ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the modern period chemical investigation followed three main tendencies. First, there was prevalent the alchemical search for the philosopher’s stone or some other means for transmuting base metals into gold. Secondly, there was the tendency to turn chemical knowledge to medicinal uses. Johann Baptista van Helmont was born in Brussels in 1577. A wealthy nobleman by birth, he preferred hard work in the chemical laboratory to the splendours of Court life. Robert Boyle next attacks the radical error on which the above errors are based, namely the contemporary misconception of the action of fire in chemical experiments. It was commonly assumed that fire is the universal instrument of analysis, and that it only separates all the elements which pre-exist in the heated substance. Boyle contends that this triple assumption is unwarranted, and he supports his contention with experimental evidence.
