The History of Chemistry, Volume 1 (of 2)Thomson, Thomas
History
The History of Chemistry, Volume 1 (of 2)
Thomson, Thomas
Chemistry -- History
The third and last part of this elaborate work discusses three
subjects; viz. _zymotechnia_ or _fermentation_, _halotechnia_, or the
production and properties of salts, and _pyrotechnia_, in which the
whole of the Stahlian doctrine of _phlogiston_ is developed. This
third part has all the appearance of having been notes written down by
some person during the lectures of Stahl: for it consists of alternate
sentences of Latin and German. It is not at all likely that Stahl
himself would have produced such a piebald work; but if he lectured in
Latin, as was at that time the universal custom, it was natural for a
person occupied in taking down the lectures, to write as far as was
possible in Latin, but when any of the Latin phrases were lost, or did
not immediately occur to memory, it were equally natural to write down
the meaning of what the professor stated in the language most familiar
to the writer, which was undoubtedly the German.
Another of Stahl’s works is entitled “Opusculum
Chymico-physico-medicum,” published at Halle in a thick quarto volume,
in the year 1715. It contains a great number of tracts, partly chemical
and partly medical, which it is needless to specify. Perhaps the most
curious of them all is his dissertation to show the way in which Moses
ground the golden calf to powder, dissolved it in water, and obliged
the children of Israel to drink it. He shows that a solution of hepar
sulphuris (_sulphuret of potassium_), has the property of dissolving
gold, and he draws as a conclusion from his experiments that this was
the artifice employed by Moses. We have in the same volume a pretty
detailed treatise on metallurgic pyrotechny and docimasy. This is the
more curious, because Stahl never appears to have frequented the mines
and smelting-houses of Germany. He must, therefore, have drawn his
information from books and from experiment.
Another of his books is entitled “Experimenta, Observationes,
Animadversiones, CCC. Numero.” An octavo volume, printed at Berlin
in 1731. Another of his books is entitled “Specimen Beccherianum.”
There are also two chemical books of Stahl, which I have seen only in
a French translation, viz., _Traité de Soufre_ and _Traité de Sels_.
These are the only chemical writings of Stahl that I have seen. There
are probably others; indeed I have seen the titles of several other
chemical works ascribed to him. But as it is doubtful whether he really
wrote them or not, I think it unnecessary to specify them here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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