Johann Becher

El Laboratorio de un Soplador Alquimista: Víctor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes. ''Alchemy is one of the most evocative subjects in the history of science. the very word fills the mind with images both vivid and mysterious. Not only did alchemy make important contributions to the development of modern science, but also fierd the popular imagination so strongly tha images of the Alchemist and his Art pervaded literature, theather, painting, and music.'' (Lloyd De Witt and L. Principe) ''If someone wants to take up working itself, there is nothing in the world than can bring him sooner into confusion than [inept assistans will], both because of the operations as well as the instruments and the materials, which are abundant and diverse. If he has the misfortune to meet with a Laborant or assistant who is disorderly, messy, and lazy, inside a month the Laboratorium will look like the Confusion in Babylon. The used glass vessels have been smashed into bits so that they cannot be rinsed out. For each operation they take new crucibles and glasses just so they not need to clean the old ones. Whole things, broken bits, clean, dirty, new, used, prepared materials, raw materials, wooden, clay, and glass utensils are standing all mixed together. The windows, tables and floor are full. And nothing is labelled as to what it is. Tongs, ladles, hammers and other instruments lie strewn everywhere in such a way that when you want anything, you must search for half an hour. The stink from the furnaces, the soot and dust from the coals, the sand, water, and lime do not help the work so much as aid the confusion...In this way the days and years disappear, as do the costs for materials, instruments, coals, and salary. In contrast, not only nothing remains in the crucible, but also the corporeal gold and silver become dirty and adulterated. When a year is over, you know nothing about what has been done, in fact, you known less at the end than at the beginning, for all processes look very well on paper...Which all makes Alchemy as harmful as it is vexing.'' (Johann Joachim Becher (German: [ˈbɛçɐ]; 6 May 1635 – October 1682) was a German physician, alchemist, precursor of chemistry, scholar, polymath and adventurer, best known for his terra pinguis theory which became the phlogiston theory of combustion, and his advancement of Austrian cameralism)