Barchusen Pyrosophia

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.

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. 

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). 

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