ABSTRACT:

Historians' understanding of the steam engine's evolution suffers from back-projections of nineteenth-century physical science, notably thermodynamics, onto the eighteenth century. The idea of steam as a "working substance" to merely transfer heat is anachronistic in the eighteenth-century context. It has led to serious misconceptions. To correct this misreading, this article uncovers three major areas discussing steam in the eighteenth century: producing a vacuum for fire engines and fire pumps; examining experimentally the bulk properties of steam; and the "chemistry of steams" that included studying effluvia and miasmas and that considered steam responsible for earthquakes, winds, storms, and other natural phenomena. In the eighteenth century, more natural philosophizing about steam (and other matters) was done in and across practical settings in the large than historians have realized. Subsequent understandings and later divisions of knowledge and practice have obscured much.

摘要：

历史学家对蒸汽机发展的理解受19世纪物理科学（尤其是热力学）对18世纪的背投的影响。在18世纪的背景下，蒸汽只是传递热量的“工作物质”的想法是不合时宜的。它导致了严重的误解。为了纠正这种误读，本文揭示了18世纪讨论蒸汽的三个主要领域：为消防车和消防泵产生真空；实验检查蒸汽的整体性质；以及“蒸汽化学”，其中包括研究洋溢和mi气，并认为蒸汽是造成地震，风，暴风雨和其他自然现象的原因。在18世纪，在史无前例的大型和跨实际环境中，人们对蒸汽（及其他物质）进行了更为自然的哲学思考。随后的理解以及以后对知识和实践的划分变得非常模糊。