NATURE 



i8i 



THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1919. 





JOSEPH BLACK. 



The Life and Letters of Joseph Black, M.D. By 

 Sir William Ramsay. With an Introduction 

 dealing with the Life and Work of Sir William 

 Ramsay, by F. G. Donnan. Pp. xix+148. 

 (London : Constable and Co., Ltd., 1918.) 

 Price 6s. 6d. net. 



THIS little book has a special interest in being 

 the last published work of the late Sir 

 William Ramsay. As Prof. Donnan states in his 

 graceful appreciation of the author's life and 

 work, Ramsay possessed an intimate knowledge 

 and true perception of Black's position in the 

 history of science, and as they were both alumni 

 of the same alma mater (the University of Glas- 

 gow) it was exceedingly appropriate and a charm- 

 ing act of piety that he should have paid such a 

 tribute to the memory of one with whose name 

 and fame that university is so closely identified. 



At the same time it cannot, in strict truth, be 

 said that we have thereby gained any fresh light 

 on Black's life and character, or on the nature 

 and influence of his work. Nor was this to be 

 expected. Practically all that can be said concern- 

 ing his personal history, his habits, his occupa- 

 tions, his intellectual powers, his social gifts, and 

 his influence as a teacher was said long ago 

 by his successor and biographer, Robison, and 

 his contemporaries, Playfair and Brougham, and 

 it has been summarised in Thomson's well-known 

 account. Indeed, says Ramsay with that quaint 

 turn of humour and gentle irony so characteristic 

 of him, " Dr. Thomas Thomson found Dr. 

 Robison's estimate of Black's character so just 

 that he appropriated it almost verbatim in his 

 * History of Chemistry ' without the formality of 

 <}uotation marks." 



As regards, too, the influence of Black's work 

 and teaching, there is nothing fresh to be learned. 

 History has set its seal upon them, and posterity 

 will accept the verdict. There will be no appeal. 

 Epoch-making as Black's services to science were, 

 few men of such eminence ever furnished so little 

 material to the historian. His great achievements 

 were made at the very outset of his career. He 

 became famous almost at a bound, and for up- 

 wards of forty years he lived upon his reputation, 

 augmenting it, indeed, by the wise and philosophic 

 insight, the depth and range of his knowledge, 

 liberaUty of thought, and sound judgment with 

 which he impressed his colleagues and contem- 

 poraries, and influenced and stimulated his 

 students. To all this Sir William Ramsay bears 

 admirable testimony. The subject was evidently 

 congenial to him, and the story as told by him 

 was well worth the telling. For Robison's bio- 

 graphy is practically forgotten except by biblio- 

 philes, and Thomson's "History," a compilation 

 of no great merit, and mainly of value for its 

 record of events within the author's personal ex- 

 perience, is probably never looked into by the 

 modern student. What is worth preserving in it, 

 NO. 2584, VOL. 103] 



from the point of view of history, has long since 

 been incorporated into later and more important 

 works. 



A physician with a very limited practice, whose 

 energies, such as they were, were almost wholly 

 engrossed in the work of preparation for his lec- 

 tures on chemistry, mainly to medical students, 

 of feeble health and little physical vigour, Black 

 lived a singularly tranquil and uneventful life. 

 His constitutional weakness predisposed him to 

 indolence, and he was incapable of any sustained 

 mental exertion. Literary composition was evi- 

 dently irksome to him. His correspondence might 

 have been as world-wide as his fame had he cared, 

 or been able, to maintain it. But a valetudinarian 

 before he had reached middle life, he attained the 

 allotted span only by the strictest regimen and by 

 a routine almost monotonous in its regularity. 



Moreover, the conditions both at Glasgow and 

 at Edinburgh offered little inducement to experi- 

 mental inquiry; in those days there was nothing 

 in the nature of laboratory instruction to students, 

 nor had Black facilities for working by means of 

 assistants. Still, had he possessed something of 

 the zeal and enthusiasm of a Scheele or a Priestley, 

 he would have triumphed over these obstacles, for 

 Black was not a poor man, and was well able to 

 afford the expense of tilling the field of inquiry, 

 especially in the domain of heat, which he had 

 opened out for himself. As it was he left it to 

 others to garner the rich harvest which lay ready 

 to his hand had he only had the will and the vigour 

 to gather it. Not that Black was careless of, or 

 indifferent to, his reputation. He complained, and 

 with good cause, of the manner in which his pio- 

 neering work was ignored by his French con- 

 temporaries, and he was consequently annoyed by 

 the fulsome flattery addressed to him by Lavoisier 

 when it became known that he was not indisposed 

 to accept the doctrine of the anti-phlogistians. 

 But he never sought for honours and distinctions 

 or marks of recognition by foreign academies, 

 and was genuinely surprised, and with an almost 

 childlike gratification, when he received them. 



Sir William Ramsay's pen-portrait conveys a 

 vivid and lifelike presentment of a guileless, un- 

 affected character, a man of strict integrity, per- 

 fectly transparent, firm and constant in his friend- 

 ships, of a cheerful, lovable disposition, easy of 

 approach, affable and courteous in bearing, and 

 honourable in all transactions and social obliga- 

 tions. He lived a serene and unembittered exist- 

 ence, wholly unmoved by faction and undisturbed 

 by polemical strife. He died as he had lived, and 

 his gentle spirit left him when seated in his chair, 

 without the slightest sign of even momentary pain. 



The student of chemistry who is at all inte- 

 rested in the personal history of the science will 

 read this book with pleasure and profit, for no 

 better instance of the happiness and contentment 

 that attend a life free from worldly troubles, and 

 devoted to the unselfish pursuit of science and to 

 the contemplation of its truths, can be found than 

 in that of Joseph Black, who is to us, as he was 

 to his contemporaries, one of the greatest orna- 

 ments of his age. 



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