SECTION III. — HISTORY. 95 



Booth, James Curtis and Campbell Morfit. 



On Recent Improvements in the Chemical Arts. Smithsonian Report. 

 Washington City, 1852. pp. 216, 8vo. 



BoRCH, Ole. 



See Borrichius, Olaus. 



BOREL, Pierre. 



Tresor de recherches et antiquites gauloises et francoises. Paris, 1655. 

 4to. 



Contains much material pertaining to the history of alchemy, but badly 

 arranged. 



Borrichius, Olaus (Ole Borch). 



*De ortu et progressu chemiae dissertatio. Hafniae, typis Matthiae 

 Godicchenii, sumptibus Petri Haubold, 1668. pp. [xii]-i5o, 4to. 

 (Reprinted in the Bibliotheca chem. curiosa of Mangetus, vol. i, 

 No. I.) 



The author of this celebrated treatise, the most frequently quoted by early 

 historians, was born at Borchen (whence his name), Jutland, in 1626. 

 He was Professor of Philology, Poetry, Chemistry and Botany at the 

 University of Copenhagen, a fact which causes Rodwell to remark that 

 " either professors were difficult to procure in the kingdom of Denmark, 

 or else Olaus Borrichius was an astounding genius." However this may 

 be, he was certainly a man of amazing credulity, and, allowing " the 

 imaginative faculty due to his poetical temperament to exert an undue 

 influence over his soberjudgment," he refers the origin of alchemy to 

 the antediluvians, endeavors to prove that Hermes Trismegistus was a 

 real personage, the inventor of all arts, and the father of alchemy, and 

 that the Smaragdine Table was really found by the wife of Abraham, 

 besides accepting the preposterous theories of his contemporaries con- 

 cerning the elixir of life and the philosophers' stone. This dissertation 

 was highly prized by the alchemists of his day on account of its earnest 

 defence of their principles. Its present value is solely that of a curious 

 example of the extravagant credulity of a learned man. 

 For biography of O. B. see in Section IV. 



*Hermetis, ^gyptiorum et chemicorum sapientia ab Hermanni Con- 

 ringii animadversionibus vindicata. Deuteronom. xxiii, v. vii. Noli 

 abominari ^gyptium. Hafniae, sumptibus Petri Hauboldi, 1674. 

 pp. [vi]-448-[viii], 4to. 



This is a reply to Hermann Conringius' " De hermetica medicina." See 

 Conring, H. 



Bostock, John. 



Account of the History and the present state of Galvanism. London, 

 1818. 8vo. 



