Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire

摘要

Yet, he is important in the history of science and medicine not for contributing innovative concepts or laboratory discoveries but for his significant role in creating "an intellectual, social, and cultural domain that admitted alchemy as a didactic subject and whose language guided further chemical discussion" (p. 3). Libavius had no patience for the poor and even diabolical alchemists who had thrown out the past, despised school learning, abused Scripture, and utilized magic through signs, characters, and words-he wished to steal alchemy away from them.