Changing Images of Chemistry

Abstract

The tensions between chemistry and medicine (or life science) are as old as chemistry itself. They were caused by enthusiastic alchemists who vied with nature or were accused of doing so. The promise of creating a living creature through laboratory operations survived the collapse of the alchemical tradition and profoundly shaped the public image of chemistry. The dichotomy between the laboratory and Nature as the creator of life was still at the center of literary images of chemists in the early nineteenth century. In her popular 1817 novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley revived the Promethean image of an all-powerful chemist. This image, which has created an association of chemistry with witchcraft, magic and charlatanism has persisted through the centuries in spite of the many successful and useful products that have issued from the chemist’s laboratory. As early as the eighteenth century, chemists began to substitute artificial, man-made products such as ammonia, oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid), and what they called “factitious” (that is, artificial) soda (sodium carbonate) for products formerly extracted from vegetable- or animal-matter. By the end of the eighteenth century chemistry was, therefore, celebrated as a useful science, contributing to public welfare and the wealth of nations. Chemists were no longer perceived as dangerous people. Rather they had become respectable professionals enjoying social recognition and, often, political responsibilities.