Pub Date : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2367396
Georgiana D Hedesan
The Swiss physician and philosopher Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541) is known for his strong advocacy of medical alchemy. That his natural philosophy was tied to medical alchemy is perhaps uncontroversial, but just how it was so is less straightforward. This article provides an insight into the connection between the two by means of Paracelsus's concept of active agents, with an emphasis on fire, its master Vulcanus, and the associated term Archeus. I will show how these evolved in the thought of Paracelsus by taking an evolutionary view of his works. The complexity of his views comes to light as a result of employing the method of hybrid reading, which integrates the traditional close reading technique with the much more novel one of distant reading. The latter is part of the emerging field of digital and computational humanities, and involves the analysis of corpora by means of digital tools, including computer programming (Python). In the article, I will attempt to combine distant and close reading and showcase how such hybrid reading approaches may provide new insights into historical corpora.
瑞士医生和哲学家 Theophrastus von Hohenheim,又称 Paracelsus(1493-1541 年),因大力提倡医学炼金术而闻名于世。他的自然哲学与医学炼金术的联系也许没有争议,但如何联系起来就不那么简单了。本文通过帕拉塞尔苏斯的活性物质概念,重点是火、其主人火神(Vulcanus)和相关术语阿克苏斯(Archeus),来深入探讨两者之间的联系。我将从帕拉塞尔苏斯作品的演化角度来说明这些概念在他的思想中是如何演变的。混合阅读法将传统的精读技术与更为新颖的远读技术相结合,从而揭示了帕拉塞尔苏斯观点的复杂性。后者是新兴的数字和计算人文领域的一部分,涉及通过数字工具(包括计算机编程(Python))分析语料库。在这篇文章中,我将尝试把远距离阅读和近距离阅读结合起来,并展示这种混合阅读方法如何为历史语料提供新的见解。
{"title":"Fire, <i>Vulcanus</i>, <i>Archeus</i>, and Alchemy: A Hybrid Close-Distant Reading of Paracelsus's Thought on Active Agents.","authors":"Georgiana D Hedesan","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2367396","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2367396","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Swiss physician and philosopher Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541) is known for his strong advocacy of medical alchemy. That his natural philosophy was tied to medical alchemy is perhaps uncontroversial, but just how it was so is less straightforward. This article provides an insight into the connection between the two by means of Paracelsus's concept of active agents, with an emphasis on fire, its master <i>Vulcanus</i>, and the associated term <i>Archeus</i>. I will show how these evolved in the thought of Paracelsus by taking an evolutionary view of his works. The complexity of his views comes to light as a result of employing the method of hybrid reading, which integrates the traditional close reading technique with the much more novel one of distant reading. The latter is part of the emerging field of digital and computational humanities, and involves the analysis of corpora by means of digital tools, including computer programming (Python). In the article, I will attempt to combine distant and close reading and showcase how such hybrid reading approaches may provide new insights into historical corpora.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762406","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2379961
Charles Wolfe
In what follows I examine Diderot's chemically influenced vital materialism. Once condemned as "mechanistic," materialism has had something of a renaissance in recent decades as scholars have rediscovered a tradition of "vital materialism" which they have opposed to older, cruder forms of the idea, e.g. materialisms full of life, affect, chimiatry, and transformation. Sometimes these rediscoveries have attached themselves to a figure of the past, like Margaret Cavendish's metaphysics of active matter, or to a construct of the still-emerging future, like Karen Barad's quantum physics-nourished "agential realism" present in all of matter. Another question concerns the extent to which these revivals of "vital" or "active-matter" materialism should be traced back to older Renaissance naturalisms. In what follows, I return to Diderot and the question of his "vital materialism." Diderot draws both on older traditions, approvingly citing Van Helmont and gesturing towards a new chemistry of living matter and also speaks the language of scientific revolution, writing that "We are on the verge of a great revolution in the sciences." In earlier work I sought to connect this language of revolution in the sciences to the emergence of biology as a science. Here I focus on his chemically charged materialism.
{"title":"Diderot's Vital Materialism.","authors":"Charles Wolfe","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2379961","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2379961","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In what follows I examine Diderot's chemically influenced vital materialism. Once condemned as \"mechanistic,\" materialism has had something of a renaissance in recent decades as scholars have rediscovered a tradition of \"vital materialism\" which they have opposed to older, cruder forms of the idea, e.g. materialisms full of life, affect, chimiatry, and transformation. Sometimes these rediscoveries have attached themselves to a figure of the past, like Margaret Cavendish's metaphysics of active matter, or to a construct of the still-emerging future, like Karen Barad's quantum physics-nourished \"agential realism\" present in all of matter. Another question concerns the extent to which these revivals of \"vital\" or \"active-matter\" materialism should be traced back to older Renaissance naturalisms. In what follows, I return to Diderot and the question of his \"vital materialism.\" Diderot draws both on older traditions, approvingly citing Van Helmont and gesturing towards a new chemistry of living matter and also speaks the language of scientific revolution, writing that \"We are on the verge of a great revolution in the sciences.\" In earlier work I sought to connect this language of revolution in the sciences to the emergence of biology as a science. Here I focus on his chemically charged materialism.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762404","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2371260
Justin Begley
This article focuses on a curious manuscript treatise in the British Library, Harley MS 6940, which the learned physician Samuel Bispham composed for the English patron and horseman William Cavendish (1593-1676), most likely in the mid-1640s. Sitting somewhere between a practical medical recipe book and theoretical chymical treatise, while being peppered with traditional causal explanations and Galenic precautions, Harley MS 6940 testifies to the erosion of the entrenched dichotomy between chymical and Galenic medicine in the mid-seventeenth century. Harley MS 6940 also lays bare how a learned physician used (and taught the use of) practice to confirm and sometimes challenge his learning, offering a counterpoint to recent scholarship that underscores the learning that apothecaries used to shore up their practice. Produced at the behest of a leading Royalist who sought both to acquire techniques for distilling and fermenting herbs and to advance his knowledge of chymical conceptions of spirits, seeds, and salts, the manuscript allows us to appreciate that the chymical art animated a broader set of individuals than the historiography often implies.
本文的重点是大英图书馆收藏的一部奇特的论文手稿--哈雷 MS 6940,它是博学的医生塞缪尔-比斯法姆(Samuel Bispham)为英国赞助人和骑手威廉-卡文迪什(William Cavendish,1593-1676 年)创作的,很可能是在 1640 年代中期。哈雷 MS 6940 介于实用医学食谱和理论性糜烂医学论文之间,同时还夹杂着传统的因果关系解释和盖勒尼医学的预防措施,它证明了糜烂医学和盖勒尼医学之间根深蒂固的二分法在 17 世纪中叶的消退。哈雷 MS 6940 还揭示了一位学识渊博的医生是如何利用(并教授如何利用)实践来证实有时也是挑战自己的学识的,这与近期强调药剂师利用学识来巩固其实践的学术研究形成了对立。这份手稿是应一位主要保皇党人的要求而制作的,这位保皇党人既想获得蒸馏和发酵草药的技术,又想提高自己对烈酒、种子和盐类的糜烂概念的认识,因此这份手稿让我们认识到,糜烂艺术比历史学通常所暗示的更能激发更多的人。
{"title":"Distilling the Art of Distillation in an Unstudied Manuscript of \"Chymicall Notions\".","authors":"Justin Begley","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2371260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2371260","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article focuses on a curious manuscript treatise in the British Library, Harley MS 6940, which the learned physician Samuel Bispham composed for the English patron and horseman William Cavendish (1593-1676), most likely in the mid-1640s. Sitting somewhere between a practical medical recipe book and theoretical chymical treatise, while being peppered with traditional causal explanations and Galenic precautions, Harley MS 6940 testifies to the erosion of the entrenched dichotomy between chymical and Galenic medicine in the mid-seventeenth century. Harley MS 6940 also lays bare how a learned physician used (and taught the use of) practice to confirm and sometimes challenge his learning, offering a counterpoint to recent scholarship that underscores the learning that apothecaries used to shore up their practice. Produced at the behest of a leading Royalist who sought both to acquire techniques for distilling and fermenting herbs and to advance his knowledge of chymical conceptions of spirits, seeds, and salts, the manuscript allows us to appreciate that the chymical art animated a broader set of individuals than the historiography often implies.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762405","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-18DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2375432
Antonio Clericuzio
Despite the increasing interest in Italian medicine, comparatively little attention has been paid to the establishment of iatrochemistry. Though this process spread throughout the Peninsula, Naples witnessed an impressive growth of chemical research and the outbreak of a conflict between the medical establishment and the chemical physicians. The purpose of this article is to explore the emergence of chemical medicine in Naples in the period that precedes the founding (1663) of the Accademia degli Investiganti. In the first part of the seventeenth century, chemistry achieved recognition in settings like academies, pharmacies, hospitals, and monasteries. Chemical studies and the making of new remedies were spurred by the scientific exchange that Neapolitan savants established with scholars from different areas. The so-called medical pluralism and the recurrent outbreaks of epidemics stimulated the introduction of new chemical therapies, which coexisted with old ones. The establishment of chemical medicine was triggered by Marco Aurelio Severino (1580-1656), who, besides promoting chemical remedies, resorted to chemical theories, including Paracelsian ones, to account for physiological processes. Severino was the mentor of the chemical physicians who gave rise to the Accademia degli Investiganti. One of Severino's disciples was Giuseppe Donzelli (1596-1670), who fostered chemical remedies in Naples.
{"title":"The Emergence of Chemical Medicine in Early Modern Naples (1600-1660).","authors":"Antonio Clericuzio","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2375432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2375432","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite the increasing interest in Italian medicine, comparatively little attention has been paid to the establishment of iatrochemistry. Though this process spread throughout the Peninsula, Naples witnessed an impressive growth of chemical research and the outbreak of a conflict between the medical establishment and the chemical physicians. The purpose of this article is to explore the emergence of chemical medicine in Naples in the period that precedes the founding (1663) of the <i>Accademia degli Investiganti</i>. In the first part of the seventeenth century, chemistry achieved recognition in settings like academies, pharmacies, hospitals, and monasteries. Chemical studies and the making of new remedies were spurred by the scientific exchange that Neapolitan <i>savants</i> established with scholars from different areas. The so-called medical pluralism and the recurrent outbreaks of epidemics stimulated the introduction of new chemical therapies, which coexisted with old ones<i>.</i> The establishment of chemical medicine was triggered by Marco Aurelio Severino (1580-1656), who, besides promoting chemical remedies, resorted to chemical theories, including Paracelsian ones, to account for physiological processes. Severino was the mentor of the chemical physicians who gave rise to the <i>Accademia degli Investiganti</i>. One of Severino's disciples was Giuseppe Donzelli (1596-1670), who fostered chemical remedies in Naples.</p>","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141635593","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-10DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2368942
Frank Veraart
Published in Ambix (Ahead of Print, 2024)
发表于《Ambix》(2024 年提前出版)
{"title":"Ketens van Fossiele Grondstoffen: Procestechnologie en de transitie naar duurzaamheid","authors":"Frank Veraart","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2368942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2368942","url":null,"abstract":"Published in Ambix (Ahead of Print, 2024)","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141584713","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-10DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2372195
{"title":"Morris Award 2024.","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2372195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2372195","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141565078","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-25DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2343517
Gabriele Ferrario
This article presents the results of a survey and a first assessment of the corpus of alchemical manuscripts retrieved from the Cairo Genizah, a storage room mainly intended for sacred writings that is attached to the Ben Ezra synagogue of Old Cairo. The alchemical manuscripts are described in their codicological and palaeographic features; their content is analysed in the context of the medieval production of alchemical texts in the surrounding Islamic world. The alchemical corpus of the Genizah represents a unique and widely unstudied source for our understanding of the relationship between Jews and alchemy in the medieval Mediterranean World.
本文介绍了对从开罗 Genizah(一个主要用于存放圣书的储藏室,附属于老开罗的 Ben Ezra 犹太教堂)取回的炼金术手稿进行调查和首次评估的结果。对炼金术手稿的编纂学和古文字学特征进行了描述,并结合周边伊斯兰世界中世纪炼金术文本的制作背景对其内容进行了分析。Genizah 的炼金术手稿是我们了解中世纪地中海世界犹太人与炼金术之间关系的一个独特且广泛未研究的资料来源。
{"title":"Fragments of Alchemy from a Cairene Synagogue: Context, Codicology, and Contents of the Alchemical Corpus of the Cairo Genizah.","authors":"Gabriele Ferrario","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2343517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2343517","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents the results of a survey and a first assessment of the corpus of alchemical manuscripts retrieved from the Cairo Genizah, a storage room mainly intended for sacred writings that is attached to the Ben Ezra synagogue of Old Cairo. The alchemical manuscripts are described in their codicological and palaeographic features; their content is analysed in the context of the medieval production of alchemical texts in the surrounding Islamic world. The alchemical corpus of the Genizah represents a unique and widely unstudied source for our understanding of the relationship between Jews and alchemy in the medieval Mediterranean World.","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140653323","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-16DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2339658
Maria Fiammetta Iovine
Created and published in a printed volume in 1611, the emblem chosen by the literary Academy of the Umoristi is intriguing at multiple levels. At a time when the water cycle was still unknown, the ...
{"title":"A Very “Distilled” Emblem in Baroque Rome: Natural Philosophy, Alchemy, and Atomism in the Academy of the Umoristi","authors":"Maria Fiammetta Iovine","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2339658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2339658","url":null,"abstract":"Created and published in a printed volume in 1611, the emblem chosen by the literary Academy of the Umoristi is intriguing at multiple levels. At a time when the water cycle was still unknown, the ...","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140595169","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2338632
Stefano Mulas
Research into the history of alchemy and Paracelsianism in Italy has highlighted the role of Italian courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as centres of elaboration and diffusion of alc...
{"title":"Translating Forbidden Authors: New Evidence on the Alchemical Library of Don Antonio de’ Medici","authors":"Stefano Mulas","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2338632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2338632","url":null,"abstract":"Research into the history of alchemy and Paracelsianism in Italy has highlighted the role of Italian courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as centres of elaboration and diffusion of alc...","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140595049","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-05DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2024.2324618
Marco Beretta
During the eighteenth century, authors of chemical treatises and courses on chemistry often introduced their work with a chapter devoted to the history of chemistry. While there may have been diffe...
{"title":"Lavoisier and the History of Chemistry","authors":"Marco Beretta","doi":"10.1080/00026980.2024.2324618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2324618","url":null,"abstract":"During the eighteenth century, authors of chemical treatises and courses on chemistry often introduced their work with a chapter devoted to the history of chemistry. While there may have been diffe...","PeriodicalId":50963,"journal":{"name":"Ambix","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140595171","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}