A Short History of Chemistry

Abstract

THE history of chemistry, like that of Ko-Ko, A “may rank with most romances”, and lends itself perhaps too easily to the picturesque rather than to the accurate style of narration. As Dr. Sarton has recently observed, however, “accuracy is as fundamental in the historical field as in the scientific one, and... has the same meaning in both fields” ; so that we may properly require an unswerving adherence to fact as the prime qualification of a historian of chemistry. The second qualification must be a first-hand acquaintance with as much as possible of the original literature and a critical familiarity with secondary authorities, while the third—of equal indispens-ability—is a sound knowledge of chemistry from the practical point of view. All these qualifications Prof. Partington possesses, happily backing them with a pleasant style and thus softening, without in the least obscuring, a precision of thought and an economy of words that might otherwise have appeared somewhat prim. That he has attained his expressed aim of being objective, impartial, and innocent of conventional platitudes, will be agreed by everyone who reads his present book, which affords a survey of chemistry from the earliest days to the first decades of the twentieth century.

A Short History of Chemistry

By Prof. J. R. Partington. Pp. xiv + 386. (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1937.) 7s. 6d.