THE DAWN OF MODERN CHEMISTRY 19 



or infallible. Free criticism and independent thought once aroused 

 could not again be contented with blind adhesion to any unchanging 

 system of doctrines. 



Very naturally the period of chemical activity following the shat- 

 tering of long-accepted dogmas was characterized by many wild and 

 fantastic notions. Many of the most extravagant claims of alchemy 

 and of marvelous medical nostrums are found in the literature of the 

 latter part of the sixteenth and of the first half of the seventeenth 

 century. But much was done, on the other hand, in developing chem- 

 ical facts. Men like Van Helmont and Glauber, while retaining much 

 of the mysticism and obscurity of Paracelsus and earlier chemists, yet 

 contributed in no unimportant way to the constructive work of adding 

 to established chemical facts as the result of their experiments, though 

 indeed contributing little of permanent value to chemical theory or 

 generalization. Chemists were generally either adherents of the Aris- 

 totelian elements, or of the three elements of Paracelsus, according as 

 they belonged to the conservative or radical parties. Nevertheless, 

 there was much independent speculation and theorizing, though rarely 

 on a scientific basis. The new freedom found expression in extrava- 

 gances of ignorance and superstition, in charlatanry and imposture, as 

 well as in much earnest and valuable labor. But at all events, chem- 

 istry was now, at last, very much alive, and the mission of chemistry 

 was at last recognized as of importance and dignity. Werner Eolfink, 

 professor of anatomy, surgery, botany, medicine and chemistry at Mar- 

 burg, is said to have been the first officially recognized professor of 

 chemistry in Germany- — a.d. 1629. A chair of chemistry was estab- 

 lished early in the same century at the University of Paris, and a Scotch 

 physician, William Davisson, was the first incumbent. In 1635 he 

 published a text-book on chemistry for the use of his students, a work 

 which passed through many editions. 



The University of Leyden is credited with the first chemical labo- 

 ratory at a European university, and the distinguished De la Boe 

 Sylvius was the professor of the theory and practise of chemistry as well 

 as of medicine. He was a strong adherent of the chemical medicines. 

 Other early university laboratories were at Altorf, 1663, Stockholm, 

 1683. 



Thus was beginning to be realized the ideal so confidently main- 

 tained though vaguely realized by Paracelsus, of exalting the study of 

 chemistry and recognizing its importance in the development of medi- 

 cal science. How important the interrelation of these two sciences was 

 to be in our day revealed, not even the imagination of Paracelsus could 

 have dreamed. 



As Paracelsus in the sixteenth century gave the first important im- 

 pulse to the development of modern chemistry, so, in the middle of 

 the seventeenth century. Sir Eobert Boyle may be said to have inaugu- 



