PIERRE JEAN FABRE.
This physician of Montpellier, to whom chemistry is indebted for some steps in its progress, flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He believed in the transmutation of metals, but is not considered as an adept, though he wrote seventeen treatises on this subject, and on the Spagiric Medicine. His most curious work is Alchimista Christianus. Toulouse, 1632, 8vo. In Hercules Piochymicus, published at the same place two years later, he maintains that the labours of Hercules are allegories, which contain the arcana of Hermetic philosophy.
He defines the philosophical stone as the seed out of which gold and silver are generated. It is three and yet one; it may be found in all compounded substances, and is formed of salt, mercury, and sulphur, which, however, are not to be confounded with the vulgar substances so denominated.