A System of Chemistry. by THOMSON, Thomas (1773-1852) - 1802

Edinburgh:: Printed for Bell and Bradfute . . . , 1802., 1802. 4 volumes. 8vo. xvi, 503, [1]; viii, 514, [2]; vii, [1], 528; vii, 570, [2] pp. Half-titles, 4 engraved plates, errata; scattered light foxing or spotting, though a well preserved copy. Contemporary half crimson calf, flat spines with gilt bands, blue paper sides, blue sprinkled edges. Bookplate of John Thomas Brooks. Very good, really a choice set. FIRST EDITION. "Thomson's System was the first extensive treatise on chemistry written in Great Britain," [Cole]. / "Thomson . . . studied chemistry under Joseph Black, who recommended that he later be appointed lecturer in chemistry at Glasgow University. Thomson became first Regius Professor there in 1818. Published when he was only twenty-eight, this work was written during the time when he was a private lecturer at Edinburgh University. It became is best known and most popular book." [Neville] "As the first systematic treatise of a non-elementary kind to break the French monopoly of such works, Thomson's System tried patriotically to do justice to the contributions made by British chemists to the new chemistry, which had been established in the late eighteenth century.' [DSB]. "The System of Thomson went through six editions, each revised, updated, and enlarged; and it remained a standard work for many years. A milestone treatise, which Partington describes as a 'famous textbook.' The first edition is scarce." [Neville]. / The 4-volume contents are too numerous to list, but the treatise (here I index vol. IV of the set) does handle the chemistry of the most prominent ores: gold, platinum, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, lead, nickel, zinc, antimony, bismuth, tellurium, arsenic, cobalt, manganese, tungsten, molybdenum, uranium, titanium, chromium. Of vegetable plants, he considers the chemistry of: sugar, gum, jelly, starch, albumen, extract, tan, acids, alkalies, oils, wax and tallow, resins, camphot, gluten, caoutchone, wood, suber, earths, metals. Of vegetable substances: bread, wine, beer, fermentation, putrefaction. Of animals: fibrin, albumen, gelatin, mucilage, urea, sugar, oils, resins, Sulphur & phosphorus, acids, alkalies, . . . bones, shells, muscles, tendons, ligaments, glands, skin, brain & nerves, nails, horns, hair, feathers, blood, milk, saliva, bile, biliary calculi, cerumen of the ear, tears and mucus, synovia, semen, liquor of the amnios, urine, etc. PROVENANCE: John Thomas Brooks (1794-1858), of Flitwick Manor, member of the 14th Light Dragoons. Brooks, " led the life of a country squire, managing his estates, raising a family, serving the county as High Sheriff and on the Ampthill Board of Guardians and socialising with his peer group in the county." See: Brooks, John Thomas, The diary of a Bedfordshire squire, (1987), edited by Richard Morgan -- Roger Gaskell [bookseller]. REFERENCES: Cole, 1279; Herbert S. Klickstein, "Thomas Thomson, pioneer historian of chemistry," Chymia I, (1948), 37-53, pp. 38-40; Roy G. Neville, II, p. 550; Partington, III, p. 719; Poggendorff, II, p. 1097. Not in Duveen, Edelstein, Roller & Goodman.