Brown Bag Lecture: “The Case of Syrup of Violets: Robert Boyle and the Recipe Archive”
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Date:
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March 13, 2012
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Time:
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12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
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Location:
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CHF
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106 |
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Open to the Public |
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Fee:
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Free
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A talk by Rebecca Laroche
Continuing the work of an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library from last year, this presentation places Robert Boyle’s experiment “Of turning the Blew of Violets into a Red by Acid Salts, and to a Green by Alcalizate and the use of it for Investigating the Nature of Salts” in the context of the extensive archive of women’s medical receipts. In the experiment Boyle used the common medicine “Syrup of Violets” and its chemical sensitivity of turning color when introduced to acids and bases in developing an early pH indicator. When viewed next to the hundreds of relevant medical receipts, we discover that Boyle’s experiment builds on knowledge collectively held by women and men, including Alathea Talbot and Hugh Plat, in the making of the medicine.
Rebecca Laroche is professor of English at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She has published articles on Shakespeare, early modern women’s writing, medical history, and ecofeminism. In 2009 her monograph Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts, 1550–1650 appeared in Ashgate’s series Literary and Scientific Cultures of the Early Modern World. Last year she was the guest-curator of the exhibition “Beyond Home Remedy: Women, Medicine, and Science” at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The volume Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity, which she coedited with Jennifer Munroe, came out with Palgrave Macmillan in November 2011. She is currently working on a monograph on the importance of collective plant knowledge in Shakespeare’s oeuvre.
About Brown Bag Lectures
Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly, informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.
For more information, please call 215.873.8289, or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.
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