Paracelsus’ idea of the existence of an “archaeus,” a power which presides over all physiological actions as well as over all the operations of medicinal drugs, resembles very closely the “vital force,” or “animism” so strongly championed by Stahl in the seventeenth century.
From all that I have said above regarding the excitable nature of Paracelsus it seems almost a waste of time to tell our readers that his contributions to the science of surgery were of very slight value. He despised the study of anatomy, claiming that a knowledge of this branch of medical science was not essential to a proper acquaintance with the human body. “To dissect,” he once remarked, “was a peasant’s manner of procedure.” (Cabanès.) His surgery, as one may imagine, showed clearly the bad effects of such beliefs.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century there developed among the leading men of the medical profession a sentiment in favor of honoring the memory of Paracelsus by the erection of a suitable monument at Basel, Switzerland, the city in which he made his first public appearance. The project met with a favorable reception and the statue is now an accomplished fact. This is a remarkable instance of tardy justice being rendered to the memory of a physician who, for three hundred years, was almost universally looked upon as a vain, half-crazy man.
The next advances of any special importance in the department of chemistry were made in Great Britain by Robert Boyle, who was born at Lismore, County of Cork, Ireland, on January 25, 1626. He was the fourteenth child of the Earl of Cork. His early training was obtained at Eton, and then afterward he spent two years at Geneva, Switzerland, in prosecuting his scientific studies. In 1654 he entered Oxford University and became intimately acquainted with some of the most learned men of that day. While he was a student at the university he became a member of what was known as “The Invisible College,” a society which was influential in bringing about the founding of “The Royal Society,” of which organization he was president from the year 1680 to the time of his death in 1691.
Boyle was endowed with a noble character—modest, religious and generous. He gained distinction as a chemist in several departments. Applied chemistry is indebted to him for a number of important contributions; he added to our knowledge of chemical combinations and to the methods of analyzing them; he enriched the chemistry of gases and also pharmacology; and he gave a clear and easily intelligible definition of what a “chemical element” is. He laid stress upon the doctrine that a chemical combination represents the union of two component elements, and that this combination possesses characteristics quite different from those possessed by either of the two component elements. Before his day there was practically no such thing as analytical chemistry, and it is to Boyle that we owe the establishment of a clear conception of what the terms “chemical reaction” and “chemical analysis” signify. The part played by atmospheric air in combustion was made by him the subject of numerous experiments which proved later to be of great assistance in the final solution of the problem.
In one of his writings Boyle says in substance that if men would devote their energies to carrying out experiments and collecting observations, rather than to the constructing of theories without having previously tested with thoroughness the grounds upon which they believe them to be based, the world would be greatly the gainer. The promulgation and insistence upon the importance of this doctrine for the growth of the science of chemistry constitute—so those competent to judge claim—Boyle’s greatest merit in scientific work and his most important contribution to chemistry.
Among the chemical treatises which Boyle wrote and published the following deserve to receive special mention: “Sceptical Chymist,” 1661; “Tentamina quaedam physiologica,” 1661; “Experimenta et considerationes de coloribus,” 1663; and “Medical Experiments,” 1692–1698. Although Boyle was not an avowed follower of Bacon, he carried out thoroughly the principles which the latter taught.
Raymond Minderer, a practicing physician in Augsburg, Germany (1570–1621), deserves the credit of having added to our stock of remedies the acetate of ammonia (liquor ammonii acetatis). Diluted with an equal quantity of water it is still employed to-day as a remedy under the name of “Spirit of Mindererus.” He was the compiler, in 1613, of the Augsburg Pharmacopoeia.
General Therapeutics.—Transfusion.—The Discovery of Cinchona and Ipecacuanha.—In the department of general therapeutics, as we learn from Berendes, several important new measures were brought forward during the seventeenth century; and among these the following deserve to receive brief mention in this place: the operation of transfusing blood from a healthy individual to one who is ill; the introduction of cinchona into the European pharmacopoeia as an efficient remedy in the treatment of certain fevers; the similar introduction of another South American drug—viz., ipecacuanha; and the invention of many medico-chemical products and the improvement of others that were already in common use.
As regards the operation of transfusion, from which great things were expected, Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), the famous architect and astronomer of London, is reported to have been the first person to urge a trial of this procedure. On the other hand, Robert Boyle, the chemist, actually performed the operation on animals. He followed the method suggested by Richard Lower (1631–1691) of England, viz., by allowing the blood to flow from the carotid artery of one animal into the jugular vein of a second animal; while Edmund King adopted the plan of allowing the blood to pass from the jugular vein of one animal into the corresponding vein of a second animal. Upon a human being the operation was probably performed for the first time (in 1666) by Denys, Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics in Paris. Repetitions of the operation were made, two or three years later, in London and in Rome, but they produced no good effects and in some instances they terminated in the death of the individual for whose benefit the operation had been performed. In 1668 the French Parliament and the Papal Government forbade a repetition of the operation.