This paper discusses the attitudes towards chymistry and iatrochemistry presented by Szczecin’s first professors of medicine, Georg Kirstenius and Johann Zander. They had similar academic backgrounds, but their opinions on chymistry differed. Kirstenius was appalled by chymistry’s dialect, with its baffl ing neologisms and idioms. He rejected both theoretical background and therapeutic methods of iatrochemistry, and showed no interest in performing chymical experiments. However, he was well acquainted with works by Hoffman, Billich, and Sennert. Zander was a profi cient user of chymical language, and seems to have had substantial practical experience in experimental chymistry. This enabled him to expose a local impostor who advertised antimony- and mercury-based preparations as panacea made of gold. Zander, however, was no follower of Paracelsian natural philosophy; particularly, he did not accept the concept of tria prima.

This paper discusses the attitudes towards chymistry and iatrochemistry presented by Szczecin’s first professors of medicine, Georg Kirstenius and Johann Zander. They had similar academic backgrounds, but their opinions on chymistry differed. Kirstenius was appalled by chymistry’s dialect, with its baffl ing neologisms and idioms. He rejected both theoretical background and therapeutic methods of iatrochemistry, and showed no interest in performing chymical experiments. However, he was well acquainted with works by Hoffman, Billich, and Sennert. Zander was a profi cient user of chymical language, and seems to have had substantial practical experience in experimental chymistry. This enabled him to expose a local impostor who advertised antimony- and mercury-based preparations as panacea made of gold. Zander, however, was no follower of Paracelsian natural philosophy; particularly, he did not accept the concept of tria prima.