Society for the History of Alchemy

This Book Is a Collection of Notable Papers Originally Published in Ambix, the Journal of The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. The Journal First Appeared in 1937 and Was One of the Earliest Journals in the History of Science Published in the English Speaking World. This Collection Includes Papers by Julius Ruska, J.R. Partington, Lynn Thorndike, Walter Pagel, and Others"... 

Furthermore, there is a series of reprints of original papers that in some cases originated well before 1985. They are usually unedited, often with the original pagination. Nevertheless, the Variorum series, in particular, provides a useful way to access and store such material. A collection by Allen Debus relates mainly to chemistry in its early phases40 and is a highly authoritative introduction to such matters. Debus has also recently edited a collection of classic articles on alchemy and early chemistry reprinted from Ambix, the Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.41 Another volume in the Variorum series relates to a later period and... 

A. G. Debus, ed., Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry Papers from Ambix, The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, London, 2005. 

Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. They first... 

A considerable number of journals deal with the history of science and medicine, but only one (Ambix, published by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry) is devoted specifically to the history of chemistry. Articles of historical interest frequently appear in journals such as Chemistry in Britain Journal of Chemical Education and Education in Chemistry. Historical articles also appear occasionally in more general journals such as Scientific American and New Scientist, as well as in specialised journals concerned with particular subdivisions of chemistry. An excellent guide to the literature published in the period from approximately 1960 to 1980 is to be found in C. A. Russell (ed.), Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry (London, 1985). Anyone wishing to explore an aspect of the history of chemistry in greater depth would be well advised to start with that publication. 

Georgette Taylor earned a Ph.D. in 2006 on the chemical affinity theories of the eighteenth century and explored the teaching of chemistry, in particular by William Cullen and Joseph Black and by many of their ex-students. She won the 2008 Partington Prize awarded by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry for Tracing Influence in Small Steps Richard Kirwan s Quantified Affinity Theory . A post-doctoral fellowship followed, with the project Analysis and Synthesis in 19th Century Chemistry Towards a New Philosophical History of Scientific Practice . 

Yet Muir s friend Sir William Ramsay—a far more accomplished scientist than Muir, and one of the most proficient laboratory researchers of his era—was much more engaged by the possibility that alchemy might offer insight into the goals and consequences of modem science. As we have seen, Ramsay was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, and he was deeply steeped in alchemical and Hermetic texts. His own chemistry pedagogy made room for alchemical history in his university classrooms in a way that had not been the case in the classes he had taken as a young man. 

These authors opinions on the legal status of alchemy would also merit further study. For a brief overview of their views, see Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 3 50 Will H. L. Ogrinc, "Western Society and Alchemy from 1200-1500," Journal of Medieval History 6 (1980) 109 Ioh. Chrys-ippo Faniano, "De lure Artis Alchemiae," 201-16. 

William Shuchirch is discussed in Yearbooks and plea rolls as sources of historical information . Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 1922, 5, 37 0. I am indebted to my Oxford Chemistry Part II research student Paul Antrobus for this reference see also Antrobus, Practical aspects of medieval English alchemy Chaucer to Ashmole , unpublished Oxford University Chemistry Part II thesis, 1985, page 38. Copy in History Faculty Library, Oxford. 

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