1780 – The Old Chemistry's Textbook: Phlogiston, by the Naturalist Who Expanded Linnaeus's Systema Naturae

$175.00

In 1780 chemistry still ran on phlogiston: the fire-stuff that every burnable thing was thought to hold and release in the flame. Lavoisier's oxygen theory was already challenging that account, and would transform chemistry over the following decades. That is what this book is: the old chemistry's account of itself, written for university students by a Göttingen professor in the final years before the revolution, when metals were still compounds and fire was still something a substance could contain.

The author's name carries more weight than his little textbook lets on. Johann Friedrich Gmelin belonged to the great Gmelin dynasty, four generations of German scientists whose name is still on the shelf today in the Gmelin Handbook, chemistry's monumental reference. And a few years after this book, he took on the job that made him quietly immortal: editing the thirteenth edition of Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, folding in the new species from Captain Cook's voyages and naming hundreds of birds, beasts, and insects in the process. Every field guide that prints "(Gmelin)" after a species name is citing the man who wrote this chemistry primer.

The copy is a pleasure to hold: contemporary half calf, the spine with seven raised bands and gilt compartments, a red lettering-piece, the edges stained red, and inside, the prettiest thing in the book, endpapers of block-printed calico paper, bands of flowers and blue ribbons on a dotted ground, printed from woodblocks the way calico cloth was. The title page carries the woodcut device of the Nuremberg publisher Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, two putti under a palm tree. Clean throughout, without annotations.

Provenance: None recorded.

Einleitung in die Chemie, zum Gebrauch auf Universitäten. Nuremberg, 1780. Gmelin's university textbook of the old chemistry, written during the chemical revolution. Contemporary half calf with block-printed calico-paper endpapers.

GMELIN, Johann Friedrich (1748–1804). Einleitung in die Chemie, zum Gebrauch auf Universitäten. Nuremberg: Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, 1780.

Physical Description: 8vo. 528 pp.; 26 pp. of index and other concluding matter; final blank. Woodcut device on the title page. Edges stained red; block-printed pattern-paper (Kattunpapier) endpapers.

Binding: Contemporary half calf, spine with seven raised bands, gilt in compartments, red lettering-piece (chipped, with loss to the gilt lettering), plain brown paper sides with leather corners. An attractive period binding.

Condition: Clean and sound, without annotations; paper lightly toned.

In 1780 chemistry still ran on phlogiston: the fire-stuff that every burnable thing was thought to hold and release in the flame. Lavoisier's oxygen theory was already challenging that account, and would transform chemistry over the following decades. That is what this book is: the old chemistry's account of itself, written for university students by a Göttingen professor in the final years before the revolution, when metals were still compounds and fire was still something a substance could contain.

The author's name carries more weight than his little textbook lets on. Johann Friedrich Gmelin belonged to the great Gmelin dynasty, four generations of German scientists whose name is still on the shelf today in the Gmelin Handbook, chemistry's monumental reference. And a few years after this book, he took on the job that made him quietly immortal: editing the thirteenth edition of Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, folding in the new species from Captain Cook's voyages and naming hundreds of birds, beasts, and insects in the process. Every field guide that prints "(Gmelin)" after a species name is citing the man who wrote this chemistry primer.

The copy is a pleasure to hold: contemporary half calf, the spine with seven raised bands and gilt compartments, a red lettering-piece, the edges stained red, and inside, the prettiest thing in the book, endpapers of block-printed calico paper, bands of flowers and blue ribbons on a dotted ground, printed from woodblocks the way calico cloth was. The title page carries the woodcut device of the Nuremberg publisher Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, two putti under a palm tree. Clean throughout, without annotations.