The Slow Evolution of a Chimeric Field: Perceptions of <i>Chymistry</i> Through Early Learned Journals, 1665-1743

• Main Author: Arceneaux, Amanda J.
• Other Authors: Dietz, Maribel
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2017
• Subjects: History
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04062017-080339/

<p>Scholars have made the argument that during the eighteenth century alchemy came increasingly to be seen as a fraudulent science or a science for charlatans, while chemistry retained its intellectual prestige. Around the same time "alchemy" and "chemistry" began their divergence, the legitimacy of science came increasingly to depend on public demonstrations. The term <i>chymistry</i> has become accepted amongst scholars of the field when discussing this etymologically complicated period when the terms alchemy and chemistry were both used by contemporaries to describe the field of knowledge without the distinctions that are placed on the terms today. </p> <p>This study examines 1,029 articles in thirteen early learned journals published in English, French, Italian, and Latin in Europe from 1665 to 1743. They included articles detailing experiments, observations, and medical practices performed with <i>chymistry</i>. As a whole, these sources grant us the ability to trace the evolution of scientific communication and to measure the newly forming social interest in science.</p> <p>Examining <i>chymistry</i> through early learned journals allows us to examine this change through a medium which catered to a community of European readers interested in the topic of <i>chymistry</i>. I argue in this thesis that secondary textual analysis of these articles reveals that the journals reflect the slow but steady evolutionary change of the chimeric field of <i>chymistry</i>. While alchemical understanding persisted, the journals do demonstrate a gradual shift toward a more modern chemistry had begun by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The large body of sources comprised of the early learned journals allows the historian both to review discussions focused on <i>chymistry</i> authored at the time of the well-documented divergence of alchemy and chemistry in the late seventeenth century, and to understand better how new forms of media developed to serve and shape public interest in science. Analyses of these articles reveal not only the books and articles readers expected would best help them to understand <i>chymistry</i> but also the language, specific <i>chymistry</i> terminology, and experiments done by <i>chymists</i> that can help us trace the different fates of "alchemy" and "chemistry" within early modern <i>chymistry</i>.</p>