Volume 6

The gallery of nature and art; or, a tour through creation and science ... / By Edward Polehampton, and John M. Good. Illustrated by one hundred engravings.

  • Polehampton, Edward (Edward Thomas William), 1777?-1830.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gallery of nature and art; or, a tour through creation and science ... / By Edward Polehampton, and John M. Good. Illustrated by one hundred engravings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lowing act of parliament, which Lord Coke calls the shortest he ever met with, was passed 5 H. 4. “* None from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use.the craft of multiplication ; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony.’’ It has been suggested, that the reason of passing this act, was not an ap- prehension lest men should ruin their fortunes by endeavouring to make gold, but a jealousy lest government should be above asking aid of the subject. ‘“ After Raymund Lully, and Sir George Ripley, had so largely multiplied gold, the lords and commons, conceiving some danger that the regency, having such immense treasure at command, would be above asking aid of the sub- ject, and might become too arbitary and tyrannical, made an act against multiplying gold and silver*.’’ This act, whatever might be the occasion of passing it, though it gave some obstruction to the public exercise of alchemy, yet it did not cure the disposition for it in individuals, nor remove the general credulity ; for in the 35 H. 6, Letters patent were granted to several people, by which they were permitted to investigate an universal medicine, and to perform the transmutation of metals into real gold and silver, with a non-obstante of the forementioned statute, which remained in full force till the year 1689, when being conceived to operate to the discouragement of the melting and refining of metals, it was for- mally repealed +. The beginning of the sixteenth century was remarkable for a great revolution produced in the European practice of physic, by means of chemistry. Then it was that Paracelsus, following the steps of Basile Valentine, and growing famous for curing the vene- real disease, the leprosy, and other virulent disorders, principally by the means of mercurial and antimonial preparations, wholly re- jected the Galenical pharmacy, and substituted in its stead the che- mical, He had a professor’s chair given him by the magistracy of Basil, was the first who read public lectures in medicine and che- mistry, and subjected animal and vegetable, as well as mineral sub- stances, to an examination by fire. It seldom, happens that a man of but common abilities, and in * Opera Mineralia explicata, p. 10. + Mr. Boyle is said by his interest to have procured the repeal of this singular statute, and to have been probably induced thereto, in consequence of his having been persuaded of the possibility of the transmutation of metals into gold. See his -Life, prefixed to the folio edition of his works, p. 83.
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