Debus, Allen G. Chemistry and Medical Debate van Helmont to Boerhaave (Canton 2001) (book review).docVIP

Book Reviews 131 mistakes and unrealized possibilities, is always worthwhile in history; and here it pays off too, and allows authors to raise the question whether (as biog- raphers of Lavoisier have wondered) the honor and glory goes to the ambitious bastards. We also meet conservatism about innovations, theoretical or in- ALLEN G. DEBUS: Chemistry and Medical Debate. Van Helmont to Boerhaave, Science History Publica- tions, Canton MA, 2001, xvii + 277 pp. [ISBN 0-88135-285-3]. In the field of the history of science Al- len G. Debus deserves to be ranked among the innovators. In his pioneering studies, he has presented such figures as Paracelsus and Robert Fludd as subjects worthy of study. Within a domain that was dominated by physics and astrono- my, he saw a space for chemistry. He has placed the history of medicine with- in a wider scientific, religious, and phil- osophical context and has characterized the ‘chemical philosophy’ as a third force between the declining Aristoteli- anism and the rising mechanical philos- ophy. He has always highlighted the close relationship between the spread of humanistic ideals, the increase in philo- logical skill, and scientific progress in the early-modern period (from this point of view, his Man and Nature in the Renaissance is exemplary). He has never missed the opportunity to emphasize the connections among such cultural factors as religious humanism, biblical studies, and textual authority in the making of the scientific enterprise, most of all the cross-referencing of the great book of nature and the Scriptures. Last but not least, he has never undermined the role of the educational establish- ment and the pedagogical implications of the new science. strumental, which historians have learned to expect at all times and places. One