title: Alchemy as studies of life and matter: reconsidering the place of vitalism in early modern chemistry.
abstract: Early modern alchemy studied both matter and life, much like today's life sciences. What material life is and how it comes about intrigued alchemists. Many found the answer by assuming a vital principle that served as the source and cause of life. Recent literature has presented important cases in which vitalist formulations incorporated corpuscular or mechanical elements that were characteristic of the New Science and other cases in which vitalist thinking influenced important figures of the Scientific Revolution. Not merely speculative, vitalist ideas also motivated chymical practice. The unity of life science and material science that is found in many formulations of Renaissance alchemy disintegrated in Georg Ernst Stahl's version of post-Cartesian vitalism.
authors.affiliation: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 130 Academia Road, Section 2, Nankang District, Taipei City, 11529, Taiwan. kchang@sinica.edu.te
authors.forename: Ku-ming
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000422:Alchemy; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000266:history / Q000639:trends*; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000639:trends*; D006666:History of Medicine; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008511:Medicine / Q000639:trends; D014799:Vitalism / Q000266:history*