2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

Andrea␣ I. Woody University of Washington
HSS Abstracts
Brodie’s “Calculus”: A Chemistry with No Future as Window onto the Past
Reporting on a 1867 lecture to the London Chemical Society, The Chemical
News declared Sir Benjamin Brodie’s—Calculus of Chemical Operations—
“the chemistry of the future”. The irony of the proclamation will be lost on no
one familiar with the fast demise of Brodie’s calculus. Though never adopted,
the system illustrates vividly several issues confronting the chemical sciences
in the late nineteenth century, including a self-conscious awareness that
decisions made at this point in time would be crucial in determining the
chemistry of the future. This talk explores certain interrelated aspects of
Brodie’s formalism, including 1) its explicit acknowledgment of the role of
representation in shaping an intellectual enterprise’s conceptual resources, 2)
the assumption that such conceptions radically constrain the future development
of the enterprise, 3) implicit articulation of the proper role of theory in chemical
practice, and 4) the relevance of this issue for both assessing (and interpreting)
atomic theory and understanding the value of abstract mathematical structure
within science. From a historiographic perspective, Brodie’s calculus is
intriguing precisely because it was designed to address particular problems
recognized by the chemical community yet was clearly infeasible in several
important respects. Discussion of the calculus consequently forced to the
surface metatheoretical and methodological assumptions which typically
remain implicit in the public discourse of the period. For this reason,
examination of Brodie’s calculus may provide a window onto a landscape of
self-conceptions—professional, social, epistemological, and methodological—
that typically remains hidden.
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Mary␣ K.␣ K. Yearl Yale University
The Time of Bloodletting
Four to ten times in a year, a mediaeval monk could request in chapter
permission to be bled. Upon receiving a “bleeding licence,” the monk would
change into his night shoes and proceed to the infirmary where the cutting of
a vein would be the start of a three-day event during which he was excused
from monastic services, ate food of a higher quality than usual, and sometimes
was even allowed to talk with the other minuti. At the end of the third day, the
monk had to return to the chapter-house and beg for forgiveness with his face
on the ground . . . implying that though medically necessary, the time of
bloodletting also involved some sin on the part of the participants. What were
the sins committed at the time of bloodletting such that minuti often had to do
penance upon their return to the community? Was it the possibility that they
had entertained impure thoughts? Was their sin that they had been excused
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