Barchusen

Hannaway, Owen. Johann Conrad Barchusen (1666-1723) - contemporary and rival of Boerhaave. Ambix 14, no. 2 (Jun 1967) 96-111. 

As things stand, some have argued that Theory in chemistry is of no use. Certainly, this is true for Theory alone, but when married to Praxis, it is of the greatest use in chemistry [Barchusen 5, my translation].)... 

Barchusen, Johann Conrad. Elementa chemiae quibus subjuncta est confectura la-pidis philosophici imaginibus repraesentata. Leiden, the Netherlands Theodo-rum Haak, 1718. 

Even more to the point of establishing the fact of Duchamp s close knowledge of Poisson s Theories as early as mid-1911 is this author s illustration—in his Planche XIV —of the Alchemical Homunculus put captive within his Philosophical Egg (fig. 5). Poisson s caption tersely explains that this picture was copied from the Liber singularis de Barchusen [i.e.. 

Barchusen was one of the last chemists to exhibit an interest in alchemy, and worked from a laboratory set up in the city walls of Utrecht. His book Elementa Chemiae is full of alchemical illustrations. 

Guyton s comprehensive vision for theoretical chemistry consisted of a dissolution model of chemical action. He added the Newtonian component of attraction to Louis Lemery s mechanistic model of solution process, drawing on a host of chemical authors Macquer, Boerhaave, Hoffman, Spielmann, Cadet, Boyle, Friend, Keill, Barchusen, Lemery, Bohn, Le Sage, and Limbourg. He also accepted Buffon s premise that chemical affinity or attraction depended on the shape and the relative position of particles, and that it followed the inverse square law ... 

Barchusen, J.C. (1698). Pyrosophia succinte atque breviter iatro-chemiam, rem metalli-cam et chrysopoeiam. Leiden. 

Figure 8. Conrad Barchusen s laboratory at Utrecht. Barchusen s laboratory was a passive instrument containing other active instruments for the purpose of making new things. Pyrosophia (Lugduni Batavorum, 1689). By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

Utrecht laboratory experienced how to apply them to the examination of the components of blood, urine, and dung. Minerals had their parts and principles more intricately bound within them but Barchusen promised to examine these as well, showing to students how to resolve them so as to produce their salts (pp. 445ff) (Figure 8). 

Theory followed from procedure in Barchusen s laboratory. Knowing how to use instruments in unlocking the parts of mixed bodies was especially important and, in an earlier part of the Pyrosophia, Barchusen observed that some of those instruments should be regarded as active and others as passive. Those labeled passive were instruments that did not predetermine a particular kind of operation but simply allowed things to happen (sed... 

Barchusen, J. C. 1698. Pyrosophia. Leiden Impensis Cornelli Boutestein. Becher, J. J. 1703. Physica Subterraneorum, 8th ed. Leipzig Apud Joh. Ludov. 

A246. Engraving from Barchusen Elementa chemiae Leiden, 1718... 

Johann Conrad Barchusen was born in Lippe, one of the former states of Germany, in 1666. He studied pharmacy, became a physician, and was appointed... 

Lector in Medicine at Utrecht in 1698 and Professor of Chemistry in 1703d Figure 90 is from his 1698 hook titled Pyrosophia and depicts Barchusen s chemical laboratory. Is that Barchusen himself carefully weighing reagents And what efficacious liquids flowed from the caduceus-like still on the right side of his laboratory ... 

FIGURE 90. Is that author Johann Conrad Barchusen weighing the midnight oil in his Utrecht laboratory (Pyrosophia, Utrecht, 1698). 

FIGURE 91. Emblems 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 (left to right in each row, starting from the top) from Johann Conrad Barchusen s, Elementa Chemiae (Leiden, 1718). 

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