Lavoisier y la formación de la teoría química moderna by Aldo MieliReview by: I. Bernard CohenIsis, Vol. 37, No. 1/2 (May, 1947), pp. 86-87Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226175 .

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86 Reviews

for the selections. Each of them is given a title by the writer. Some of these are misleading because they reflect an attempt on the part of Mr. Goodman to relate Franklin's writings to the year 1945. Thus a piece on the subject of smuggling is entitled: "Black markets and tax evasion." Another, dealing with loss of heat on evaporation, is subtitled: "Prin- ciple of electric refrigeration anticipated." Presum- ably, what Mr. Goodman had in mind here was the principle of cooling by evaporation which he thought was used in modern mechanical refrigerators, both of the electric and gas flame (non-electric) type, but of which the true principle is the liquefaction of gases of which Franklin had no idea. Another paper is described as: "Suggestion of psychosomatic medicine." [! ! ] Franklin's work suffers by this type of caption. Mr. Goodman has introduced many corrections into his text without informing the reader of the fact by the use of such common devices as square brackets or footnotes. He has in- cluded one letter, page 515, "Tries his hand at farming in New Jersey," which was not written by Franklin at all. There are some letters, chiefly to Mrs. Jane Mecom, which are here published for the first time; all such are from the Library of the American Philosophical Society.

Mr. Van Doren's book, on the other hand, is, as one would expect, a model of scholarly workman- ship. Each piece is introduced by a short comment, explaining the significance of it, and giving the source where necessary. Some of these introduc- tions are quite lengthy. For example: the ones on the draft of the Autobiography and on the epitaph, in each case of which Mr. Van Doren presents much new and valuable information. As a further aid, there are many explanatory footnotes, and a clear distinction is made between notes by the editor and those made by Franklin himself. As a further aid to scholars, selections printed for the first time and those which have been printed but are not to be found in the last collected edition are clearly marked as such in the table of contents. The per- sons mentioned in the book are identified for the reader in the index.

Scholars interested in Franklin will need the new Van Doren book, remembering that a few family letters may be found in the Goodman. The wealth of material not contained in the latest edition of Franklin's works makes a new edition more and more desirable.

I. Bernard Cohen Harvard

ALDO MIELI: Lavoisier y la formacion de la teorfa quimica moderna. 154 pp. Buenos Aires, Argen- tina, Espasa-Calpe Argentina (Colleccion Aus- tral), 1944.

ALDO MIELI wrote a small booklet on LAVOISIER in I9I6. The present work is more than a transla- tion of the initial offering; it is larger and more comprehensive in scope. It deals not only with the life and achievement of LAVOISIER, but also with the significance of his accomplishment and its effect in the formation of modern chemical theory.

We are told in the preface that he has prepared a volume to be entitled Volta y el desarrollo de la electrcidad hasta el descubrimiento de la pila y de la corriente electrica (which is to be published in the same collection) and a complementary volume to the present one: Stanislao Cannizzaro y la teoria atomica moderna. Let us hope that the personal fortunes of ALDO MIELI vis 'a vis the present regime in Argen- tina will not prevent their publication, as likewise his Panorama de la historia de la ciencia in nine volumes, which the publisher announces on the jacket of the LAVOISIER book.

The present volume is intended to be "popular" in the best sense. It sketches the life and achievement of LAVOISIER against the social and political back- ground of the times and also against the background of the history of chemistry and of science in general. Thus we find a good summary account of the Aca- demie des Sciences, the Ferme Generale, the Regie des Poudres et Salpetres, the French Revolution. Likewise there is an account of each of his publica- tions and an explanation of just what it was that LAvoIsrER did in each. An attractive feature is that there is a wealth of quotation in the original French and each quotation is translated into Spanish at the bottom of the page. There are no bibliographical references since this a popular work, but there is an appendix listing the chief sources; there is also an index.

The book draws upon the well-known published sources concerning LAVOISIER and to these the au- thor adds little that is novel in the way of interpre- tation. Nevertheless, the book is a valuable one in that it gives to the Spanish-speaking world its first biography of LAVOISIER and sets a high standard for future writers in Spanish to follow. Published in the very attractive and inexpensive format of the "Col- leccion Austral," it should reach a wide audience including, one hopes, the many students of chemistry in the colleges and universities of the Spanish- American republics, who may be stimulated thereby to dip deeper into the history of their science. And

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Reviews 87

one hopes that the present dictatorial rulers of Ar- gentina who have shown such contemptuous dis- regard for their men of science may perhaps ponder for a moment the fate of LAVOISIER and the words uttered by LAGRANGE to DELAMBRE the day fol- lowing LAVOISIER's execution: "II ne leur a fallu qu'un moment pour faire tomber cette tete, et cent annees peut-etre ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable."

I. Bernard Cohen

M E M O I RES POUR SERVIR A

L'H I S T O IR E D'UN CGENRE DE

P O L Y P E S D'E A U D 0 U C E,

A BRAS EN FORME DE CORNES:

Par A T A B T BL E , de la Siidra.

A LB ID A, Cha E A N & HERMAN VERBEEK,

bL D C C X L I V.

Fic. 2. -Original edition of Trembley's main work. Quarto. Leiden 1744. (Iowa State College of Agricul- ture, Ames, Iowa.)

MAURICE TREMBLEY: Correspondance in- edite entre Re'aumur et dbraham Trembley com- prenant 113 Iettres recueillies et annotees. Introduc-

tion par Emile Guyenot. lvi+432 p., frontispiece, figs. Geneva, Georg, I945. Swiss frs. I5.

The Genevese Abraham Trembley (I 7 Io-84) began his studies in the Academy of Geneva in the mathematical field under the guidance of Giov. Lud. Calandrini ( 1 703-58) and Gabriel Cramer ( 1704-

52) and his first work was a thesis on the infinites- imal calculus (I 731). As no opportunities were open to him in his home town he emigrated to Hol- land where he earned his living as a tutor and occa- sional teacher; at the same time he managed to

continue his studies in Leiden under the physicist 's Gravesande, the chemist Gaubius and the anatom- ist Albinus. He was a tutor in the family of Count Bentinck and later of the duke of Richmond (the second duke, Charles Lennox I70I-50). It was during his Dutch period that he made his observa- tions of polyps (Hydra), and Albinus witnessed the famous experiment of turning a polyp inside out (1742). In I744 Trembley published in Leiden the Memoires which is one of the classics of biology.

POUR SERVIR

A L'HISTOIRE DVUN GENRE B l

P O L Y P E S P'EAU DOUCE, A BRAS

en forme de cornes. Par M.. TR E MB L E Y P de Is Secib

Royalc de Londret, &r.

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FIG. 3. -Reprint of the original edition, 2 vols. I 7 cm., zo fold, pl., Paris I744. (Harvard Library.)

By the way, his discoveries were announced many years earlier. They were communicated to the Royal Society as early as I74I by Buffon and in I742 and I743 by himself. In I742 Reaumur included a summary of them in the last volume of his own Memoires. Finally Henry Baker ' published

1 This Henry Baker (x 698-1774) is a curious character, deserving further study. He was a naturalist, antiquarian and poet, a pioneer in the teaching of the deaf and dumb. He married Daniel Defoe's youngest daughter, Sarah, and

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