It is not our object here to speak of Boerhaave as a physician, or as a teacher of medicine, or of botany; though in all these capacities he is entitled to the very highest eulogium; his practice was as unexampled as his success as a teacher. It is solely as a chemist that he claims our attention here. His system of chemistry, published in two quarto volumes in 1732, and of which we have an excellent English translation by Dr. Shaw, printed in 1741, was undoubtedly the most learned and most luminous treatise on chemistry that the world had yet seen; it is nothing less than a complete collection of all the chemical facts and processes which were known in Boerhaave’s time, collected from a thousand different sources, and from writings equally disgusting from their obscurity and their mysticism. Every thing is stated in the plainest way, stripped of all mystery, and chemistry is shown as a science and an art of the first importance, not merely to medicine, but to mankind in general. The processes given by him are too numerous and too tedious to have been all repeated by one man, how laborious soever he may have been: many of them have been taken upon trust, and, as no distinction is made in the book, between those which are stated upon his own authority and those which are merely copied from others, this treatise has been accused, and with some justice, as not always to be depended on. But the real information which it communicates is prodigious, and when we compare it with any other system of chemistry that preceded it, the superiority of Boerhaave’s information will appear in a very conspicuous point of view.
After a short but valuable historical introduction he divides his work into two parts; the first treats of the theory of chemistry, the second of the practical processes.
He defines chemistry as follows: “Chemistry is an art which teaches the manner of performing certain physical operations, whereby bodies cognizable to the senses, or capable of being rendered cognizable, and of being contained in vessels, are so changed by means of proper instruments, as to produce certain determinate effects; and at the same time discover the causes thereof; for the service of various arts.”
This definition is not calculated to throw much light on chemistry to those who are unacquainted with its nature and object. Neither is it conformable to the modern notions entertained of chemistry; but it is requisite to keep in mind Boerhaave’s definition of chemistry, when we examine his system, that we may not accuse him of omissions and imperfections, which are owing merely to the state of the science when he gave his system to the world.
In his theory of chemistry he begins with the metals, which he treats of in the following order: Gold, mercury, lead, silver, copper, iron, tin. The account of them, though imperfect, is much fuller and more satisfactory than any that preceded it. He then treats of the salts, which are, common salt, saltpetre, borax, sal ammoniac and alum. This it will be admitted is but a meagre list. However other salts occur in different parts of the book which are not described here. He next gives an account of sulphur. Here he introduces white arsenic, obtained, he says, from cobalt, and not known for more than two hundred years. He considers it as a real sulphur, and takes no notice of metallic arsenic, though it had been already alluded to by Paracelsus. He then treats of bitumens, including under the name not merely bitumens liquid and solid, but likewise pit-coal, amber, and ambergris. An account of stones and earths comes next, and constitutes the most defective part of the book. It is very surprising that in this part of his work he takes no notice of lime. The semi-metals come next: they are, antimony, bismuth, zinc. Here he gives an account of the three vitriols or sulphates of iron, copper, and zinc. He knew the composition of sulphate of iron; but was ignorant of that of sulphate of copper and sulphate of zinc. He considers semi-metals as compounds of a true metal and sulphur, and therefore enumerates cinnabar among the semi-metals. Lastly he treats of vegetables and animals; and it is needless to say that his account is very imperfect.
He next treats of the utility of chemistry, and shows its importance in natural philosophy, medicine, and the arts. Afterwards he describes the instruments of chemistry. This constitutes the longest and the most important part of the whole work. He first treats of fire at great length. Here we have an account of the thermometer, of the expansion produced by heat, of steam, and in fact the germ of many of the most important parts of the science of heat, which have since been expanded and applied to the improvement, not merely of chemistry, but of the arts and resources of human industry. The experiments of Fahrenheit related by him, on the change of temperature induced by agitating water and mercury together at different degrees of heat, gave origin to the whole doctrine of specific heats. Though Boerhaave himself seemed not aware of the importance of these experiments, or indeed even to have considered them with any attention. But when afterwards analyzed by Dr. Black, these experiments gave origin to one of the most important parts of the whole science of heat.
He next treats at great length on fuel. Here his opinions are often very erroneous, from his ignorance of a vast number of facts which have since come to light. It is curious that during the whole of his very long account of combustion he makes no allusion to the peculiar opinions of Stahl on the subject; though they were known to the public, and had been admitted by chemists in general, before his work was published. To what are we to ascribe this omission? It could scarcely have been owing to ignorance, Stahl’s reputation being too high to allow his opinions to be treated with neglect. We must suppose, I think, that Boerhaave did not adopt Stahl’s doctrine of combustion; but at the same time did not think it proper to enter into any controversy on the subject.
He next treats of the heat produced when different liquids are mixed, as alcohol and water, &c. He gives many examples of such increase of temperature, and describes the phenomena very correctly. But he was unable to assign the cause of the evolution of this heat. The subject was elucidated many years after by Dr. Irvine, who showed that it was owing to a diminution of the specific heat which takes place when liquids combine chemically together. It is in this part of his work that he gives an account of phosphorus, of the action of nitric acid on volatile oils, and he concludes, from all the facts which he states, that elementary fire is a corporeal body. His explanation of the combustion of Homberg’s pyrophorus and of common phosphorus, shows clearly that he had no correct notion of the reason why air is necessary to maintain combustion, nor of the way in which that elastic fluid performs its part in the great phenomena of nature.
He next treats of the mode of regulating fire for chemical purposes: then he treats of air, his account being chiefly taken from Boyle. He ascribes the discovery of the law of the elasticity of air both to Boyle and Mariotte. Boyle, I believe, was the first discoverer of it. The French are in the habit of calling it the law of Mariotte. He then treats of water, and lastly of earth; but even here no mention whatever is made of lime. In the last part of the theory of chemistry he treats at great length of menstruums. These are water, oils, alcohol, alkalies, acids, and neutral salts. He mentions potash and ammonia, but takes no notice of soda; the difference between potash and soda not being accurately known. Nor can we expect any particular account of the difference between the properties of mild and caustic potash; as this subject was not understood till the time of Dr. Black. The only acids which he mentions are the acetic, sulphuric, nitric, muriatic, and aqua regia. He subjoins a disquisition on the alcahest or universal solvent, which it is obvious enough, however, from the way in which he speaks of it, that he was not a believer in. The object of his practical part is to teach the method of making all the different chemical substances known when he wrote. This he does in two hundred and twenty-seven processes, in which all the manipulations are described with considerable minuteness. This part of the work must have been long considered as of great utility, and must have been long resorted to by the student as a mine of practical information upon almost every subject that could arrest his attention. So immense is the progress that chemistry has made since the days of Boerhaave, and so different are the researches that at present occupy chemists, and so much greater the degree of precision requisite to be attained, that his processes and directions are now of little or no use to a practical student of chemistry, as they convey little or none of the knowledge which it is requisite for him to possess.
Boerhaave made a set of most elaborate experiments, to refute the ideas of the alchymists respecting the possibility of fixing mercury. He put a quantity of pure mercury into a glass vessel, and kept it for fifteen years at a temperature rather higher than 100°. It underwent no alteration whatever, excepting that a small portion of it was converted into a black powder. But this black powder was restored to the state of running mercury by trituration in a mortar. In this experiment the air had free access to the mercury. It was repeated in a close vessel with the same result, excepting that the mercury was kept hot for only six months instead of fifteen years.
To show that mercury cannot be obtained from metals by the processes recommended by the alchymists, he dissolved pure nitrate of lead in water, and, mixing the solution with sal ammoniac, chloride of lead precipitated. Of this chloride he put a quantity into a retort, and poured over it a strong lixivium of caustic potash, The whole was digested at the temperature of 96° for six months and six days. It was then distilled in a glass retort, by a temperature gradually raised to redness, but not a particle of mercury was evaporated, as it had been alleged by the alchymists would be the case.
Isaac Hollandus had stated that mercury could be easily obtained from the salt of lead made by means of distilled vinegar. To prove this he calcined a quantity of acetate of lead, ground the residue to powder, and triturated it with a very strong alkaline lixivium, and kept the lixivium over it covered with paper for months, taking care to add water in proportion as it evaporated. The calx was then distilled in a heat gradually raised to redness; but not a particle of mercury was obtained.172
These were not the only laborious experiments which he made with this metal. He distilled it above five hundred times, and found that it underwent no alteration. When long agitated in a glass bottle it is convertible into a black acrid powder, obviously protoxide of mercury. This black powder, when distilled, is converted into running mercury. Exposure of mercury for some months in a heat of 180°, converts it also into protoxide; and if the heat be higher than this, the mercury is converted into a red acrid substance, obviously peroxide of mercury. But this peroxide, by simple distillation, is again reduced into the state of running mercury.173
Boerhaave combated the opinions of the iatro-chemists with great eloquence, and with a weight derived from his high reputation, and the extraordinary veneration in which his opinions were held by his disciples. His efforts were assisted by those of Bohn, who combated the medical opinions by arguments drawn both from experience and observation, and perfectly irresistible; and the ruin of the chemical sect was consummated by the exertions of the celebrated Frederick Hoffmann, the founder of the most perfect and satisfactory system of medicine that has ever appeared. His efforts were probably roused into action by a visit which he paid to England in 1683, during which he got acquainted with Boyle and with Sydenham; the former the greatest experimentalist, and the latter the greatest physician of the time; and both of whom were declared enemies to iatro-chemistry.
I have been induced by a wish to prosecute the history of the opinions first supported by Paracelsus, and carried so much further by Van Helmont and Sylvius, to give a connected view of their effects upon medical practice and medical theory; and I have come to the commencement of the eighteenth century, without taking notice of one of the most extraordinary men, and one of the greatest promoters of chemistry that ever existed: I mean George Agricola. I shall consecrate the whole of this chapter to his labours, and those of his immediate successors.
George Agricola was born at Glaucha, in Misnia, in the year 1494. When a young man he acquired such a passion for mining and minerals, by frequenting the mountains of Bohemia, that he could not be persuaded to relinquish the study. He settled, indeed, as a physician, at Joachimstal; but his favourite study engrossed so much of his attention, that he succeeded but ill in his medical capacity. This induced him to withdraw to Chemnitz, where he devoted himself to his favourite pursuits. He studied the mineralogical writings of the ancients with the most minute accuracy; but not satisfied with this, he visited the mines in person, examined the processes followed by the miners in extracting the different ores, and in washing and sorting them. He made collections of all the different ores, and studied their nature and properties attentively: he likewise collected information about the methods of smelting them, and extracting from them the metals in a state of purity. The information which he collected, respecting the mines wrought in the different countries of Europe, is quite wonderful, if we consider the period in which he lived, the little intercourse which existed between nations, and the total want of all those newspapers and journals which now carry every new scientific fact with such rapidity to every part of the world.
Agricola died at Chemnitz in the year 1555, after he had reached the sixty-first year of his age. Maurice, the celebrated Elector of Saxony, settled on him a pension, the whole of which he devoted to his metallurgic pursuits. To him we find him dedicating the edition of his works which he published in the year of his death, and which is dated the fourteenth before the calends of April, 1555. He even spent a considerable proportion of his own estate in following out his favourite investigations. In the earlier part of his life he had expressed himself rather favourable to the protestant opinions; but in his latter days he had attacked the reformed religion. This rendered him so odious to the Lutherans, at that time predominant in Chemnitz, that they suffered his body to remain unburied for five days together; so that it was necessary to remove it from Chemnitz to Zeitz, where it was interred in the principal church.
His great work is his treatise De Re Metallica, in twelve books. In this work he gives an account of the instruments and machines, and every thing connected with mining and metallurgy; and even gives figures of all the different pieces of apparatus employed in his time. He has also exhibited the Latin and German names for all these different utensils. This work may be considered as a very complete treatise on metallurgy, as it existed in the sixteenth century. The first six books are occupied with an account of mining and smelting. In the seventh book he treats of docimasy, or the method of determining the quantity of metal which can be extracted from every particular ore. This he does so completely, that most of his processes are still followed by miners and smelters. He gives a minute and accurate account of the furnaces, muffles, crucibles, &c., almost such as are still employed, with minute directions for preparing the ores which are to be subjected to examination, the fluxes with which they must be mixed, and the precautions necessary in order to obtain a satisfactory result. In short, this book may be considered as a complete manual of docimasy. How much of the methods given originated with Agricola it is impossible to say. He probably did little more than collect the scattered processes employed by the smelters of metals, in different parts of the world, and reduce the whole to a regular system. But this was a great deal. Perhaps it is not saying too much, that the great progress made in the chemical investigation of the metals, was owing in a great measure to the labours of Agricola. Certainly the progress made by the moderns, in the difficult arts of mining and metallurgy, must in a great measure be ascribed to the labours of Agricola.
In the eighth book he describes the mechanical preparation of the ores, and the mode of roasting them, either in the open air or in furnaces. The ninth book is occupied with an account of smelting-furnaces. It contains also a description of the processes for obtaining mercury, antimony, and bismuth, from their ores. The tenth book treats of the separation of silver and gold from each other, by means of nitric acid and aqua regia: minute directions for the preparation of which are given. The modes of purifying the precious metals by means of sulphur, antimony, and cementations, are also described. In the eleventh book he treats of the method of purifying silver from copper and iron, by means of lead. He gives an account also of the processes employed for smelting and purifying copper. In the twelfth book he treats of the methods of preparing common salt, saltpetre, alum, and green vitriol, or sulphate of iron: of the preparation and purification of sulphur, and of the mode of manufacturing glass. In short, Agricola’s work De Re Metallica is beyond comparison the most valuable chemical work which the sixteenth century produced, and places the author very high indeed among the list of the improvers of chemistry.
The other works of Agricola are his treatise De Natura Fossilium, in ten books; De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum, in five books; De Natura eorum quæ effluunt ex Terra, in four books; De veteribus et novis Metallis, in two books; and his Bermannus sive de re metallica Dialogus. The treatise De veteribus et novis Metallis is amusing. He not only collects together all the historical facts on record, respecting the first discoverers of the different metals and the first workers of mines, but he gives many amusing anecdotes nowhere else to be found, respecting the way in which some of the most celebrated German mines were discovered. In the second book he takes a geographical view of every part of the known world, and states the mines wrought and the metals found in each. We must not suppose that all his statements in this historical sketch are accurate: to admit it would be to allow him a greater share of information than could possibly belong to any one man. He frequently gives us the authority upon which his statements are founded; but he often makes statements without any authority whatever. Thus he says, that a mine of quicksilver had been recently discovered in Scotland: the fact however, is, that no quicksilver-mine ever existed in any part of Britain. There was, indeed, a foolish story circulated about thirty years ago, about a vein of quicksilver found under the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed; but it was an assertion unsupported by any authentic evidence.
Many years elapsed before much addition was made to the processes described by Agricola. In the year 1566, Pedro Fernandes de Velasco introduced a method of extracting gold and silver from their ores in Mexico and Peru by means of quicksilver. But I have never seen a description of his process. Alonzo Barba claims for himself, and seemingly with justice, the method of amalgamating the ores of gold and silver by boiling. Barba was a Spanish priest, who lived about the year 1609, at Tarabuco, a market-town in the province of Charcso, eight miles from Plata, in South America. In the year 1615 he was curate at Tiaguacano, in the Province of Pacayes, and in 1617, he lived at Lepas in Peru. He is said to have been a native of Lepe, a small township in Andalusia, and had for many years the living of the church of St. Bernard at Potosi. His work on the amalgamation of gold and silver ores appeared at Madrid in the year 1640, in quarto.174 In the year 1629 a new edition of it appeared with an appendix, under the title of “Trattado de las Antiquas Minas de España de Alonzo Carillo Lasso.” The English minister at the Court of Madrid, the Earl of Sandwich, published the first part of it in an English translation at London, in 1674, under the title of “The First Book of the Art of Metals, in which is declared the manner of their generation, and the concomitants of them, written in Spanish by Albaro Alonzo Barba. By E. Earl of Sandwich.”
The next improver of metallurgic processes was Lazarus Erckern, who was upper bar-master at Kuttenberg, in the year 1588, and was superintendent of the mines in Germany, Hungary, Transylvania, the Tyrol, &c., to three successive emperors. His work has been translated into English under the title of “Heta Minor; or the laws of art and nature in knowing, judging, assaying, fining, refining, and enlarging the bodies of confined metals. To which are added essays on metallic words, illustrated with sculptures. By Sir J. Pettus. London, 1683, folio.” But this translation is a very bad one. Erckern gives a plain account of all the processes employed in his time without a word of theory or reasoning. It is an excellent practical book; though it is obvious enough that the author was inferior in point of abilities to Agricola. His treatment of Don Juan de Corduba, who offered, in 1588, to put the Court of Vienna in possession of the Spanish method of extracting gold and silver from the ores by amalgamation, as related by Baron Born in his work on amalgamation, shows very clearly that Erckern was a very illiberal-minded man, and puffed up with an undue conceit of his own superior knowledge.175 Had he condescended to assist the Spaniard, and to furnish him with proper materials to work upon, the Austrians might have been in possession of the process of amalgamation with all its advantages a couple of centuries before its actual introduction.
I need not take any notice of the docimastic treatises of Schindlers and Schlutter, which are of a much later date, and both of which have been translated into French, the former by Geoffroy, junior; the latter by Hellot. This last translation, in two large quartos, published in 1764, constitutes a very valuable book, and exhibits all the docimastic and metallurgic processes known at that period with much fidelity and minuteness. Very great improvements have taken place since that period, but I am not aware of any work published in any of the European languages, that is calculated to give us an exact idea of the present state of the various mining and metallurgic processes—important as they are to civilized society.
Gellert’s Metallurgic Chemistry, so far as it goes, is an excellent book.
Hitherto I have treated of the alchymists, or iatro-chemists, and have brought the history of chemistry down to the beginning of the eighteenth century. But during the seventeenth century there existed several laborious chemists, who contributed very materially by their exertions, either to extend the bounds of the science, or to increase its popularity and respectability in the eyes of the world. Of some of the most eminent of these it is my intention to give an account in this chapter.
Of John Rudolf Glauber, the first of these meritorious men in point of time, I know very few particulars. He was a German and a medical man, and spent most of his time at Salzburg, Ritzingen, Frankfort on the Maine, and at Cologne. Towards the end of his life he went to Holland, but during the greatest part of his residence in that country he was confined to a sick-bed. He died at Amsterdam in 1668, after having reached a very advanced age. Like Paracelsus, whom he held in high estimation, he was in open hostility with the Galenical physicians of his time. This led him into various controversies, and induced him to publish various apologies; most of which still remain among his writings. One of the most curious of these apologies is the one against Farmer. To this man Glauber had communicated certain secrets of his own, which were at that time considered as of great value; Farrner binding himself not to communicate them to any person. This obligation he not only broke, but publicly deprecated the skill and integrity of Glauber, and offered to communicate to others, for stipulated sums, a set of secrets of his own, which he vaunted of as particularly valuable. Glauber examines these secrets, and shows that every one of them possessed of any value, had been communicated by himself to Farrner, and to put an end to Farrner’s unfair attempt to make money by selling Glauber’s secrets, he in this apology communicates the whole processes to the public.
Glauber’s works were published in Amsterdam, partly in Latin, and partly in the German language. In the year 1689 an English translation of them was published in London by Mr. Christopher Packe, in one large folio volume. Glauber was an alchymist and a believer in the universal medicine. But he did not confine his researches to these two particulars, but endeavoured to improve medicine and the arts by the application of chemical processes to them. In his treatise of philosophical furnaces he does not confine himself to a description of the method of constructing furnaces, and explaining the use of them, but gives an account of a vast many processes, and medicinal and chemical preparations, which he made by means of these furnaces. One of the most important of these preparations was muriatic acid, which he obtained by distilling a mixture of common salt, sulphate of iron, and alum, in one of the furnaces which he describes.
He makes known the method of dissolving most of the metals in muriatic acid, and the resulting chlorides, which he denominates oils of the respective metals, constitute in his opinion valuable medicines. He mentions particularly the chloride of gold, and from the mode of preparing it, the solution must have been strong. Yet he recommends it as an internal medicine, which he says may be taken with safety, and is a sovereign remedy in old ulcers of the mouth, tongue, and throat, arising from the French pox, leprosy, scorbute, &c. Thus we see the use of gold as a remedy for the venereal disease did not originate with M. Chretiens, of Montpelier. This chloride of gold is so violent a poison that it is remarkable that Glauber does not specify the dose that patients labouring under the diseases for which he recommends it ought to take.—The sesqui-chloride of iron he recommends as a most excellent application to ill-conditioned ulcers and cancers. We see from this that the use of iron in cancers, lately recommended, is not so new a remedy as has been supposed.
He mentions the violent action of chloride of mercury (obviously corrosive sublimate), and says that he saw a woman suddenly killed by it, being administered internally by a surgeon. Butter of antimony he first recognised as nothing else than a combination of chlorine and antimony; before his time it had been always supposed to contain mercury.
He describes the method of obtaining sulphuric acid by distilling sulphate of iron; gives an account of the mode of obtaining sulphate of iron and sulphate of copper, in crystals: the method of obtaining nitric acid from nitre by means of alum, was much improved by him. He gives a particular detail of the way of obtaining fulminating gold. This fulminating gold he says is of little use in medicine; but he gives a method of preparing from it a red tincture of gold, which he considers as one of the most useful and efficacious of all medicines: this tincture is nothing else than chloride of gold. It would take up too much space to attempt an analysis of all the curious facts and preparations described in this treatise on philosophical furnaces; but it will repay the perusal of any person who will take the trouble to look into it. All the different pharmacopœias of the seventeenth century borrowed from it largely. The third part of this treatise is peculiarly interesting. It will be seen that Glauber had already thought of the peculiar efficacy of applying solutions of sulphur, &c. to the skin, and had anticipated the various vapour and gaseous baths which have been introduced in Vienna and other places, during the course of the present century, and considered as new, and as constituting an important era in the healing art. In the fourth part he not only treats of the docimastic processes, so well described by Agricola and Erckern, but gives us the method of making glass, and of imitating the precious stones by means of coloured glasses. The fifth part is peculiarly valuable; in it he treats of the methods of preparing lutes for glass vessels, of the construction and qualities of crucibles, and of the vitrification of earthen vessels.
Another of his tracts is called “The Mineral Work;” the object of which is to show the method of separating gold from flints, sand, clay, and other minerals, by the spirit of salt (muriatic acid), which otherwise cannot be purged; also a panacea, or universal antimonial medicine. This panacea was a solution of deutoxide of antimony in pyrotartaric acid; Glauber gives a most flattering account of its efficacy in removing the most virulent diseases, particularly all kinds of cutaneous eruptions. The second and third parts of The Mineral Work are entirely alchymistical. In the treatise called “Miraculum Mundi,” his chief object is to write a panegyric on sulphate of soda, of which he was the discoverer, and to which he gave the name of sal mirabile. The high terms in which he speaks of this innocent salt are highly amusing, and serve well to show the spirit of the age, and the dreams which still continued to haunt the most laborious and sober-minded chemists. The sal mirabile was not merely a purgative, a virtue which it certainly possesses in a high degree, being as mild a purgative, perhaps the very best, of all the saline preparations yet tried; but it was a universal medicine, a panacea, a cure for all diseases: nor was Glauber contented with this, but pointed out many uses in the various arts and manufactures for which in his opinion it was admirably fitted. But by far the fullest account of this sal mirabile is given by him in his treatise on the nature of salts.
I shall satisfy myself with giving the titles of his other tracts. Every one of them contains facts of considerable importance, not to be found in any chemical writings that preceded him; but to attempt to connect these facts into one point of view would be needless, because they are not such as would be likely to interest the general reader.
1. The Consolation of Navigators. This gives an account of a method by which sailors may carry with them a great deal of nourishment in very small bulk. The method consists in evaporating the wort of malt to dryness, and carrying the dry extract to sea. This method has been had recourse to in modern times, and has been found to furnish an effectual remedy against the scurvy. He recommends also the use of muriatic acid as a remedy for thirst, and a cure for the scurvy.
2. A true and perfect Description of the extracting good Tartar from the Lees of Wine.
3. The first part of the Prosperity of Germany; in which is treated of the concentration of wine, corn, and wood, and the more profitable use of them than has hitherto been.
4. The second part of the Prosperity of Germany; wherein is shown by what means minerals may be concentrated by nitre, and turned into metallic and better bodies.
5. The third part of the Prosperity of Germany; in which is delivered the way of most easily and plentifully extracting saltpetre out of various subjects, every where obvious and at hand. Together with a succinct explanation of Paracelsus’s prophecy; that is to say, in what manner it is to be understood the northern lion will institute or plant his political or civil monarchy; and that Paracelsus himself will not abide in his grave; and that a vast quantity of riches will offer itself. Likewise who the artist Elias is, of whose coming in the last days, and his disclosing abundance of secrets, Paracelsus and others have predicted.
6. The fourth part of the Prosperity of Germany; in which are revealed many excellent, useful secrets, and such as are serviceable to the country; and withal several preparations of efficacious cates extracted out of the metals and appointed to physical uses; as also various confections of golden potions. To which is also adjoined a small treatise which maketh mention of my laboratory; in which there shall be taught and demonstrated (for the public good and benefit of mankind) wonderful secrets, and unto every body most profitable but hitherto unknown.
7. The fifth part of the Prosperity of Germany; clearly and solidly demonstrating and as it were showing with the fingers, what alchymy is, and what benefit may, by the help thereof, be gotten every where and in most places of Germany. Written and published to the honour of God, the giver of all good things, primarily; and to the honour of all the great ones of the country; and for the health, profit, and assistance against foreign invasions, of all their inhabitants that are by due right and obedience subject unto them.
8. The sixth and last part of the Prosperity of Germany; in which the arcanas already revealed in the fifth part, are not only illustrated and with a clear elucidation, but also such are manifested as are most highly necessary to be known for the defence of the country against the Turks. Together with an evident demonstration adjoined, showing, that both a particular and universal transmutation of the imperfect metals into more perfect ones by salt and fire, is most true; and withal, by what means any one, that is endued with but a mean knowledge in managing the fire, may experimentally try the truth hereof in twenty-four hours’ space.
9. The first century of Glauber’s wealthy Storehouse of Treasures.—Many of the processes given in this treatise are mystically stated, or even concealed.
10. The second, third, fourth, and fifth century of Glauber’s wealthy Storehouse of Treasures.
11. New chemical Light; being a revelation of a certain new invented secret, never before manifested to the world.—This was a method of extracting gold from stones. Probably the gold found by Glauber in his processes existed in some of the reagents employed; this, at least, is the most natural way of accounting for the result of Glauber’s trials.
15. The spagyrical Pharmacopœia, or Dispensatory.—In this book he treats chiefly of medicines peculiarly his own; one of those, on which he bestows the greatest praise, is secret sal ammoniac, or sulphate of ammonia. He describes the method of preparing this salt, by saturating sulphuric acid with ammonia. He informs us that it was much employed by Paracelsus and Van Helmont, who distinguished it by the name of alkahest.
13. Book of Fires.—Full of enigmas.
14. Treatise of the three Principles of Metals; viz. sulphur, mercury, and salt of philosophers; how they may be profitably used in medicine, alchymy, and other arts.
15. A short Book of Dialogues. Chiefly relating to alchymy.
16. Proserpine, or the Goddess of Riches.
17. Of Elias the Artist.
18. Of the three most noble Stones generated by three Fires.
19. Of the Purgatory of Philosophers.
20. Of the secret Fire of Philosophers.
21. A Treatise concerning the Animal Stone.
John Kunkel, who acquired a high reputation as a chemist, was born in the Duchy of Sleswick; in the year 1630: his father was a trading chemist, or apothecary; and Kunkel himself had, in his younger years, paid great attention to the business of an apothecary: he had also diligently studied the different processes of glass-making; and had paid particular attention to the assaying of metals. In the year 1659, he was chamberlain, chemist, and superintendent of apothecaries to the dukes Francis Charles and Julius Henry, of Lauenburg. While in this situation, he examined many pretended transmutations of metals, and undertook other researches of importance. From this situation he was invited, by John George II., Elector of Saxony, on the recommendation of Dr. Langelott and Counsellor Vogt, as chamberlain and superintendent of the elector’s laboratory, with a considerable salary. From this situation he went to Berlin, where he was chemist to the elector Frederick William; after whose death, his laboratory and glass-house were accidentally burnt. From Berlin he was invited to Stockholm by Charles XI., King of Sweden, who gave him the title of counsellor of metals, and raised him to the rank of a nobleman: here he died, in 1702, in the seventy-second year of his age. Kunkel’s greatest discovery was, the method of extracting phosphorus from urine. This curious substance had been originally discovered by Brandt, a chemist, of Hamburg, in the year 1669, as he was attempting to extract from human urine a liquid capable of converting silver into gold. He showed a specimen of it to Kunkel, with whom he was acquainted: Kunkel mentioned the fact as a piece of news to one Kraft, a friend of his in Dresden, where he then resided: Kraft immediately repaired to Hamburg, and purchased the secret from Brandt for 200 rix-dollars, doubtless exacting from him, at the same time, a promise not to reveal it to any other person. Soon after, he exhibited the phosphorus publicly in Britain and in France; whether for money, or not, does not appear. Kunkel, who had mentioned to his friend his intention of getting possession of the process, being vexed at the treacherous conduct of Kraft, attempted to discover it himself, and, after three or four years labour, he succeeded, though all that he knew from Brandt was, that urine was the substance from which the phosphorus was procured. In consequence of this success, phosphorus was at first distinguished by the epithet of Kunkel added to the name.
Kunkel published, in 1678, a treatise on phosphorus, in which he describes the properties of this substance, at that time a subject of great wonder and curiosity. In this treatise, he proposes phosphorus as a remedy of some efficacy, and gives a formula for preparing pills of it, to be taken internally. It is therefore erroneous to suppose, as has been done, that the introduction of this dangerous remedy into medicine is a modern discovery. Kunkel appears to have been acquainted with nitric ether. One of the most valuable of his books, is his treatise on glass-making, which was translated into French; and which, till nearly the end of the eighteenth century, constituted by far the best account of glass-making in existence. The following is a list of the most important of his works:
1. Observations on fixed and volatile Salts, potable Gold and Silver, Spiritus Mundi, &c.; also of the colour and smell of metals, minerals, and bitumens.—This tract was published at Hamburg, in 1678, and has been several times reprinted since.
2. Chemical Remarks on the chemical Principles, acid, fixed and volatile alkaline Salts, in the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, and animal; likewise concerning their colour and smell, &c.; with a chemical appendix against non-entia chymica.
3. Treatise of the Phosphorus mirabilis, and its wonderful shining Pills; together with a discourse on what was formerly rightly named nitre, but is now called the blood of nature.
4. An Epistle against Spirit of Wine without an acid.
5. Touchstone de Acido et Urinoso, Sale calido et frigido.
6. Ars Vitraria experimentalis.
7. Collegium Physico-chymicum experimentale, or Laboratorium chymicum.176
Nicolas Lemery, the first Frenchman who completely stripped chemistry of its mysticism, and presented it to the world in all its native simplicity, deserves our particular attention, in consequence of the celebrity which he acquired, and the benefits which he conferred on the science. He was born at Rouen on the 17th of November, 1645. His father, Julian Lemery, was procureur of the Parliament of Normandy, and a protestant. His son, when very young, showed a decided partiality for chemistry, and repaired to an apothecary in Rouen, a relation of his own, in hopes of being initiated into the science; but finding that little information could be procured from him, young Lemery left him in 1666, and went to Paris, where he boarded himself with M. Glaser, at that time demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi.
Glaser was a true chemist, according to the meaning at that time affixed to the term—full of obscure notions—unwilling to communicate what knowledge he possessed—and not at all sociable. In two months Lemery quitted his house in disgust, and set out with a resolution to travel through France, and pick up chemical information as he best could, from those who were capable of giving him information on the subject. He first went to Montpelier, where he boarded in the house of M. Vershant, an apothecary in that town. With his situation there he was so much pleased, that he continued in it for three years: he employed himself assiduously in the laboratory, and in teaching chemistry to a number of young students who boarded with his host. Here his reputation gradually increased so much, that he drew round him the professors of the faculty of medicine of Montpelier, and all the curious of the place, to witness his experiments. Here, too, he practised medicine with considerable success.
After travelling through all France, he returned to Paris in 1672. Here he frequented the different scientific meetings at that time held in that capital, and soon distinguished himself by his chemical knowledge. In a few years he got a laboratory of his own, commenced apothecary, and began to give public lectures on chemistry, which were speedily attended by great crowds of students from foreign countries. For example, we are told that on one occasion forty Scotchmen repaired to Paris on purpose to hear his lectures, and those of M. Du Verney on anatomy. The medicines which he prepared in his laboratory became fashionable, and brought him a great deal of money. The magistery of bismuth (or pearl-white), which he prepared as a cosmetic, was sufficient, we are told, to support the whole expense of his house. In the year 1675 he published his Cours de Chimie, certainly one of the most successful chemical books that ever appeared; it ran through a vast number of editions in a few years, and was translated into Latin, German, Spanish, and English.
In 1681 he began to be troubled in consequence of his religious opinions. Louis XIV. was at that time in the height of his glory, entirely under the control of his priests, and zealously bent upon putting an end to the reformed religion in his dominions. Indeed, from the infamous conduct of Charles II. of England, and the bigotry of his successor, a prospect was opened to him, and of which he was anxious to avail himself, of annihilating the reformed religion altogether, and of plunging Europe a second time into the darkness of Roman Catholicism.
Lemery found it expedient, in 1683, to pass over into England. Here he was well received by Charles II.: but England was at that time convulsed with those religious and political struggles, which terminated five years afterwards in the revolution. Lemery, in consequence of this state of things, found it expedient to leave England, and return to France. He took a doctor’s degree at Caen, in Normandy; and, returning to Paris, he commenced all at once practitioner in medicine and surgery, apothecary, and lecturer on chemistry. The edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, when James II. had assured Louis of his intention to overturn the established religion, and bring Great Britain again under the dominion of the pope. Lemery was obliged to give up practice and conceal himself, in order to avoid persecution. Finding his success hopeless, as long as he continued a protestant, he changed his religion in 1686, and declared himself a Roman catholic. This step secured his fortune: he was now as much caressed and protected by the court and the clergy, as he had been formerly persecuted by them. In 1699 when the Academy of Sciences was new modelled, he was appointed associated chemist, and, on the death of Bourdelin, before the end of that year, he became a pensioner. He died on the 19th of June, 1715, at the age of seventy, in consequence of an attack of palsy, which terminated in apoplexy.
Besides his System of Chemistry, which has been already mentioned, he published the following works:
1. Pharmacopée universelle, contenant toutes les Operations de Pharmacie qui sont en usage dans la Médicine.
2. Traité universelle des Drogues simples mis en ordre alphabétique.
3. Traité de l’Antimoine, contenant l’analyse chimique de ce mineral.
Besides these works, five different papers by Lemery were printed in the Memoirs of the French Academy, between 1700 and 1709 inclusive. These are as follow:
1. Explication physique et chimique des Feux souterrains, des tremblemens de Terre, des Ouragans, des Eclairs et du Tonnere.—This explanation is founded on the heat and combustion produced by the mutual action of iron filings and sulphur on each other, when mixed in large quantities.
2. Du Camphre.
3. Du Miel et de son analyse chimique.
4. De l’Urine de Vache, de ses effets en médicine et de son analyse chimique.
5. Reflexions et Experiences sur le Sublimé Corrosive.—It appears from this paper, that in 1709, when Lemery wrote, corrosive sublimate was considered as a compound of mercury with the sulphuric and muriatic acids. Lemery’s statement, that he made corrosive sublimate simply by heating a mixture of mercury and decrepitated salt, is not easily explained. Probably the salt which he had employed was impure. This is the more likely, because, from his account of the matter which remained at the bottom of the matrass after sublimation, it must have either contained peroxide of iron or peroxide of mercury, for its colour he says was red.
M. Lemery left a son, who was also a member of the French Academy; an active chemist, and author of various papers, in which he endeavours to give a mechanical explanation of chemical phenomena.
Another very active member of the French Academy, at the same time with Lemery, was M. William Homberg, who was born on the 8th of January, 1652, at Batavia, in the island of Java. His father, John Homberg, was a Saxon gentleman, who had been stripped of all his property during the thirty years war. After receiving some education by the care of a relation, he went into the service of the Dutch East India Company, and got the command of the arsenal at Batavia. There he married the widow of an officer, by whom he had four children, of whom William was the second.
His father quitted the service of the India Company and repaired to Amsterdam with his family. Young Homberg studied with avidity: he devoted himself to the law, and in 1674 was admitted advocate of Magdeburg; but his taste for natural history and science was great. He collected plants in the neighbourhood, and made himself acquainted with their names and uses. At night he studied the stars, and learned the names and positions of the different constellations. Thus he became a self-taught botanist and astronomer. He constructed a hollow transparent celestial globe, on which, by means of a light placed within, the principal fixed stars were seen in the same relative positions as in the heavens.
Otto Guericke was at that time burgomaster of Magdeburg. His experiments on a vacuum, and his invention of the air-pump, are universally known. Homberg attached himself to Otto Guericke, and this philosopher, though fond of mystery, either explained to him his secrets, in consequence of his admiration of his genius, or was unable to conceal them from his penetration. At last Homberg, quite tired of his profession of advocate, left Magdeburg and went to Italy. He sojourned for some time at Padua, where he devoted himself to the study of medicine, anatomy, and botany. At Bologna he examined the famous Bologna stone, the nature of which had been almost forgotten, and succeeded in making a pyrophorus out of it. At Rome he associated particularly with Marc-Antony Celio, famous for the large glasses for telescopes which he was able to grind. Nor did he neglect painting, sculpture, and music; pursuits in which, at that time, the Italians excelled all other nations.
From Italy he went to France, and thence passed into England, where he wrought for some time in the laboratory of Mr. Boyle, at that time one of the most eminent schools of science in Europe. He then passed into Holland, studied anatomy under De Graaf, and after visiting his family, went to Wittemberg, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine.
After this he visited Baldwin and Kunkel, to get more accurate information respecting the phosphorus which each had respectively discovered. He purchased a knowledge of Kunkel’s phosphorus, by giving in exchange a meteorological toy of Otto Guericke, now familiarly known, by which the moisture or dryness of the air was indicated—a little man came out of his house and stood at the door in dry weather, but retired under cover in moist weather. He next visited the mines of Saxony, Bohemia, and Hungary: he even went to Sweden, to visit the copper-mines of that country. At Stockholm he wrought in the chemical laboratory, lately established by the king, along with Hjerna, and contributed considerably to the success of that new establishment.
He repaired a second time to France, where he spent some time, actively engaged with the men of science in Paris. His father strongly pressed him to return to Holland and settle as a physician: he at last consented, and the day of his departure was come, when, just as he was going into his carriage, he was stopped by a message from M. Colbert on the part of the king. Offers of so advantageous a nature were made him if he would consent to remain in France, that, after some consideration, he was induced to embrace them.
In 1682 he changed his religion and became Roman catholic: this induced his father to disinherit him. In 1688 he went to Rome, where he practised medicine with considerable success. A few years after he returned to Paris, where his knowledge and discoveries gave him a very high reputation. In 1691 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences, and got the direction of the laboratory belonging to the academy: this enabled him to devote his undivided attention to chemical investigations. In 1702 he was taken into the service of the Duke of Orleans, who gave him a pension, and put him in possession of the most splendid and complete laboratory that had ever been seen. He was presented with the celebrated burning-glass of M. Tchirnhaus, by the Duke of Orleans, and was enabled by means of it to determine many points that had hitherto been only conjectural.
In 1704 he was made first physician to the Duke of Orleans, who honoured him with his particular esteem. This appointment obliging him to reside out of Paris, would have made it necessary for him to resign his seat in the academy, had not the king made a special exemption in his favour. In 1708 he married a daughter of the famous M. Dodart, to whom he had been long attached. Some years after he was attacked by a dysentery, which was cured, but returned from time to time. In 1715 it returned with great violence, and Homberg died on the 24th of September.
His knowledge was uncommonly great in almost every department of science. His chemical papers were very numerous; though there are few of them, in this advanced period of the science, that are likely to claim much attention from the chemical world. His pyrophorus, of which he has given a description in the Mémoires de l’Académie,177 was made by mixing together human fæces and alum, and roasting the mixture till it was reduced to a dry powder. It was then exposed in a matrass to a red heat, till every thing combustible was driven off. Any combustible will do as a substitute for human fæces—gum, flour, sugar, charcoal, may be used. When a little of this phosphorus is poured upon paper, it speedily catches fire and kindles the paper. Davy first explained the nature of this phosphorus. The potash of the alum is converted into potassium, which, by its absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere, generates heat, and sets fire to the charcoal contained in the powder.
Homberg’s papers printed in the Memoirs of the French Academy amount to thirty-one. They are to be found in the volumes for 1699 to 1714 inclusive.
M. Geoffroy, who was a member of the academy about the same time with Lemery and Homberg, though he outlived them both, and who was an active chemist for a considerable number of years, deserves also to be mentioned here.
Stephen Francis Geoffroy was born in Paris on the 13th of February, 1672, where his father was an apothecary. While a young man, regular meetings of the most eminent scientific men of Paris were held in his father’s house, at which he was always present. This contributed very much to increase his taste for scientific pursuits. After this he studied botany, chemistry, and anatomy in Paris. In 1692 his father sent him to Montpelier, to study pharmacy in the house of a skilful apothecary, who at the same time sent his son to Paris, to acquire the same art in the house of M. Geoffroy, senior. Here he attended the different classes in the university, and his name began to be known as a chemist. After spending some time in Montpelier, he travelled round the coast to see the principal seaports, and was at St. Malo’s in 1693, when it was bombarded by the British fleet.
In 1698 Count Tallard being appointed ambassador extraordinary to London, made choice of M. Geoffroy as his physician, though he had not taken a medical degree. Here he made many valuable acquaintances, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. From London he went to Holland, and thence into Italy, in 1700, where he went in the capacity of physician to M. de Louvois. The great object of M. Geoffroy was always natural history, and materia medica. In 1693 he had subjected himself to an examination, and he had been declared qualified to act as an apothecary; but his own object was to be a physician, while that of his father was that he should succeed himself as an apothecary: this in some measure regulated his education. At last he declared his intentions, and his father agreed to them; he became bachelor of medicine in 1702, and doctor of medicine in 1704.
In 1709 he was made professor of medicine in the Royal College. In 1707 he began to lecture on chemistry, at the Jardin du Roi, in place of M. Fagan, and continued to teach this important class during the remainder of his life. In 1726 he was chosen dean of the faculty of medicine; and, after the two years for which he was elected was finished, he was again chosen to fill the same situation. There existed at that time a lawsuit between the physicians and surgeons in Paris; a kind of civil war very injurious to both; and the mildness and suavity of his manners fitted him particularly for being at the head of the body of physicians during its continuance. He became a member of the academy in 1699, and died on the 6th of January, 1731.
The most important of all his chemical labours, and for which he will always be remembered in the annals of the science, was the contrivance which he fell upon, in 1718, of exhibiting the order of chemical decompositions under the form of a table.178 This method was afterwards much enlarged and improved. Such tables are now usually known by the name of tables of affinity; and, though they have been of late years somewhat neglected, there can be but one opinion of their importance when properly constructed.
M. Geoffroy first communicated to the French chemists the mode of making Prussian blue, as Dr. Woodward did to the English.
Claude Joseph Geoffroy, the younger brother of the preceding, was also a member of the Academy of Sciences, and a zealous cultivator of chemistry. Many of his chemical papers are to be found in the memoirs of the French Academy. He demonstrated the composition of sal ammoniac, which however was known to Glauber. He made many experiments upon the combustion of the volatile oils, by pouring nitric acid on them. He explained the pretended property which certain waters have of converting iron into copper, by showing that in such cases copper was held in solution in the water by an acid, and that the iron merely precipitated the copper, and was dissolved and combined with the acid in its place. He pointed out the constituents of the three vitriols, the green, the blue, and the white; showing that the two former were combinations of sulphuric acid with oxides of iron and copper, and the latter a solution of lapis calaminaris (carbonate of zinc) in the same acid. He has also a memoir on the emeticity of antimony, tartar emetic, and kermes mineral; but it is rather medical than chemical. He determined experimentally the nature of the salt of Seignette, or Rochelle salt, and showed that it was obtained by saturating cream of tartar with carbonate of soda, and crystallizing. It is curious that this discovery was made about the same time by M. Boulduc. I have noticed only a few of the papers of M. Geoffroy, junior; because, though they all do him credit, and contributed to the improvement of chemistry, yet none of them contain any of those great discoveries, which stand as landmarks in the progress of science, and constitute an era in the history of mankind. For the same reason I omit several other names that, in a more minute history of chemistry, would deserve to be particularized.
Bacon, Lord Verulam, as early as the commencement of the 17th century, had pointed out the importance of chemical investigations, and had predicted the immense advantages which would result from the science, when it came to be properly cultivated and extended; but he did not himself attempt either to construct a theory of chemistry, or even to extend it beyond the bounds which it had reached before he began to write. Neither did Boyle, notwithstanding the importance of his investigations, and his comparative freedom from the prejudices of the alchymists, attempt any thing like a theory of chemistry; though the observations which he made in his Sceptical Chemist, had considerable effect in overturning, or at least in hastening the downfall of the absurd chemical opinions which at that time prevailed, and the puerile hypotheses respecting the animal functions, and the pathology and treatment of diseases founded on these opinions. The first person who can with propriety be said to have attempted to construct a theory of chemistry, was Beccher.
John Joachim Beccher, one of the most extraordinary men of the age in which he lived, was born at Spires, in Germany, in the year 1635. His father, as Beccher himself informs us, was a very learned Lutheran preacher. As he lost his father when he was very young, and as that part of Germany where he lived had been ruined by the thirty years’ war, his family was reduced to great poverty. However, his passion for information was so great, that he contrived to educate himself by studying what books he could procure, and in this way acquired a great deal of knowledge. Afterwards he travelled through the greatest part of Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Holland.
In the year 1666 he was appointed public professor of medicine in the University of Mentz, and soon after chief physician to the elector. In that capacity he took up his residence in Munich, where he was furnished by the elector with an excellent laboratory: but he soon fell into difficulties, the nature of which does not appear, and was obliged to leave the place. He took refuge in Vienna, where, from his knowledge of finance, he was appointed chamberlain to Count Zinzendorf, and through him acquired so much importance in the eyes of the court, that he was named a member of the newly-erected College of Commerce, and obtained the title of imperial commercial counsellor and chamberlain. But here also he speedily raised up so many enemies against himself, that he found it necessary to leave Vienna, and to carry with him his wife and children. He repaired to Holland, and settled at Haerlem in 1678. Here he was likely to have been successful; but his enemies from Vienna followed him, and obliged him to leave Holland. In 1680 we find him in Great Britain, where he examined the Scottish lead-mines, and smelting-works; and in 1681, and 1682, he traversed Cornwall, and studied the mines and smelting-works of that great mining county; here he suggested several improvements and ameliorations. Soon after this an advantageous proposal was made to him by the Duke of Mecklenburg Gustrow, by means of Count Zinzendorf; but all his projects were arrested by his death, which took place in the year 1682. It is said that he died in London, but I have not been able to find any evidence of this.
It would be a difficult task to particularize his various discoveries, which are scattered through a multiplicity of writings. He was undoubtedly the first discoverer of boracic acid, though the credit of the discovery has usually been given to Homberg.179 But then he gives no account of boracic acid, nor does he seem to have attended to its qualities. The following is a list of Beccher’s writings:
1. Metallurgia, or the Natural Science of Metals.
2. Institutiones Chymicæ.
3. Parnassus Medicinalis illustrata.
4. Œdipus Chymicus seu Institutiones Chymicæ.
5. Acta laboratorii Chymici Monacensis seu Physica Subterranea.—This, which is the most important of all his works, is usually known by the name of “Physica Subterranea.” This is the sole title affixed to it in the edition published at Leipsic, in 1703, to which Stahl has prefixed a long introduction. It is divided into seven sections. In the first he treats of the creation of the world; in the second he gives a chemical account of the motions and changes which are constantly going on in the earth; in the third he treats of the three principles of all bodies, which he calls earths. The first of these principles of metals and stones is the fusible or stony earth; the second principle of minerals is the fat earth, improperly called sulphur; the third principle is the fluid earth, improperly called mercury; in the fourth section he treats of the action of subterraneous principles, or the formation of mixts; in the fifth he treats of the solution of the three classes of mixts, animals, vegetables, and metals; in the sixth he treats of mixts, in which he gives their chemical constituents. This section is very curious, because it gives Beccher’s views of the constitution of compound bodies. It will be seen from it that he had much more correct notions of the real objects of chemistry, than any of his contemporaries. In the seventh and last section he treats of the accidents and physical affections of subterraneous bodies.
6. Experimentum Chymicum novum quo artificialis et instantanea metallorum generatio et transmutatio, ad oculum demonstratur.—This constitutes the first supplement to the Physica Subterranea.
7. Supplementum secundum in Physicam subterraneam, demonstratio philosophica seu Theses Chymicæ, veritatem et possibilitatem transmutationis metallorum in aurum evincentes.
8. Trifolium Beccherianum Hollandicum.
9. Experimentum novum et curiosum de Minera arenaria perpetua, sive prodromus historiæ seu propositionis Præp. D.D. Hollandiæ ordinibus ab authore factæ, circa auri extractionem mediante arena littorali per modum mineræ perpetuæ seu operationis magnæ fusoriæ cum emolumento. Loco supplementi tertii in Physicam suam subterraneam.
10. Chemical Luckpot, or great chemical agreement; in a collection of one thousand five hundred chemical processes.
11. Foolish Wisdom and wise Folly.
12. Magnalia Naturæ.
13. Tripus Hermeticus fatidicus pandens oracula chemica; seu I. Laboratorium portatile, cum methodo vere spagyricæ seu juxta exigentiam naturæ laborandi. Accessit pro praxi et exemplo; II. Centrum mundi concatenatum seu Duumviratus hermeticus s. magnorum duorum productorum nitri et salis textura et anatomia atque in omnium præcedentium confirmationem adjunctum est; III. Alphabetum Minerale seu viginti quatuor theses de subterraneorum mineralium genesi, textura et analysi; his accessit concordantia mercurii lunæ et menstruorum.
14. Chemical Rose-garden.
15. Pantaleon delarvatus.
16. Beccheri, Lancelotti, etc. Epistolæ quatuor Chemicæ.
Beccher’s great merit was the contrivance of a chemical theory, by which all the known facts were connected together and deduced from one general principle. But as this theory was adopted and considerably modified by Stahl, it will be better to lay a sketch of it before the reader, after mentioning a few particulars of the life and labours of one of the most extraordinary men whom Germany has produced; a man who, in spite of the moroseness and haughtiness of his character, and in spite of the barbarity of his style, raised himself to the very first rank as a man of science; and had the rare or almost unique fortune of giving laws at the same time to two different and important sciences, which he cultivated together, without letting his opinions respecting the one influence him with regard to the other. These sciences were chemistry and medicine.
George Ernest Stahl was born at Anspach, in the year 1660. He studied medicine at Jena under George Wolfgang Wedel; and got his doctor’s degree at the age of twenty-three. Immediately after this he began his career as a public lecturer. In 1687 the Duke of Weimar gave him the title of physician to the court. In 1694 he was named, at the solicitation of Frederick Hoffmann, second professor of medicine in the University of Halle, which had just been established. Hoffmann and he were at that time great friends, though they afterwards quarrelled. Both of them were men of the very highest talents and both were the founders of medical systems which, of course, each was anxious to support. Hoffmann had greatly the superiority in elegance and clearness of style, and in all the amenities of polite manners. But perhaps the moroseness of Stahl, and the obscurity, or rather mysticism of his style, contributed equally with the more amiable qualities of Hoffmann to excite the attention and produce the veneration with which he was viewed by his pupils, and, indeed, by the world at large.
At Halle he continued as a teacher of medicine for twenty-two years. In 1716 he was appointed physician to the King of Prussia. In consequence of this appointment he left Halle, and resided in Berlin, where he died in the year 1734, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Notwithstanding the great figure that Stahl made as a chemist, there is no evidence that he ever taught that science in any public school. The Berlin Academy had been founded under the superintendence of Leibnitz, who was its first president; and therefore existed when Stahl was in Berlin: but, till it was renovated in 1745 by Frederick the Great, this academy possessed but little activity, and could scarcely, therefore, have stimulated Stahl to attend to chemical science. However, his Chymia rationalis et experimentalis was published in 1720, while he resided in Berlin. The same date is appended to the preface of his Fundamenta Chymiæ; but, from some expressions in that preface, it must, I should think, have been written, not by Stahl, but by some other person.180 I suspect that the book had been written by some of his pupils, from the lectures of the author while at Halle. If this was really the case, it is obvious that Stahl must have taught chemistry as well as medicine in the University of Halle.
Stahl’s medical theory is not less deserving of notice than his chemical. But it is not the object of this work to enter into medical speculations. Like Van Helmont, he resolved all diseases into the actions of the soul, which was not merely the former of the body, but its ruler and regulator. When any of the functions are deranged, the soul exerts itself to restore them again to their healthy state; and she accomplishes this by what in common language is called disease. The business of a medical man, then, is not to prevent diseases, or to stop them short when they appear; because they are the efforts of the soul, the vis medicatrix naturæ, to restore the deranged state of the functions: but he must watch these diseases, and prevent the symptoms from becoming too violent. He must assist nature to produce the intended effect, and check her exertions when they become abnormal. It was a kind of modification of this theory, or rather a mixture of the Stahlian and Hoffmannian theories, that Dr. Cullen afterwards taught in Edinburgh with so much eclat. And these opinions, so far as medical theories have any influence on practice, still continue in some measure prevalent. Indeed, much of the vulgar practice followed by medical men, chiefly in consequence of the education which they have received, is deduced from these two theories. But it would be too great a digression from the object of this work to enter into any details: suffice it to say, that the rival theories of Hoffmann and Stahl for many years divided the medical world in Germany, if not in the greater part of Europe. It was no small matter of exultation to so young a medical school as Halle, to have at once within its walls two such eminent teachers as Hoffmann and Stahl.
Let us turn our attention to the chemical writings of Stahl. Of these the most important is his Fundamenta Chymiæ dogmaticæ et experimentalis. It is divided, like the chemistry of Boerhaave, into a theoretical and practical part. The perusal of it is very disagreeable, as it is full of German words and phrases, and symbols are almost constantly substituted for words, as was at that time the custom.
His definition of chemistry is much more exact than Boerhaave’s. It is, according to him, the art of resolving compound bodies into their constituents, and of again forming them by uniting these constituents together.
He is inclined to believe with Beccher, that the simple principles are four in number. The mixts are compounds of these principles; and he shows by the doctrine of permutations that if we suppose the simple principles four, then the number of mixts will be 40,340. He treats in the first place of mixts, compounds, and aggregates.
The first object of chemistry is corruption, the second generation. Of these he treats at considerable length, giving an account of the different chemical processes, and of the apparatus employed.