Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry
Authors: James O'Connor
Journal: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2003)

The very word alchemy has since the seventeenth century conjured images of prescientific occultism and the vain pursuit of metallurgic transmutation. In contrast, chemistry is regarded as a modern science, based on measurement, laboratory experiment and rationality, which emerged during the age of reason. In Alchemy Tried in the Fire Newman and Principe challenge the notion that the distinction between the two was so sharp by considering the interplay between the careers of the celebrated American 'alchemist' George Starkey and the physicist, chemist and natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Both authors have written extensively on the chemistry of Boyle and more recently on his less well-known contemporary, Starkey. This book represents a culmination of much of their research by focusing on Starkey, his relationship with Boyle and their laboratory work during the 1650s. A second volume of Starkey's laboratory notebooks and correspondence with Boyle is to follow.

The relationship between Starkey and Boyle and their respective disciplines is central to the book. Of particular interest is the way in which Boyle represented Starkey as old-fashioned and held chemistry as a philosophical tool quite separate from its alchemical roots. In addition in his later work, Boyle claimed as his own much of the scientific development from collaborative projects with Starkey.

Starkey came from America to England in 1650. Like other notable men of the time such as Richard Lower and Thomas Willis, he worked in the Commonwealth as both physician and chemist. Starkey had regular contact with Boyle between 1650 and 1654, and continued to influence him thereafter. From 1651 to 1658 he kept three detailed notebooks and five partial transcripts detailing a broad range of laboratory projects which, along with his personal correspondence, form the basis of the authors' argument. The book demonstrates clearly how Boyle's chemistry changed from occasional references in otherwise theological treatises to a much more experimental practice, following his contact with Starkey. Indeed, Newman and Principe argue that Starkey appears to have tutored Boyle, and demonstrate how some of Boyle's early work mirrors previous projects and conclusions found in Starkey's notebooks.

The book cites the contribution of medieval alchemists such as Paracelsus and Jan van Helmont in the development of chemistry, providing evidence that the alchemy of Starkey followed a long tradition of measurement, description and experiment. This point, often forgotten in subsequent popular accounts, is of interest but forms an unnecessarily long section in the first part. In contrast, there is a lack of biographical detail on Starkey before his work in England, and the unfamiliar reader is left unsure of why Starkey emigrated and to what extent he represented scientific practice in America.

The analysis of Starkey's notebooks reveals a synthesis of the scholastic methodology learnt at Harvard and the experimental philosophy of the laboratory. Newman and Principe provide an elegant account of how Starkey complemented theory and practice, building on the tradition of van Helmont while working on projects of his own. This section of the book particularly reveals the detail and logic employed by Starkey as a unique example of laboratory practice in the alchemy of this period. Although the amount of detail can at times be heavy for the nonspecialist, the authors provide compelling evidence for their case and succeed in presenting a balanced and informative evaluation of alchemy and its basis in the science of the midseventeenth century.