Eric John Holmyard

Eric John Holmyard (born July 11, 1891 in Midsomer Norton, Somerset , † October 13, 1959 ) was a British science historian and educator.

He used the first name John.

Life

Holmyard, the son of a teacher, studied history and science at Cambridge University . He was briefly at the Agricultural Research Station in Rothamstead and as a teacher at the Bristol Grammar School and at Marlborough College , before he was a teacher at Clifton College in Bristol , where he became head of science in 1919 .

As a science historian, he dealt with the history of chemistry and alchemy, especially in the Arab Middle Ages (inter alia Jabir ibn Hayyān (Geber), Avicenna ). He was also known for introductory chemistry textbooks. He preferred the historical representation of chemistry in class.

For his work on the history of science, he taught himself Arabic and Hebrew. In 1928 he received an honorary doctorate (D. Litt.) In Bristol. From 1947 to 1950 he was Vice President of the newly founded British Society for the History of Science and was a corresponding member of the Academie Internationale de l´Histoire de Sciences.

He was a reviewer for B. the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Fonts

Books:

• The great chemists, Methuen 1928
• Chemistry for Beginners, London: Dent and sons, 1932
• Chemistry, London: Foyle 1952
• Outline of organic chemistry, E. Arnold 1923
• with Frederick Philbrick: A textbook of theoretical and inorganic chemistry, London: Dent 1932
• Chemistry to the time of Dalton, Oxford University Press 1925
• Makers of Chemistry, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1931
• Alchemy, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1957 and 1968
• British Scientists, New York 1951

Some essays:

• Arabic chemistry, Science Progress, Volume 17, 1922/23, pp. 252-261
• Arabic Chemistry, Nature, Vol. 110, 1922, pp. 573-574
• Alchemy in medieval islam, Endeavor, Volume 14, 1955, pp. 117-125
• The Identity of Geber, Nature, Vol. 111, 1923, pp. 191-193
• The Present Position of the Geber Problem, Science in Progress, Volume 19, 1924/25, pp. 415-426
• Jabir ibn Hayyan, Proc. Roy. Soc. Medicine. History of Medicine, Volume 16, 1923, 46-57
• Abu'l-Qāsim al-Irāqī , Isis, Volume 8, 1926, pp. 403-426
• Maslama al-Majrītī and the Rutbatu'l-Hakīm, Isis, Volume 6, 1924, pp. 293-305
• The emerald table , Nature, Vol. 112, 1923, pp. 525-526
• An Alchemical Tract ascribed to Mary the Copt, Archeion, Archivio di storia della scienza, Volume 8, 1927, pp. 161-167.
• A critical examination of Berthelot 's work on arabic chemistry, Isis, Volume 6, 1924, pp. 479-499

Editor and translator:

• as editor and translator: Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Ahmad al Iraqi: Kitab al-Ilm al-Muktasab fi Zira'at ad-Dhabab (Book of Knowledge concerning the cultivation of gold), Paris: Paul Guethner 1923 (Arabic-English Text)
• Publisher: The arabic works of Jabir ibn Hayyam, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris 1923
• Avicennae De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum; being sections of the Kitâb al-shifâ '. The Latin and Arabic texts, Paris: Guethner, 1927 (editor with DC Manneville)
• Works of Geber, introduction to the new edition of the 1678 translation by Richard Russell, London: Dent 1928
• A Romance of Chemistry , Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, Volume 44, 1925, pp. 75-77, 105-108, 136-137, 272-276, 300-301, 327-328 (translation of De compositione alchymiae, see Morienus )

He also published a facsimile edition of the Ordinall of Alchemy by the Bristol Alchemist Thomas Norton in 1929 .

literature

• D. McKie, Obituary in Ambix, Volume 8, 1960, pp. 1-5
• Edgar W. Jenkins: EJ Holmyard and the Historical Approach to Science Teaching, in Michael Matthews (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching, Springer 2014