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.

Barry Trost: Transition metal catalyzed allylic alkylation.- Jeffrey W. Bode: Reinventing Amide Bond Formation.- Naoto Chatani and Mamoru Tobisu: Catalytic Transformations Involving the Cleavage of C-OMe Bonds.- Gregory L. Beutner and Scott E. Denmark: The Interplay of Invention, Observation and Discovery in the Development of Lewis Base Activation of Lewis Acids for Catalytic Enantioselective Synthesis.- David R. Stuart and Keith Fagnou: The Discovery and Development of a Palladium(II)-Catalyzed Oxidative Cross-Coupling of Two Unactivated Arenes.- Lukas Gooßen and Käthe Gooßen: Decarboxylative Cross-Coupling Reactions.- A. Stephen K. Hashmi: Gold-Catalyzed Organic Reactions.- Ben List: Developing Catalytic Asymmetric Acetalizations.- Steven M. Bischof, Brian G. Hashiguchi, Michael M. Konnick, and Roy A. Periana: The De NovoDesign of CH Bond Hydroxylation Catalysts.- Benoit Cardinal-David, Karl A. Scheidt: Carbene Catalysis: Beyond the Benzoin and Stetter Reactions.- Kenso Soai and Tsuneomi Kawasaki: Asymmetric autocatalysis of pyrimidyl alkanol.- Douglas C. Behenna and Brian M. Stoltz: Natural Products as Inspiration for Reaction Development: Catalytic Enantioselective Decarboxylative Reactions of Prochiral Enolate Equivalents. Hisashi Yamamoto: Acid Catalysis in Organic Synthesis.

Chemistry and chemical engineering have changed significantly in the last decade. They have broadened their scopeâ€"into biology, nanotechnology, materials science, computation, and advanced methods of process systems engineering and controlâ€"so much that the programs in most chemistry and chemical engineering departments now barely resemble the classical notion of chemistry. Beyond the Molecular Frontier brings together research, discovery, and invention across the entire spectrum of the chemical sciencesâ€"from fundamental, molecular-level chemistry to large-scale chemical processing technology. This reflects the way the field has evolved, the synergy at universities between research and education in chemistry and chemical engineering, and the way chemists and chemical engineers work together in industry. The astonishing developments in science and engineering during the 20th century have made it possible to dream of new goals that might previously have been considered unthinkable. This book identifies the key opportunities and challenges for the chemical sciences, from basic research to societal needs and from terrorism defense to environmental protection, and it looks at the ways in which chemists and chemical engineers can work together to contribute to an improved future.

During the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century chemical societies were established all over Europe. The book focuses on this process and further development of the European chemical societies before World War I and in exceptional cases up to 1930. It comprises chapters based on a common set of questions and an extensive concluding chapter that provides a comparative analysis of the early development of the European chemical societies. The book offers unique historical material showing the social, intellectual and political circumstances in which the chemical societies were constituted and function, their relations to universities and chemical industries, everyday lives, international contacts, etc. The analysis of data explores how networks in chemistry and professional autonomy were constituted, and investigates the process of demarcation that inevitably takes place when a social institution of a scientific discipline is formed. The reader gets answer to the important question of what chemistry was and was not in the latter half of nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. Various aspects of creating scientific societies have been of much interest to historians of science in recent years. Nevertheless, histories of scientific societies are mostly occasional publications written to celebrate their jubilees. This volume represents a first international comparative analysis on the beginnings of chemical societies in Europe based on a detailed historical research done by a group of renowned historians of chemistry from several countries. As such it is an entirely new contribution to the history of chemistry in Europe and European scientific societies in general and a unique source for chemists and historians. Its ambition is to become a reference work in history of chemistry, set the standard for similar studies in other disciplines, and serve European chemical societies to provide a context for their complex histories and relationships. The book can be read by miscellaneous audiences and various types of readers with diverse intentions who will benefit differently from it: - A member of a national chemical society will find there narrative on his "own" society's establishment and early history and the opportunity to compare it with societies from other countries - Historically interested chemists will find in the book details as well as wider perspectives on the institutional history of their discipline - Historians of chemistry will get a thoroughly documented and scholarly book on the early history of chemical societies in Europe, written by acknowledged colleagues. The individual chapters will offer additional literature and sources for their research into history of chemistry. - Historians of science will get material for comparative studies on scientific institutions on the roles of learned societies on national and international level. They can be inspired to create similar studies related to other scientific disciplines. The underlying common set of guidelines can provide methodological assistance. - Teachers of history of chemistry and history of science will find in the book additional reading material and literature. - Social and general historians will be given a well-edited and reliable source on a number of social institutions that played versatile roles in local/national settings. The establishment of chemical societies can be compared with other kinds of learned, professional, and amateur societies in the same period. They also will get data and information about some aspects of the scientific boom in the second half of the nineteenth century and pre-WW1 period.

This book tells the story of how chemists, physicians, and surgeons attempted to end the problem of urinary stones. From the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, chemists wanted to understand why the body formed urinary, pancreatic, and other bodily stones. Chemical analysis was an exciting new means of understanding these stones and researchers hoped of possibly preventing their formation entirely. Physicians and surgeons also hoped that, with improved chemical analysis, they would eventually identify substances that would reduce the size of stones, leading to their easier removal from the body. Urinary stones and other stones of the body caused the boundaries of surgery, chemistry, and medicine to blur. The problem of the stone was transformational and spurred collaboration between chemistry and medicine. Some radical physicians in America and Britain combined this nascent medical advancement with older disciplines, like humoral theory. Chemists, surgeons, and physicians in Charleston, Philadelphia, and London focused on the stones of the body. Chemical societies and museums also involved themselves in the problem of the stone. Meanwhile, institutions in Charleston, Philadelphia, and London served as repositories of specimens for testing and study as previously disparate practitioners and disciplines worked toward the comprehensive knowledge that could, perhaps, end suffering from stones. The primary audience of this book is historically-minded chemists, surgeons, physicians, and museum professionals.

A Cultural History of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century covers the period from 1700 to 1815. Setting the progress of science and technology in its cultural context, the volume re-examines the changes that many have considered to constitute a "chemical revolution". Already boasting a laboratory culture open to both manufacturing and commerce, the discipline of chemistry now extended into academies and universities. Chemists studied myriad materials - derived from minerals, plants, and animals - and produced an increasing number of chemical substances such as acids, alkalis, and gases. New textbooks offered opportunities for classifying substances, rethinking old theories and elaborating new ones. By the end of the period – in Europe and across the globe - chemistry now embodied the promise of unifying practice and theory. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Chemistry presents the first comprehensive history from the Bronze Age to today, covering all forms and aspects of chemistry and its ever-changing social context. The themes covered in each volume are theory and concepts; practice and experiment; laboratories and technology; culture and science; society and environment; trade and industry; learning and institutions; art and representation. Matthew Daniel Eddy is Professor and Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science at Durham University, UK. Ursula Klein is Senior Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany. Volume 4 in the Cultural History of Chemistry set. General Editors: Peter J. T. Morris, University College London, UK, and Alan Rocke, Case Western Reserve University, USA.

The eighteenth century has long been considered critical for the development of modern chemistry, yet many features of the period remain largely unknown or unexplored. This volume details new approaches and topics to build a more complex view of chemical work during the period. Themes include late-phase alchemy, professionalization, chemical education, and the links and relations between chemistry and pharmacy, medicine, agriculture, and geology.

This book explores the importance of bodily fluids to the development of medical knowledge in the eighteenth century. While the historiography has focused on the role of anatomy, this study shows that the chemical analyses of bodily fluids in the Dutch Republic radically altered perceptions of the body, propelling forwards a new system of medicine. It examines the new research methods and scientific instruments available at the turn of the eighteenth century that allowed for these developments, taken forward by Herman Boerhaave and his students. Each chapter focuses on a different bodily fluid – saliva, blood, urine, milk, sweat, semen – to investigate how doctors gained new insights into physiological processes through chemical experimentation on these bodily fluids. The book reveals how physicians moved from a humoral theory of medicine to new chemical and mechanical models for understanding the body in the early modern period. In doing so, it uncovers the lives and works of an important group of scientists which grew to become a European-wide community of physicians and chemists.

Uses hands-on demonstrations with familiar materials to illustrate the concepts of chemistry in terms of everyday experience. The original edition was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association.

This book explores the lively chemistry culture that arose during the 17th century in Colonial New England. This was chiefly due to the efforts of John Winthrop, Jr. who brought both chemical knowledge and the largest library of chemical books in the New World to Boston. He founded towns, such as Ipswich and New London, and industrial enterprises, such as salt works and ironworks, while also serving as the primary source of Paracelsian medicines, which led him to become the most famous physician in Colonial New England. Moreover, the book covers topics such as the founding of Harvard College, and the life and works of Cotton Mather, especially Magnalia Christi Americana, one of the most important vanity volumes in the history of scholarly publication.