Epistolary Form of Chemical Matters

Hippocrates has long since written in his LEX Law that the same misfortune is experienced by CHYMIA Chemistry, which is by far the most excellent of natural sciences. I do not know by what misfortune it has come about that, although it was once in the possession of Kings and Princes from the time of its very first inventors, and was cultivated by the highest Philosophers, now it is attended to by almost no one except those who, having deserted their own function, gape for shameful profit and seek to abound in leisure. Likewise, the public's judgment is so depraved that they consider no one a chemist unless he follows the plan and footsteps of the most vicious Paracelsus; he is then both a hopeless liar and a wicked impostor, and injurious to ancient medicine. Nevertheless, there is no prudent person 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 have no more right to judge the arts than a cuckoo does to judge the harmony of music—they attribute the crimes to the authors themselves, rather than the art being immune. Thus, it has been embraced even in medicine, and it has been judged by the intelligent that medical science and human health cannot exist without chemical apparatus. There have not been lacking...