TABLE OF CONTENTS Since the publication of Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry, [1] there has been no clearly definable change in the way in which instruments and apparatus are regarded by historians of chemistry. There are still few scholars who take a significant interest in this field compared with, say, those who write on the history of mathematical or astronomical instruments. Often chemical instruments are merely mentioned in publications on the practice of chemistry, the main interests lying elsewhere. Furthermore, the matter is complicated by the poor survival rate of chemical apparatus. Laboratories and experiments are more often considered by those whose interests lie in the sociology of knowledge than by those working in the field of material culture. This must clearly be the conclusion of those who consult a useful editorial in Isis written by one whose own work has touched on both approaches. [2] The disparate directions from which instrument studies are being approached is exemplified by the published papers of a conference held in London in 1991, whose stated purpose was to examine the relationship between scientific instruments and the political and economic context of science. [3] The instruments themselves tended to lie outside the main foci of interest.
However, an encyclopaedia focusing on instruments, which includes material on chemical instruments and apparatus, was published in 1998. It incorporates 327 entries on a diverse range of historical items. [4]
