Joseph Macquer - Dictionnaire de Chymie - 1778

Dictionary of Chymistry, containing the Theory and Practice of this Science, its Application to Physics, Natural History, Medicine, & to the Arts dependent on Chymistry. Second Edition, revised and considerably enlarged. 4 volumes.

By Peter Joseph Macquer

Paris, Fr. Didot, 1778

19x13 cm, four handsome volumes bound uniformly at the period in full speckled calf

XXXVII, (3), 568 p. + (4), 208, 207-302, 305-655, (1) p. + (4), 520, (1) [errata] p. + (4), 333, (1), 335-336, (1), 336-776 p.

Complete with the faux-titres for volumes I to III (not provided for volume IV). It is the true second edition — and the fifth issue — of Macquer's foundational work, "which one can regard as the first scientific work of this kind" (Ferguson I, p. 60). "Although indicated as \"second edition\" on every title page, it is in reality the fifth printing of the *Dictionary* in the French language. It is the genuine second edition as written by Macquer, whose name now appears on the title page and whose reputation had greatly increased. A notable addition is the 168-page article on gases, a subject then almost entirely new, absent from the first edition. If the number of articles remains substantially the same, the work is nearly twice as large, thanks to the inclusion of an updated survey of chemistry and numerous unpublished contents" (Neville, vol. 2, p. 113). "By far the most important of Macquer's works: if technical dictionaries existed before, this is the first dictionary of theory and general chemistry"; its success quickly inspired many imitators (Duveen).