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Noah Biggs
Noah Biggs was an English medical reformer and alchemical writer of the middle of the seventeenth century. In his ''Chymiatrophilos, mataeotechnia medicinae praxes: The Vanity of the Craft of Physick'', from 1651, he attacked pretentious and quack medical theories of his time. He also implied that Galenists in the College of Physicians opposed the Parliamentarian regime. He is credited with introducing the words 'febrile' and 'obesity'. His book borrowed from John Milton's ''Areopagitica'', and the ''Advancement of Learning'' of John Hall. He called for better diet, and criticised bleeding and other remedies of the period.; and warned against lead poisoning. It was addressed to Parliament, and asked for reform of the universities. evidences this attitude in his sharp attack on the universities of his day. It argued that medical practice should be open to all, a point also taken up by William Walwyn. He is associated with the Paracelsians, and the followers of Joan Baptista van Helm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Edward Christopher Hill
John Edward Christopher Hill (6 February 1912 – 23 February 2003) was an English Marxist historian and academic, specialising in 17th-century English history. From 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Early life Christopher Hill was born on 6 February 1912, Bishopthorpe Road, York, to Edward Harold Hill and Janet Augusta (''née'' Dickinson). His father was a solicitor and the family were devout Methodists. He attended St Peter's School, York. At the age of 16, he sat his entrance examination at Balliol College, Oxford. The two history tutors who marked his papers recognised his ability and offered him a place in order to forestall any chance he might go to the University of Cambridge. In 1931 Hill took a prolonged holiday in Freiburg, Germany, where he witnessed the rise of the Nazi Party, later saying that it contributed significantly to the radicalisation of his politics. He matriculated at Balliol College in 1931. In the following year he won the Lothi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert K
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Starkey (alchemist)
George Starkey (1628–1665) was a Colonial American alchemist, medical practitioner, and writer of numerous commentaries and chemical treatises that were widely circulated in Western Europe and influenced prominent men of science, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. After relocating from New England to London, England, in 1650, Starkey began writing under the pseudonym Eirenaeus Philalethes. Starkey remained in England and continued his career in medicine and alchemy until his death in the Great Plague of London in 1665. Early life Starkey was born in Bermuda, the first of at least five children of George Stirk, a Scottish minister and devoted Calvinist, and Elizabeth Painter. During his early years in Bermuda, Starkey displayed interest in natural history, as evidenced by his written entomological observations of various insects indigenous to Bermuda. After the death of his father in 1637, Starkey was sent to New England, where he continued his early education before enroll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Charleton
Walter Charleton (2 February 1619 – 24 April 1707) was a natural philosopher and English writer. According to Jon Parkin, he was "the main conduit for the transmission of Epicurean ideas to England".Jon Parkin, ''Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae'' (1999), p. 149. Life He was the son of the rector of Shepton Mallett in Somerset, where he was born 2 February 1619. He received his early education from his father, and when sixteen entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, under the tuition of John Wilkins. At the early age of 22 (1641) he received the degree of M.D. and in the same year was appointed physician to Charles I, who was then at Oxford. In 1650 Charleton settled in London, and was on 8 April admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians. A royalist, he was appointed physician to the exiled king Charles II but remained in London writing, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. :s:Charleton, Walter (DNB00) He was continued ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Cheney Culpeper
Sir Cheney Culpeper (1601–1663) was an English landowner, a supporter of Samuel Hartlib, and a largely non-political figure of his troubled times, interested in technological progress and reform. His sister Judith was the second wife of John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper. Landowner He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Colepeper of Hollingbourne, Kent and Elizabeth Cheney of Guestling, Sussex. After legal training, he was knighted in 1628. He had an estate at Great Wigsell, which he bought from his brother-in-law Lord Colepeper, but had possession of it only briefly. He bought in 1650 Elmley, Worcestershire. He lived mainly at Leeds Castle, which his father had purchased for his sons in 1632. Being later disinherited by his father, he became heavily indebted. During the English Civil War, he was a convinced Parliamentarian, unlike his father who was a staunch Royalist, and sat on the County Committee for Sequestration. This clash of opinions no doubt explains his fathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Baptista Van Helmont
Jan Baptist van Helmont (; ; 12 January 1580 – 30 December 1644) was a chemist, physiologist, and physician from Brussels. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and the rise of iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry". Van Helmont is remembered today largely for his ideas on spontaneous generation, his 5-year willow tree experiment, and his introduction of the word " gas" (from the Greek word ''chaos'') into the vocabulary of science. His name is also found rendered as Jan-Baptiste van Helmont, Johannes Baptista van Helmont, Johann Baptista von Helmont, Joan Baptista van Helmont, and other minor variants switching between ''von'' and ''van''. Early life and education Jan Baptist van Helmont was the youngest of five children of Maria (van) Stassaert and Christiaen van Helmont, a public prosecutor and Brussels council member, who had married in the Sint-Goedele church in 1567.Van den Bulck, E. (1999Johannes Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paracelsians
Paracelsianism (also Paracelsism; German: ') was an early modern medical movement based on the theories and therapies of Paracelsus. It developed in the second half of the 16th century, during the decades following Paracelsus' death in 1541, and it flourished during the first half of the 17th century, representing one of the most comprehensive alternatives to learned medicine, the traditional system of therapeutics derived from Galenic physiology. Based on the by then antiquated principle of maintaining harmony between the microcosm and macrocosm, Paracelsianism fell rapidly into decline in the later 17th century, but left its mark on medical practices. It was responsible for the widespread introduction of mineral therapies and several other iatrochemical techniques. Spagyric Spagyric, or spagyria, is a method developed by Paracelsus and his followers which was thought to improve the efficacy of existing medicines by separating them into their primordial elements (the : s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Walwyn
William Walwyn (''bap.'' 1600–1681) was an English pamphleteer, a Leveller and a medical practitioner. Life Walwyn was a silkman in London who took the parliamentary side in the English Civil War. He advocated religious toleration and emerged as a leader of the Levellers in 1647, which led to his imprisonment in 1649. In October 1645 Walwyn published ''England's Lamentable Slaverie'', his famous rebuke to John Lilburne, in which he criticised his fellow Leveller for a misguided reliance on the Magna Carta of 1225 as the foundation for citizens' rights. He argued that Magna Carta was "more precious in your ilburne'sesteem than it deserveth", dismissing it as a small set of concessions "wrestled out of the pawes" of Norman conquerors and describing it as, "a messe of pottage" and, (in the following year), "but a beggerly thing containing many marks of intollerable bondage". Walwyn's critique of the appeal to Magna Carta was compelling and fundamentally accurate, and he proposed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Poisoning
Lead poisoning, also known as plumbism and saturnism, is a type of metal poisoning caused by lead in the body. The brain is the most sensitive. Symptoms may include abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, memory problems, infertility, and tingling in the hands and feet. It causes almost 10% of intellectual disability of otherwise unknown cause and can result in behavioral problems. Some of the effects are permanent. In severe cases, anemia, seizures, coma, or death may occur. Exposure to lead can occur by contaminated air, water, dust, food, or consumer products. Lead poisoning poses a significantly increased risk to children as they are far more likely to ingest lead indirectly by chewing on toys or other objects that are coated in lead paint. The amount of lead that can be absorbed by children is also higher than that of adults. Exposure at work is a common cause of lead poisoning in adults with certain occupations at particular risk. Diagnosis is typically by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemical
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.Principe, Lawrence M. The secrets of alchemy'. University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 9–14. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hall (poet)
John Hall (1627–1656), also known as John Hall of Durham, was an English poet, essayist and pamphleteer of the Commonwealth period. After a short period of adulation at university, he became a writer in the Parliamentary cause and Hartlib Circle member. Life The son of Michael Hall, he was born at Durham in August 1627, was educated at Durham School, and was admitted to St John's College, Cambridge, on 26 February 1646. Hall remained at Cambridge till May 1647, but considered his real merits unrecognised there. He later entered Gray's Inn. Hall was not initially against the monarchy; but his early views were reforming and utopian. He was much influenced by Baconianism and the chance of a renewal of learning. Blair Worden describes Hall as "elusive" in the period from 1649, but points out parallels with the political development in the views of John Milton. By command of the Council of State he accompanied Oliver Cromwell in 1650 to Scotland. His friend John Davies states t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Areopagitica
''Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England'' is a 1644 prose polemic by the English poet, scholar, and polemical author John Milton opposing licensing and censorship. ''Areopagitica'' is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. Many of its expressed principles have formed the basis for modern justifications. Background ''Areopagitica'' was published 23 November 1644 at the height of the English Civil War. It takes its title in part from ''Areopagitikos'' ( el, Ἀρεοπαγιτικός), a speech written by Athenian orator Isocrates in the 4th century BC. (The Areopagus is a hill in Athens, the site of real and legendary tribunals, and was the name of a council whose power Isocrates hoped to restore.) Some argue that it is more importantly also a reference to the defense that St Paul made before the Areopagus in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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