A History of Chemistry from the Earliest Times
249 quotes
"The late Dr. Campbell Brown was accustomed, as part of his Chemical Course at Liverpool University, to deliver a series of Lectures on the History of Chemistry. These lectures were to him a labour of love, and were prepared after much research... It was his intention... to revise the lectures and to put them into shape for publication. But death put a sudden term to his labours... and the lectures were left in the form of manuscript notes, more or less complete, but not in that perfect shape which Dr. Campbell Brown would have wished... to be published."
"Mrs. Campbell Brown and the friends of the Author considered that it would be matter for deep regret if his... History were not carried into effect, and... made available to students and others interested in the subject."
"[I]t seemed good to Mrs. Campbell Brown to entrust the writer with the duty of editing... and passing the work through the press."
"[The editor] has endeavoured to present the substance of the lectures as nearly as possible in the shape in which Dr. Campbell Brown used to deliver them, subject to... changing them... to the form of a book... [I]t may be that in some instances the notes of Dr. Campbell Brown have been misunderstood. ...[T]he Editor, knowing the extreme accuracy of the Professor, requests that such slips may be attributed, not to the Author, but to himself."
"James Campbell Brown was born at , on January 31st, 1843. His father... soon removed to London as principal partner of the Bow Common Alum Works."
"[I]n 1863 he proceeded to the Royal College of Chemistry at London, where he studied under Tyndall and Hofmann, at the same time matriculating at London University. ...in 1870... obtaining the degree of Doctor of Science."
"With a elear perception of whatever object he had for the time being set before him, with indomitable courage to fight against a delicate constitution and indifferent health, and with a determination which would be satisfied with no half-measures, but would insist that whatever was done should be rightly done, he was a true representative of [his] family..."
"One of my earliest recollections of my cousin, who was my senior by thirteen years, is of wandering with him in a field searching for a bulbous crowfoot... [A]t a later date it was on his initiative, and with his assistance and encouragement, that I began the amateur study of chemistry from which I acquired a knowledge of its practice and principles sufficient to enable me to undertake the editing of the present work."
"Educational and scientific matters... provided for him a field of usefulness in which he was occupied for the greater part of his life, and to which he devoted all his gifts of organisation, hard work, and self-denial."
"In the new College he occupied the Chair of Chemistry, and found a fresh field of work in organising the duties of the Chair, and planning and equipping the classrooms and laboratories which were essential for their performance. The Chemical Laboratories were built in 1884 and extended two years later, while in 1896-7 the Wilham Gossage Laboratory was opened and rooms were added for Metallurgy, Electro-Chemistry, and Gas Analysis. The whole forms one of the most perfect installations for the teaching of chemistry, which is to be found in this country."
"He was in 1872 appointed’Public Analyst for Liverpool under the Adulteration of Food Act, and received a similar appointment for Lancashire in 1875. ...In addition, he was analyst to the Water Committee for the City of Liverpool, and to all the Local Authorities in the administrative county of Lancashire, and was frequently consulted in reference to large schemes of public water supply, both at home and abroad."
"How his services were appreciated by those who were associated with him in the Water Undertaking, may be estimated from the following extract from the Report of Mr. Joseph Parry, the Water Engineer, for the year 1910:—"He was a rigid guardian of the purity of the supply, and it was an enormous advantage to the Corporation to have the professional assistance of one who had attained to such eminence and influence as a chemist.""
"He was skilled in forensic chemistry, and was engaged in a number of criminal cases involving the use of poisons. His experience in the matter of arsenic poisoning was unique."
"He was one of the original members of the Society of Chemical Industry, and as the result of a long series of experiments in the analysis of soils and examination of tea-plants, devised a fertiliser for use in tea plantations in India. Where it was adopted, this fertiliser raised the tea production from 397 to 494 pounds per acre, and it is characteristic of him that he refused... pecuniary return from its very extensive use."
"His "Practical Chemistry" is now in its sixth edition."
"He made several ingenious inventions. An apparatus for the direct determination of the latent heat of evaporation was awarded two gold medals at the Franco-British Exhibition at London in 1908. ...[T]his apparatus was exhibited at the Japan-British Exhibition in 1910, and along with it another invention—an apparatus for fractional distillation of fats and fatty acids in the vacuum of the cathode light. Both of these exhibits were again shown in 1911 at the Coronation Exhibition in London."
"The University of Aberdeen in 1907 conferred upon him the Degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1908 he was elected Vice-President of the Chemical Society of London, an office which he held at the time of his death. The Council of the Institute of Civil Engineers awarded to him in 1904 the Mamby Premium for a paper on "Deposits in Pipes and other Channels conveying notable water." He was a member or an honorary member of numerous scientific bodies..."
"He had suffered from an attack of influenza... [H]eart failure ensued and he died... March 14th, 1910. ...[H]e was called away without the trial of a lingering illness. He died in harness, for he was giving instructions to his secretary about examinations, and signing certificates, till within ten minutes of the end."
"I have failed in my purpose, if I have not made plain two points—his devotion to duty, and his thoroughness. He took life at a gallop; he never spared himself when duty was to be done; and he was not satisfied with any attainment short of absolute precision and completeness. In that single sentence his biography is comprised."
"The art of alchemy was now to receive an impulse in a new direction.<!--p. 108-->"
"In the hands of the fourteenth century alchemists and their immediate successors, its main object had become the discovery of that mysterious powder or elixir, which was to bring about universal perfection, to raise the baser metals to the perfect gold, and to endow human beings with eternal youth.<!--p. 108-->"
"At this stage a great, though erratic, genius appeared on the scene, and opened up a fresh channel, into which students of chemical science might thenceforth direct their energies.<!--p. 108-->"
"Paracelsus (1493—1541), who gave his name as Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastes ab Hohenheim, created in his day more stir than any other alchemist, for he shook the faith of the world in Galen and Avicenna, and was thus the means of introducing a new era.<!--p. 108-->"
"[A]lthough there is no reason to doubt that he was gifted with original genius... he was on the whole a vain and self-seeking quack, who neither understood the nature of chemical science, nor undertook any regular or successful investigation. But he condemned loudly and boldly all medical knowledge and all medical practitioners, except himself, and his own methods. By these means, and by some cures which he effected, partly by bold treatment, partly by good luck, he made such a reputation for himself that he freed the medical world from old trammels.<!--pp. 108-109-->"
"He roused the mental energy of medical men by calling their attention to the importance of chemical medicines and chemical investigations, and in consequence, workers arose who studied the preparations and reactions of those metals which were most likely to be useful in medicine, and by their efforts the store of chemical knowledge was rapidly increased.<!--p. 109-->"