From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story

Praise for From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story "The timeline from alchemy to chemistry contains some of the most mystifying ideas and images that humans have ever devised. Arthur Greenberg shows us this wonderful world in a unique and highly readable book." —Dr. John Emsley, author of The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison "Art Greenberg takes us, through text and lovingly selected images, on a 'magical mystery tour' of the chemical universe. No matter what page you open, there is a chemical story worth telling." —Dr. Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate and coauthor of Chemistry Imagined "Chemistry has perhaps the most intricate, most fascinating, and certainly most romantic history of all the sciences. Arthur Greenberg's essays-delightful, learned, quirky, highly personal, and richly illustrated with contemporary drawings (many of great rarity and beauty)-provide a kaleidoscope of intellectual landscapes, bringing the experiments, the ideas, and the human figures of chemistry's past intensely alive." —Dr. Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story takes you on an illustrated tour of chemistry's fascinating history, from its early focus on the spiritual relationship between man and nature to some of today's most cutting-edge applications. Drawing from rare publications and artwork that span over five centuries, the book contains nearly 200 essays and over 350 illustrations-including 24 in full color-that tell the engaging story of the development of this fundamental science and its connection with human history. Join Arthur Greenberg as he combines the "best of the best" from his previous works (as well as several new essays) to paint a colorful picture of chemistry's remarkable origins!

Table of Contents:
Preface xiii Suggestions for Further Reading and Touring xix Acknowledgments xxiii Section I. Practical Chemistry: Mining, 1 Metallurgy and War The Birth of Metals 1 The Essence of Matter: Four Elements (or Five); Three Principles (or Two); or Three Subatomic Particles (or More) 3 Unifying The Infinite and the Infinitesimal 8 Seeding The Earth with Metals 10 Chymicall Characters 12 Practical Metallick Chemistry 15 A Promising President 38 These Are A Few of Our Nastiest Things 40 “The Sun Rains Gold; The Moon Rains Silver” 45 Catawba Indian Pottery: Four Colors and the Miracle of Survival 47 Section II. Spiritual and Allegorical Alchemy and Chemistry 51 Eastern and Western Spiritual Alchemy 51 The Philosopher’s Stone Can No Longer Be Protected by Patent 54 Mystical and Majestic Numbers 55 Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine: The Impure King 57 Ratzo Rizzo and the Poet Virgil as Transmuting Agents? 59 Natural Magick: Metamorphoses of Werewolves and Metals 64 An Alchemical Bestiary 69 Dragons, Serpents, and Order Out of Chaos 80 Albert The Great and “Albert The Pretty Good” 83 A Canterbury Tale of Alchemy 88 The Ship of Fools 92 The First Modern Encyclopedia 94 Today’s Specials: Oil of Scorpion and Lady’s Spot Fade-In Cream 98 “Vulgar and Common Errors” 102 What Is Wrong with this Picture? 102 Protecting the Roman Empire’s Currency from the Black Art 104 Who Is Athanasius Kircher and Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things About Him? 107 Alchemists as Artists’ Subjects 111 Allegories, Myths, and Metaphors 113 The Wordless Book 119 Strange Doings in an Alchemist’s Flask 126 Section III. Medicines, Purges, and Ointments 135 Geber and Rhazes: Alchemists from the Biblical Lands 135 Paracelsus 136 The Alchemist in the Pit of My Stomach 139 A Salty Conversation 141 The Magic of Distillation 143 Distillation By Fire, Hot Water, Sand, or Steamed Boar Dung 153 The Joy of Sextodecimo 159 The Compleat Apothecary 162 “Rare Effects of Magical and Celestial Fire” 168 Secrets of a Lady Alchemist 170 “Pray and Work” 173 A Good Old-Fashioned Purge 177 “Opening Metals”—The Art of Chymistry 184 The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony 186 Section IV. An Emerging Science 189 The Ancient War of the Knights 189 The First Ten-Pound Chemistry Text 191 A Tree Grows in Brussels 195 Curing Wounds by Treating the Sword with Powder of Sympathy 197 Do Anonymous Passersby Defecate At Your Doorstep? A Solution 198 A House Is Not a Home Without a Bath Tub and a Still 198 Skeptical about “Vulgar Chymical Opinions” 200 The Atmosphere is Massive 206 Boyle’s Law 210 Enhancing Frail Human Senses 212 Gun Powder, Lightning, Thunder, and Nitro-Aerial Spirit 217 Who Would Want an Anti-Elixir? 221 A Harvard-Trained Alchymist 223 Lucifer’s Element and Kunckel’s Pills 225 The Emperor’s Mercantile Alchemist 231 Phlogiston: Chemistry’s First Comprehensive Scientific Theory 236 The “Modern” Phlogiston Concept 239 The Humble Gift of Charcoal 241 Beautiful Seventeenth-Century Chemistry Texts 243 What Are Effluviums? 248 The Surprising Chemical Taxonomies of Minerals and Mollusks 251 Chemical Affinity 258 Double-Bottom Cupels, Hollow Stirring Rods, and Other Frauds 265 There Is Truth in Chalk 265 Section V. the Chemical Revolution 269 Peas Produce Lots of Gas 269 Black’s Magic 271 Cavendish Weighed the Earth but Thought He Had Captured Phlogiston in a Bottle 273 In the Early Hours of the Chemical Revolution 277 Making Soda Pop 289 Fire Air (Oxygen): Who Knew What and When Did They Know It? 291 Nice To His Mice 296 Laughing Gas or Simply “Semi-phlogisticated Nitrous Air” 298 Eulogy for Eudiometry 301 Where Is The Invective of Yesteryear? 303 La Revolution Chimique Commence 305 Simplifying The Chemical Babel 308 Water Will Not “Float” Phlogiston 311 Ben Franklin—Diplomate Extraordinaire 319 Mon Cher Phlogiston, “You’re Speaking Like An Ass!” 324 Lavoisier In Love 328 Requiem for a Lightweight 330 Okay, I Now Know What “Oxidation” Means, But What Is “Reduction”? 333 The Guinea Pig as Internal Combustion Engine 334 The Man in the Rubber Suit 336 “Poor Old Marat”? I Think Not 340 Poor Old Lamarck 346 Elective Attractions 349 The Phoenix Is a “Her”? 349 Chemistry in the Barrel of a Gun 355 A Boring Experiment 356 Laughing Gas for Everybody! 359 Some Last-Minute Glitsches Before the Dawn of the Atomic Theory 362 Atmospheric Water Molecules and the Morning Dew 364 Exclusive! First Printed Pictures of Dalton’s Molecules 368 The Atomic Paradigm 371 “We Are Here! We Are Here! We Are Here!” 374 Was Avogadro’s Hypothesis A Premature Discovery? 377 Chemistry Is Not Physics 378 Section VI. Young Democracy and a New Chemistry 381 If You Do Find The Philosopher’s Stone, “Take Care To Lose It Again”— Benjamin Franklin 381 Saltpetre, Abigail. Pins, John 383 “It Is a Pity So Few Chemists Are Dyers, and So Few Dyers Chemists” 383 Two Early Visions: Oxidation Without Oxygen and Women as Strong Scientists 387 ‘Tis A Bonnie Chymistrie We Brrring Ye 390 “For It’s Hot as Hell In Phila-del’-phi-a” 392 Adams Opposes Atoms 395 Twelve Cents for A Chemistry Lecture 397 Section VII. Chemistry Begins to Specialize, Systemize, and Help the Farm and the Factory 403 The Electric Scalpel 403 Chemical Scalpels Through The Ages 405 Davy Rescues The Industrial Revolution 406 The Dualistic Theory of Chemistry 409 The Chemical Power of a Current of Electricity 411 Colorful “Notions of Chemistry” 414 A Primeval Forest of the Tropics 422 Taming The Primeval Forest 424 The Atomic Weight of Carbon and Related Confusions 427 Why’s The Nitrogen Atom Blue, Mommy? 429 I Cannot Hold My Chemical Water—I Can Make Urea! 429 Two Streams in the Primeval Forest 433 Never Smile at a Cacodyl 435 Want a Great Chemical Theory? Just Let Kekulé Sleep on It 439 “My Parents Went to Karlsruhe and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt!” 443 What Are Organic Chemists Good For? 444 Mendeleev’s Early Thoughts About Relationships Between Elements 450 The Icon on The Wall 457 The Electric Oxygen 461 The People’s Chemistry 467 Ink from Peanuts and the Finest Sugar in the South 470 Section VIII. Teaching Chemistry to the Masses 471 Geodes 471 Michael Faraday’s First Chemistry Teacher 472 “Chemistry No Mystery” 476 The Chemical History of a Candle 479 Into the Heart of the Flame 481 Poof! Now You Smell It. Now You Don’t 483 My Chem Professor Took The First Photograph of the Moon! 488 Chlorine Fairies? 490 “Rascally” Fluorine: A Fairy With Fangs? 493 A Mid-Semester Night’s Dream 494 And Now Turn to Page 3 of Our Chemical Psalm Book 494 What Else Could a Woman Write About? 497 Section IX. Chemistry Enters the Modern Age 503 Riding Pegasus to Visit Chemistry in Space 503 Lævo-Man Would Enjoy the “Buzz” But Not the Taste of His Beer 506 Is The Archeus a Southpaw? 511 John Read: Stereochemist 512 Finding an Invisible Needle in an Invisible Haystack 513 But Argon is a Monoatomic Gas—And There are Others 516 Searching for Signs of Neon 517 Just How Many Different Substances Are in Atmospheric Air? 522 Atoms of the Celestial Ether 522 Non-Atomus 524 A “Grouch” or a “Crank”? 526 Why Is Prout’s Hypothesis Still in Modern Textbooks? 534 Crystals Can Diffract X-Rays 536 Two Nobel Prizes? Not Good Enough for the Academie Des Sciences! 538 It’s The Atomic Number, Dmitri! 542 The Periodic Helix of the Elements 543 X-Rays Measure The Distances Between Atoms or Ions 549 Where Did We Dig Up the Mole? 551 Xenon Is Slightly Ignoble and Krypton Is Not Invincible 552 The Atom As a Solar System 555 ’Tis A Gift To Be Simple 558 Transmuting Quantum Mechanics Into Chemistry 559 Pauling’s Cartoon Carnival 562 Here’s To Long Life (L’Chaim)! 566 Mercury Can Be Transmuted to Gold 570 Modern Alchemists Approach Atlantis 572 The Chemistry of Gold Is Noble But Not Simple 575 The “Perfect Biological Principle” 576 So You Weren’t Joking, Mr. Feynman 579 Nanoscopic “Heavens” 584 Moving Matter Atom-By-Atom 590 A Nanocar Rolling on a Gold-Paved Road 593 Femtochemistry: The Briefest Fleeting Moments in Chemistry 595 Section X. Some Brief Chemical Amusements 599 Clairvoyant Pictures of Atoms—A Strange Chymical Narrative 599 White Lightning in an Atom, a Kiss, or a Star 606 The Secret Life of Wanda Witty 611 “Trade Ya Babe Ruth for Antoine Lavoisier!” 613 Jive Molecules Doin’ The Jitterbug 620 Epilogue 623 A Natural Scientist 623 Descended From Fallopian Test Tubes? 626 Index 633

About the Author :
Arthur Greenberg is Professor of Chemistry and former Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire. He has authored or edited several books, including A Chemical History Tour, The Art of Chemistry, and The Amide Linkage, all published by Wiley.

Review :
?The fun that Greenberg evidently had in writing this mix of landmarks and light-hearted stuff is absolutely contagious.? (Ambix, November 2008) "My advice to everyone who is interested in the history of chemistry: give your old versions of Greenberg's books away and buy the new one." (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, July 2, 2007) "?a book that the reviewer would have been delighted to have discovered as a student in high school or college?" (Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Fall 2007) "'A light-hearted tour through selected highlights of chemical history'?has been admirably achieved in this generously illustrated book." (CHOICE, July 2007) ??can be strongly recommended?it will put a smile on your face on the way to the lab.? (Chemistry World, July 2007)