Doctoral Dissertation Research: Bringing Chemistry into Shape: the Chymico-Medical Arts in Early-Modern Germany

最近的科学史研究已经证明了化学对16世纪到18世纪发生的智力和文化的巨大变化的重要性。（“化学”一词指炼金术的学科，在17世纪的英国被广泛使用。）尽管人们对化学历史重新产生了兴趣，但许多最重要的人物和机构仍未被历史学家触及。这不仅对更大范围的化学史有问题，而且对我们对被称为科学革命的时期的一般理解也有问题。近代早期化学发展的最重要（虽然被忽视）的机构之一是德国大学。这个项目将扩大我们对德国大学化学发展轨迹的理解，重点关注维滕贝格医学教授丹尼尔·森纳特和他的学生（尤其是维尔纳·罗芬克）。塞纳特是最早将化学引入早期现代大学医学教学的人之一。通过研究Sennert作为17世纪早期化学发展的关键人物，本项目将研究化学、医学、实验、经验主义和亚里士多德主义衰落之间的关系。通过对多种被忽视的化学和医学文本的分析，包括发表的学生论文和手稿材料，本研究将展示化学如何在17世纪的大学中发展。这个项目的智力价值有几个方面。它将有助于恢复人们对重要的早期现代个人和教学系统的兴趣。它的史学方法将揭示支持大学化学的文化、知识和社会实践和假设。它也将被用来检验化学作为一个严肃的，经验的努力。以某一特定机构的化学调查和教学为重点，将为早期现代化学的发展提供急需的叙述。Sennert圈子的社会和文化敏感历史将揭示大学化学优势背后的驱动力，以及参与现代化学崛起的传统。该项目有几个潜在的更广泛的影响。它将提供关于教学结构和实践的变化如何与实验以及大学外社会力量的变化相关的见解。化学在早期现代大学中的作用将影响许多学科，包括教育史、宗教研究、哲学、医学史和公共卫生史。此外，由于实验是本研究的重点，对早期现代化学家实践的考察将为当今的教育和公众更好地理解科学及其历史提供有价值的见解。

Recent research in the history of science has demonstrated the importance of chymistry to the dramatic intellectual and cultural changes that took place from the sixteenth century through the eighteenth century. (The term "chymistry" denotes the discipline of alchemy; it was widely used in seventeenth-century England.) Despite a renewal of interest in the history of chymistry, many of its most important figures and institutions remain untouched by historians. This is not only problematic for the larger history of chemistry, but for our general understanding of the period known as the Scientific Revolution.One of the most important (though neglected) institutions in which chymistry developed in the early modern period was the German university. This project will expand our understanding of the trajectory of Germany university chymistry by focusing on the Wittenberg medical professor, Daniel Sennert, and his students (especially Werner Rolfinck). Sennert was one of the first to import chymistry into medical teachings at early modern universities. Through investigating Sennert as a key figure around which early seventeenth-century chymistry developed, this project will examine the relationship between chymistry, medicine, experimentation, empiricism, and the decline of Aristotelianism. Through an analysis of multiple neglected chymical and medical texts, including published student dissertations and manuscript material, this study will demonstrate how chymistry evolved in the seventeenth-century university. The intellectual merit of this project has several facets. It will serve to revitalize interest in important early modern individuals and pedagogical systems. Its historiographical approach will uncover the cultural, intellectual, and social practices and assumptions that supported university chymistry. It will also be used to examine chymistry as a serious, empirical endeavor. Taking chymical investigation and pedagogy within a particular institution as a focal point will provide a much-needed narrative about the development of early modern chymistry. A socially and culturally sensitive history of Sennert's circle will uncover the driving forces behind the ascendancy of chymistry within the university, as well as the traditions that attended the rise of modern chemistry.The project has several potential broader impacts. It will provide insights concerning how changes in pedagogical structures and practices were related to experimentation as well as to shifting social forces outside the university. The role of chymistry at early modern universities will have bearing on a number of disciplines including the history of education, religious studies, philosophy, and the history of medicine and public health. In addition, because experimentation is a focal point of this study, an examination of the practices of early modern chymists will provide valuable insights for present-day education and the public for better understanding of science and its history.