Eilhard Mitscherlich: Baumeister am Fundament der Chemie by Hans-Werner SchuttReview by: A. J. RockeIsis, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 596-597Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/235698 .

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 84: 3 (1993) BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 84: 3 (1993)

ticular reference to Maxwellian theory: if it reflected uncertainties about Maxwell's the- oretical physics; if the skin effect constituted evidence for Maxwell's theory as against, say, Continental theories; or if the controversy was unreal because acceptable premises did exist, Maxwellian or not, and mathematical com- plication alone was the barrier.

The prominence given to Lodge in the con- text of ether models could leave an exagger- ated impression of his contribution to math- ematical theory. He was a significant experimentalist, expositor, and middleman between theorists and the public, so the im- ages through which he interpreted theory to himself and others are certainly historically important, but it is a pity to blur a useful dis- tinction by appearing to miscast him.

Although adequate reference is made to the secondary literature, not much guidance to it is given, so the reader might be left unaware of other points of view. Bruce Hunt's ac- count invites comparison with Jed Z. Buch- wald's From Maxwell to Microphysics (Chi- cago, 1985). Buchwald considers that the reification of the electron demanded such ex- tensive revision of Maxwell's original per- spective that it should be regarded as intro- ducing a conceptual discontinuity. Hunt, on the other hand, depicts a developmental pro- cess into which point sources could after a fashion be assimilated. This viewpoint was cultivated by a line of ether theorists for thirty years and finally died from natural causes rather than through the perception of irre- solvable difficulties. The two accounts are not contradictory; the time lapse between con- ceptual revision and establishment turnover can act as a driving force, a subject that de- serves more historial attention.

D. W. JORDAN

Hans-Werner Schiitt. Eilhard Mitscherlich: Baumeister am Fundament der Chemie. (Ab- handlungen und Berichte, N.S., 8.) 192 pp., illus., bibl., indexes. Munich: Deutsches Museum, in Kommission bei Oldenbourg Verlag, 1992.

Despite a recent rise of interest in the study of nineteenth-century chemistry, pursuit of this subject has been hampered by a dearth of de- tailed monographs focusing on particular in- dividuals and particular localities. In writing this biography of one of the most significant

ticular reference to Maxwellian theory: if it reflected uncertainties about Maxwell's the- oretical physics; if the skin effect constituted evidence for Maxwell's theory as against, say, Continental theories; or if the controversy was unreal because acceptable premises did exist, Maxwellian or not, and mathematical com- plication alone was the barrier.

The prominence given to Lodge in the con- text of ether models could leave an exagger- ated impression of his contribution to math- ematical theory. He was a significant experimentalist, expositor, and middleman between theorists and the public, so the im- ages through which he interpreted theory to himself and others are certainly historically important, but it is a pity to blur a useful dis- tinction by appearing to miscast him.

Although adequate reference is made to the secondary literature, not much guidance to it is given, so the reader might be left unaware of other points of view. Bruce Hunt's ac- count invites comparison with Jed Z. Buch- wald's From Maxwell to Microphysics (Chi- cago, 1985). Buchwald considers that the reification of the electron demanded such ex- tensive revision of Maxwell's original per- spective that it should be regarded as intro- ducing a conceptual discontinuity. Hunt, on the other hand, depicts a developmental pro- cess into which point sources could after a fashion be assimilated. This viewpoint was cultivated by a line of ether theorists for thirty years and finally died from natural causes rather than through the perception of irre- solvable difficulties. The two accounts are not contradictory; the time lapse between con- ceptual revision and establishment turnover can act as a driving force, a subject that de- serves more historial attention.

D. W. JORDAN

Hans-Werner Schiitt. Eilhard Mitscherlich: Baumeister am Fundament der Chemie. (Ab- handlungen und Berichte, N.S., 8.) 192 pp., illus., bibl., indexes. Munich: Deutsches Museum, in Kommission bei Oldenbourg Verlag, 1992.

Despite a recent rise of interest in the study of nineteenth-century chemistry, pursuit of this subject has been hampered by a dearth of de- tailed monographs focusing on particular in- dividuals and particular localities. In writing this biography of one of the most significant

German chemists of the first half of the cen- tury, Hans-Werner Schiitt has produced an important work that meets the highest profes- sional standards.

Eilhard Mitscherlich studied oriental lan- guages and medicine in Heidelberg and G6ttingen before arriving in Berlin in 1818 to study chemistry with the botanist H. F. Link. This is a bizarre trajectory, and Schtitt struggles valiantly to elucidate the young man's twists and tums; here, as repeatedly throughout the book, the author is frustrated in his attempt to uncover very much of the inner life of this interesting man. The prob- lem is not just with the sources, for Schiitt has in fact delved deeply and widely in sur- viving correspondence and university rec- ords. It was the subject himself who hid be- hind the veil, both from his contemporaries and from the historian. Mitscherlich was ap- parently profoundly uninterested in politics, religion, philosophy, or art; Schiitt notes with amazement that he was unable to find a sin- gle subsequent reference to "Orientalistik" in the Mitscherlich Nachlass.

One thing Mitscherlich did have in abun- dance was good fortune. After less than a year in Link's laboratory he encountered and stud- ied the mineralogical phenomenon subse- quently named isomorphism; this discovery and its maker soon thereafter came to the at- tention of the great Jacob Berzelius, who happened to be traveling in Germany at the time. Asked by the Prussian ministry to rec- ommend a successor to Heinrich Klaproth at the University of Berlin, Berzelius named the hitherto-unknown Praktikant. The ministry agreed, provided only that Mitscherlich study directly under Berzelius in Stockholm. Thus it happened that Mitscherlich became first Berzelius's protege, then professor of chem- istry at Berlin. There he remained more than forty years, until his death in 1863.

Although isomorphism remained Mitsch- erlich's greatest discovery, important contri- butions flowed regularly from his laboratory, including work in organic, inorganic, geo- logical, and biological chemistry. Schiitt maintains a tight focus on Mitscherlich's sci- entific career, in the process often illuminat- ing Mitscherlich's professional context in significant ways. We leam much that was hitherto obscure about his laboratory man- agement, his teaching and textbook writing, and his industrial connections (though here Schiitt once more laments his subject's tight- lipped habits). Schiitt argues that the Prussian

German chemists of the first half of the cen- tury, Hans-Werner Schiitt has produced an important work that meets the highest profes- sional standards.

Eilhard Mitscherlich studied oriental lan- guages and medicine in Heidelberg and G6ttingen before arriving in Berlin in 1818 to study chemistry with the botanist H. F. Link. This is a bizarre trajectory, and Schtitt struggles valiantly to elucidate the young man's twists and tums; here, as repeatedly throughout the book, the author is frustrated in his attempt to uncover very much of the inner life of this interesting man. The prob- lem is not just with the sources, for Schiitt has in fact delved deeply and widely in sur- viving correspondence and university rec- ords. It was the subject himself who hid be- hind the veil, both from his contemporaries and from the historian. Mitscherlich was ap- parently profoundly uninterested in politics, religion, philosophy, or art; Schiitt notes with amazement that he was unable to find a sin- gle subsequent reference to "Orientalistik" in the Mitscherlich Nachlass.

One thing Mitscherlich did have in abun- dance was good fortune. After less than a year in Link's laboratory he encountered and stud- ied the mineralogical phenomenon subse- quently named isomorphism; this discovery and its maker soon thereafter came to the at- tention of the great Jacob Berzelius, who happened to be traveling in Germany at the time. Asked by the Prussian ministry to rec- ommend a successor to Heinrich Klaproth at the University of Berlin, Berzelius named the hitherto-unknown Praktikant. The ministry agreed, provided only that Mitscherlich study directly under Berzelius in Stockholm. Thus it happened that Mitscherlich became first Berzelius's protege, then professor of chem- istry at Berlin. There he remained more than forty years, until his death in 1863.

Although isomorphism remained Mitsch- erlich's greatest discovery, important contri- butions flowed regularly from his laboratory, including work in organic, inorganic, geo- logical, and biological chemistry. Schiitt maintains a tight focus on Mitscherlich's sci- entific career, in the process often illuminat- ing Mitscherlich's professional context in significant ways. We leam much that was hitherto obscure about his laboratory man- agement, his teaching and textbook writing, and his industrial connections (though here Schiitt once more laments his subject's tight- lipped habits). Schiitt argues that the Prussian

596 596

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 84 : 3 (1993) BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 84 : 3 (1993)

regime's reputation for niggardl its academic scientists was not served, since there operated th Prussian version of the French tiple salaries from multiple po them with minimal duties or eve Adding in the often-lucrative d from students, Mitscherlich leagues could live quite comfor

Schtitt strives throughout the I to grips with his subject's well ficult" personality: suspicious, a sitive, insecure, introverted, hy and paranoid. Although he mainl relationship with his mentoi Mitscherlich had few friends an mies-chief among the latter bei colleague Heinrich Rose and hi val Justus Liebig. Schiitt asks w care about such a man, then ans question simply and directl Mitscherlich war ein grosser Ch ner der wichtigsten Epochen de schichte. Und das allein rechtferti um eine Biographie dieses Manr We can only agree with this ju be grateful for Schitt's careful efforts.

regime's reputation for niggardl its academic scientists was not served, since there operated th Prussian version of the French tiple salaries from multiple po them with minimal duties or eve Adding in the often-lucrative d from students, Mitscherlich leagues could live quite comfor

Schtitt strives throughout the I to grips with his subject's well ficult" personality: suspicious, a sitive, insecure, introverted, hy and paranoid. Although he mainl relationship with his mentoi Mitscherlich had few friends an mies-chief among the latter bei colleague Heinrich Rose and hi val Justus Liebig. Schiitt asks w care about such a man, then ans question simply and directl Mitscherlich war ein grosser Ch ner der wichtigsten Epochen de schichte. Und das allein rechtferti um eine Biographie dieses Manr We can only agree with this ju be grateful for Schitt's careful efforts.

W. Bernard Carlson. Innovatic Process: Elihu Thomson and the eral Electric, 1870-1900. (Stu nomic History and Policy: The in the Twentieth Century.) xxii illus., figs., tables, index. Can York: Cambridge University $44.50.

The late nineteenth century wa for energetic scientists and technc Thomson. Yet in contrast to the ished upon his British namesal trical engineer Elihu Thomson 1 overdue for a scholarly apprais this lacuna in the history of Ai trotechnology, W. Bernard Car graph locates the much-fetishiz a valuable comparative context

Documented via a rich arra, sources, this account relates Th from a chemistry professorshil delphia high school to become ( ica's chief engineering innov nineteenth century. Readers are

W. Bernard Carlson. Innovatic Process: Elihu Thomson and the eral Electric, 1870-1900. (Stu nomic History and Policy: The in the Twentieth Century.) xxii illus., figs., tables, index. Can York: Cambridge University $44.50.

The late nineteenth century wa for energetic scientists and technc Thomson. Yet in contrast to the ished upon his British namesal trical engineer Elihu Thomson 1 overdue for a scholarly apprais this lacuna in the history of Ai trotechnology, W. Bernard Car graph locates the much-fetishiz a valuable comparative context

Documented via a rich arra, sources, this account relates Th from a chemistry professorshil delphia high school to become ( ica's chief engineering innov nineteenth century. Readers are

y salaries for the patenting maneuvers, marketing strate- entirely de- gies, organizational structures, and financial

len a sort of negotiations in which Thomson engaged at cumul: mul- General Electric and its antecedent compa-

sts, some of nies. From the origins of Thomson's famous n none at all. partnership with E. J. Houston to his retire- lirect income ment upon the creation of G.E.'s first re- and his col- search laboratory, Carlson's narrative weaves tably indeed. a Chandlerian managerial history of his sub- book to come ject's creative but often fraught dealings with -known "dif- successive backers and partners. irrogant, sen- This business-oriented perspective serves pochondriac, effectively to highlight two important inter- tained a close related points that are usually underplayed in r Berzelius, Edisonian scholarship. Carlson convinces us id many ene- that Thomson's customized arc-lighting ing his Berlin schemes remained a major commercial rival is Giessen ri- to the newer systems technologies of filament hy we should illumination well into the 1880s, since the wers his own economic viability of the central-station mar- y: "Eilhard keting strategy remained unproven. Given such lemiker in ei- insights, this case study of how an innova- :r Chemiege- tor's talents can be managed within the con- gt alle Miihen straints of a large-scale manufacturing enter- ies" (p. 174). prise undeniably succeeds in meeting the idgment, and interests and standards of economic histori- 1 and fruitful ans.

Other audiences, however, might well feel A. J. ROCKE that a more accurate title for the book would

have been "Innovation as a Business Pro- cess." Historians of science may entertain this view after scrutinizing Carlson's attempts to

mn as a Social blend Chandlerian morals with the chicness ? Rise of Gen- of social constructivism. The treatment of idies in Eco- Thomson's innovative current regulators and United States dynamos, for example, is so idiomatically i + 377 pp., couched in diverse discourses of markets, nbridge/New "mental models," and "mind-sets" that the Press, 1991. subtle yet daring constructivist theses of Wiebe

Bijker, Trevor Pinch, and Thomas Hughes are hard to discern. Equally unpersuasive is Carl-

s not lacking son's claim to have augmented our under- logists named standing of how craft knowledge underlay the attention lav- scientific success of Victorian electrical en- kes, the elec- gineering. His laudable effort to articulate the has long been putative rules of Thomson's "craft of inven- al. By filling tion" consists mostly of apt citations from the merican elec- excellent scholarship of Jerry Ravetz, Harry ^lson's mono- Collins, and Brooke Hindle. red Edison in These criticisms aside, historians of sci-

ence will find much of value in this book re- y of archival lating to Thomson's early and significant lomson's rise mastery of chemistry, his lifelong interest in p in a Phila- astronomy, and his dextrous exploration of X one of Amer- rays in 1896. The factual accuracy and thor- vators of the oughness with which these and other features regaled with of Elihu Thomson's career are treated will

y salaries for the patenting maneuvers, marketing strate- entirely de- gies, organizational structures, and financial

len a sort of negotiations in which Thomson engaged at cumul: mul- General Electric and its antecedent compa-

sts, some of nies. From the origins of Thomson's famous n none at all. partnership with E. J. Houston to his retire- lirect income ment upon the creation of G.E.'s first re- and his col- search laboratory, Carlson's narrative weaves tably indeed. a Chandlerian managerial history of his sub- book to come ject's creative but often fraught dealings with -known "dif- successive backers and partners. irrogant, sen- This business-oriented perspective serves pochondriac, effectively to highlight two important inter- tained a close related points that are usually underplayed in r Berzelius, Edisonian scholarship. Carlson convinces us id many ene- that Thomson's customized arc-lighting ing his Berlin schemes remained a major commercial rival is Giessen ri- to the newer systems technologies of filament hy we should illumination well into the 1880s, since the wers his own economic viability of the central-station mar- y: "Eilhard keting strategy remained unproven. Given such lemiker in ei- insights, this case study of how an innova- :r Chemiege- tor's talents can be managed within the con- gt alle Miihen straints of a large-scale manufacturing enter- ies" (p. 174). prise undeniably succeeds in meeting the idgment, and interests and standards of economic histori- 1 and fruitful ans.

Other audiences, however, might well feel A. J. ROCKE that a more accurate title for the book would

have been "Innovation as a Business Pro- cess." Historians of science may entertain this view after scrutinizing Carlson's attempts to

mn as a Social blend Chandlerian morals with the chicness ? Rise of Gen- of social constructivism. The treatment of idies in Eco- Thomson's innovative current regulators and United States dynamos, for example, is so idiomatically i + 377 pp., couched in diverse discourses of markets, nbridge/New "mental models," and "mind-sets" that the Press, 1991. subtle yet daring constructivist theses of Wiebe

Bijker, Trevor Pinch, and Thomas Hughes are hard to discern. Equally unpersuasive is Carl-

s not lacking son's claim to have augmented our under- logists named standing of how craft knowledge underlay the attention lav- scientific success of Victorian electrical en- kes, the elec- gineering. His laudable effort to articulate the has long been putative rules of Thomson's "craft of inven- al. By filling tion" consists mostly of apt citations from the merican elec- excellent scholarship of Jerry Ravetz, Harry ^lson's mono- Collins, and Brooke Hindle. red Edison in These criticisms aside, historians of sci-

ence will find much of value in this book re- y of archival lating to Thomson's early and significant lomson's rise mastery of chemistry, his lifelong interest in p in a Phila- astronomy, and his dextrous exploration of X one of Amer- rays in 1896. The factual accuracy and thor- vators of the oughness with which these and other features regaled with of Elihu Thomson's career are treated will

597 597

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.23 on Fri, 9 May 2014 19:54:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions