Chemical Letters to Excellent Philosophers and Physicians in Germany

ls and Senators, most noble men, Hippocrates long ago recorded this in his Law. It has been proclaimed everywhere that Chemistry, which is by far the most excellent of the natural sciences, experiences the same misfortune. I do not know by what unhappiness it has happened that, although it was once in the possession of Kings and Princes immediately after its first inventors, and was cultivated by the greatest Philosophers, now it is attended by almost no one unless they are those who, having deserted their own duties, gape after base profit and seek to abound in leisure. Likewise, the public has such a corrupted judgment that they think no one is a chemist unless they follow the principles and footsteps of the most vicious Paracelsus; such a one is both a lost liar, a wicked impostor, and injurious to ancient medicine. Yet there is no prudent man who does not understand that this is done to the art undeservedly. For while the madness of the common people has conspired with the shameful attempt of wicked men—who are as fit to judge the arts as a cuckoo is to judge musical harmony—they attribute the crimes to the authors themselves, rather than the art. Thus, it has even been accepted into the embrace of medicine, and it has been judged by the intelligent that the science of healing and human health cannot do without chemical apparatus. There were not lacking