Marie Meurdrac

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La Chymie des Dames 1687

Marie Meurdrac (* before 1613 in Mandres-les-Roses ) was a 17th century French chemist. She is best known for her book La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames of 1666, an early textbook on chemistry and pharmacy.

Life

Marie Meurdrac was the eldest daughter of the royal notary in Mandres-les-Roses Vincent Meurdrac (or Meurdrat, died 1650) and had a sister Catherine, Madame de la Guette (1613 to around 1680), who left memoirs. Marie Meurdrac was married to de Vibrac, commander of Charles de Valois' guard . She lived with her husband in his castle, the Château de Grosbois in Boissy-Saint-Léger . There she met the Countess von Guise, to whom she later dedicated her chemistry book. Otherwise little is known about her life.

Title page of La Chymie des Dames 1687

Her chemistry book first appeared in 1666, was relatively successful, had five French editions (1666, 1674, 1680, 1687, 1711) and was translated into German (six editions from 1673 to 1738) and Italian (Venice 1682). The main aim of the book is to present the effects and manufacture of medicines, primarily from plants, since these, according to Meurdrac, had the most original healing powers given by God: they were first created according to the Bible and were not affected by the Flood . Medicines from animals are also treated; she is skeptical of those made of metals, also because of harmful side effects. The book has 334 pages and contains no images. The first chapter deals with apparatus for example for distillation, ovens and weights used in medicine and contains a table with 106 alchemical symbols, the second chapter deals with simple herbal medicines (such as rosemary, which according to her is useful for various ailments and also drives away melancholy, Sage, aromatic oils, herbal brews and distillates from herbs, flowers and fruits, one section relates to wine), the third to such animal origin, the fourth to metals, acids and salts. The fifth chapter deals with compound herbs, partly based on well-known medicinal plants such as fennel, plantain, celandine, marjoram, lemon balm, but also, for example, a remedy for earache made from exotic (more expensive) ingredients such as frankincense, myrrh, mastic and laudanum and she describes medicines against toothache and headache. The last chapter is particularly aimed at women and is devoted to cosmetics, including a perfume based on an alcohol extract of rosemary and other plants (water of the Queen of Hungary), hair care products and hair dyes. It stands in the tradition of Iatrochemie of the Paracelsus successors and still in the tradition of alchemy , discusses, for example, the relationship between sulfur, mercury and salts and cites, for example, Ramon Llull and Johannes de Rupescissa (regarding alcohol extracts) and Basilius Valentinus and knew the writings of the Paracelsist Joseph Duchesne and the authors of the relevant pharmacopoeia Pietro Andrea Mattioli , Pedanios Dioskurides and Jacques Daléchamps .

Grosbois Castle

In the foreword she writes that she weighed what was traditionally expected of women in society - namely not to present what she had learned in public - and the passing on of her knowledge, especially for curing diseases. It is particularly aimed at women and the poor classes who could not afford doctors, and describes the simplest possible methods. She also writes that she first wrote the book as a memory aid for herself and tried the experiments and healing methods herself. The first chapter shows that she had a well-equipped laboratory.

The book, which had a license to practice medicine from the Medical Faculty in Paris, is considered to be the first chemistry book written by a woman, apart from the ancient alchemist Maria the Jewess and Isabella Cortese . In her book Maria, she mentions the Jewess (after her sister of Moses) as the origin of the name Bain-Marie distillation, i.e. in a water bath. Other well-known chemistry books in France in the 17th century were by Jean Beguin (Tyrocinium chymicum 1610), Christophe Glaser ( Traité de la chymie , 1663), Nicolas Lefèvre (Chimie théorique et pratique 1660), Nicolas Lémery (1675, Cours de Chymie). Londa Schiebinger places Meurdrac in the context of the literature of medical cookbooks (medical cookery).

It may have been one of the inspirations for Molière's comedy Les femmes savantes (1672).

Fonts

  • La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames. Paris 1666 (author's name MM, no publisher's name), 2nd edition published in 1674 by Jean d'Houry.
    • New edition, mainly based on the first edition from 1666 in abridged form by Éditions du CNRS 1999 (publisher Jean Jacques with commentary).
    • German translation: The compassionate and easy chymy. Described in French to the laudable women's room for a special pleasure by the maiden Maria Meurdrac. With a little treatise on how to artificially prepare all kinds of fragrant things by Johann Muffatz. 2nd edition, Zunnerische Erben and Adam Jungs, Frankfurt 1712 (publisher Johann Lange; digitized version ).

literature

  • Marianne Offereins, Renate Strohmeier: Marie Meurdrac. In: Jan Apotheker, Livia Simon Sarkadi (Ed.): European Women in Chemistry. Wiley-VCH 2011
  • Lucia Tosi: Marie Meurdrac: Paracelsian chemist and feminist. Ambix, Volume 48, 2001, pp. 69-82.
  • Jean Flahaut: La chimie et les dames au XVIIe siècle: Marie Meurdrac, La Chymie charitable et facile, en faveur des Dames, Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie. Volume 88, 2000, pp. 299-301 (review of the new edition of the book by Marie Meurdrac in Editions du CNRS 1999; edited by Jean Jacques; online ).
  • Lloyd O. Bishop, Will DeLoach: Marie Meurdrac, first lady of chemistry? In: J. of Chemical Education. Volume 47, 1970, p. 448.
  • Moreau: Nouveaux Eclairissements sur les mémoires de Madame de la Guette. In: Bulletin de Bibliophile et du Bibliothecaire. J. Techener, Paris 1859, p. 248 ff. ( Archives ; with biographical information).
  • Sandy Feinstein: La Chymie for women: engaging chemistry's bodies. In: Early Modern Woman: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 2009, No. 4, 223.
  • Jette Anders : 33 alchemists. The hidden side of an ancient science. Past Publishing , Berlin 2016, ISBN 9783864082047 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Her younger sister, Madame de la Guette, was born in 1613
  2. ↑ Published in The Hague 1681, new edition 1856, 1929.
  3. ^ Marianne Offereins, Renate Strohmeier: Marie Meurdrac. In: Jan Apotheker, Livia Simon Sarkadi (Ed.): European Women in Chemistry. Wiley-VCH 2011, do not give exact dates of life.
  4. ^ The 1680 edition was published in Lyon, the 1711 edition by Laurent d'Houry.
  5. ↑ Of these 1673, 1676, 1689, 1712 and 1738 in Frankfurt, one from 1731 in Erfurt.
  6. ↑ Editions after the review of the new edition by Jean Flahaut, see literature, and Lucia Tosi: La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames de Marie Meurdrac, une chemiste du XVIIIe siecle . In: Compte Rendu Acad. Sci. Volume 2 Ser. 2, Paris 1999, pp. 531-534.
  7. ↑ Some copies are dated 1656, which is a misprint.
  8. ↑ According to Lucia Tosi, the book has some similarities with that of Meurdrac.
  9. ↑ Schiebinger The mind has no sex . Harvard University Press 1989, p. 112 f.
  10. ↑ He does not mention her as a chemist. The last documents in which Moreau (editor of her sister's memoirs) found her mentioned are from 1654. She is referred to as the wife of de Vibrac and in 1651 as the widow of Guillaume Brisset, which according to Moreau was probably the name of her husband's family estate.
personal data
SURNAME Meurdrac, Marie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French chemist
DATE OF BIRTH before 1613
PLACE OF BIRTH Mandres-les-Roses
DATE OF DEATH after 1666