols. (Lugduni Batavorum: Isaac Severinus, 1732) to Herman Boerhaave, Institutiones et Experimenta Chemiae (Paris, 1724), Herman Boerhaave, Institutiones et Experimenta Chemiae, 2 vols. (Venetiis: Sebastianum Coleti, 1726), and Julien Offray de la Mettrie and Herman Boerhaave, Abregé de La Theorie Chymique / Tiré Des Propres Ecrits … Par M. de La Metrie. Auquel on a Joint Le Traité Du Vertige (Paris: Lambert & Durand, 1741).

22 The noun “manual” originally referred to the size of a book rather than to its contents.

23 Henriette A. Bosman-Jelgersma, Poeders, Pillen En Patiënten: Apothekers En Hun Zorg Voor de Gezondheid Door de Eeuwen Heen (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Luitingh-Sijthoff B.V., 1983), 74.

24 Nicolas Lémery, Pharmacopée Universelle contenant toutes les compositions de pharmacie qui sont en usage dans la Médecine, tant en France que par toute l’Europe; leurs Vertus, leurs Doses, les manières d’opérer les plus simples & les meilleures (Paris, 1697), 1. Translation taken from Simon, “Pharmacy and Chemistry,” 289.

25 Simon, “Pharmacy and Chemistry,” 289.

26 Allen Debus, “Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific Revolution,” Isis 89, no 1 (1998): 66–81; Allen Debus, Chemistry and Medical Debate van Helmont to Boerhaave (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 2001), 25–26. Bruce Moran, Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 86, 107.

27 Ruth Hill, Sceptres and Sciences in the Spains: Four Humanists and the New Philosophy (ca. 1680–1740) (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2000), 160–62. Paula De Vos, “From Herbs to Alchemy: The Introduction of Chemical Medicine to Mexcian Pharmacies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 8, no 2 (July 1, 2007): 135–68.

28 Robert Dossie, Theory and Practice of Chirurgical Pharmacy: Comprehending a Complete Dispensatory for the Use of Surgeons. With Explanatory and Critical Notes on Each Composition, and an Introductory Inquiry Concerning the Particular Intentions of Cure, in Which Remedies Are Applied or Administered ; and the Nature and Medicinal Efficacy of the Several Simples Subservient to Them (Dublin: G. and A. Ewing, 1761), 2–3.

29 Bosman-Jelgersma, Poeders, pillen, 76–77, Wouter van Lis, Gualtheri van Lis Pharmacopoea Galeno-Chemico-Medica … = Meng- Schei- … / Wouter van Lis Meng- Schei- En Geneeskonstige Artseny-Winkel (Amsterdam: Jan Morterre, 1747), 2.

30 The Dictionary of National Biography in 1893 gives 1714 as Lewis’s birth year, yet in WorldCat identities it is 1708. https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n82041022/

31 William Lewis, The New Dispensatory (Dublin: James Potts, 1778), 1–2.

32 Lewis, New Dispensatory, 1–2.

33 Compare William Lewis, The Edinburgh New Dispensatory (Edinburgh and London: Printed for Charles Elliot, Edinburgh; and G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, 1786), 2–3 to Andrew Duncan, The Edinburgh New Dispensatory (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, Jun., 1805).

34 Kornelis Elzevier, Lexicon Galeno-Chymico-Pharmaceuticum, of Apothekers Woordenboek, 1st ed., 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Nicolaas ten Hoorn, 1755) was reprinted as Kornelis Elzevier, Lexicon Galeno-Chymico-Pharmaceuticum, of Apothekers Woordenboek, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: by H. Gartman, W. Vermandel en J. W. Smit, 1790).

35 Also see Hendriksen, “The Disappearance of Lapidary Medicine.”

36 Anton Wiechmann, De Verzameling Medicijnen van Een Amsterdamse Stadsdokter (Leiden: Museum Boerhaave, 1992), 12.

37 See Hiernoymus David Gaub, “Voorreden”, in Medicina Pharmaceutica, of Groote Algemeene Schatkamer Der Drôgbereidende Geneeskonst, ed. Robertus de Farvacques and Johannes Schróder (Leiden: Isaak Severinus, 1741).

38 F.H.A. Peeters, “Wouter van Lis: Apotheker, Bierbrouwer En Stadsmedicus,” Kring Voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie in de Benelux. Bulletin 73 (1988): 1–13.

39 Wouter van Lis, Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis de Aloë (Utrecht: Johannes Broedelet, 1745), 2, 18.

40 E. Grendel, “De Opleiding van Apothekers in Het Eind van de 18e En Het Begin van de 19e Eeuw,” Kring Voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie in de Benelux. Bulletin 55 (1977): 19–22, 19.

41 Anonymous MS, “Recepten,” MUSEUM BOERH a 322, Anonymous MS, “Recepten,” MUSEUM BOERH a 323, Anonymous MS, “Receptenboekje,” MUSEUM BOERH a 313, “Manuscript [Medicament Boek : Met Een Recept van Boerhaave Tegen Koorts ] Jaar: 17XX”, 17XX, Leiden University Library, MB: a 308.

42 Jan George Riga, Laboratorium Chymico Pharmaceuticum, de Productis Chymicis Humidis et Siccis: Of Het Chymische Werkhuys Der Apotheekers (Amsterdam: J. Schuring, 1769). Riga was baptised in Mobach, Mainz, in 1737, married in Amsterdam in 1767, and is listed as having obtained his PhD in the same year and practicing as an apothecary near the Rokin in Amsterdam in 1768. See “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V4BW-9WQ: 28 November 2014), Joannes Georgius Riga, Oct 1737; FHL microfilm 949,601), Huwlyks-zang, ter bruilofte van den heere Joannes Georgius Riga, en mejufvrouwe Anna Catharina Gerôme (Amsterdam: T. Crajenschot, 1767), 3, and Lyste der naamen en woonplaatzen van de apothekers (Amsterdam: Petrus Schouten en Reinier Ottens, 1768), 11.

43 Tobern Bergman, A Dissertation on Elective Attractions (London: J. Murray, 1775). Also see Frederic L. Holmes, “Analysis by Fire and Solvent Extractions: The Metamorphosis of a Tradition,” Isis 62, no. 2 (1971): 128–48, 131. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who pointed out Bergman’s work to me.

44 See Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept. Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest. Including Boyle’s “Lost” Dialogue on the Transmutation of Metals (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 153.

45 Hendriksen, “Criticizing Chrysopoeia?”

46 Elzevier, Lexicon Galeno-Chymico-Pharmaceuticum.

47 Hendriksen, “The Disappearance of Lapidary Medicine.”

48 E.I. Carlyle, “Strother, Edward (1675–1737),” rev. Patrick Wallis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26678, accessed 5 April 2017]

49 Dr. Boerhaave’s Elements of Chymistry: Faithfully Abridg’d from the Late Genuine Edition, Publish’d and Sign’d by Himself, at Leyden …  : To Which are Added, Curious and Useful Notes … / by a Physician (London: J. Wilford, 1732). The “physician” in the title was probably Edward Strothers (1675–1737). There is an identical 1734 reprint of this edition. Similarly, the English translator of a 1735 edition, although he stated in the Author’s preface that he has stayed as close to the original as possible, and with the author’s permission, pays much more attention to the vegetable and animal processes, and less attentions to the fossil processes than Boerhaave did. See Herman Boerhaave, Elements of Chemistry, Being the Annual Lectures of Herman Boerhaave. Translated from the Original Latin by Timothy Dallowe, 2 vols. (London: J. and J. Pemberton, 1735).

50 Dr. Boerhaave’s Elements, 169.

51 William Lewis, An Experimental History of the Materia Medica: Or of the Natural and Artificial Substances Made Use of in Medicine: Containing a Compendious View of Their Natural History, and Account of Their Pharmaceutic Properties, and an Estimate of Their Medicinal Powers, so Far as They Can Be Ascertained by Experience, or by Rational Induction from Their Sensible Qualities, 3rd ed. (London: J. Johnson, 1784), 93.

52 Repeated or excessive ingestion of silver solutions can cause acute silver poisoning (argyria), which may cause haemorrhage and erosive intestinal lesions, but in small doses silver compounds are thought to be harmless despite widespread systemic deposition. However, the cosmetic disability can be psychologically traumatic, as systemic argyria can cause the skin to turn permanently greyish-blue. See R.J. Prescott and S. Wells, “Systemic argyria,” Journal of Clinical Pathology: The Journal of the Association of Clinical Pathologists 47, no 6 (1994): 556–57.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientic Research)-funded Vital Matters project at Groningen University (2012–2015), an HSS early career travel grant which allowed me to present an early version of this paper at the HSS annual meeting 2015, a Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry New Scholars Award (2016) which allowed me to do archival research in London, a Beinecke Library short term visiting fellowship (2017) at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (now Science History Institute) in Philadelphia, and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648718).