ajul Dr. David Krieg. 141 



Dr. Krieg was a native of Saxony. It is conjectured, 

 *' that after his return from Maryland, he retired into 

 his native country*." He was the friend and corres- 

 pondent of Mr. Samuel Dale, a very respectable Eng- 

 lish practising apothecary and naturalist. In his Phar- 

 macologiaf, this writer acknowledges, in a very respect- 

 ful manner, the notices which were communicated to 

 him by Krieg. He even " ranks him among the few 

 eminent men of the time, who excelled in the know- 

 ledge of the Materia Medica and Chemistry." This 

 commendation, it is probable, is rather high. The 

 Materia Medica was, indeed, in a very wretched 

 state when Dale published the first edition of his work, 

 in 1693, and for a long time after. No artist, of supe- 

 rior talents, had yet arisen, to mould the noble science, 

 or any part of it, into a regular or decent shape. This 

 was to be the work of a later day. Krieg may have 

 excelled, among the writers of his time, in the know- 

 ledge of the properties of the various (known) objects of 

 the materia medica. But Dale ought not to have said, 

 that the German physician was one of the few eminent 

 chemists of the age. Chemistry was, indeed, at this 

 period, in its infancy : but the science (or rather Art, for 

 it did not, until a much later period, deserve the name 

 of a science) was cultivated, with great zeal, and labour, 

 and success, by many votaries at this period, particularly 

 in Germany and in France. 



The only chemical paper of Kricg's, of which I have.any 

 knowledge, is entided " An Account of Cobalt and the 



* Dr. Pultency. 



t Pharmacologia S. Manuductio ad Materlam Medicara; 



