ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Regnault-Strecker Textbook of Chemistry (1850-1881)

• In Event: Dissent, Translation, and Appropriation in Chemical Textbooks, 1760-1881

English Abstract

In 1850, Victor Regnault published Premiers éléments de chimie as a short version of his earlier multi-volume textbook. Regnault’s approach in the Premiers elements was positivistic in tone, with a general introduction and descriptions of compounds expressed in chemical equivalents. Regnault relegated the atomic theory to the end of the book, and dismissed it as too speculative. Shortly after its publication, the German publisher Vieweg asked Adolf Strecker to translate Regnault’s text into German, and the translation was published in 1853. Most of Strecker’s text was faithful to Regnault’s text, but he added a more sympathetic account of atomism and a hundred-page summary of organic chemistry. Strecker’s translation was an immediate success, going through eight editions by 1871, and the short section on organic compounds became another full volume that also went through four editions. After Strecker’s unexpected death in 1871, Vieweg asked Johannes Wislicenus to revise the “Regnault-Strecker” textbook, as it was called. Wislicenus took up the challenge and published the next editions of both volumes, which would be the last. The composition and history of the Regnault-Strecker textbook exemplifies recent historical work on textbooks that shows they are not simply descriptions of “settled science” for students, but reflect national, theoretical and personal interests in organizing their subject.

Author

• Peter Ramberg, Truman State University