MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2000. 415 pp.
ISBN 0-262-08282-9. $50.00.

Chemistry is an experimental science. Perhaps more than any other scientists, chemists must think with their hands. Progress in chemistry depends on the development of technique and instrumentation. Therefore, it is interesting that most histories of chemistry, with a few significant exceptions, focus primarily on theoretical and conceptual developments or on the human side, the careers of chemists and the development of institutions, and not on experiment. This recent volume from the Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology is an attempt to redress this imbalance.

Collections of essays often suffer from a lack of unity. This book, which results from a conference where earlier versions of the papers were presented and discussed, does center around the main organizing theme stated in the title, while still allowing for scholarly diversity. Several subthemes, such as the tension between stability and change in experimental practice, precision, and the development and acceptance of innovative instruments, help tie together the separate contributions. The collection spans the history of chemistry, beginning with three articles on alchemy and ending with five essays on the late 19th and early 20th century. The editors provide a useful general introduction as well as introductions to the three main parts. The contributors include some of the best-known scholars working in the history of chemistry.

I found several of the essays to be particularly interesting. For example, Alan J. Rocke outlines the development of organic analysis. While I already knew that Liebig's introduction of the kaliapparat, or potash bulb, which allowed the carbon dioxide produced in a combustion analysis to be determined quantitatively by mass, was the most important development in organic analysis, I did not know that Gay-Lussac and Berzelius had been doing fairly accurate organic analysis using different techniques prior to Liebig's invention. It is interesting that Liebig's innovation made organic analysis a completely "chemical" (i.e., using only gravimetric measurements) procedure as opposed to a "mixed" procedure dependent on the determination of gas volumes, which was considered part of physics. Rocke also discusses the difficulties in the accurate determination of nitrogen content, which was crucial in the analysis of the alkaloids, one of the hot topics of the day.

Jan Golinski has written a fascinating chapter on thermometers in 18th century chemistry, detailing both the development of "fit instruments" and the ways in which thermometry influenced the evolution of the concept of heat. The work of Black and Lavoisier on calorimetry is highlighted as Golinski shows how heat came to be no longer regarded as a chemical entity and the thermometer "ceased to have an intrinsically chemical significance."

Most interesting to me was Mary Jo Nye's study of the experimental work of Michael Polanyi and how his research in physical chemistry set the stage for his later work in the philosophy of science. Polanyi was a capable scientist who did some nice work in both chemical kinetics and crystallography, but who always felt that his research fell into what Thomas Kuhn later called "normal science". He compared himself unfavorably to colleagues such as Haber, Nernst, Laue, and Einstein because he was unable to make what he felt was a fundamental discovery. Because of his Jewish heritage, Polanyi left Germany for England, settling in Manchester and eventually abandoning physical chemistry for philosophy, where he made fundamental contributions. His book Personal Knowledge has been highly influential. Much of Polanyi's philosophy of science is a direct outgrowth of his scientific experiences in the 1920s.

This book is an important contribution to the history of chemistry that draws attention to a much too neglected subject, the development of instruments and experimental technique. The diversity of the collection is a strength because it shows the different ways in which historians can usefully approach the study of experiment. The 14 well-written essays in this book will be stimulating reading for both historians and those chemists who are interested in a broader perspective on their science.