History can never be truly appreciated in the present moment. It is not uncommon for “history making ideas” to never be influential enough to gain a real footing and therefore never make an impact. When occurrences do not make a visible or memorable impact they are forgotten, never to be seen by the future. Mistakes are buried. Successes are glorified. In this way, the history that makes it to the present day has not only beaten the odds, but also been selected to be remembered. Written history is never the complete story, only what was deemed important or influential enough to be worth saving is saved. However in the present day we often look for the complete picture. What really happened? Why were some cultures more powerful than others? These questions have led historians to look for the buried truth. They do not simply look at the path that the river has carved, but they search for the water’s attempt at something new. This treasured history can be interpreted in numerous different ways simply depending on the scholar who wrote it. In a similar manner, scientific results have often been contested. I believe that the key difference between the two dominions lies in the fact that science can continually be explored – there is no delay between the event and the interpretation. Experiments can always be refined, laws changed, opinions altered, and progression unified. I believe that my biggest take away from the course is there is always more to be learned and there will always be a hidden history that is not widely known. Chemistry was not always its own science and there were many twists along the path to recognition, with several not well known. To give a glimpse into my understanding I will use examples from various time periods throughout recorded history.
The hallmark of early thought and advancement is usually accepted to be the bastion that was Ancient Greece. Individuals like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are placed upon a pedestal for their series of logical conclusions regarding the physical and theoretical world. These philosophers dabbled in all manner of thought from the act of being to the breakdown of physical phenomenon. Depth of thought, coupled with relatively formal education, divided the Greeks into classes. The lowest Greek class was the slave class. An additional class of workers, semi-analogous to a middle class, also existed in Greek society. Slaves and the working class were too caught up in their daily lives and too uneducated to contribute to Greek thought. This left the responsibility of scientific progression to the philosophers. The “thinking class” would not necessarily be a detrimental idea, had it not been for the Greek stigma of working with one’s hands. The Greeks believed that the privileged were above working with their hands – which had a catastrophic effect on scientific progression. This stigma created a culture of speculation rather than a culture capable of experimentation, leaving thought to remain theory rather than solidify into progress (1). Untested theory was allowed to survive attacks because logically the ideas made sense. Unfortunately for the progression of science as a whole, the Greek stigma of manual labor never subsided and it was not until after the end of the golden age of Greece that any concrete strides were made. I never knew about the Greeks’ lack of desire to experiment. I had always assumed that the Greeks were so intelligent because they had experiments to support their logical theories.
The Middle Ages was an interesting time for science. The fall of Rome led to the creation of feudal states in Europe. Each individual state was not concerned with the advancement of science – only survival and the accumulation of wealth. This situation gave rise to alchemy, which mostly concerned itself with the transmutation of common metals into gold. The focus on the transmutation theory lasted into the 16th century at which point a progressive change to experimentation was observed. Probierbüchlein, a German book that focused primarily on mining, minerals, and assaying, was responsible for a dramatic shift in experimental procedures for the sciences (2). Under alchemical thought processes, there was no unified method of determining the weight of reagents which left individual alchemists to devise their own “specific” measurements. Probierbüchlein, although not specifically meant for the sciences, stressed the necessity for quantitative measurements and the use of a balance. One of the first recorded instances of a published experiment involving quantitative measurements throughout was written by Giovanbattista della Porta, while describing his methods of distilling the oils that are required for perfume (2). This was not the only contribution to science that came out of the end of the Middle Ages.
Paracelsus, a physician, developed the idea of iatrochemistry, or the use of alchemy to prepare medicines. This in part stemmed from Paracelsus’ “anti-Galen” view of medicine which rejected of the idea of the four humors and adopted a more modern view which involved the concept of sickness coming from outside of the human body. Fundamentally iatrochemistry was an enormous step away from classical alchemy with the art of transmutation at its heart. Paracelsus was experimentally able to create salts from metals. These “new” substances that were created led to an enormous increase in the number of remedies available for doctors to prescribe (2). This ultimately led to a furor to discover new chemical substances and thereby a massive increase in well documented explorative experimentation. Had scientific progress been limited to the method of progression of the 16th century, we would have a scientific understanding strictly grounded in observable results. The 16th century is often regarded as “one in which the technological branch of science progressed while the theoretical side remained relative inactive” (2). Without some background on this statement, this would appear to be a tragic setback, however, the theoretical knowledge that survived into the 16th century was based on old alchemical theories. The idea of having one “branch” of chemistry progress so much further than another was astounding to me. If I were to believe that this was going to happen I would have selected that the theory would progress past the experiments, with the experiments being used to solidify or disprove theories. This has given me a slightly different outlook with which to look at recorded history.
The Renaissance brought about a renewal in human creativity and ingenuity. This is the time period in which chemistry truly became a differentiated branch of science (3). The science began to emerge from the experiments of pharmacists and the theory of physicists. The popularization of chemistry by scientists like Johann Rudolph Glauber and his books Furni Novi Philosophici and Pharmacopoeia Spagyrica were responsible for the simplification of chemical terms and gave lists of chemical recipes, respectively (3). Jean Béguin gave public lectures on chemistry and published a book called Tyrocinium Chymicum, or “The Chemical Beginner” (3). Spurred by the invention of the printing press, chemistry was now available and relatively understandable to a much larger portion of the populace. This phenomenon brought about the emergence of the “scientific amateur” allowing for a much greater number of chemistry experiments to be conducted. The influential triumvirate of Joseph Priestly, Henry Cavendish, and Antoine Lavoisier were incredibly gifted individuals that studied the phenomena of chemistry before the science really solidified. Because chemistry was not a fully developed or universally accepted branch of science there were no degrees being given in it, which leaves Priestly, Cavendish, and Lavoisier to be technically considered amateurs in the field (4). I find something as basic as simplifying scientific language causing a revolution in chemistry to be fascinating. Without the contributions of men like Glauber and Béguin it is possible that chemistry would have remained a mystical art that only very few were able to learn.
The expansion of chemistry could not have been achieved solely with the steps of Glauber and Béguin, the science needed a charismatic poster boy. I believe this charismatic figure rests within Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier was born into wealth and power although he rarely concerned himself with political issues, preferring to spend his time working in his laboratory. Lavoisier was the first person to accurately describe the act of burning, which led to the disproving of the phlogiston theory (4). He also wrote a book called Traité Elémentaire which was the first chemistry textbook written in the “new” language of chemistry (4). Although he was well liked, well known, and removed himself from the political arena, Lavoisier had the misfortune of being a French aristocrat during the time of the French Revolution. Although he was executed during the Reign of Terror his legacy endured and he is still seen in a favorable light and his accomplishments cannot be understated.
The road to modern chemistry was not always a smooth one. Unwillingness to abandon old theories to adopt new ones plagued progress. I believe that this is best demonstrated in the work of Svante Arrhenius. He spent many years studying the flow of electric current through dilute salt solutions, but without censoring his finding he would have been unable to have passed his doctorate exam. Arrhenius was eventually adopted by Wilhelm Ostwald and with the help of Van’t Hoff, they were able to find irrefutable proof of Arrhenius’ theory (5). Through unyielding dedication and perseverance Arrhenius was able to prove to the world that what he proposed was correct. Before taking this class I regularly believed that major changes to scientific laws were nearly unanimously accepted. The plight of Arrhenius was proof enough for me to see that there will always be fierce resistance to change. The role of the scientist is to continue working and experimenting until you have the evidence to change the opinions of the critics.
The shift in perspective of experimentation that occurred from the time of the golden age of Greece to the 19th century is what I really enjoyed learning about. History tends to ignore the opposition and praise the majority, giving only one face of the coin. Throughout the semester I have had my opinions changed based on a relatively small amount of revealing reading. In class lectures, often comprised of dozens of outside resources, brought in several unconventional viewpoints on chemical events and made me openly question if the same idea could be applied to any number of other events. I had always assumed that the Greeks had supported their theories with experimental data or something observable, I was completely unaware that experimentation was considered to be a slave’s work and not fit for the thinkers. Similarly, I was unaware of truly how long it took for the ideas of alchemy to die out. These ideas may have acted as a spring board into modern chemistry, but I had always assumed chemistry had been accepted and very shortly after the old ideas faded. Along the same lines, the history I had read regarding chemical law rarely mentions a major opposition to a new idea. The attitude of modern chemistry with the idea that all possible results should be explored and replicated to prove or disprove a theory simply was not present during the fledgling period of chemistry. Reading through various accounts of a time period were essential to my change in opinion. I have a new understanding that what is generalized by history can often be analyzed to unearth an entirely different story and it is not until the entire story is known that the events can truly be interpreted. While the Greek philosophers were incredible thinkers, they made no concrete progress towards the discovery of the phenomena of the world. An act as simple as deciding on a universal language of chemistry not only immediately increased the number of individuals who could experiment with chemistry, but set a precedent that sent ripples through history. The significance of an event is hard to gauge in the present, but the potential impact of scientific results cannot be ignored.
References
All references used were the artifacts I created throughout the semester.
(1). Question #1
(2). Question #3
(3). Question #4
(4). Question #2
(5). Question #5
Not directly cited, but used for general knowledge and understanding:
H.M. Leicester. The Historical Background of Chemistry, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, USA, (1971)
- Jaffe. Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, USA, (1976)
In class lectures