Franz Gassmann

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Franz Gassmann (* before 1674 in Silesia ; † after 1676) was a doctor who published alchemical treatises under the pseudonym Pantaleon in Vienna and Nuremberg in the 1670s. He worked as a doctor in Passau and then in Vienna.

Life

He was known for experiments with liquid mercury and claimed to be able to magnetize mercury and thus to find gold. As a demonstration, he showed that specially treated drops of mercury were attracted to gold and followed it like a magnetic needle after a magnet. How he did this is not known, but it made a great impression on his contemporaries who looked for philosophical mercury in alchemy and he sold his philosophical mercury dearly.

He also sold other alchemical processes and demonstrated e.g. B. How to convert mercury into silver by heating for days (probably silver amalgam, from which the mercury escaped by heating).

Johann Joachim Becher thought he was a charlatan and published a pamphlet against him (Pantaleon delarvatus) in which he called him G.

He published various treatises such as Tumulus hermetis apertus ( The opened hermetic grave, from the philosophical mercury ), which were also reprinted in the large alchemical collections such as Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum and Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa . In 1676 he published a polemic Disceptatio de lapide physico against an anonymous (HVD) published in 1674 Tumba Seramidis .

He probably chose his name after Pantaleon , the patron saint of doctors and emergency helpers.

literature

  • Rudolf Werner Soukoup: Chemie in Österreich, Böhlau 2007, p. 440
  • John Ferguson: Bibliotheca Chemica, 1906, Volume 2, p. 166
  • Karl Christoph Schmieder , History of Alchemy, Halle 1832, p. 442ff

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Latin published in Vienna in 1675 with Bifolium metallicum ( Metallisches Zweyblat ) and Examen Alchemysticum , also translated into German, published in Nuremberg in 1677.
personal data
SURNAME Gassmann, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pantaleon (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH before 1674
PLACE OF BIRTH Silesia
DATE OF DEATH after 1676