Georgius Agricola
1494-1555
German Mineralogist, Metallurgist and Physician
Georgius Agricola is often referred to as the father of mineralogy. His series of treatises on the principles of geology and mineralogy were instrumental during the formative period in the development of these fields. As influential as these works were, he is best remembered for his magisterial De re metallica, which faithfully recorded sixteenth-century mining practices.
Agricola, whose real name was Georg Bauer, was born on March 24, 1494, in Glauchau, Saxony. After attending various schools in Glauchau, Zwickau, and Magdeburg, he matriculated at the University of Leipzig in 1514 and received his B.A. the next year. He remained at the university as a lecturer in elementary Greek until 1517, when he accepted a position at the Municipal School in Zwickau. He became rector extraordinarius in 1519 but eventually returned to Leipzig, where he studied medicine under Heinrich Stromer von Auerbach. He continued these studies in Italy and later established a medical practice in the Bohemian city of St. Joachimsthal (1527).
Joachimsthal was an important mining center in the Tyrol, and Agricola was called upon to treat smelters and miners suffering from various occupational illnesses. He undertook a systematic study not only of their ailments but also of their lifestyles, working conditions, equipment, and methods. The results of his researches appeared in Bermannus sive de re metallica dialogus (1530). Books on politics and economics followed, and as his reputation grew so did the demands on his time. In 1534 he moved to the smaller, though still important, mining town of Chemnitz to continue his research.
Agricola had developed an interest in minerals, possibly because of the widely held belief in their supernatural and curative properties. His two most important works on mineralogy were both published in 1546. In De ortu et causis subterraneorum he developed the idea of a succus lapidescens (lapidifying juice). His succi can anachronistically be viewed as mineral-bearing solutions, though they are more akin to the humours of Galen (c. 130-c. 200). As he conceived them, stony matter could be condensed out of succi when heated, cooled, on becoming cool, or by exposure to air. Agricola was also one of the first to attempt a systematic classification of minerals. His scheme, presented in De Natura Fossilum, was based on the physical properties of minerals including weight, color, opacity, taste, texture, solubility, etc.
After serving as mayor of Chemnitz (1545) and then councilor to the court of Saxony, Agricola returned to his scientific work in 1548. New books appeared shortly thereafter, including De animantibus subterraneis (1549); and in 1550 he completed his master work De re metallica libri XII. This was the culmination of his researches begun over 15 years before in Joachimsthal. The work was published posthumously in 1556.
De re metallica presents a detailed and accurate account of sixteenth-century Saxon mining practices and is lavishly illustrated with 292 beautiful woodcuts. Drawing intelligently on Vannocio Biringuccio's (1480-c. 1539) De la Pirotechnia (1540), the first 11 sections deal exclusively with the extraction of metals, smelting, and assaying techniques of the day. The final section deals with the chemical technologies associated with metallurgical processes. De remetallica remained the standard text on mining and metallurgy for over four centuries.
As the black plague spread through Saxony (1552-53) Agricola's medical skills were in high demand. His ceaseless efforts to alleviate the suffering of some of the worst victims caused him great concern as it placed his own family at great risk. (Indeed, he was to lose a daughter to the plague.) His researches during this period are recorded in De peste libri III (1554). Agricola died in Chemnitz on November 21, 1555.
Agricola Rediscovered by Herbert Hoover
Agricola's De Re Metallica remained widely read and used by European miners and metallurgists, appearing in many editions until the late eighteenth century, when the development of a more quantitative and accurate chemistry made its description of smelting processes outmoded. The book then slipped into obscurity until 1912, when a young American mining engineer and his wife translated its Renaissance Latin into English for the first time, publishing it in The Mining Magazine of London, England. Her name was Lou Henry Hoover. His was Herbert Clark Hoover; he went on to be the thirty-first President of the United States (1929-33).
GLYN PARRY
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