ALLEN G. DEBUS

'Allen George Debus' (born August 16, 1926 in Chicago) is an American historian of science, known primarily for his work in the history of chemistry and alchemy. He attended the Evanston public school system, then “one of the best in the nation”. He showed an early interest in history and used the extensive resources of the city of Chicago. A great aunt passed on her legacy of an epoch of music to him in the form of a 1908 Victrola and a record collection up to 1923. Due to the topical material and dialect songs, he writes “studying this music gave me an opportunity early on to place past events in their historical context”. Here we see the root of the extensive (as opposed to internalistic) approach to history: developments should be compared across fields, a feature of the school of Alexandre Koyre, I. Bernard Cohen, Walter Pagel, and William McNiell, the latter three being teachers of Debus.

Contents

Higher education

Professor

Family

Books

Reference

Higher education

Allen G. Debus studied chemical engineering and history, graduating in summer 1947 from Northwestern University. He pursued his master’s degree at Indiana University where he had followed John T. Murray. In June 1949 he presented his master’s thesis “Robert Boyle and Chemistry in England 1660-1700”. Subsequently he worked towards a master’s in chemistry at the same institution. He went to work for Abbott Laboratories, a company for which he filed five patents. He writes that slow reaction times for some of his work provided reading time for broader investigations in history of science and chemistry literature. In fall 1956 he began his Ph.D. studies at Harvard under I. Bernard Cohen. His teaching assistant work was supervised by Leonard K. Nash. In a seminar with Wilber K. Jordan he presented a paper on the English followers of Paracelsus. In September 1959 he went to London, England to delve more deeply into the topic. There he met regularly with Walter Pagel and attended University College of London courses given by Douglas McKie. Returning to Harvard, he completed the requirements for a Harvard Ph.D. in history of science.

Professor

In 1961 he took up a position at the University of Chicago under William McNiell, one-third time as graduate instructor in history of science, two-thirds in undergraduate physical science coursework. In 1965 he was raised to Associate Professor on the strength of his book ''The English Paracelsians''. For the school-year 1966/7 he went on an overseas fellowship to Churchill College, Cambridge. Back at the University of Chicago, Debus describes attempts by the philosophy department to intrude on the history of science program in the history department. He stood strong in the period 1967-9 in this academic turf battle. Debus was instrumental in the development of the Morris Fishbein Center in that he served as director for two three-year terms. In 1978 he was elected to the academic chair at University of Chicago endowed by Morris Fishbein. Allen G. Debus developed a three-quarter sequence in history of science leading from ancient science to the beginning of the twentieth century. He was at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in 1972-3 doing chemical philosophy. In 1994 he was awarded the George Sarton Medal from the History of Science Society.

Family

Allen G. Debus notes that his academic career was an innovation in his familial lineage. His father formed the company “Modern Boxes”, a company for which Allen served as salesman for a time in 1950. Further, in 1955 his father’s estate funded his education at Harvard. Allen met Brunilda Lopez Rodriguez from Puerto Rico at Abbott Labs. They married in 1951, and studied Latin, French, and German together preparing for Debus’ push for the Ph.D. They have three children: Allen (1954), Richard (1957), and Karl (1961).

Books

★ ''The English Paracelsians (The Watts history of science library)'' (1966)

★ ''Who's Who in Science'' (1968)

★ ''The chemical dream of the Renaissance'' (1968)

★ ''Science and education in the seventeenth century: The Webster-Ward debate, (History of science library, primary sources)'' (1970)

★ ''The chemical philosophy: Paracelsian science and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries'' (1977)

★ ''Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy, 1550-1770: Studies in the History of Science and Medicine (Collected Studies Ser.; No. Cs249)'' (1987)

★ ''Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe'' (1988)

★ ''The Complete Entertainment Discography: From 1897-1942 (Roots of Jazz)' (1989) - co-authored by Brian A. L. Rust

★ ''Reading the Book of Nature: The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution (Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies)'' (1998) co-authored by Michael Thomson Walton

★ ''Chemistry and Medical Debate'' (2001)

★ ''The Chemical Philosophy'' (2002)

★ ''Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry'' (2004)

★ ''The Chemical Promise: Experiment And Mysticism in the Chemical Philosophy, 1550-1800 : Selected Essays of Allen G. Debus' (2006)

Reference

★ ''From Science to History: A Personal Intellectual Journey'' (in ''Experiencing Nature, Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of Allen G. Debus''), Paul H Theerman and Karen Hunger Parshall, editors, Kluwer Academic Publications (ISBN 0-7923-4477-4).