---
title: "History of chemistry"
chunk: 4/20
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:59:28.102404+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Practical attempts to improve the refining of ores and their extraction to smelt metals was an important source of information for early chemists in the 16th century, among them Georg Agricola (1494–1555), who published his great work De re metallica in 1556. His work describes the highly developed and complex processes of mining metal ores, metal extraction and metallurgy of the time. His approach removed the mysticism associated with the subject, creating the practical base upon which others could build. The work describes the many kinds of furnace used to smelt ore, and stimulated interest in minerals and their composition. It is no coincidence that he gives numerous references to the earlier author, Pliny the Elder and his Naturalis Historia. Agricola has been described as the "father of metallurgy" and the founder of geology as a scientific discipline.
In 1605, Sir Francis Bacon published The Proficience and Advancement of Learning, which contains a description of what would later be known as the scientific method. In 1605, Michal Sedziwój publishes the alchemical treatise A New Light of Alchemy which proposed the existence of the "food of life" within air, much later recognized as oxygen. In 1615 Jean Beguin published the Tyrocinium Chymicum, an early chemistry textbook, and in it draws the first-ever chemical equation. In 1637 René Descartes publishes Discours de la méthode, which contains an outline of the scientific method.
The Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont's work Ortus medicinae was published posthumously in 1648; the book is cited by some as a major transitional work between alchemy and chemistry, and as an important influence on Robert Boyle. The book contains the results of numerous experiments and establishes an early version of the law of conservation of mass. Working during the time just after Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, Jan Baptist van Helmont suggested that there are insubstantial substances other than air and coined a name for them – "gas", from the Greek word chaos. In addition to introducing the word "gas" into the vocabulary of scientists, van Helmont conducted several experiments involving gases. Jan Baptist van Helmont is also remembered today largely for his ideas on spontaneous generation and his 5-year tree experiment, as well as being considered the founder of pneumatic chemistry.

=== Robert Boyle ===

The Anglo-Irish chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691) is considered to have initiated the gradual separation of chemistry from alchemy. Although skeptical of elements and convinced of alchemy, Boyle played a key part in elevating the "sacred art" as an independent, fundamental and philosophical discipline. He is best known for Boyle's law, which he presented in 1662, though he was not the first to discover it. The law describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system.
Boyle is also credited for his landmark publication The Sceptical Chymist (1661), which advocated for a rigorous approach to experimentation among chemists. In the work, Boyle questioned some commonly held alchemical theories and argued for practitioners to be more "philosophical" and less commercially focused. He rejected the classical four elements of earth, fire, air, and water, and proposed a mechanistic alternative of atoms and chemical reactions that could be subject to rigorous experiment.
Boyle also tried to purify chemicals to obtain reproducible reactions. He was a vocal proponent of the mechanical philosophy proposed by René Descartes to explain and quantify the physical properties and interactions of material substances. Boyle was an atomist, but favoured the word corpuscle over atoms. He commented that the finest division of matter where the properties are retained is at the level of corpuscles.
Boyle repeated the tree experiment of van Helmont, and was the first to use indicators which changed colors with acidity. He also performed numerous investigations with an air pump, and noted that the mercury fell as air was pumped out. He also observed that pumping the air out of a container would extinguish a flame and kill small animals placed inside. Through his works, Boyle helped to lay the foundations for the chemical revolution two centuries later.

=== Development and dismantling of phlogiston ===