March 3, 192 1] 



NATURE 



13 



Early Chemistry in Oxford.* 



By Sir Edward Thorpe, C.B., F.R.S. 



AN attempt is being made at Oxford to bring 

 together such scattered information as exists 

 concerning the early history of science in that 

 University, and to commemorate the achievements 

 of Tunstal, Richard of Wallingford, Merle, 

 Mauduit, Rede, Aschenden — forgotten worthies of 

 a medieval time — and of Digges, Recorde, 

 Dwight, Lower, Mayow, and others of a later 

 period. As regards physical science, it is intended 

 to illustrate its development by a sort of catalogue 

 raisonne of scientific instruments, mainly from 

 the collections in the various colleges and Uni- 

 versity departments which are known to be rich 

 in specimens of the best work of the craftsmen 

 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 



The present booklet — the first instalment of the 

 projected series — deals with the history of chem- 

 istry at Oxford down to the time of Daubeny. It 

 traces the beginnings from Roger Bacon (1214—92), 

 who may be said to have well and truly laid its 

 foundations as a science by his insistence on the 

 appeal to experiment. His dictum, Sine experientia 

 nihil sufficienter sciri potest, now over the en- 

 trance to an Oxford laboratory, is significant not 

 only of his breach with scholasticism, but also of 

 his clear recognition of the path that science must 

 follow. Mr. Gunther deals only in very general 

 terms with the influence of Bacon — more with his 

 teaching and the essential nature of his philosophy 

 than with his actual achievements. He sees his 

 limitations in the dominance of the Greek philo- 

 sophy, and in his inability to act, through force 

 of circumstances, upon his own principles. Con- 

 sidering that Bacon's name is associated with 

 Oxford traditions, and that the book is primarily 

 intended for Oxford students, to whom, indeed, 

 it is dedicated, more space might well have been 

 allotted to one who was " at once the earliest and 

 among the greatest of our [Oxford] teachers." 



The early association of chemistry with medi- 

 cine was, of course, felt in Oxford, as elsewhere. 

 The Spiceria of medieval Oxford were to be 

 found in the High Street, near the site of the 

 present front of Brasenose College. Their shops, 

 which did not escape being occasionally "ragged," 

 dealt originally in spices, seeds, and roots, and 

 only gradually developed into apothecaries. One 

 of the earliest was that of John le Spicer, whose 

 shop, in 1332, was in All Saints parish. Mr. 

 Gunther furnishes a plan showing the apothe- 

 caries' quarters in Oxford, and he gives illustra- 

 tions of their receptacles for drugs from the series 

 in the Ashmolean Museum. 



From the times of Roger Bacon and the early 

 spicers to the middle of the seventeenth century 

 is a big jump. But Oxford contributed nothing to 

 chemical science during the intervening period. 

 The study of natural phenomena was foreign to 

 the scholastic learning of the time. As Mr. 

 Gunther points out, "the long list of Waynflete 



1 "Early Science in Oxford." Part i, " Chemi'trv-" By R. T. Gunther. 

 Pp. vi+91. (Oxford: The Oxford Scienre Laboratories', 1920.) 6s. 



NO. 2679, VOL. 107] 



readers of Natural Philosophy, none of whom left 

 any original work, shows how barren discourses 

 on this subject must be, when they are founded 

 on Aristotle rather than on Nature." There were, 

 however, alchemists during, this period in Oxford, 

 among them the Rosicrucian Fludd, of St. John's, 

 in 1 591, and Simon Forman and John Thorn- 

 borough (1602), of Magdalen. Mention should 

 also be made of John French (1616-57), who wrote 

 treatises on distillation, "partly taken out of the 

 rnost select Chymicall Authors of several Lan- 

 guages, and partly out of the Author's manuall 

 experience." But the real awakening in Oxford 

 occurred during the troubles of the Civil War, 

 when Wilkins, Ward, Bathurst, Petty, and Willis 

 met weekly, first in an apothecary's house for "the 

 convenience of inspecting drugs," next at the 

 lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, warden of Wadham, and 

 afterwards at the lodgings of Mr. Robert Boyle. 

 The last-named had settled, in 1654, in Crosse's 

 rooms in the High Street, having recently 'eft 

 Ireland, "a barbarous country," he says, "where 

 chemical spirits were so misunderstood, and 

 chemical instruments so unprocurable, that it was 

 hard to have any Hermetic thoughts in it." 



This association of the progenitors of the Royal 

 Society with Oxford is an incident of which the 

 University is justly proud, and Mr. Gunther treats 

 of it in some detail. Boyle, who was of a tender 

 constitution, was devotedly looked after by his 

 sister, Lady Ranelagh, who came up to Oxford to 

 settle him in his lodgings. While there, we learn 

 from a letter which Mr. Gunther prints, she was 

 not wholly satisfied, as she thinks the position 

 of the doors with respect to the fireplace, even 

 in the warmest room, will occasion draughts, 

 "the inconvenience" of which "may be helped 

 ... by a folding screen." Boyle, however, was 

 suflficiently comfortable to remain there for 

 fourteen years, when he removed to London to 

 his new laboratory at the back of Lady Ranelagh 's 

 house in Pall Mall. Crosse's house in Oxford 

 was pulled down in 1809; it was where the Shelley 

 memorial now stands. Mr. Gunther gives a re- 

 production of an old print showing it and its rela- 

 tion to University College and other buildings in 

 the High Street (Fig. i). 



Oxford owes to Boyle its first regular teacher 

 of practical chemistry — Peter Sthael, of Strass- 

 burg, "a Lutheran, a great hater of women, and 

 a very useful man," who had been engaged by 

 Boyle as one of his assistants. He began his 

 courses in 1659. Among his pupils was John 

 Locke, of Christ Church, "a man of turbulent 

 spirit, clamorous and never contented. The club 

 [class] wrote and took notes from the mouth of 

 their master, who sat at the upper end of a table ; 

 but the said J. Lock scorned to do it ; so that 

 while every man besides of the club were writing, 

 he would be prating and troublesome." That the 

 fingers of the troublesome J. Locke did actually 

 itch to be at chemical experimenting is shown by 



