John H. Wolfenden Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire 03755
The Earliest Textbooks of Physical Chemistry in English
The bwinnines of physical chemistrv are probably more ill-defined and debatabie than those ofany ither branch of the subject. The view that it dtaned in Ostwald's laboratory in ~ e i i z around i~ 1887 and that its founders were ~ r r h e nius, Nemst, Ostwald, and van't Hoff is clearly an oversimplification. For example, the clarification of chemical constitution by a study of physical properties was firmly established well before the eighties. The circumstance that Ostwald was the second occupant of the Chair of Physical chemistrv a t L e i ~ z i eis itself a reminder that neither the theory of electroiyti& dissociation nor Volume 1 of the Zeitschrift fur ohvsikalische Chemie was the "onlie beeetter" of phy6icaic~emistry. At the same time no one can read the periodical literature before and after the middle eighties without recognizing the sharp build-up of research momentum during that period or without sensing a greater coherence and intercommunication in the various fields of research that we should now call "physical cbemistry."l After Ostwald and Nernst ~ .h-v s i c a lchemistrv was in little danger of an "identity crisis." Certain i t is that the newly invigorated subject was introduced into the United States and the United Kingdom by men who had spent some time in the Leipzig labor&ry. Some of the better known missionaries (arranged chronologically with the approximate dates of their stays in Leipzig) were A. A. Noyes (1888-go), W. D. Bancroft (1890-92), H. C. Jones (1892-94), C. S . Palmer (1892-93), T. W. Richards (1895), G. N. Lewis (1900-01) from the U.S.A. and J. Walker (1888-89), F. G. Donnan (1894-961, A. Findlay (1898-1900) from the United Kingdom. Curiously enough, German students tended to be in a minority in Ostwald's lahoratory probably because of the competing attractions of the immensely vigorous contemporary German school of organic chemistry; as Donnan remarked, "the sovereign lords of organic chemistry had little taste for the new wine."= I t occurred to the writer that a listing of the earliest textbooks.of physical chemistry in English might be of interest to a number of teachers as well as serving to identify some relatively rare volumes that may be lurking unsuspected in obemical laboratories. The information in Table 1 below is probably incomplete; it is hoped that it is not misleading and that i t may encourage others to examine more profoundly the youth of physico-chemical education. In Table 2 the time span is extended a little further by recording the dates of publication of the first editions of a few of the more successful physical chemistry texts written in English that appeared in the twenty years following the latest text in Table 1.
Table 1. Early Physical Chemistry Texts Year of Fuhlication 1877
1raRemren
1884
M. M. Pattison Muir
188s
LotharMeyer
1890
WilhrlmOstwid
1892
Lofhsr Msyer
1895
Walter Nemst
,'The Prineipies of Theoretied Chemlaw'.ATreafbeanfhe General Principles of Chemistn'" "Modern Thwriesoi Chemistry"' "Outlines of General Chcmistn"~ "Outlines ofTheoreticaiChemi3fry"'
1897
CiarmceL. S p y e n
1899
J a m n Walker
1899
J.H. vsn't HaK
Publisher and city
mie
ea tho^
kaBr0th.m. Philadelphia CsmbridgeUniue~ sityfiesa. Cembridge Longman Green. London and New York Macmillan, London and NcwYork Longman Green. London and New York Macmillan. London end New York van Natrsnd. New York Macmillan, London end New Y a k Arnold, London
Arnold, London Wile!,. New York and Chapman Hall. London Maemillan. New Vork
OThs. lrnk h) d n almost forgotten Camhridvcdon .r a clearhcsded sun- nl ihcstau of ph,. r.ii,,Pm,.try ,ur, '1,lllr" l*.pr,p' Trp.p,",II!hc hn k ..
