Article ID: CBB246043272

The Mixed Blessings of Pragmatism. Jean-Baptiste Dumas and the (Al)chemical Quest for Metallic Transmutation (2023)

unapi

There were at least three prerequisites for the transmutability of metals to become once again a scientifically acceptable subject of research from the 1810s: new hypotheses concerning the mutual reducibility of certain elements, such as those of integer multiples and protyle put forward by the British chemist and physician William Prout; the experimental confirmation that chemical compounds with the same percentage composition could be substances with very different properties, i.e. the discovery of isomerism and allotropy; the comparison between metals and compound radicals of organic chemistry. This paper aims at illustrating how these premises were exploited by Jean-Baptiste Dumas, one of the leading French chemists of the 19th century, to reintroduce in the chemical discourse the alchemical topic of transmutation.

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Authors & Contributors
Athanasios Rinotas
Chang, Ku-Ming (Kevin)
Dym, Warren Alexander
Freedman, Paul H.
Hirai, Hiro
Johns, Adrian
Journals
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Substantia: An International Journal of the History of Chemistry
Historical Records of Australian Science
Indian Journal of History of Science
De Medio Aevo
Publishers
University of Chicago
Yale University
John Wiley & Sons
Rubedo Press
Concepts
Alchemy
Transmutation (alchemy)
Metals and metallic compounds
Organic chemistry
Experiments and experimentation
Chemistry
People
Dumas, Jean Baptiste André
Albertus Magnus
Avicenna
Boyle, Robert
Jabir Ibn-Hayyan
Masson, David Orme
Time Periods
17th century
19th century
Medieval
16th century
Ancient
20th century
Places
Germany
France
Paris (France)
Holy Roman Empire
India
Australia
Institutions
Académie des Sciences, Paris
University of Melbourne
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