Alchemy and Hermeticism

Despite first appearances, the fascicle you hold in your hands is somewhat unusual. The respect for numerological symbolism and auspicious stellar constellations which editors of a journal dedicated to pre-modern science inevitably feel has persuaded us to offer you a special choice of articles. Should you think, however, that the presence of articles speaking of portentous matters such as monstrous births and magic stones are an indication of our millenarian fears or an homage to Dionysius Exiguus' wrong calculation of the year of Christ's birth, then you would be quite mistaken. It is much rather our own fifth anniversary that has led us to add some exotic fruits to our quarterly cornucopia.
In these times of shrinking institutional and library budgets, it has been no mean feat to conquer and maintain a safe niche for our new international journal and to build a steadily increasing and, it would seem, satisfied readership in no less than four continents.

Early Science and Medicine is a peer-reviewed international quarterly dedicated to the history of science, medicine and technology from the earliest times through to the end of the eighteenth century. The need to treat in a single journal all aspects of scientific activity and thought to the eighteenth century is due to two factors: to the continued importance of ancient sources throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period, and to the comparably low degree of specialization and the high degree of disciplinary interdependence characterizing the period before the professionalization of science.

The journal, which limits itself to the Western, Byzantine and Arabic traditions, is particularly interested in emphasizing these elements of continuity and interconnectedness, and it encourages their diachronic study from a variety of viewpoints, including commented text editions and monographic studies of historical figures and scientific questions or practices. Early Science and Medicine, which contains an extended book review section, has recently also begun to dedicate special feature sections to emerging historiographic fields and methods of research.