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Article ID: CBB001421638

Corporeal Elements and Principles in the Learned German Chymical Tradition (2014)

Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Volume: 61, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 345-365

Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Article in a special issue, “Analysis and Synthesis in Medieval and Early Modern Europe”
Language: English

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Chemical elements Chemistry Natural philosophy Physicians; doctors Paracelsianism Early modern 16th century 17th century 18th century Germany Billich, Anton Günther Erastus, Thomas Libavius, Andreas Sennert, Daniel

This paper explores diverse conceptions of the physicality and tangibility of elements and principles in early modern chymistry. By tracing the development of natural philosophical and corpuscular ideas about material elements and principles among several physicans and chymists, including Thomas Erastus, Andreas Libavius, Daniel Sennert, and Anton Günther Billich, this article locates a learned tradition that developed predominantly in Germany, and which directly challenged a common understanding of matter held by major Paracelsians as well as authors from the French textbook tradition. Likewise, conceptions of incorporeal elements or principles are shown to have developed from the ideas of Paracelsus and Petrus Severinus, whereas authors in the learned tradition emphasised a particular interpretation of Aristotle. The article concludes by suggesting that chymical interpretations of material composition had an important influence throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that this provides further evidence that the so-called “compositional revolution” in chemistry was well underway prior to the eighteenth century.

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Article Klein, Joel A.; Ragland, Evan R. (2014) Introduction: Analysis and Synthesis in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 319-326). unapi

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