1823. Large 4to, pp. xlvii, [i] blank, 80; with 112 engraved plates showing 360 diagrams; title-page and final leaf quite heavily browned and dust-soiled, the whole work somewhat browned due to poor paper quality though plates generally clean and bright, with some sporadic marginal dampstaining affecting upper margins, small paper flaw on p. 50 but with no significant loss, pp. 57-76 unopened, with a number of small marginal nicks and tears throughout due to rough opening, a couple with discrete repairs; with contemporary gift inscription on inside front wrapper; uncut and partially unopened, in the original wrappers, spine expertly and sympathetically repaired, covers a little darkened and soiled, overall somewhat dog-eared but still good; housed within a modern grey solander box with printed white label on spine. Uncommon first edition of this striking and wonderful example of infographics - an illustrated introduction to chemistry employing a series of 112 flow diagrams to explain chemical reactions, and described by Duveen as a 'remarkable and curious production’.
Decremps believed that the use of diagrams to illustrate chemical processes would serve as an instructive introduction to the subject. Chemical reactions are depicted as currents, or ‘conceptual streams of chemicals’ (Greenburg, p. 484), how they split into constituent elements, and then the subsequent reactions. As a contemporary reviewer commented ‘Each of them represents an often very complicated chemical operations; agents, products of operation, theory of phenomena, play of attractions, everything is put into action. Each elementary body is represented by a strip whose line spacing is filled either by points or by horizontal, oblique or vertical hatching, a difference essential to avoid confusion; these strips intertwined in various ways have a direction determined by the role played in the operation by the element they represent. Their ends rise if the element must free itself, they lower on the contrary if the element must rush. Using these figures the author represents even the atoms invented by Dalton [plate 16] to give an idea of the composition of bodies. It assigns a form to these atoms, it groups them, it supposes them grouped in a solvent without action on them, and it indicates the change which must take place if there arises an atom of another body endowed with an affinity superior, by virtue of which it replaces the atom it has displaced’ (online translation of Ferussac, Bulletin Général et Universel, I. p. 33). Many experiments are described and illustrated and the apparatus depicted. The explanatory notes are classified into groups: affinity and attraction, caloric, gaseous compound bodies and simple solid non-metallic bodies, salifiable bases, acids and salts, metals, organic plant or animal materials. To aid accessibility and universality further, Decremps provides the nomenclature in French, English, Latin, Italian, German and Spanish, with a vocabulary containing the etymology and definition of technical words.
Decremps (1746-1829) appears to have been a somewhat flamboyant character. Originally intending to pursue a career in the church, he turned instead to business and mathematics, and spent several years as a diplomat at the French Embassy in England. A staunch republican, his fervent views eventually led to his expulsion, and on his return to Paris he became a prominent ‘Sans-Culottes’, writing various educational texts. He is perhaps best remembered for his work ‘La Magie blance dévoilée’ (1784) and wrote a number of further works relating to magic and charlatans. This was his final work, written three years before his death in 1826.