The Chemical Revolution and Pharmacy: A Disciplinary Perspective

Notes and References

• See, for example, Theodore M. Porter, “The Promotion of Mining and the Advancement of Science: the Chemical Revolution of Mineralogy,” Annals of Science 38 (1981), 543–70 and Kenneth L. Taylor, “The beginnings of a French geological identity,” Histoire et Nature 19–20 (1981–1982), 65–82 for discussions of other sciences bearing an intimate relationship to chemistry. It is also important to remember that the details of the emergence of chemistry as a distinct discipline varied from country to country. I am here only dealing with the situation in France.
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• My approach, particularly in stressing the multi-facetted nature of the chemical revolution reflects that of John McEvoy. See his “The Chemical Revolution in Context,” The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 33 (1992), 198–216.
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• Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Eloges des académiciens, 1st edn 1740 (Brussels: Culture & Civilisation, 1969), vol. I p. 340.
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• This is a translation of the full French title, Cours de chymie contenant la maniéré de faire les operations qui sont en usage dans la médecine, par une méthode facile avec des raissonnemens sur chaque operation, pour Vinstruction de ceux qui veulent s’appliquer à cette science, while the 1677 English translation by Walter Harris was entitled A Course of Chymistry Containing the Easiest Manner of performing those Operations that are in use in Physick Illustrated with many Curious Remarks and Useful Discourses upon each Operation.
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• Nicolas Lemery, Cours de chymie (Paris: Lemery, 1675), p. 167. The English is from Walter Harris’s 1677 translation; Nicolas Lemery, A Course of Chymistry (London: Kettilby, 1677), p. 102.
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• Charles Loudon Bloxam, Chemistry Inorganic and Organic with Experiments, 9th Edn rewritten and revised by John Millar Thomson and Arthur Bloxam (London: J & A. Churchill, 1903) p. 498.
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• Lemery, op. cit. (5), pp. 167–168.
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• I believe that the rising social status of its audience played an important role in establishing the position of chemistry as an independent science, although I do not have the space to explore this issue in depth here.
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• Gabriel-François Venel, “Chymie” in Denis Diderot & Jean D’Alembert, Encyclopédie, vol. Ill (Paris: Panckoucke, 1753), pp. 408–437 on p. 408.
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• For example, Macquer’s Elements of Chemistry (1749–1751) does not feature information on medicinal doses of the chemicals discussed, although his Dictionary of Chemistry (1766) does.
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• Venel, op. cit. (9), p. 410.
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• Ibid., p. 431.
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• There are several intellectual and personal biographies of Lavoisier. Recent ones, produced to coincide with the bicentennial of his death on the guillotine in 1794 include: Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Lavoisier: Mémoires d’une révolution (Paris: Flammarion, 1993); Arthur Donovan, Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration and Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993); Jean-Pierre Poirier, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier: 1743–1794 (Paris: Pygmalion, 1993). An English translation is now available: Jean-Pierre Poirier, Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist, Trans. Rebecca Balinski. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).
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• In 1768, Lavoisier became a supernumerary adjunct member, and the following year became an adjunct member.
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• We are told that Lavoisier attended chemistry lectures given by both Rouelle and la Planche who certainly did not leave the medical applications to one side. For his mixed reaction to Rouelle’s course see Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, “A view of the chemical revolution through contemporary textbooks: Lavoisier, Fourcroy and Chaptal” British Journal for the History of Science 23 (1990), 435–460.
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• See Antoine Lavoisier Elements of Chemistry, Trans. Robert Keir & Ed. Douglas McKie. (New York: Dover, 1965), p. xix.
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• Ibid., p. 159.
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• Bensaude-Vincent, op. cit. (15), Appendix 1, p. 456. Lavoisier did, however, think that knowledge of “les drogues simples” understood as knowledge of the natural bodies as nature presents them, should form a prerequisite for the study of chemistry. (Appendix 2, p. 459).
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• Antoine-François de Fourcroy, Bibliothèque universelle des dames; principes de chimie. (Paris: Cuchet, 1787). p. x.
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• See Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, op. cit. (15).
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• For more biographical details on Fourcroy see William A. Smeaton, Fourcroy Chemist and Revolutionary 1755–1809 (Cambridge: W. Heffer 8c Sons Ltd., 1962) and G. Kersaint, Antoine François de Fourcroy (1755–1809) sa vie et son œuvre (Paris: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 1966).
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• Antoine-François de Fourcroy, La Médecine éclairée par les sciences physiques, ou Journal des découvertes relatives aux différentes parties de l’art de guérir, rédigé par M. Fourcroy, Volume I (Paris: Buisson, 1791), p. 18.
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• Ibid., pp. 32–34.
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• The full tiüe of the journal was Journal de la société des pharmaciens de Paris ou recueil d'observations de chimie et de pharmacie, and it was published between 1797 and 1799, before merging with the Annales de chimie. For more about this journal see Susan Court and William A. Smeaton. “Fourcroy and the Journal de la société des pharmaciens de Paris.” Ambix 26 (1979), 39–55.
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• For more on the intricate and intriguing publishing history of the Encyclopédie méthodique see Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A publishing History of the Encyclopédie 17751800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), particularly chapters eight and nine.
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• Encyclopédie méthodique, chimie, pharmacie et metallurgie, la chymie par M. de Morueau, la pharmacie parM. Maret, la métallurgie par M. Duhamel (Paris: Panckoucke; Liège: Plomteux, 1786–1815), vol I., pp. 625–664. Guyton wrote this second ‘avertissement’ inserted just before the entry on ‘air’ explaining his conversion to Lavoisier’s theory.
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• Encylopédie méthodique, chimie et metallurgie (Paris: Panckoucke, 1786–1815), vol. IV., p. i (Avertissement).
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• I believe that this complements the work of other historians of chemistry who point to other important aspects of eighteenth-century chemistry such as experimental practice. See Frederic Holmes Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise (Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California at Berkeley, 1989).
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• For the role of Berthollet in establishing a healthy tradition of philosophical chemistry, see Maurice Crosland, The Society of Arcueil (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967).
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