The Mixed Blessings of Pragmatism. Jean-Baptiste Dumas and the (Al)chemical Quest for Metallic Transmutation

• Published in: Substantia (Firenze) Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 121 - 136
• Main Author: Anatrini, Leonardo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Firenze University Press 03.07.2023
• Subjects: Ammonium; Cyprien-Théodore Tiffereau; Jean-Baptiste Dumas; Jöns Jacob Berzelius; Transmutation
• DOI: 10.36253/Substantia-2169
• ISSN: 2532-3997

There were at least three prerequisites for the transmutability of metals to become once again a scientifically acceptable subject of research from the 1810s: new hypotheses concerning the mutual reducibility of certain elements, such as those of integer multiples and protyle put forward by the British chemist and physician William Prout; the experimental confirmation that chemical compounds with the same percentage composition could be substances with very different properties, i.e. the discovery of isomerism and allotropy; the comparison between metals and compound radicals of organic chemistry. This paper aims at illustrating how these premises were exploited by Jean-Baptiste Dumas, one of the leading French chemists of the 19th century, to reintroduce in the chemical discourse the alchemical topic of transmutation.