Georg Ernst Stahl

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Georg Ernst Stahl

Georg Ernst Stahl (born October 21 or 22, 1659 in Ansbach ; † May 14, 1734 in Berlin ) was a German alchemist , chemist , medic and metallurgist . As a chemist he developed the theory of the “phlogiston”, and as a doctor he was a representative of animism, which was also viewed as an early form of a psychodynamic concept of illness .

Live and act

His grandparents were Johann Burkhard Meelführer (1603–1637) (see Johannes Meelführer ) and the pastor's daughter Anne Margaretha Cöler (different spelling Köhler) (1607–1652). GE Stahl's parents, married to each other since April 28, 1655, were Johann Lorenz Stahl (1620–1698), court council secretary in Ansbach, then from 1664 consistorial secretary and 1672 matrimonial court secretary (according to other sources, evangelical pastor) in Ansbach and his mother Marie Sophie Meelführer (1635-1680).

After attending high school in Ansbach, which was then associated with the Mark Brandenburg (as the Principality of Ansbach ), Stahl studied medicine and chemistry in Jena from 1679 , together with Friedrich Hoffmann Jr. (1660–1742), the Friedrich Hoffmann who helped him to gain a position for his professorship in Halle (Saale) . Stahl was a godly person and was shaped by the pietism prevalent in Lutheran Ansbach . He listened intensively to lectures by Georg Wolfgang Wedel . In 1684 Stahl received his doctorate in Jena, title of the dissertation: De intestinis: eorumque morbis ac symptomatis, cognoscendis & curandis (1684). Shortly afterwards he completed his habilitation at the University of Halae Magdeburgicae with the title Propempticon inaugurale, de fistula lacrymali (1702) and took up a teaching position.

In 1687 he became court physician to Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony-Weimar and in 1694 received a position as professor of medicine at the University of Halle, which had been newly founded the year before . In 1694 in Halle (Saale) he married Catharina Margarethe Miculci (1668–1696) from Zerbst . She died in childbed, the newly born daughter three months later. His second wife, Barbara Eleonore Tentzel (1686–1706) from Halle (Saale), who was married to him in 1705, suffered the same fate - barely 20 years old. Both strokes of fate had a lasting impact on the character of this sensitive person. Opponents called him a misanthropist because he is said to have shown himself rigid and closed in social dealings. Because of his dogmatism he had not gathered a serious group of students around him. As one of his most important students, Stahl names Johann Simon Bauermüller , who was also praised by Albrecht von Haller and who became a garrison medic and professor of anatomy and surgery in Würzburg . The Halle doctor Johann Juncker was one of the most ardent defenders of Georg Ernst Stahl. But he had an important influence on the Montpellier school .

In 1715, when he was appointed personal physician to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I , he was offered the position of President of the Collegium Medicum in Berlin. This leads to the establishment of a training center for medicine. On September 27, 1725, Friedrich Wilhelm I, the so-called Soldier King , issued the General and the newly sharpened Medicinal Edict . GE Stahl had drafted the draft for this edict in collaboration with the Brandenburg personal doctor Johann Theodor Eller . For the first time, the training of pharmacists is regulated by law.

His extensive work - Stahl leaves a total of almost 240 publications - is formulated in a sometimes incomprehensible manner, which prevented a far-reaching reception.

family

Georg Ernst Stahl was married three times. His first marriage was with Catharina Margaretha Miculcin (± 1668; † May 15, 1696 Halle (Saale)). He concluded his second marriage on February 12, 1705 in Halle (Saale) with Barbara Eleonora Tentzel (born May 27, 1686 in Halle; † April 17, 1706 ibid), the daughter of the electoral Brandenburg Tax Council in Halle (Saale) Johann Christian Tentzel . His third marriage was on February 26, 1711 in Halle (Saale) with Regina Elisabeth Wesener (born September 30, 1683 in Halle (Saale), † November 10, 1730 ibid), the daughter of the city doctor in Halle Wolfgang Christoph Wesener. From the children we know:

  • Johann August Stahl (born December 9, 1694 in Halle (Saale))
  • Christina Catharina Sophia Stahl (* April 1696 in Halle (Saale); † July 17, 1696 ibid)
  • Eleonora Stahl (born April 12, 1706 in Halle (Saale); † October 16, 1708 ibid)
  • Regina Ernestina (born January 9, 1712), first marriage to Johann August Arends (1702–1747), second marriage to the Court Criminal Police Officer and Postrat in Berlin Johann Georg Buchholtz († 1771)
  • Georg Ernst Stahl (born May 6, 1713 in Halle (Saale), † 1772 in Berlin), doctor in Berlin, married to the pharmacist's daughter Johanna Elisabeth Schrader (1725–1763)
  • Johann Christoph Stahl (born August 10, 1714 in Halle (Saale))
  • Catharina Charlotta Louisa Stahl (1717–1784) married. 1735 with Johann Samuel Friedrich von Böhmer royal Prussian court counselor a. Prof. jur. University. Hall

Scientific contributions and views

Stahl's chemistry

In his Fundamenta chymiae dogmaticae et experimentalis (1723), Stahl advocates a separation of a chymia experimentalis and a chymia rationalis .

"Chymia, alias Alchymia et Spardiricia, est ars corporea vel mixta vel composita vel aggregata etiam in pricipia sua solvendi aut ex principiis in talia combinandi."

"Chymy, which is also otherwise called Alchymia and Spagyrica , is an art of putting the mixed or compound or heaped together (aggregata) bodies into their principia, or assembling them again from such principles to form the same bodies."

- Georg Ernst Stahl

His principle of the exact correspondence of decomposition (compare analytical chemistry ) and composition ( synthesis ) for the chemical determination of a chemical body represented a step forward for the so-called chymia experimentalis ; for Stahl a principle that he consistently followed in his work.

Phlogiston Theory

Stahl, who had belonged to the Leopoldina since June 25, 1700 , was, alongside Johann Joachim Becher, one of the main founders of the phlogiston theory , which was only refuted by Antoine Lavoisier . Stahl also developed theories about fermentation phenomena . In the chemical field, he made valuable contributions to the family lines of metals . He managed to concentrate acetic acid by freezing the water. In 1723 he produced acetic acid for the first time by converting solid acetates with sulfuric acid . He discovered many properties of metals and metal oxides and classified the acids according to their strength .

A significant contribution was the phlogiston theory, which was the first comprehensive theory in the nascent science of chemistry. Although she misinterpreted the process of combustion and led to many discoveries, including those of oxygen and nitrogen, being misinterpreted, she used the terms of her time to summarize a chemical conversion or a redox process for the first time . Judging by the state of knowledge at the time and the available empirical data, his assumption was plausible. The concept of the element was still in the making; Substances not yet clearly delimited and differentiated. It was also by no means clear that the combustion is the result of a chemical reaction between two bodies, which releases energy. From today's point of view, one could therefore best compare the phlogiston with such released energy (see exothermic reaction ). It was eventually refuted by Antoine Lavoisier .

The core of Stahl's considerations are the three principles salt, sulfur and mercury. Here salt would bring out the strength and weight of a body, sulfur would stand for color, flammability as well as oiliness and moisture, and mercury finally made the deformability of metals possible. In the terminology of Johann Joachim Becher , the three principles stand for different substances: terra fluida for mercury (principle of volatility), terra pinguis for sulfur (principle of flammability) and terra lapidea for salt (principle of strength). Stahl specified and systematized these ideas, elaborated them further and carried out experimental tests. The latter is completely absent from Johann Joachim Becher. The sulfur principle - color, flammability, oiliness and moisture - is of central importance in Stahl's considerations, it becomes a phlogiston . And all combustible bodies would contain phlogiston. During the incineration, it is broken down into the volatile and escaping phlogiston and the remaining, phlogiston-free and incombustible part, the ashes.

Behind this statement is a universal assumption about the phlogiston. Because all burns of - in modern terminology - inorganic or organic chemical bodies must be viewed from the perspective of phlogiston release. Thus, the true roasting in metallurgy or the so-called calcination of metals, in modern terminology oxidation , as a delivery of Phlogiston. For example, the calcination of metallic lead (Pb) to form black lead ( lead oxide , PbO) is identical to the combustion of sulfur. In both cases a (chemical) decomposition and release of phlogistone is to be expected. Because black lead can be converted back to metallic lead by annealing with charcoal powder. This is explained by the glow and the phlogiston escaping from the charcoal powder, which can be absorbed by the metal lime (modern metal oxide) and then becomes metal again.

Stahl has spoken out in favor of promoting scientific chemistry for basic research in addition to functional research for economic areas. Stahl defined chemistry as a science: Chemistry , [...] is an art of breaking down the mixed, or compound or heaped together bodies into their principa, or to assemble them again from such principles to form the same bodies.

Stahl's nosological and pathological considerations

Stahl considered the mechanical ideas of Herman Boerhaave and those of his colleague Friedrich Hoffmann to be unsuitable for explaining the complex phenomenon of human life. Although he too had a mechanical conception of the body, he explained the physical as a mixture of fibers and juices, which, however, had no life of their own; this would be regulated by a higher principle, the anima . In contrast to Friedrich Hoffmann, for example, Stahl emphasizes the importance of the soul (anima). The soul is the cause of every change in the body. The link between body and soul is the blood circulation, which is influenced in its function by the soul. The animists taught that the soul in man governs the functions of everyday life, while the life of the rest of the animals is controlled only by simple mechanical principles. The soul, he postulated, was the source of all vital movements and guaranteed the unity of the body; the immediate cause of death was not illness, but the direct influence of the soul. With the detachment of the soul from the body, death occurs. The basis and cause of diseases is the plethora . According to Stahl, the means used by the soul to equalize the plethora is bleeding. Fever is a possibility for the soul to remove harmful substances. According to Stahl, this should therefore not be suppressed. He therefore consistently opposed the use of cinchona bark .

Through his distinction between “sympathetic” and “idiopathic” mental illnesses, Stahl had a great influence on the development of psychiatry. Steel can be considered an important precursor of psychosomatics , his concept of psychodynamism in a sense anticipates some modern concepts. Like many psychologists today , he warned against overestimating purely anatomical , physical and chemical processes in disease research and treatment. Anticipating Sigmund Freud , he assumed an unconscious that had a strong effect on consciousness and above all on the body. The soul grows the body, he taught. Since all movements and changes are located in the soul, all illnesses must ultimately also be of psychological origin. Illnesses arise from contradicting volitional tendencies of the soul, which cannot dissolve and must therefore turn into a symptom, which Karen Horney also claimed in Freudian tradition .

As a physician, Stahl represented the theory of psychic influence ( animism ) and thus turned sharply against the materialism of Herman Boerhaave and Friedrich Hoffmann . He recognized the usefulness of fever as a consistent defense response of the body to infection . He believed that by creating artificial contradictions, conflicts could be resolved cathartically . The choice of his means seems grotesque from today's perspective. Nevertheless, Stahl represented astonishingly modern theories for his time.

Medal (selection of award winners)

Georg Ernst Stahl Medal (front)
Georg Ernst Stahl Medal (back)

The Georg Ernst Stahl Medal was awarded by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg for outstanding achievements in the field of synthetic chemistry. Some of the award winners were:

Works (selection)

  • Bernward Josef Gottlieb (Ed.): Georg Ernst Stahl: About the manifold influence of emotional movements on the human body (Halle 1695) / About the importance of the synergic principle for medicine (Halle 1695) / About the difference between organism and mechanism (Halle 1714) / Considerations for a doctor's home visit (Hall 1703). Leipzig 1961 (= Sudhoff's classics of medicine. Volume 36.)
  • Kurtze Investigation of the illnesses which tend to occur at a childish age. Leipzig 1718.
  • Fundamenta chymiae dogmaticae et experimentalis. Tomi II. Nuremberg 1723, 1732
  • Fundamenta chymico-pharmaceutica. Herrenstadt 1721
  • Medicinae Synopsis. Budingen 1721
  • Ars sanandi cum expectatione, opposita arti curandi nuda experctatione. Paris 1730
  • Pyretologia et sebrium historia et curae. Nuremberg 1732
  • Scripta aliorumque ad ejus mentem differentium serie chronologica, recensuit JC Goetze. Nuremberg 1729
  • Collegium casuale sic dictum minus. Schweidnitz 1734
  • Collegium casuale magnum. Leipzig 1733
  • Collegium practicum. Leipzig 1732
  • Truly medical key to the correct and thorough knowledge of all diseases that have occurred in the human body, and of the same, secure a surgeon. 2. Parts 24 pieces Leipzig 1724/25
  • Medicinal master key. Leipzig 1729
  • Materia medica, or preparation, strength and spiking of the chymic arttzneyen. Dresden 1728
  • Investigation of the badly curled and depraved diseases . Leipzig 1726
  • A detailed treatise of the accidents and illnesses of the woman, added to what is required of a good nurse, at the same time a complete description of the mortuus tonici, together with a preface from the white river. Leipzig 1735
  • Newly improved teaching of the Tempraments. Leipzig 1734, 2nd vol.
  • Thorough examination of the diseases which usually occur at any age of man. Translated from the Latin . Leipzig 1730
  • Thorough account of his balsamic, blood-cleansing and confronting pills, as well as of the strange spiciness of the red river, stomach and stone powder. Berlin 1734
  • Surgical key. 22. Parts, or openings. Leipzig 1727
  • Introduction to surgery. Leipzig 1730
  • Thorough treatise on bloodletting. Leipzig 1734
  • Instructions for metallurgy, along with an introduction to the basic mixture. Leipzig 1720
  • Observationes clinico-practicae. Leipzig 1726
  • Zymotechnia fundamentalis (1697; German 1734)
  • About the origin of the ore-carrying veins .
  • Application to metallurgy .
  • Theoria medica vera. 3 volumes. Hall 1707.
    • Ludwig Choulant (Ed.): Theoria medica vera physiologiam et pathologiam […]. 3 volumes. Leipzig 1831–1833 (= Scriptorum classicorum de praxi medica nonnullorum opera collecta. Volume 14–16), translated into German by Karl Wilhelm Ideler, Berlin 1831–1832.
  • Georgii Ernesti Stahlii opusculum chymico-physico-medicum: seu schediasmatum, a pluribus annis variis occasionibus in publicum emissorum nunc quadantenus etiam auctorum et deficientibus passim exemplaribus in unum volumen iam collectorum, fasciculus publicae luci redditus . Orphanotropheum, Halae Magdeburgicae 1715 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • D. George Ernst Stahl's materia medica: that is, preparation, strength and flavor, of the artzneyes especially invented by chemical art . Zimmermann & Gerlach, Dresden 1728 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf , edition from 1744
  • Experimenta et observationes chemicae . Berlin 1731.
  • Praxis Stahliana: this is Mr. Georg Ernst Stahls, Königl. Prussian Hof-Rath and Leib-Medici, Collegium practicum, which partly dictated by him privately in the pen, partly rewritten from the Discourse by his former Auditoribus, but now translated from Latin into German. In this second edition there is a lot missing and verb. by Johann Storchen, alias Hulderigo Pelargo . [Leipzig]: [Eyssel], [1732]. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Georgii Ernesti Stahl, Fragmentorum Aetiologiae Physiologico-Chymicae . Ienae 1683, online edition of the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library
  • Specimen Becherianum sistens fundamenta, documenta, experimenta. 1702
  • Accidental thoughts and useful concerns about the dispute about the so-called Sulfure. Hall (1718)

literature

  • Axel W. Bauer : Georg Ernst Stahl. In: Dietrich von Engelhardt and Fritz Hartmann (eds.): Classics of medicine. Volume 1: From Hippocrates to Hufeland. CH Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 190-201, 393-395, 439.
  • Axel W. Bauer: The body as a puppet? Georg Ernst Stahl and the risk of psychosomatic medicine. In: Dietrich von Engelhardt and Alfred Gierer (eds.): Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) in a science-historical perspective. Leopoldina Meeting on October 29 and 30, 1998 in Halle (S.) (= Acta historica Leopoldina. No. 30). German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, Halle (Saale) 2000, pp. 81–95.
  • Francesco Paolo de Ceglia: Hoffmann and Stahl. Documents and Reflections on the Dispute. In: History of Universities. Volume 22 (2007), H. 1, pp. 98-140.
  • Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt : Description of the hall circle . Volume 2, Emanuel Schneider, Halle 1750, pp. 724–726 (extensive list of publications).
  • Michael Engel : Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century. Georg Ernst Stahl (1659 to 1734) (= exhibition catalogs of the Berlin State Library. Volume 23). Reichert, Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 3-89500-655-6 .
  • Dietrich von Engelhardt , Alfred Gierer (ed.): Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) from a science-historical perspective. Barth, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8047-2088-9 .
  • Johanna Geyer-Kordesch: Pietism, Medicine and Enlightenment in Prussia in the 18th Century. The life and work of Georg Ernst Stahl. Tübingen 2000.
  • Bernhard LepsiusStahl, Georg Ernst . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 35, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 780-786.
  • Jacques Poulet, Jean-Charles Sournia, Marcel Martiny (eds.): Histoire de la médecine, de la pharmacie, de l'art dentaire et de l'art vétérinaire. Albin Michel, Paris 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The year 1660 is often incorrectly stated as the year of birth. However, the baptismal register of St. Johannis in Ansbach contains the following information: Anno 1659, October 22nd: GEORG ERNST STAHL, Mr. JOHANN LORENZ STAHLS, Fürstl. Councilor's secretary. Witness: Mr. GEORG NIKOLAUS MOHR, Fürstl. Cammerats (cf. Bernward Josef Gottlieb: Vitalistic Thinking in Germany following Georg Ernst Stahl. In: Klinische Wochenschrift, Vol. 21, No. 20, May 1942, pp. 445–448).
  2. ^ Robert Jütte : History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40495-2 , p. 267.
  3. ^ Johanna Geyer-Kordesch: Pietism, medicine and enlightenment in Prussia in the 18th century. The life and work of Georg Ernst Stahl. Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-484-81013-0 .
  4. a b Genealogie, p. 54. (PDF file; 368.47 kB).
  5. Heinz Schott: The Chronicle of Medicine. Augsburg 1997, p. 198.
  6. Martin Brecht, Klaus Deppermann, Ulrich Gäbler : History of Pietism. In: Pietism in the eighteenth century. (Volume 2), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995, p. 302 ff.
  7. Henning Bärmig: The personal bibliographies of the professors who taught at the Medical Faculty of the Alma Mater Julia zu Würzburg from 1582 to 1803 with biographical information. Medical dissertation, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg 1969, p. 36 f.
  8. Karlheinz Fischer: From becoming of chemistry (picture-text-material). Teaching material for the training of qualified chemistry teachers. 3rd, exp. Edition. Potsdam 1987.
  9. Elizabeth Ströker: theory change in the history of science. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-465-01496-0 , pp. 88-89.
  10. JDF Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 202 (digitized version)
  11. Jaime Wisniak: Phlogiston: The rise and fall of a theory. Indian Journal of Chemical Technology, Vol. 11 September (2004) pp. 732-743, online (PDF; 89 kB).
  12. ^ William Hodson Brock: Vieweg's history of chemistry. Berlin, (2000), p. 50 ff.
  13. Eberhard Schmauderer: chemiatricians, cutting artists and chemists of the baroque and early enlightenment period. In: Eberhard Schmauderer (Hrsg.): The chemist in the course of time. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1973, ISBN 3-527-25518-4 , p. 121.
  14. Wolfgang U. Eckart : History of Medicine. 6th edition. 2009, Springer Medizin Verlag Heidelberg, history, theory and ethics of medicine. 7th edition. Springer textbook, Berlin, Heidelberg 2013, pp. 123 + 137. History, theory and ethics of medicine 2013
  15. Werner Leibbrand , Annemarie Wettley : The madness history of occidental psychopathology. Karl Alber Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1961, pp. 323–328.
  16. Magdalena Frühinsfeld: Brief outline of psychiatry. In: Anton Müller. First insane doctor at the Juliusspital in Würzburg: life and work. A short outline of the history of psychiatry up to Anton Müller. Medical dissertation Würzburg 1991, pp. 9–80 ( Brief outline of the history of psychiatry ) and 81–96 ( History of psychiatry in Würzburg to Anton Müller ), pp. 40–42
  17. Axel W. Bauer : The body as a puppet? Georg Ernst Stahl and the risk of psychosomatic medicine. In: Dietrich von Engelhardt , Alfred Gierer (ed.): Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) in a scientific-historical perspective. Leopoldina Meeting on October 29 and 30, 1998 in Halle (S.). In: Acta historica Leopoldina. No. 30, Halle (Saale) 2000, pp. 81-95.
  18. Georg-August University of Göttingen - Prof. Dr. Herbert W. Roesky - Honors. Accessed October 9, 2012 .