Water-cooled condenser

In order to carry out efficient distillation (boiling a liquid, so that the impurities separate out), it is necessary to have an effective method of condensing the vapour of the distillate. Apparatus used in the Middle Ages onwards consisted of a spiral tube of earthenware or metal which was immersed in a reservoir of water. It is now impossible to say with which professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh this piece of apparatus is associated, but it is probably likely that it was part of Thomas Charles Hope's lecture-demonstration apparatus.

This condenser is a japanned tinned iron trough, through which an iron tube runs, emerging at either end. It is supported by two pairs of legs of unequal height, allowing the trough and tube to slope. An iron overflow tube is soldered to a point close to the upper edge of the trough, around which is painted a frieze of floral motifs in yellow.

Hope's career at Edinburgh was marked by the popularity of the chemistry course in which attendance figures rose from 221 in 1795 to an unprecedented 553 in 1823. However, no practical chemistry was taught; Hope demonstrated and lectured. As a result, there grew up a body of independent lecturers, offering private and practical classes. It was probably Hope's failure to encourage practical work and research from 1823 which led to the decline of Edinburgh from its leading position in Europe as the centre for the study of chemistry.

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