“HIS EFFORTS WERE PRAISED BY BOTH ROBERT BOYLE AND HERMAN BOERHAAVE”: FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF GLAUBER’S WORKS, 1689

GLAUBER, Johann Rudolf. The Works of the Highly Experienced and Famous Chymist, John Rudolph Glauber: Containing, Great Variety of Choice Secrets in Medicine and Alchymy in the Working of Metallick Mines, and the Separation of Metals. Translated into English… [by] Christopher Packe. London: Printed by Thomas Millburn, 1689. Thick folio, period style full dark brown calf with elaborately gilt decorated spine and paneled boards, red morocco spine label, raised bands, marbled endpapers.

First edition in English of the complete works of famed early German chemist and alchemist Glauber, illustrated with 14 fine copper-engraved plates and two diagrams, one of them folding. Splendidly bound in richly gilt-decorated full calf.

“A self-taught chemist and alchemist in the iatrochemical tradition of Paracelsus, Glauber was responsible for many practical advances in the science of chemistry, the most important being the invention of improved distilling furnaces (he may have been the first to construct one with a chimney) that greatly increased the range of distillable substances. His Furni novi philosophici, originally published in German between 1646-49, contains most of his significant chemical achievements; he used concentrated forms of hydrochloric, sulfuric and nitric acid to prepare chlorides, nitrates and sulfates, was probably the first to distill coal and to obtain from it benzene and phenol, obtained acroleins by distilling burned clay balls soaked in olive oil, produced metal acetates and acetone with distilled wood vinegar, and obtained potassium carbonate and potassium silicate from powdered flints. His efficient production of the mineral acids is particularly noteworthy, as they are essential reactants in other chemical processes. Glauber’s influence quickly spread in Europe as his Furni novi philosophici appeared in English, Latin and French translations, and his efforts were praised by both Robert Boyle and Herman Boerhaave” (Norman 909). “Though his writings abound in universal solvents and other devices of the alchemists, he made some real contributions to chemical knowledge. Thus he clearly described the preparation of hydrochloric acid by the action of oil of vitriol on common salt, the manifold virtues of sodium sulfate—sal mirabile, Glauber’s salt—formed in the process being one of the chief themes of his Miraculum mundi; and he noticed that nitric acid was formed when nitre was substituted for the common salt” (Britannica). The text is divided into three parts, each paginated separately, Part II with its own title page. Part I includes “Philosophical Furnaces,” “Of the Tincture of Gold,” “The Mineral Work,” Miraculum Mundi, and “the Prosperity of Germany.” Part II includes “Glauber’s Wealthy Store-House of Treasures,” Novum Lumen Chymicum, and “Spagyrical Pharmacop?a”; Part III includes “Treatise of the Three Principles of Metals” and “A Short Book of Dialogues.” Index at rear. Without frontispiece (as often). STC G845. Early owner signature crossed out on title page. Early marginal notes in ink.

Text and plates generally clean, occasional light marginal damp staining. A beautifully bound copy of this scarce work.