Passionate polymath

Historian Jan Golinski's new study of Davy, The Experimental Self, is not a conventional biography. Instead, Golinski takes strong autobiographical hints from Davy's notebooks and uses them to construct six, chronologically overlapping, chapters about Davy's identity--"The Enthus...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Lancet (British edition) Vol. 387; no. 10037; p. 2497
Main Author:	Robinson, Andrew
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London Elsevier Ltd 18-06-2016 Elsevier Limited
Subjects:	Biographies Careers Chemists Davy, Humphry (1778-1829) Internal Medicine Nitrous oxide
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Historian Jan Golinski's new study of Davy, The Experimental Self, is not a conventional biography. Instead, Golinski takes strong autobiographical hints from Davy's notebooks and uses them to construct six, chronologically overlapping, chapters about Davy's identity--"The Enthusiast", "The Genius", "The Dandy", "The Discoverer", "The Philosopher", and "The Traveller"-- that "each emerged to prominence during a certain phase of his career". Thus, nitrous oxide appears in "The Enthusiast", and also in "The Genius" and "The Philosopher".
ISSN:	0140-6736 1474-547X
DOI:	10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30801-7