Tóxicos Invisibles. La construcción de la ignorancia ambiental

Abstract

trained chemicus from the lower educational level of the professional chemist who worked in factories, at the same level as operators in mechanical engineering. De chemist is the published version of Vermande’s PhD thesis. This helps to explain the fact that the book contains many little summaries and repetitions, as well as extensive appendices typical of that genre. Vermande focuses on the occupation of the chemist, without paying much attention to contextualising the primary source material. For instance, he regularly cites references to chemisten in late seventeenth-century pamphlets, but he seems unaware of the context and rhetoric of the pamphlet wars at the time, with their extremely crude language and a predominant concern with secrecy and self-interest in the (Amsterdam) medical sector. A more contextualised analysis of these controversies could have strengthened the arguments of the thesis. Vermande’s book covers a period of 220 years, but the focus of the analysis is on the late seventeenth century and on the period 1760–1820. The first half of the eighteenth century remains underdiscussed. This is a pity, because during this period the Netherlands were known as a hotbed of chemical and medical teaching, which must have had a direct effect on the popularity of the chemist. For a start, more than ever before, anatomy and the making of anatomical preparations – for instance the work of Frederik Ruysch and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus – heavily relied on chemical techniques, whereby chemicals (presumably sold in chemical shops) and their particular properties literally and metaphorically took the place of bodily fluids and physiological processes. Similarly, Vermande does not analyse the rise of the chemist against the backdrop of the popular and influential chemistry teaching of Herman Boerhaave and his disciples. Recent historical work has shown that Boerhaave, even more than his predecessors Franciscus dele Boë Sylvius, Johann Conrad Barchusen, and Jacob LeMort, elevated chemistry to a serious academic discipline, which must have had a positive effect on the popularity and business of the chemist. Who, after all, supplied the chemicals for the students’ experimental activities? In his lectures, Boerhaave also demarcated his “new” method of chemistry from the chemistry of his predecessors, thereby making a clear distinction between true and false (al)chemists. This demarcation was even stronger in the works of his disciples and must have resonated with the need of the chemisten to distinguish themselves as an occupational group. Despite these shortcomings, the great merit of Vermande’s study is his novel focus on the largely forgotten group of the chemisten in the history of chemistry and medicine. I found many interesting details that set me thinking. For example, I was struck by the number of widows of chemisten who took over the shops of their deceased husbands, and the apparent need, in 1813, to formulate specific regulations for these widows – stating, for example, that the women must be assisted by a licensed male assistant. Perhaps chemistry was a woman’s job more often than we have thought. Moreover, the extensive appendices (over 300 pages!) offer a wealth of information for historians interested in further research on the topic.