| Description |
1 online resource (210 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
New histories of science, technology, and medicine |
|
New histories of science, technology, and medicine.
|
| Contents |
Introduction; 1. Doing Alchemy; 2. "That Pleasing Novelty":Alchemy in Artisan and Daily Life; 3. Paracelsus and the "Paracelsians": Natural Relationships and Separation as Creation; 4. Sites of Learning and the Language of Chemistry; 5. Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Technology of Knowing; 6. The Reality of Relationship; Conclusion: Varieties of Experience in Reading the Book of Nature; References; Index |
| Summary |
Reacting to the perception that the break, early on in the scientific revolution, between alchemy and chemistry was clean and abrupt, Moran literately and engagingly recaps what was actually a slow process. Far from being the superstitious amalgam it is now considered, alchemy was genuine science before and during the scientific revolution. The distinctive alchemical procedure--distillation--became the fundamental method of analytical chemistry, and the alchemical goal of transmuting "base metals" into gold and silver led to the understanding of compounds and elements. What alchemy very gradually but finally lost in giving way to chemistry was its spiritual or religious aspect, the linkages it discerned between purely physical and psychological properties. Drawing saliently from the most influential alchemical and scientific texts of the medieval to modern epoch (especially the turbulent and eventful seventeenth century), Moran fashions a model short history of science volume |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-199) and index |
| Notes |
English |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Chemistry -- History.
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Alchemy -- History
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Science, Renaissance.
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Alchemy.
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Medicine -- History -- 17th century.
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Chemistry -- history
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Alchemy
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History, 16th Century
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History, 17th Century
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alchemy.
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SCIENCE -- Chemistry -- General.
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SCIENCE -- History.
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Medicine
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Alchemy
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Chemistry
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Science, Renaissance
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Alchemie
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Chemie
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Chemie.
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Alchemie.
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Wetenschapsdynamica.
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| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2004052601 |
| ISBN |
9780674041226 |
|
0674041224 |
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9780674014954 |
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0674014952 |
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0674266153 |
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9780674266155 |
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