TABLE OF CONTENTS Many of the studies in pre-1800 chemistry discussed in Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry [1] are still important and useful to the historian. In part, my purpose then was to propose the history of chemistry as a subject for the sixth form and undergraduate chemistry syllabus. That remains an aim and the present chapter is concerned additionally with new trends in recent research on the history of alchemy and chemistry up to the end of the eighteenth century. In 1984, Allen Debus expressed his view of the value to be derived from studying the history of chemistry in association with intellectual, political and social history. [2] , [3] Since then he has continued his investigations of the Paracelsians and their importance to the early development of a philosophy of chemistry that suffused scientific and other studies, including medicine. New works on the seventeenth-century scientific revolution have appeared and there has been much discussion of the late eighteenth-century chemical revolution, with revised views on the significance of Lavoisier's work for the scientific, economic and cultural history of pre-revolutionary France. The question whether chemistry actually began with Lavoisier, or whether the chemical revolution was only the reform of a pre-existing discipline has been debated with persuasive arguments on both sides. [4] A new bibliographical study of chemical publications has appeared [5] and the recent past has also seen attempts to improve both the...
