Derek A. Davenport Purdue university West Lafayette, Indiana 47907
I
I
There was nothing of the ivory tower about Thomas Cooper as he rose to deliver his Introductory Lecture as Professor of Chemistry at Carlisle (Dickinson) College, Pennsylvania on 16 August, 1811. He was already 52 years old and not for nothing has a recent commentator called him "The Nation's First Civil Disobedient." Born in London to well-to-do parents, he was educated a t University College, Oxford hut did not matriculate. nrobablv because of his heterodox relipious views. Later he &ad law and became a barrister but he practiced little a t this time. However an idiosyncratic respect for the law (improper though he sometimes thought it to he) was to remain throughout his tumultuous life and was to culminate in his old age in his magisterial compilation of the Statutesat-Large of South Carolina. In 1785 he was elected a member of the liberal Manchester Literary and Philosophical Association which was to have as its secretarv a few vears later a more iamous bur murh less abraiwe dissenter. .john Dalton. Cooper was to resign from the Association in 1791 when i13 officers refused to tender support todaseph I'riestley on the loss of his house, lahorarory, and library in the infamous Rirmineham Church.and-Kine riots on the ocrasion of the third agniversary of the fall of;he Bastille. In Manchester Cooner became a nartner in a dve works and later he was to claim'that he introduced the ~ e i t h o l l echlot rine process to England. He replaced manganese dioxide by red lead in the oxidation of a mixture of sodium chloride and sulfuric acid. claimine that the lead could be recovered and recycled. The business prospered for several years hut later failed in the depression of 1793. Meanwhile cboper had become active in the field of radical politics. In 1792 he accompanied the son of James Watt to Paris where he was directed to present the fraternal greetings of the Jacobin partisans of Manchester to the revolutionary authorities there. Whether Cooper called Robespierre "un coquin" and challenged him to a duel is moot but the meeting was less than a success on both sides and he beat a hasty retreat to London with his revolutionary fires unbanked hut his Francophilia decidely dampened. On his return he found himself the subject of one of Edmund Burke's grandiloquent denunciations in the House of Commons. The one-time liberal author of the pro-American "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents" had two vears earlier written the more considered "Reflections on t h e evolution in France." This in turn prompted Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" of which Cooper immediately published an abridgement. Cooper's "Reply to Mr. Burke's Invective" is a model of its ill-tempered kind. Denouncing Burkisms as "assertions without proof and invective without argument'' and Burke's recent writings as "discourses of political Mysticism" he asked "his friends, if he has any, [to] blush for him!' He made great play on Burke's rather maudlin sympathy for French royalty and his unfortunate dismissal of the common man as "the Swinish Multitude"
-
Who entertains no Sentiments of Compassion, but for the rich and the great, the Kings, and the nobles of the earth! Who can contemplate without emotion the prospect of Bloodshed and Devastation among Millions of the devoted Victims of Pride and Despotism, and who bewails with feminine Lamentation, the loss of a nickname or a Gewgaw, the broken play-things of a puerile Nobility! Who seems to regard the people as fit only for the Goad, and the Whip, and the Spur; for Labour without Intermission, in Peace;
Reason and Relevance The 18 11- 13 Lectures of Professor Thomas Cooper
Thomas Cooper (1759-1840). From a silhouene made from life at Columbia, S.C.. May 2. 1839. by William H. Brown.
for slaughter without Commiseratmn, in Wnr-And who, blas. pheming against human nature itself, impiously terms the peat Massuf Mankind. the Suimch Multrrude'
Even when he agrees with Burke the words still bite It is with doubt and hesitation that I can bring myself at any time to coincide with Mr. Burke's opinions,aware,as I am, of his habitual
obliquity of thinking, and knowing his perpetual tendency ta dress up Error in the meretricious garb of eloquent declamation, and impose her upon the world for Truth. Burke did not deign to acknowledge the attack. Cooper was doubtless liable under the Sedition Laws hut the amiable Attorney General merely observed Continue if you please to publish your reply to Mr. Burke in an octauo form;. ..so soon as it is published cheaply for dissemination among the populace, it will he my duty to prosecute. He was not to prove so fortunate under the Aliens and Sedition Laws of John Adams eight years later. In his Reply to Mr. Burke, Cooper spoke glowingly of life in the fledgling United States and in 1793hepaid, in company with two of Joseph Priestley's sons, an extended visit. On his return he wrote "Some Information Concerning America" an early example of what was to become in the hands of de Tocqueville, Charles Dickens, Mrs. Trollope, and others a distinct literary genre. By the winter of 1794 three generations of Priestleys and Thomas Cooper and his family were living in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. The elder Priestley was in all things save devoutness Cooper's mentor. Together they were drawn into the Federalist/Jeffersonian battles of the late 1790's and in 1800 Thomas Cooper was brought to trial under the Sedition Laws, an action connived in by John Adams, instigated by Timothy Pickering, and prosecuted with unfailing bias by Judge Chase. Arguing that "actions only, not opinions, are the proper origins of civil jurisprudence," Cooper conducted his own defense and in a move which has had recent echoes he tried to subpoena President Adams, Secretary of State Pickering, and an otherwise obscure Congressman, John Volume 53, Number 7. July 1976 / 419
Arguing that, "actions only, not opinions," are the proper origins o f civil jurisprudence, he conducted his own defense and tried to subpoena President Adams.
are, as he says, no doubt again eveina . . President Atwater. Yndependenc of any ~heol&icalquestions wbich may bd connected with them, and with which in these lectures. I have nothing to do." He moves on to Greek, Roman, and Egyptian chemistry, commending a book by Reaumur wirh the disarming qualification that it "would have been more useful, had he omitted a disquisition by no means calculated to introduce his volume into the domestic library." He moves easily from the recent sighting of a6'saltmountain near the Arkansas" river bv Captain Zebulon llonteomerv Pike to the Vedas and upanishad; in the translationLfrom the Sanskrit by Sir William Jones. Indeed he must have been one of the first Western writers to acknowledge the depth and antiquity of Hindu civilization. He admires the Chinese thoueh he does ~ ~ not "think the conjecture of DeGuignes so improcable, that the Chinese might have been an Egyptian colony."From the time of Albertus Magnus on Cooper's history does not differ strikingly from a modem work such as Partington's "A Short History of Chemistry" though one doubts that the latter would have included the delectable Dassaee from Rabelais on secret inks and hidden writing. ~erh;ipsinj jam in Thomson learned from the same source. The most recent history he had directly from many of the participants, particularly of course, from Priestlev. Not unnaturally he was partialto the latter's contributiok but hii overall account is fair. He admits Scheele as a co-discoverer of oxygen and though he condemns Lavoisier (wirh some justice, for "disgracefully" claiming the discoverv for himself he can continue~
~
~
Davenport. He was convicted, fined $400, and sentenced to six months in jail. Instantly he became a ~ e ~ u b l i c martyr an and his long continued correspondence with Jefferson began. On his release from jail he iharacteristica~l~ attempted to bring about the prosecution of none other than Alexander Hamilton for his undoubtedly seditious libels on President Adams. Hamilton had accused Adams of possessing "the unfortunate foibles of a vanitv without bound" and deolored "the disgusting egotism, thldistempered jealousy a i d the ungovernable indiscretion of Mr. Adams' temper." Cooper's far from naive belief was that the Sedition Law should apply to Federalists and Republicans alike The experiment I wished to make was worth making. I thought Gen. Hamilton was an obiect worthv of the exoeriment. I was mistaken: nu man has the character wfficient for the purpose, who from ig. noranee or irritation, from pride or peevishness, can put off the character of a gentleman. With this conclusion Adams would for once have concurred. On the inauguration of President Jefferson, Thomas Cooper made a rapid transition from jail to judge. As a member of the Luzerne Claims Commission he helped arbitrate the ConnecticutPennsylvania border dispute and later became President Judee of the Third District of the State of Pennsylvania. Between sessions, he practiced medicine, accepting no fee, and intermittently worked a t chemistry in Priestley's laboratory in Northumberland. He was known as a stern, traditional. and scru~ulousiudee. Indeed he was o e r h a ~too s scrupulous; refusing t% admg the judiciary as a sui&ble vehicle for political iobberv. Partlv as a conseauence he was impeaEbed and; though few df the charges against him were sustained (one of which was pertained to a Quaker plaintiff who refused to remove his hat in Cooper's court); he was dismissed from the bench on the grounds that he had been .'arbitrary, unjust and precipitate;contrary to sound policy and dangerous to the pure administration of.iustice." On the recommkdation of Benjamin Rush he was immediately appointed Professor of Chemistry a t Dickinson College, much to the consternation of its prissily Presbyterian President, Jeremiah Atwater. This then was the background of the man addressing his first academic audience in the main hall of Latrobe's recently completed West College building in Carlisle. When it was published the following Spring the Introductory Lecture occupied exactly 100 pages followed by a further 130 of notes and commentary. Trained as they were on lengthy sermons rather than the interval between station breaks Coover's audience must none-the-less have uttered a silent groan of approval when, on page 89, be commented: "Enough for the present (I hope not too much) of the history of chemistry." Cooper opens, no doubt with his eye firmly fixed on Jeremiah Atwater, with a few verbal genuflexions to conventional religious wisdom. Then, observing that "I am unacquainted with a tolerable History of Chemistry in the English Language" he promptly sets about remedying the deficiency. The result is an astounding tour de force. He turns first to the Bible and the numerous chemical references found therein. His elucidations
-
420 / Journal of Chemical Education
Truth has obliged me to remark that Lavoisier's claim to s participation of the discovery of oxygen does not rest on a foundation honourable to himself. When Dr. Priestley exhibited it at Paris, in October 1774 to Mr. Lavoisier, Le Roy, Macquer, Trudaine and others, Lavoisier was as much surprised as the rest. But notwithstanding this unfounded claim, he cannot be deprived of the honour of that most ingenious train of reasoning, and that accuracy of experiment, which first of all ascertained the true nature of calcination and combustion.. .which raised the French theories trium~hant over the prostrate doetr~neofphlog~ston-anduhrch has made the French nomenclature, the u n w e d language of the Cheml~aluorld In spite of the observation that "we want in this new land, chemists. miners. and oractical mineroloeists. more than u . chrystallognosts" Cooper could not resist an eight-page digression into "chrvstalloenosticism." He amolified these remarks in the iYot& wbich are always interesiing, frequently original, and ofren idios\ncratic. The "Content of the Notes" . must be quoted in extenso in order to give an indication of the ~
". ..we want in this new land chemists, miners and practical minerologists, more than crystallognosts."
polymathic range of Cooper's learning and pseudo-learning. 1) Hieroglyphic and alphabetic writing. 2) Hindooastronomy and chronology. 3) Effect of chemical and mechanical science in augmenting the disposable force of a country, instanced in Great Britain. Turnpike roads and Rail roads. 4) Reasons for adopting the Septuagint version. 5) Tuba1 Cain Vulcan? Scriptural Metallurgy. 6) Wine as noticed in Scripture. 7) Embalming. Mummies. 8) Oil and Resins, among the Egyptians and Jews. 9) Pitch Tar and Bitumen noticed in the old Testament. 10) Rosin. Burgundy Pitch. 11) Gems. Engraving among the Jews. 12) Dying. 13) Gilding and plating. 14) Golden Calf. 15) Butter and Milk. 16) Bread making. 17) Grist Mills. 18) Vinegar. 19) & 20) Settlement of Egypt. 21) Ancient
-
~
-
knowledge of Glass. 22) Egyptians and Hindoos compared. 23) Beer. 24) Oil. 25) Pitch and Tar. 26) Egyptian Linen manufactory. Transparent drapery. 27) Common Salt. 28) Natron. Sal ammoniac. Alum. 29) Ancient method of separating Gold from the Ore. 30) Serpents of Gold. 31) Papyrus. Books of the ancients. 32) Aristotle. 33) The shield of Achilles. 34) Nepenth. Kaif. 35) Sugar. Saccarin. 36) Greek engraving. 37) Filtration. Calcination. Distillation. 38) Greek Fire. 39) Dying in Homer's time. 40) The Tea urn borrowed from the Romans. 41) Substances used in medicine. Pottery. Portland Vase. Mosaic work. 42) Gunpowder. 43) The Chinese of Hindoo origin. 44) The Egyptians, blacks. 45) Gunpowder known to the ancients? to the Hindoos and Chinese. 46) Scholastic Metaphysics. 47) State of the Iron Founderies in &eat Britain in 1806.48) French acknowledeemenr of Dr. Priestlev's discovery of oxygen. Remarks o n ~ i n e r a l o g i c a~l o m e n e l a t u r e and Classification. As an advocate of the sheer practicality of chemistry Cooper can scarcely be bettered ~~~
~~
~~
~~
~~
~
Every person is apt to overvalue the importance of the pursuit in which he feels himself particularly interested. Yet I think it can be shewn. without much difficultv. ,. that chemistrv is of more immediate and useful application to the every day concerns of life-that it operates more upon our hourly comforts, than any other branch of knowledge whatever ~
~
Of the manufactures whichcontribute to the comfort or the ornament of society, I do not know one that does not for the most part depend upon processes purely chemical: The analysis and smelting of ores: the manufactures of iron and steel: of comer .. and brass: and silver end pemer; the manufactures of leather, glaseend pottery; of soap and candles; of drugs and medicines; the bleaching, the dying, and the printing uf sdks, cottons, linens, and wolens: the printing of furniture paper; the composition of printer's ink as well as of common ink; the manufacture of parchment and of paper itself; the arts of silvering end gilding; of colour making; the manufactures of wine and vinegar; baking, brewing and distillery; even that most useful art, the art of Cookery, is very greatly indebted to chemistry: for independent of the late improvements of coating capper vessels with zinc, silver and platina, instead of tin; and iron vessels with white enamel; the whole art of cookery has undergone an economical revolution by the experiments of Proust, Rumford, and the scientific gentlemen who superintend the benevolent soup establishments of England. Cooper's thoughts often turned to food and he wrote widely on its preparation and social uses Can any patriotic measure be adopted that is not ushered in by a public banquet? Does not the tide of public virtue flow strong in proportion to the oceans of port the company pours down. It is true, the dinner is usually ushered in with a charity sermon by some dienified churchman. and voluntarv. .. with oresto.. bv. some noted urisnist, but the cont&nplation of what is iorome, the picture of the table in the rn~nd'seyefor an hour beforehand. isanexcellent sttmulus, not only to the appetite fur food, but the disposition for charity. In closing Cooper rises to an almost evangelical pitch only to end on an elegaic note In every sense of the word therefore as a practical, as well sr e philosophical marim. KYOWLEDGE IS PO\I'ER. Sot only that knowledge of human affairs and of the human character, which displays itself as well in the prudence of common life, as in the arrangement and combination to the best effect of the qualities and farces of political communities-hut that knowledge also, which subiects in the best nossible wav to the use and the dominion of man, all the powers and pwperties of inferior animals and the vact range of inanimate nature. That knowledge, which mulriplies a thcusand fold, thephysicalforteofa human being-which renders every hour of existence more desirable, by compelling every object around us, to contribute in some way or other, to our pleasure, to our profit, to our comfort, or to our convenience-which brings the mutual wants, and the mutual supplies of the inhabited world into immediate contact--and which multiplies not only human enjoy-
"Chemistry operates more upon our hourly comforts than any other branch of knowledge whatever."
ment, and alleviates human suffering, but multiplies also the human species; by providing more extensively, the means of constant employment,and comfortable subsistence. It is knowledge then, that must render us respectable and respected; for those only who possess it are so, whether as nations or individuals. To acquire it, we must cherish and extend the means of acquiring it. If not, we may vainly boast of the advantages we fancy we enjoy, but they willultimatelyfall to those who best know how to use them. May that day not arrive, when weshall be weighed in the balance and found wanting. Little is known of Cooper's lectures during the remainder of 1811 but starting with one on "Si1ex"given on December 30 of that year we have a detailed record of more than 100 given during 1812 and 1813. This record is contained in two surviving sets of students' lecture notes. The first set, by Samuel Alexander, is in the Cooper archivea of the Dickinson College Library. Samuel Alexander was clearly an exemplary student as hefits the future Carlisle lawyer andmember of the Dickinson College Board of Trustees. Over 90 lectures are thoroughly described and though the chronology is somewhat confused (about one half are undated) they enable a very vivid picture to be drawn of the style and the substance of Professor Cooper's lectures. The second surviving set of student notes is by James Beverley and they are kept among the Beverley papers in the Virginia Historical Association in Richmond. James Beverley, an obscure scion of a famous family, would appear to be an early example of the reluctant taker of a reauired course. His attendance was irreeular and his notes are fragmentary, mostly undated, and a t times on the verge of incoherence. It is eratifvine to learn that some a t least of the old standards suriive todai. If we look a t the headings of Cooper's lectures we find many-Sulphur, Nitric Acid, Alcohol, Silver, Cerium-which could serve equally today. Others-Silex, Barytes, OxyMuriatic Acid, Caloric, Gypsum-have somewhat archaic names masking familiar topics. Quite a few, however-Jelly, Caoutchouc, Scammony, Logwood, Birdlime, Jallop, Red Sanders, Blood, Brains, Bones-occur rather rarely, in spite of their undoubted "relevance" in contemporary general chemistry books. The treatment is very practical and betrays the interests of the man who had once managed the dyeing works in Manchester. It is faint praise to say that the students in Cooper's class were vastly better informed about the chemical industry of their day than an entering chemistry graduate student of 1976 is of today's much larger industry. After all most of our students believe chemicals are mined in pre-packaged one-pound bottles and their research directors are more familiar with price than with provenance. Cooper's knowledge of chemical manufacturing processes is encyclopedic and, to a large extent, clearly first-hand. A typical extract from Alexander's notes must suffice Gum, All gums are one & the same substance, says Mr. Cooper: Mr. Thom says not. It is distinguishable from gluten & albumen by its solubility in water. It is obtained from the bulb of the water lilly. Gum arabic is obtained from many trees along the coast of Africa principally on the Senegal river. It is used in calico printing, thus; the printer stands at one end of a long table on which the cloth is spread; beside him is a large tub filled with a solution of gum in water; a vessel, like a drum with one head, is inverted in it, filled with the solution; a boy smears the head of this vessel with the printing Volume 53. Number 7, July 1976 / 421
colour: the printer then dips his printing block into i r &applies ir to the surface of thestreachnd cluth. .Many subsritutes have heen tried, for the gum, but without complete success, as flower-paste thickened with plaster of psris etc. Gum tmg-acanth, or gum dragon, is used by shoemakers, but I know not for what purpose. The ehinesse use it with powdered steatite or asbestos, to make crucibles. Gum is an excellent article of food. Jelly, see Thom. 230. Ulmin, ihid. obtained from the black elm. It is of no use. Insulin see Thom. 231. "Thom" is Thomas Thomson's "A System of Chemistry." For much of his life Cooper had practiced medicine. His lectures are full of traditional medicines, folk remedies, and, a t times, pure quackery. Delightful passages abound Fmm the old-women's practice of layingpatients on a pillow stuffed with hops in order to make them sleep,Mr. Cooper conjectured that the haps might possess the properties of opium. He accordingly made some experiments to that effect, which proved entirely successful. The tincture of hops, he has found, to he the best, & cheapest, substitute for opium. It has aU the good, without the bad, effects of it, only that it is not quite so strong. The tincture is made, hy moistening the hops in alcohol, whiskey, brandy etc. putting them into a bae & bailine them: then saueeze out the iuice: take the rnme fresh ions. them as be- ~ ~ouantitvuof - ~ ~ . . &oisten.boil. . . & saueek . fore, & so proceed till you ean just hare the tincture in your mouth. Two teaspoon-fulls are equal to 100 drops of ladanum." %~~~~
.
Camphor. The wood of the plant is used in distillation. It is refined in PhiladD by Dr. Woodhouse &Dr. Sybert. The process isvery dangerous,& in the state of sublimation, it takes fire very easily & instantaneously even from a spark of fire. Dr. Hunter's (of Philadn) laboratorytaok fire this way. It is used, externally, as a medicine in cases of bruises, & sores; & sometimes for the rheumatism.. . Dissolved in whiskey or brandy, & rubed on the wrists & sprinkled on the hed, it is a preventative for bugs and fleas. [H pint alcohol, % pt. sp. of turpentine & 5 oz camphor, will kill them completely.] Aloes. This substance is obtained in Socotra & Aleppa. It is used more exwnaivdy m medicine than an" other resin. I t K n g
