“The Chemical Eschatology of a German Paracelsian‬‬”

Amadeo Murase (Seigakuin University)

This paper will shed light on the chemical eschatology of the German Paracelsian Paul Linck (fl. ca. 1600). He was a coeditor of the first complete edition of the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493/94–1541). As an assistant to the main editor Johannes Huser (ca. 1545–1600/01), Linck participated in his editorial activities to collect and edit Paracelsus’s voluminous texts, which were published in ten volumes in Basel from 1589 to 1591. For this edition, realized under the patronage of the Elector of Cologne, Ernest of Bavaria (1554–1612), Linck composed several poetical works dedicated to the Swiss physician. Focusing on his major work, "Rechter Bericht von den Dreyen Seculis" (1599/1602), I will throw light on Linck’s natural theology and its eschatological dimensions. Based on the Paracelsian matter theory of "tria prima", his ideas were elaborated in line with a religious dimension, which emerged among Paracelsians around 1600. I will thus locate Linck’s work and eschatology in a broader context of the Paracelsian movement of the early modern age.

“Or Does It Explode? Coal Dust in French and British Mining Doctrine”

John Murray (Rhodes College, Memphis Tenn.)

This essay considers the status of coal dust in European mining doctrine. From the early nineteenth century coal dust, along with methane, appeared to play a role in mine explosions. Up to 1882 research on coal dust in Britain and France proceeded in tandem, but in that year an article appeared in Annales des Mines that brought French consideration of coal dust to a halt. For a quarter century French researchers pursued questions of methane only, while British research continued on both methane and coal dust. In 1906, an explosion immediately attributed to coal dust killed over a thousand miners at Courrières. French mining authorities quickly redirected research towards coal dust. We consider the career of the ‘coal dust hypothesis’ or poussièrisme in both countries. The shifting status of this hypothesis illustrates questions of authority, national differences in scientific assessment, and the importance of scale in testing at the laboratory versus at the mine.