2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

land adjacent to the botanic garden, and erected a small museum of natural
history. The foundation stone was laid in 1842. But the Franklins left Tasmania
in 1843, and by 1853 the museum fell into disrepair, its library and collections
dispersed, and the building became a storehouse for apples. Yet, for a short time,
Tasmania was the first country outside of the United Kingdom to boast a Royal
Society for the Advancement of Science, with a museum.
Margaret␣ D. Garber University of California, San Diego
HSS Abstracts
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Legislating Light in Post-Rudolfine Prague:
The Role of Light in the Alchymical Philosophies
of Marcus Marci von Kronland
According to the Imperial Physician Marcus Marci von Kronland (1595-1667),
citizens of Prague who fell ill in the 1660s faced twin dangers: either they
chanced Galenic physicians who purged them with poisons, or fell victim to
alchymical charlatans who purged their pockets with gusto. To remedy these
social maladies, Marci prescribed a true and useful alchymy, apparently
revivified through ancient theoretical foundations. However in assigning
legitimacy to his own chymical arts, Marci sought support closer to home; he
transmuted his arts into a rendering compatible with the locally plausible and
longstanding Habsburg interests in astrology. By grounding his cosmology in
the astrological/astronomical theories of Rudolfine court luminaries Johannes
Kepler and Tycho Brahe, Marci recast the role of light as the bearer of both
planetary influences and seminal forces. Moreover, he wove the works of these
Habsburg notables, with whom he was gainfully affiliated, into a thickly plaited
lineage that unraveled in some ancient, pre-Egyptian past. Marci’s Philosophia
Vetus Restituta (Ancient Philosophy Restored) attempted to systematize
nature’s alchymical agency. He ambitiously proposed semina-carrying light
as the explanatory mechanism for growth and transformation in metals, plants,
animals and humans, and one that initiated and provoked rays carrying
astrological influxes. Marci’s strategies of legitimating alchymical magic
suggest that he played the achievements of court astronomers, with whom he
was aligned rather loosely, against the skepticism of University scholars, with
whom he was employed. Simultaneously, Marci’s text invites the reception of
Keplerian astronomy into the dynamics of alchemical philosophies.
Sander␣ J. Gliboff Johns Hopkins University
The Case of Paul Kammerer
From 1904 through 1926, reports of remarkable morphological transformations
of frogs, toads, salamanders, and other animals issued from Paul Kammerer’s
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