AmbixPub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-02-06DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2025.2457912
Marabel Riesmeier
{"title":"Can Chemical Substances be Natural?","authors":"Marabel Riesmeier","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2025.2457912","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2025.2457912","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper explores the philosophical and practical implications of the natural versus synthetic distinction in chemistry. I consider several interpretations of the term natural as pertaining to substances, and conclude that at its core, naturalness is best understood as a statement about material origin. The analysis reveals that calling a chemical substance natural risks committing a category mistake. The descriptor can only be coherently applied to samples of a chemical substance, not to a chemical substance as a set. Even in the case of samples, the utility of the term is limited. Care must be taken to avoid unwarranted implications.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"58-76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143257203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-02-21DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2025.2465170
Sophia Wagemann
{"title":"\"Cycles of Clockwork Precision\": Hormonal Contraception and Natural Menstruation.","authors":"Sophia Wagemann","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2025.2465170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2025.2465170","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When the birth control pill was introduced at the beginning of the 1960s, it was primarily used to regulate women's menstrual cycles. Medical historians have argued that such a naturalised menstrual cycle did not exist until hormonal products were used to regulate it. Menstrual irregularities had been the go-to indication for hormonal products, long before hormones were specifically produced for contraceptive purposes. This paper traces the concurrent development of the notion of a \"natural cycle\" and respective marketing strategies to promote Sequilar, the first sequential birth control pill by Schering AG in 1974. Drawing upon archival resources in the Schering AG Archive, Berlin, the paper examines the notion of producing a \"natural cycle.\" The paper utilises internal documents, letters to doctors, brochures, and prescription guidelines. It argues that the intention of producing a \"natural cycle\" through hormones led to a naturalisation of menstrual cyclicity and rhythm, while also normalising side effects as part of menstruation.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":"72 1","pages":"34-46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143473277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2025-01-14DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2444780
{"title":"Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Award Scheme 2025.","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2444780","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2444780","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"1-2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142980602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-28DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2419312
Mark I Grossman
{"title":"Stirring the Pot: Antoine Baumé, Josiah Wedgwood, Pierre-Louis Guinand, and the Development of Optical Glass.","authors":"Mark I Grossman","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419312","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419312","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The development of defect-free flint glass for use in telescopes and navigational instruments was a key technological challenge facing European chemists, natural philosophers, and artisans that emerged in the 1750s. In 1805, Pierre-Louis Guinand, a Swiss artisan, invented a fireclay stirrer used to stir molten flint glass to create a homogenous mixture relatively free of defects. In this paper, I show it was not Guinand, but French chemist Antoine Baumé, who first came up with the idea of using a fireclay stirrer. More important, both Guinand and another early optical glass researcher, Josiah Wedgwood, knew of and were influenced by Baumé's work. Baumé's optical glass contributions have been forgotten over the years for several reasons. First, he never promoted his idea of a fireclay stirrer due to the limited support and likelihood of failure for such an artisanal-focused project within the <i>Académie</i>, which stressed theory over practice with regards to glassmaking. Second, glassmakers were hesitant to reveal their trade secrets and sources. And third, until fairly recently, Baumé's unrelenting support of the phlogiston theory led to his relegation as a minor figure in the history of chemistry, and his optical glass ideas fell off the radar of subsequent historians.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"432-456"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142741274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-10-28DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2420472
{"title":"SHAC Brock Award - Call for Nominations.","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2420472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2420472","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":"71 4","pages":"469"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142774549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-06DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165
{"title":"SHAC Special ICHC14 Award Scheme - grants to support attendance at ICHC14 in Valencia, Spain, 11-14 June 2025.","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":"71 4","pages":"467-468"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143598205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-06DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2419307
Rainer Werthmann
{"title":"Michael Maier's Medicament Coelidonia - A Possible Explanation of its Composition and Production.","authors":"Rainer Werthmann","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419307","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419307","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The composition and way of production of Michael Maier's medicament Coelidonia, mentioned in his book <i>De Medicina Regia et verè Heroica, Coelidonia,</i> were inferred from indications in Maier's book <i>Viatorium, hoc est, de montibus planetarum septem eu Metallorum</i>. The substance was synthesized by the author in a modern laboratory. It is a lead oxychloride of brilliant yellow colour with a composition of approximately Pb<sub>7</sub>O<sub>6</sub>Cl<sub>2</sub>. The same substance was produced from the 1780s to at least 1825 as a pigment under the names of Patent Yellow, Turner's Yellow and Casseler Mineral-Gelb (Cassel Mineral Yellow).</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"457-461"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142584957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-05DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2419311
Amy Fisher
{"title":"Why Do Things Burn? Elizabeth Fulhame's Challenge to the Antiphlogistic Theory of Combustion.","authors":"Amy Fisher","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419311","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419311","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Motivated by her interest in fabric arts, late-eighteenth-century British chemist Elizabeth Fulhame experimentally investigated whether cloths of gold, silver, and other metals could be made by chemical rather than mechanical processes. In contrast to other women studying science at this time, she not only published an original monograph under her own name that challenged both the phlogistic and antiphlogistic views of combustion but also proposed an alternative explanation for oxidation and reduction. Although her contemporaries widely cited her innovative research, her history is not well known, yet a careful analysis of her work provides further insights into the reception of the antiphlogistic theory and the challenges and limitations experienced by women in chemistry during this period.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"408-431"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142584962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-08DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2419310
Jill Burke, Wilson Poon
{"title":"Renaissance Goo: Senses and Materials in Early Modern Apothecary Taxonomies and Soft Matter Science.","authors":"Jill Burke, Wilson Poon","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419310","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2419310","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This essay brings together research in the history of science and soft matter physics to consider how early modern Italian apothecaries organised and communicated their knowledge from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century through an \"apothecary taxonomy.\" This was based on a what we call a \"hylocentric\" classification scheme (from the Greek <i>hyle</i> = matter, material, stuff) founded on a tactile understanding of materials. We will investigate how the behaviour of medicines under deformation and flow - their \"rheology\" - is a previously underestimated organisational principle, and consider the specialist vocabulary these author-practitioners used to describe different liquid and liquid-like formulations. We will also suggest that the rheology of these formulations - which today falls under the domain of \"soft matter science\" - affected the material culture of apothecary shops, in the arrangement and selection of drug bottles and jars, which presented this knowledge visually to visitors and clients. That soft matter scientists organise the substances they study in similar ways to early modern apothecaries suggests the agency of materials in affecting human categorisations.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"367-392"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
AmbixPub Date : 2024-11-01Epub Date: 2024-11-06DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165
{"title":"SHAC Special ICHC14 Award Scheme - grants to support attendance at ICHC14 in Valencia, Spain, 11-14 June 2025.","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2418165","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":" ","pages":"467-468"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142584959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}