Volume 2

Essays in historical chemistry / by T.E. Thorpe.

  • Thorpe, T. E. (Thomas Edward), 1845-1925.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays in historical chemistry / by T.E. Thorpe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to be influenced by the teaching of such far-sighted men as Mr. Edgeworth, had their curiosity stimulated and fed by occasional lectures on science. As regards the Universities, at Oxford there was Dr. Daubeny, a prolific writer on volcanoes, and on rural economy. At Cambridge there was Professor Cumming, who, so far as I know, has not enriched the literature of chemistry proper with a single con¬ tribution. At neither place was there anything in the nature of a laboratory which the student could attend. If the enterprising undergraduate desired to familiarise himself with the facts of chemistry by practical experiment, or to try and work out an idea which might have occurred to him, he had to pursue his inquiries in his own rooms, and with such apparatus as his means or his opportunities could command, to the imminent risk of his furniture, and to the dismay and disgust of his bedmaker. It was under such conditions that the late Sir John Herschel discovered the solvent action of what the photographer calls “ hypo,” and thereby made the photographic calling possible. In Scotland, Dr. Hope, whose name carries us back into the preceding century, still enjoyed at Edinburgh the fame as a lecturer which he shared with Davy at the Royal Institution, but no tuition in practical chemistry was ever thought of. Matters at Glasgow were a little better, and Thomas Thomson would occasionally extend a brusque hospitality to the student who aspired to learn the art and mystery of mineral analysis, but no systematic instruction was ever attempted. The youth with no knowledge of manipula¬ tive work, and with scarcely an acquaintance with the forms even of chemical apparatus, might be set at the