InInventing Chemistry, historian John C. Powers turns his attention to Herman Boerhaave (1668 1738), a Dutch medical and chemical professor whose work reached a wide, educated audience and became the template for chemical knowledge in the eighteenth century. The primary focus of this study is Boerhaave s educational philosophy, and Powers traces its development from Boerhaave s early days as a student in Leiden through his publication of the Elementa chemiaein 1732. Powers reveals how Boerhaave restructured and reinterpreted various practices from diverse chemical traditions...

In Inventing Chemistry, historian John C. Powers turns his attention to Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), a Dutch medical and chemical professor whose work reached a wide, educated audience and became the template for chemical knowledge in the eighteenth century. The primary focus of this study is Boerhaave's educational philosophy, and Powers traces its development from Boerhaave's early days as a student in Leiden through his publication of the Elementa chemiae in 1732. Powers reveals how Boerhaave restructured and reinterpreted various practices from diverse chemical traditions...