3. Treatise of the Phosphorus mirabilis, and its wonderful shining Pills; together with a discourse on what was formerly rightly named nitre, but is now called the blood of nature.
4. An Epistle against Spirit of Wine without an acid.
5. Touchstone de Acido et Urinoso, Sale calido et frigido.
6. Ars Vitraria experimentalis.
7. Collegium Physico-chymicum experimentale, or Laboratorium chymicum.[176]
Nicolas Lemery, the first Frenchman who completely stripped chemistry of its mysticism, and presented it to the world in all its native simplicity, deserves our particular attention, in consequence of the celebrity which he acquired, and the benefits which he conferred on the science. He was born at Rouen on the 17th of November, 1645. His father, Julian Lemery, was procureur of the Parliament of Normandy, and a protestant. His son, when very young, showed a decided partiality for chemistry, and repaired to an apothecary in Rouen, a relation of his own, in hopes of being initiated into the science; but finding that little information could be procured from him, young Lemery left him in 1666, and went to Paris, where he boarded himself with M. Glaser, at that time demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi.
Glaser was a true chemist, according to the meaning at that time affixed to the term—full of obscure notions—unwilling to communicate what knowledge he possessed—and not at all sociable. In two months Lemery quitted his house in disgust, and set out with a resolution to travel through France, and pick up chemical information as he best could, from those who were capable of giving him information on the subject. He first went to Montpelier, where he boarded in the house of M. Vershant, an apothecary in that town. With his situation there he was so much pleased, that he continued in it for three years: he employed himself assiduously in the laboratory, and in teaching chemistry to a number of young students who boarded with his host. Here his reputation gradually increased so much, that he drew round him the professors of the faculty of medicine of Montpelier, and all the curious of the place, to witness his experiments. Here, too, he practised medicine with considerable success.
After travelling through all France, he returned to Paris in 1672. Here he frequented the different scientific meetings at that time held in that capital, and soon distinguished himself by his chemical knowledge. In a few years he got a laboratory of his own, commenced apothecary, and began to give public lectures on chemistry, which were speedily attended by great crowds of students from foreign countries. For example, we are told that on one occasion forty Scotchmen repaired to Paris on purpose to hear his lectures, and those of M. Du Verney on anatomy. The medicines which he prepared in his laboratory became fashionable, and brought him a great deal of money. The magistery of bismuth (or pearl-white), which he prepared as a cosmetic, was sufficient, we are told, to support the whole expense of his house. In the year 1675 he published his Cours de Chimie, certainly one of the most successful chemical books that ever appeared; it ran through a vast number of editions in a few years, and was translated into Latin, German, Spanish, and English.
In 1681 he began to be troubled in consequence of his religious opinions. Louis XIV. was at that time in the height of his glory, entirely under the control of his priests, and zealously bent upon putting an end to the reformed religion in his dominions. Indeed, from the infamous conduct of Charles II. of England, and the bigotry of his successor, a prospect was opened to him, and of which he was anxious to avail himself, of annihilating the reformed religion altogether, and of plunging Europe a second time into the darkness of Roman Catholicism.
Lemery found it expedient, in 1683, to pass over into England. Here he was well received by Charles II.: but England was at that time convulsed with those religious and political struggles, which terminated five years afterwards in the revolution. Lemery, in consequence of this state of things, found it expedient to leave England, and return to France. He took a doctor’s degree at Caen, in Normandy; and, returning to Paris, he commenced all at once practitioner in medicine and surgery, apothecary, and lecturer on chemistry. The edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, when James II. had assured Louis of his intention to overturn the established religion, and bring Great Britain again under the dominion of the pope. Lemery was obliged to give up practice and conceal himself, in order to avoid persecution. Finding his success hopeless, as long as he continued a protestant, he changed his religion in 1686, and declared himself a Roman catholic. This step secured his fortune: he was now as much caressed and protected by the court and the clergy, as he had been formerly persecuted by them. In 1699 when the Academy of Sciences was new modelled, he was appointed associated chemist, and, on the death of Bourdelin, before the end of that year, he became a pensioner. He died on the 19th of June, 1715, at the age of seventy, in consequence of an attack of palsy, which terminated in apoplexy.