Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment

CRASSH, University of Cambridge
*Registration now open*
22-24 September 2011
Venue: Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

Alchemists pursued many goals, from the transmutation of metals to the
preservation of health and life. These pursuits were continually informed
and modified by medical knowledge, while alchemical debates about nature,
generation, and the achievability of perfection in turn impacted on
medicine and natural philosophy. This three-day international conference
will investigate these interactions, from alchemy's development in late
antiquity to its decline throughout the eighteenth century. It will ask how
alchemical and medical ideas changed over time, how they reflected the
experience of individual readers and practitioners, and the extent to which
they responded to significant currents in intellectual, political,
religious, and social life.

Keynote lecture: *Bruce T. Moran* (University of Nevada at Reno)

Panel themes include: Elixirs and the prolongation of life; Medicine,
alchemy and patronage; The eighteenth-century transmutation of chemical
medicine; Books, recipes and secrets; Medical practitioners as alchemists;
Shared materials, practices and technologies; The transmission of
alchemical and medical knowledge; Histories of alchemy and medicine.

Speakers include:

¢ Chiara Crisciani (Università degli Studi di Pavia)
¢ Andrew Cunningham (University of Cambridge)
¢ Hiro Hirai (Radboud University Nijmegen)
¢ Didier Kahn (CNRS, Paris)
¢ William R. Newman (Indiana University, Bloomington)
¢ Michela Pereira (Università di Siena)
¢ Lawrence M. Principe (Johns Hopkins University)
¢ Nancy Siraisi (City University of New York)
¢ Emma Spary (University of Cambridge)

Programme and online registration at:
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1408/

Organised by Jennifer Rampling, Peter M. Jones and Lauren Kassell
(Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge). Sponsored by
the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
(CRASSH), the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), the
Chemical Heritage Foundation, the Wellcome Trust 'Generation to
Reproduction' Strategic Award, and the Society for Renaissance Studies.

For further details, please contact Jennifer Rampling at jmr82@cam.ac.uk