Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Gregory, at the 1840 meeting of the BAAS, added, after Graham had
read an abstract of the glorious book: “The object of the work was to
show that, without a profound knowledge of chemistry, no real progress
in Agriculture and Physiology was possible.”
25
The first English edition
was quickly introduced in America, pirated and sold very cheaply by an
American editor. Liebig's views were popularized by the
Cultivator
as
soon as 1841, and his theory of the fixation of ammonia quickly replaced
Davy's (Rossiter 1975). In 1842, Gregory drew up a laudatory report on
Liebig's
Physiology
pronouncing that chemical research had proved
some facts, “which the boldest imagination dared not have ventured to
conceive”. He concluded that “there is no living philosopher to whom the
Chemical Section could have more appropriately entrusted their investi-
gation” (Playfair 1843).
Liebig frequently wrote articles for newspapers. In 1842 and 1843, he
wrote a series of articles for the supplement of the
Augsburger Allge-
meine Zeitung
. Some of them were united in a book on the suggestion of
E. Dieffenbach, one of his first pupils, and published in 1843 in an Eng-
lish edition: “I hope that this little offering may serve to make new
friends to our beautiful and useful science.” Of course, a major impact
made Liebig's
Chemische Briefe
, which he wrote “for the special pur-
pose of exciting the attention of governments, and an enlightened public,
to the necessity of establishing Schools of Chemistry, and of promoting,
by every means, the study of a science so intimately connected with the
arts, pursuits, and social well-being of modern civilized nations.”
(Paoloni 1968, p. 106) C. Paoloni (1968) has established the complete
chronology of the multi-language editions of the
Familiar Letters
, as it
was called in English: thanks to the services of his former pupils, it was
translated into nine languages, with eleven editions in Italy alone. Brock
(1998) has studied how this monument of German literature enlarged the
public knowledge and raised a large interest in chemistry.
Another important means of propagating, if not popularizing, chemis-
try was the
Annalen
. In 1831 Liebig started as co-editor with P. Geiger
the
Magazin für Pharmacie
, which in 1832 became the
Annalen der
Pharmacie
. In 1838, he associated Dumas and Graham, which was only
25
Gregory to Liebig, 25 Sept. 1840.
