Medical Advance, Public Health and Social Evolution

ground of his life (over 250 names of his contemporaries appear in the text), Gibbs also provides a valuable document of the eighteenth century scene and, at the same time, produces an excellent companion volume to R. E. Schofields' The Lunar Society ofBirmingham (1963). That science never for long took first place in Priestley's life is correctly stressed. Full justice is done, for instance, to his important role as an educationist and as an outspoken Dissenter who aroused the anger of the Establishment. It was, of course, Priestley's religious and political activities that led to his emigration to America during 1794. It was a strange trick of fate that while he was at sea the other leading figure of eighteenth-century chemistry, Lavoisier, was guillotined (8 May). Much of the book is naturally concerned with Priestley's celebrated work on gases although his importance to the history of electricity is adequately detailed. Many of Priestley's experiments on air and on individual gases are described using his own nomenclature but, despite the numerous complex terms, clarity is always maintained. One of the most important features of the book is that it reveals why Priestley, in spite of his continuous allegiance to the phlogiston theory, was such a tremendous influence on chemistry by stimulating others to experiment, and, in the cases of Henry and Dalton for instance, to develop theoretical ideas. Many of Priestley's activities are of direct interest to the medical and pharmaceutical historian. For example, his part in the introduction of electrical machines into medicine; his apparatus for the production of soda water (initially considered to be a cure for scurvy); his views on the possible medicinal value of oxygen and his influence on the therapeutic use of gases (notably Beddoes' celebrated Pneumatic Institution at Bristol); his activities behind the introduction of wedgwood mortars; and his associations with Benjamin Rush. Unfortunately many detailed aspects of Priestley's work have not been elaborated or mentioned, but this is obviously because the book had to stay within the size and scope of the series for which it was written. For the same reason Gibbs has not been able to give complete documentation or to explore many of the questions he raises in the reader's mind, such as the influence of Priestley's scientific activities on his religious outlook. Unhappily, Dr. Gibbs' premature death, earlier this year, means that he can never undertake the definitive biography, the absence ofwhich he regretted. Nevertheless, the present strongly recommended work remains a permanent reminder of Dr. Gibbs' many contributions to scholarship in the history of science. J. K. CRELLIN