Johann Joachim Becher
Johann Becher | |
---|---|
Born | 6 May 1635 |
Died | October 1682 | (aged 47)
Known for | Phlogiston theory |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Chemistry, alchemy |
Johann Joachim Becher (German:
Early life and education
Becher was born in
In 1654, at the age of nineteen, he published the Discurs von der Großmächtigen Philosophischen Universal-Artzney / von den Philosophis genannt Lapis Philosophorum Trismegistus (discourse about the almighty philosophical and universal medicine by the philosopher called Lapis Philosophorum Trismegistus) under the pseudonym 'Solinus Salzthal of Regiomontus.'[2] It was published in Latin in 1659 as Discursus Solini Saltztal Regiomontani De potentissima philosophorum medicina universali, lapis philosophorum trismegistus dicta (translated by Johannes Jacobus Heilmann) in vol. VI of the Theatrum Chemicum.
Career
In 1657, he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Mainz and physician to the archbishop-elector. His Metallurgia was published in 1660; and the next year appeared his Character pro notitia linguarum universali, in which he gives 10,000 words for use as a universal language. In 1663, he published his Oedipum Chemicum and a book on animals, plants and minerals (Thier- Kräuter- und Bergbuch).[1]
In 1666, he was made councillor of commerce (
Meanwhile, he had been appointed physician to the elector of Bavaria; but in 1670 he was again in Vienna advising on the establishment of a silk factory and propounding schemes for a great company to trade with the Low Countries and for a canal to unite the Rhine and Danube.[3]
In 1678, he crossed to
Legacy
Austrian Cameralist
Becher was the most original and influential theorist of Austrian
Immediately after the Thirty Years’ War the Bohemian towns had petitioned Ferdinand to refine its own raw materials into more finished goods for export. Becher became the leading force in attempting this conversion. By 1666 he had inspired the creation of a Commerce Commission (Kommerzkollegium) in Vienna, as well as the reestablishment of the first postwar silk plantation on the Lower Austrian estates of Hofkammer President Sinzendorf. Becher then subsequently helped create a Kunst- und Werkhaus in which foreign masters trained non-guild artisans in the production of finished goods. By 1672 he had promoted the construction of a wool factory in Linz. Four years later he established a textile workhouse for vagabonds in the Boemian town of Tabor that eventually employed 186 spinners under his own directorship.
Some of Becher’s projects met with limited success. In time Linz’s new wool factory even became one of the largest and most important in Europe. Yet most of the government initiatives ended in failure. The Commerce Commission was doomed by Sinzendorf’s corruption and indifference. The Tabor workhouse nearly collapsed after just five years owing to the lack of government funding, and was then destroyed two years later during the Turkish invasion. The Oriental Company was fatally handicapped by a combination of poor management, government export prohibitions against Turkey, the opposition of Ottoman (principally Greek) merchants, and ultimately by the outbreak of war. The Kunst- und Werkhaus also folded during the 1680s, partly because of the regime’s unwillingness to import a significant number of foreign, Protestant teachers and skilled workers.[6]
Chemist and alchemist
William Cullen considered Becher as a chemist of first importance and Physica Subterranea as the most considerable of Bechers writings.[4]
Bill Bryson, in his A Short History of Nearly Everything, notes:
Chemistry as an earnest and respectable science is often said to date from 1661, when Robert Boyle of Oxford published The Sceptical Chymist — the first work to distinguish between chemists and alchemists — but it was a slow and often erratic transition. Into the eighteenth century scholars could feel oddly comfortable in both camps — like the German Johann Becher, who produced sober and unexceptionable work on mineralogy called Physica Subterranea, but who also was certain that, given the right materials, he could make himself invisible.[7]
References
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 602.
- ISBN 978 0 470 08523 3. p. 231f. Chisholm writes in the 11th. ed. of the Encyclopædia Britannica that Becher "published an edition of Salzthal’s Tractatus de lapide trismegisto."
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911, pp. 602–603.
- ^ JSTOR 3102276.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 603.
- ^ ISBN 0-521-78505-7; p. 92-93.
- ISBN 0-552-99704-8; p. 130.
Sources
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Becher, Johann Joachim". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 602–603. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Smith, Pamela H. (1994). The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Ingrao, Charles W. (2005). The Habsburg Monarchy: 1618–1815. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- Anthony Endres, Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory: the founding Austrian version (London: Routledge Press, 1997).
- Erik Grimmer-Solem, The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany 1864–1894 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
External links
- Works by or about Johann Joachim Becher at Internet Archive
- Johann Joachim Becher-Preises (in German)
- Engines of our Ingenuity: Johann Joachim Becker at uh.edu
- Texts on Wikisource:
- "Becher, Johann Joachim". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
- "New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
- "The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
- Joh. Joach. Becheri ... Opuscula chymica rariora, addita nova praefatione ac indice locupletissimo multisque figuris aeneis illustrata a Friderico Roth-Sholtzio, Siles - full digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library