Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry; Papers from Ambix. The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Great Britain: Jeremy Mills Publishing Co., 2004. First edition. Softcover. Large thick Octavo, xvi + 544pp. An important collection of essays - mostly on the history and philosophy of alchemy and hermetic practice, that were originally published in Ambix, the journal of The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. Edited by the renowned scholar Allen George Debus (1926—2009), the collection includes papers by D. R. Olroyd, Walter Pagel, J.R.Patrington, Julius Ruska, Lynn Thorndike, and others on a diverse range of subjects and individuals, including Greek Alchemy, Albertus Magnus, Francis Bacon, John Dee, Thomas Vaughan etc. Complete list of contents: Introdution by Allen George Debus; Essays: Julius Ruska: ”Methods of Research in the History of Chemistry”; F. Sherwood Taylor: ”The Origins of Greek Alchemy”; H.J. Sheppard: ”Alchemy: Origin or Origins?”; J.R. Partington: ”Albertus Magnus on Alchemy”; Jackson P. Hershbell: ”Democritus and the Beginnings of Greek Alchemy”; D. Geoghegan: ”A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy”; Lynn Thorndike: ”Alchemy During the First Half of the Sixteenth Century”; Walter Pagel: ”Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition”; Nicholas Clulee: ”John Dee’s Mathematics and the Grading of Compound Qualities”; Michael T. Walton: ”John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica. Geometrical Cabala”; Allen G. Debus: ”Mathematics and Nature in the Chemical Texts of the Renaissance”; D. R. Oldroyd: ”Some Neo-Platonic and Stoic Influences on Mineralogy in the 16th and 17th Centuries”; D. R. Oldroyd: ”Mechanical Mineralogy”; Graham Rees: ”Francis Bacon’s Semi-Paracelsian Cosmology”; Graham Rees: ”Francis Bacon’s Semi-Paracelsian Cosmology and the Great Instauration”; C.H. Josten: ”Robert Fludd’s “Philosophical Key” and his Alchemical Experiment on Wheat”; B. T. Moran: ”Privilege, Communication and Chemiatry. The Hermetic-Alchemical circle of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel”; P.M. Rattansi: ”Paracelsus and the Puritan Revolution”; P.M. Rattansi: ”The Helmontian-Galenist Controversy in Restoration England”; Berthold Heinecke: ”The Mysticism and Science of Johann Baptista van Helmont”; N. R. Gelbart: ”The Intellectual Development of Walter Charleton”; William Newman: ”Thomas Vaughan as an interpreter of Agrippa von Nettesheim”; Martha Baldwin: ”Alchemy and the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century: Strange Bedfellows?”; L. M. Principe: ”Robert Boyle’s Alchemical Secrecy. Codes, Ciphers and Concealments”; R. S. Westfall: ”Isaac Newton’s Index Chemicus”; M. T. Walton: ”Boyle and Newton on the Transmutation of Water and Air”; B. J. T. Dobbs: ”Newton’s Copy of ‘Secrets Reveal’d’ and the Regimens of the Work”; and John C. Powers: ”‘Ars Sine Arte’. Nicholas Lemery and the End of Alchemy in Eighteenth-Century France”. A little light rubbing to edges, otherwise a clean "as-new" copy in near Fine condition. Item #55091
ISBN: 0954648412
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