adapted to English and published by Springer in 2017 as The Chemical Works of
Carl Wilhelm Scheele. For a more thorough discussion of the scientific aspects of
Scheele’s work, the reader is referred to that book. The present book is based on
material from my Swedish biography of Scheele, combined with new material on
Bergman. Scrutinising every detail of Bergman’s and Scheele’s lives and research
could easily have taken decades and filled several volumes. Instead, I have tried to
keep the page numbers down in order to create a book that can be read rather used
as a reference volume only.
As a chemist, I have approached Bergman and Scheele in a different way than a
historian would have done. I have spent much more time in the laboratory repeating
crucial experiments than I have spent in archives. As a chemist, it is the published
results and their interpretation that is most interesting for me, and I assume, most
other chemists. The aim of this book is to explain the history of Bergman and
Scheele to scientists, but I also hope the book will be usefull for historians who
want to understand the science of Bergman and Scheele. No more than basic
chemical knowledge is required in order to understand the text, and no previous
knowledge of eighteenth-century chemistry or Swedish history is assumed.
In order to make the text understandable to a modern reader, modern chemical
nomenclature and terminology has been applied throughout the text. I clearly
remember my struggle when I first read a book on the history of chemistry and had
to try to figure out the meaning of terms such as “muriatic acid” from the context.
The reader must however keep in mind that terms such as oxidation were unknown
in the eighteenth century. The original works by Bergman and Scheele used a
mixture of old traditional Swedish (or German) and Latin nomenclature. To give the
reader a flavour of the nomenclature they used, I have often added the original Latin
names, or the closest possible English eighteenth-century equivalents of the
Swedish and German names, in parenthesis. Quotations have, as long as possible,
been taken from eighteenth-century translations, where such exist. Explanations of
terms and chemical names within quotations have been added in brackets [ ].
Although there are many excellent texts (see Appendix C) on many different
aspects of Bergman’s and Scheele’s lives and scientific contributions, most of the
literature has been available in Swedish and German only. It is my hope that I have
filled a gap in the literature by writing this book.
Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Andreas Furängen,
former CEO of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society for support and interesting
discussions, Prof. Em. Björn Lindeke and Bo Ohlson for their extensive knowledge
of pharmaceutical history, Prof. Seth Rasmussen for many valuable comments,
Dr. Petra Rönnholm for beautiful photos, and my wife for endless patience.
Göteborg, Sweden
Anders Lennartson
x
Preface
Carl Wilhelm Scheele. For a more thorough discussion of the scientific aspects of
Scheele’s work, the reader is referred to that book. The present book is based on
material from my Swedish biography of Scheele, combined with new material on
Bergman. Scrutinising every detail of Bergman’s and Scheele’s lives and research
could easily have taken decades and filled several volumes. Instead, I have tried to
keep the page numbers down in order to create a book that can be read rather used
as a reference volume only.
As a chemist, I have approached Bergman and Scheele in a different way than a
historian would have done. I have spent much more time in the laboratory repeating
crucial experiments than I have spent in archives. As a chemist, it is the published
results and their interpretation that is most interesting for me, and I assume, most
other chemists. The aim of this book is to explain the history of Bergman and
Scheele to scientists, but I also hope the book will be usefull for historians who
want to understand the science of Bergman and Scheele. No more than basic
chemical knowledge is required in order to understand the text, and no previous
knowledge of eighteenth-century chemistry or Swedish history is assumed.
In order to make the text understandable to a modern reader, modern chemical
nomenclature and terminology has been applied throughout the text. I clearly
remember my struggle when I first read a book on the history of chemistry and had
to try to figure out the meaning of terms such as “muriatic acid” from the context.
The reader must however keep in mind that terms such as oxidation were unknown
in the eighteenth century. The original works by Bergman and Scheele used a
mixture of old traditional Swedish (or German) and Latin nomenclature. To give the
reader a flavour of the nomenclature they used, I have often added the original Latin
names, or the closest possible English eighteenth-century equivalents of the
Swedish and German names, in parenthesis. Quotations have, as long as possible,
been taken from eighteenth-century translations, where such exist. Explanations of
terms and chemical names within quotations have been added in brackets [ ].
Although there are many excellent texts (see Appendix C) on many different
aspects of Bergman’s and Scheele’s lives and scientific contributions, most of the
literature has been available in Swedish and German only. It is my hope that I have
filled a gap in the literature by writing this book.
Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Andreas Furängen,
former CEO of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society for support and interesting
discussions, Prof. Em. Björn Lindeke and Bo Ohlson for their extensive knowledge
of pharmaceutical history, Prof. Seth Rasmussen for many valuable comments,
Dr. Petra Rönnholm for beautiful photos, and my wife for endless patience.
Göteborg, Sweden
Anders Lennartson
x
Preface