Allen G. Debus

Allen George Debus (born August 16, 1926 in Chicago , Illinois , † March 6, 2009 in Deerfield , Illinois) was an American historian of science who dealt in particular with the history of chemistry and alchemy .

Debated at the Chemical Heritage Foundation 2006 Alchemy Conference

life and work

Debus went to school in Evanston and studied chemistry (and chemical engineering) and history at Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1947. He then continued his studies at Indiana University , where he received his master's degree in history with John in 1949 J. Murray with a paper on the history of chemistry ( Robert Boyle and Chemistry in England 1660-1700 ). He also attended chemistry courses. After graduating in 1951, he worked as a chemist at Abbott Laboratories until 1956 , but continued to work on the history of science. In 1956 he began studying for a doctorate with I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard University . An essay on Paracelsus' successors in England won him the Bowdoin Prize in 1957 (he received a second in 1958) and in 1959 he went to England on a Fulbright grant to undertake more intensive source studies. Here he met Walter Pagel, among others, and worked for Douglas McKie at University College London . After completing his doctorate in 1961 at Harvard ( The English Paracelsians: a study of Iatochemistry in England 60 1640 ), he became an assistant professor for the history of science (Faculty of History) at the University of Chicago under William McNiell in 1961 (he also gave physics lessons there) . After his book about the English Paracelsus followers was published, he became an associate professor in 1965. He was co-founder and first director (from 1971 to 1978) of the Morris Fishbein Center at the University of Chicago, founded in 1970, and in 1978 became Morris Fishbein Professor of the History of Science and Medicine. In 1996 he retired.

In 1966/67 he was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge ( Churchill College , where he was a Fellow) as a Guggenheim Fellow and he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972/73 . He was also visiting professor at Arizona State University and the University of São Paulo .

Debus dealt in particular with the history of chemistry, alchemy and pharmacy in the Renaissance and Baroque. He became known in 1965 through his book The English Paracelsians . He edited texts by Elias Ashmole , John Dee and Robert Fludd .

In 1994 he received the George Sarton Medal and in 1978 the Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society . In 1987 he received the Dexter Award from the American Chemical Society and in 1978 he received the Edward Kremers Award from the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

In 1985 he received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven. He was married to Brunilda Lopez Rodriguez since 1951 and had three children. He also published as a discographer.

Fonts

Books:

• The English Paracelsians , Oldbourne Press: History of science library, London 1965
• The chemical philosophy: Paracelsian science and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , 2 volumes, New York, Science History Publications, 1977, 2nd edition 2002
• Man and nature in the Renaissance . Cambridge University Press, 1978
• Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy, 1550-1770: Studies in the History of Science and Medicine , Variorum Reprints, London 1987
• The French Paracelsians, The Chemical Challenge to Medical and Scientific Tradition in Early Modern France , Cambridge University Press 1991
• Chemistry and Medical Debate: van Helmout to Boerhaave , Science History Publications, 2001
• The Chemical Promise: Experiment And Mysticism in the Chemical Philosophy, 1550-1800: Selected Essays of Allen G. Debus , Science History Publications, Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts 2006

Some essays:

• The chemical philosophers: chemical medicine from Paracelsus to van Helmont , History of Science, Volume 12, 1974, pp. 235-259
• The chemical debates of the seventeenth century: the reaction to Robert Fludd and Jean Baptiste van Helmont , in ML Righini Bonelli, WR Shea (editor) Reason, Experiment and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution , New York, Science History Publications 1975

As editor:

• The chemical dream of the Renaissance , Heffer, Cambridge 1968, reprint at Bobbs-Merrill, 1968
• Medicine in Seventeenth Century England , University of California Press, 1974
• with Michael Thomson Walton, Reading the Book of Nature: The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution (Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies) , Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1998
• Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry: Papers from Ambix , Jeremy Mills, 2004
• Science, Medicine and Society in the Renaissance , 2 volumes, New York, Science History Publ. 1972
• Science and education in the seventeenth century: The Webster-Ward debate , Macdonald, History of science library, primary sources, London 1970
• with Ingrid Merkel Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe . Folger Books, Washington DC 1988 (Folger Institute of Renaissance and Eighteenth Century Studies)

Other books:

• with Brian Rust , The Complete Entertainment Discography: From 1897-1942 (Roots of Jazz) , Arlington House, 1982; 2nd Edition. Da Capo, 1989
• as editor: World Who's Who in Science , AN Marquis, 1968

literature

• Paul H. Theerman, Karen Hunger Parshall (Editor) Experiencing Nature, Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of Allen G. Debus , Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997 (therein autobiography of Debus)

Web links

• Biography, pdf

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Fludd and his philosophical key: being a transcript of the Manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge , New York, Science History Publications 1979.