Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/451

 *gible definition of what a "chemical element" is. He laid stress upon the doctrine that a chemical combination represents the union of two component elements, and that this combination possesses characteristics quite different from those possessed by either of the two component elements. Before his day there was practically no such thing as analytical chemistry, and it is to Boyle that we owe the establishment of a clear conception of what the terms "chemical reaction" and "chemical analysis" signify. The part played by atmospheric air in combustion was made by him the subject of numerous experiments which proved later to be of great assistance in the final solution of the problem.

In one of his writings Boyle says in substance that if men would devote their energies to carrying out experiments and collecting observations, rather than to the constructing of theories without having previously tested with thoroughness the grounds upon which they believe them to be based, the world would be greatly the gainer. The promulgation and insistence upon the importance of this doctrine for the growth of the science of chemistry constitute—so those competent to judge claim—Boyle's greatest merit in scientific work and his most important contribution to chemistry.

Among the chemical treatises which Boyle wrote and published the following deserve to receive special mention: "Sceptical Chymist," 1661; "Tentamina quaedam physiologica," 1661; "Experimenta et considerationes de coloribus," 1663; and "Medical Experiments," 1692-1698. Although Boyle was not an avowed follower of Bacon, he carried out thoroughly the principles which the latter taught.

Raymond Minderer, a practicing physician in Augsburg, Germany (1570-1621), deserves the credit of having added to our stock of remedies the acetate of ammonia (liquor ammonii acetatis). Diluted with an equal quantity of water it is still employed to-day as a remedy under the name of "Spirit of Mindererus." He was the compiler, in 1613, of the Augsburg Pharmacopoeia.