This article examines how Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) reconciles Aristotelian hylomorphism with iatrochemical insights through the ontological relation between generation and disease. It focuses on the diseases Sennert models on generation, those carried by semina morborum, rather than the ordinary disorders of humoral intemperance. First, it identifies the ontological architecture grounding the inversion between generation and pathology: Sennert's rejection of the eduction of forms, his plurality of substantial forms organised through the essential/accidental distinction, and his corpuscular framework. Second, it traces how Sennert selectively appropriates Severinus's transplantatio (the transfer of seminal principles between substrates) and transforms his formula of opportunitas (the condition under which a seed may take root). Reproducing it almost verbatim, Sennert shifts its modality, strips its Paracelsian metaphysics and regrounds the enabling condition of disease in the failure of the balsamum innatum, an inborn restorative power. Third, it follows the inversion into Sennert's corpuscular account of contagion and into three clinical cases (rabies, epilepsy, and syphilis) that trace a hierarchy of seminal causation. Although Sennert withholds the term transplantatio from his pathology, the mechanism persists without formative power: insertion without formation, rooting without propagation, affinity without perfection.
This article examines DuPont's convoluted history of the dye business in China from 1921-1951 with an emphasis on synthetic dye as a commodity and a chemical substance. Drawing on the company's archival documents stored at the Hagley Museum & Library, the article charts the expansion of DuPont's business in China from sales and marketing to the inclusion of research and manufacturing. The development was driven by DuPont's effort to provide tailored dyes for the Chinese market and was intertwined with major political events both in China and globally. Building on recent studies in the history of chemistry on the relevance of senses to the making of chemical knowledge, the article demonstrates how DuPont geared its laboratory work towards delivering the precise shades and visual experiences that the sensitive Chinese consumers desired. New knowledge emerged from this process, which engaged various social groups from both sides of the Pacific, ranging from foreign managers to Chinese chemists and assistants, sales agents, and warehouse workers. Although DuPont entered China as a sales company, this article argues that its business of colour spurred the production and dissemination of new chemical knowledge that shaped the most ordinary sensory experience of the Chinese people.
