The International Year of Chemistry

Vol. 40, No.2, April 2011
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In honor of the International Year of Chemistry, we have reprinted three articles — "Reunited (and It Feels So Good)", "Palmer the Poisoner," and "Through the Looking Glass" — all by James Voelkel, the Curator of Rare Books at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. These articles first appeared in Chemical Heritage, the magazine of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and we are grateful for permission to reproduce them here.

Reunited (and It Feels So Good)

by James Voelkel

English physician Henry Stubbe (1632–1676) was a man of strong convictions who did not hesitate to publish them. In fact, his superabundance of opinions and his inability to leave well enough alone make his books an excellent illustration of a feature of 17th-century publishing that 21st-century readers may not appreciate.

In the 17th century some books — particularly in England — grew by accretion. The result was complicated books in which earlier title pages often appear in the middle of a book, causing headaches for modern collectors and curators as they try to untangle questions of edition, issue, and state. An unhappy outcome is that a later edition is considered defective if it lacks one of its constituent parts. Happily, the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Othmer Library of Chemical History recently made a defective book whole by reuniting it with its other parts.

Stubbe combined a prodigious skill in Greek and Latin with a thorough knowledge of history and mathematics and a great respect for the ancient physicians. One day he heard a man quip that all ancient science was useless to the physician and did not so much as contribute to the cure of a cut finger. When pressed, the wag said that this was an opinion of Joseph Glanvill and the other members of the recently founded Royal Society. Outraged, Stubbe began writing an impassioned screed against the Royal Society.

Glanvill PUblications

His first target was Glanvill. After reading Glanvill’s Plus Ultra, Or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge Since the Days of Aristotle (1668), Stubbe composed a scathing critique. He titled it A Specimen of Some Animadversions upon a Book Entitled Plus Ultra, Or, Modern Improvements of Useful Knowledge Written by Joseph Glanvill, a Member of the Royal Society, which he had printed in the spring of 1670. When the book arrived, Stubbe decided that his "To the Reader" note did not sufficiently express his outrage and that the title didn’t contain enough vitriol. So he composed a new preface and a zingier title: The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus: Or, A Specimen of some Animadversions upon the Plus Ultra of Mr. Glanvill, wherein sundry Errours of Some Virtuosi are discovered, the Credit of the Aristotelians in part Re-advanced; and Enquiries … followed by 12 bullet points detailing his rebuttal of Glanvill. These additional seven sheets were printed and appended to the front of the book. A copy of the book in this state found its way to bibliophile Roy G. Neville, whose collection is housed in the Othmer Library.

In the meantime it had become clear to Stubbe that Thomas Sprat also needed to be taken to task for his History of the Royal Society (1667). To be sure, both Sprat and Glanvill had been almost giddy in their unabashed promotion of the Royal Society. Why else publish a laudatory history of a society that was barely five years old? Stubbe sought to bring them down to earth with another 1670 publication titled Legends no Histories: Or, A Specimen of some Animadversions upon the History of the Royal Society — which, after two long sentences further elaborating the contents, ended Together With the Plus Ultra of Mr. Joseph Glanvill reduced to a Non Plus, &c. He appended this title, 11 other sheets of front matter, and 127 new pages of text to the front of The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus.

In 2008 a book dealer advertised a defective copy of Stubbe’s Legends no Histories that was lacking the Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus. Though unappealing to collectors, for a research library already holding the other piece of the puzzle, it was kismet. The Othmer Library purchased the book, reuniting the pieces. As a bonus, bound in with this defective book was yet another book, the final part of Stubbe’s 1670 string of rants against the Royal Society, A Censure upon Certaine Passages Contained in the History of the Royal Society, As being Destructive to the Established Religion and Church of England.

Palmer the Poisoner

By James Voelkel

Palmer the Poisoner

Alfred Swain Taylor, author of A Treatise on Poisons in Relation to Medical Jurisprudence, Physiology, and the Practice of Physic, was often called as an expert witness at trials, including that of William Palmer.

An estimated 30,000 people gathered outside Stafford Prison on 14 June 1856 to witness the hanging of William Palmer, also known as Palmer the Poisoner. His had been the trial of the century, gripping the public imagination in Victorian Britain. The case was so notorious that, to avoid a prejudiced jury, the trial was moved by a special act of Parliament from its local jurisdiction to the Old Bailey in London (which served only to heighten interest in the case).

After training in medicine, Palmer returned to his native Rugeley in Staffordshire, married a local woman, and seemed destined for the quiet life of an English country doctor. But one element of country life proved to be his undoing—horses. Within a few years his obsession with horseracing and betting led him essentially to abandon his practice. He fell deeply into debt and—inexplicably—his closest relatives started dying.
First to die was his mother-in-law, in Palmer’s home in 1849. Palmer’s wife inherited a trust that upon her death would revert to the mother-in-law’s family. Palmer then took out three life insurance policies on his wife totaling £13,000. Mrs. Palmer died in September 1854. In January of the following year, Palmer insured his brother Walter, again for £13,000. Walter died that August. The insurance companies, now suspicious, refused to pay and assigned a private detective to the case. Palmer’s now desperate financial state led to another alleged murder. In November his associate and betting partner John Parsons Cook won a handsome sum, then grew strangely ill. Palmer collected the winnings, and after several days of his ministrations, Cook too died.

At this point the father of English toxicology, Alfred Swain Taylor (1806–1880), became involved. Taylor had written the book on poisons, A Treatise on Poisons in Relation to Medical Jurisprudence, Physiology, and the Practice of Physic (London, 1844). When an inquest was called into Cook’s suspicious death, the stomach contents and viscera went to Taylor at Guy’s Hospital in London for chemical analysis.

Taylor was at the height of his career. The pioneering toxicologist had been Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at Guy’s for 25 years, his Manual of Medical Jurisprudence was in its fifth edition, and he was a seasoned and effective witness for the prosecution. He became the star witness in the case, ensuring Palmer’s conviction.

Ironically, it was not chemical analysis that sealed Palmer’s fate. Taylor testified that strychnine—which Palmer had purchased in the days before the murder but could not account for—was difficult to test for even in controlled laboratory conditions. Instead Taylor told the court that the spasms Cook displayed in his paroxysms of death could occur only in cases of tetanus and strychnine poisoning. With tetanus ruled out, Taylor deduced poison.

Even after his conviction Palmer never confessed to the crime. He went to the gallows saying, "I am innocent of poisoning Cook by strychnine," an enigmatic denial that, paired with ambiguous forensic evidence, has created an enduring mystery.

Through the Looking Glass

By James Voelkel

Among the defining characteristics of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were the invention and development of new scientific instruments. The thermometer and barometer enabled experimenters to quantify heat and air pressure. The vacuum pump made it possible to manipulate the physical environment. And then there was the creation of the telescope and the microscope, which expanded the range of human senses.

After the publication of Galileo’s spectacular telescopic observations in 1610, the race was on to apply the magnification technology to the mundane world. But microscopes were more difficult to make and observations depended a great deal on the skill of the observer wielding what was essentially a glass bead functioning as a really powerful magnifying glass.

Easily the most skillful user of the single-lens microscope was Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723). Although he did not have a university education, nor mastery of Latin—the language of science—van Leeuwenhoek was nonetheless a devoted student of nature and a talented microscope maker. He was responsible for the discovery of blood cells, spermatozoa, protozoa, and bacteria, among other things. Despite his modest background, the scientific world beat a path to his door in Delft, Holland, and he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1680.

At the time, the Royal Society was home to another of the world’s foremost microscopists, Robert Hooke (1635–1703). Although also from a modest background, Hooke landed in the center of English science, making important contributions in the theory and practice of a number of different disciplines. His most notable book is Micrographia, Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon (London, 1665).

Hooke had constructed a serviceable compound microscope, complete with focused light source, which did not give him as much magnification as van Leeuwenhoek’s, but was far easier to use. He published a series of observations he conducted as curator of experiments for the Royal Society, mostly of natural objects. (Hooke coined the word cell in its biological sense.) Hooke’s research was a showpiece for the young Royal Society, and his work was published in Micrographia, in a large folio with magnificent foldout engravings that remains a much sought-after landmark of scientific printing.

History of Science Society