Paul Eck from Sulzbach

Paul Eck von Sulzbach (* around 1440, † around 1509) was a German alchemist .

Life

As the name suggests, it came from a place called Sulzbach. 1479 he was at the University of Leipzig enrolled . He stayed in Nuremberg and in 1509 in Heidelberg . He published astrological and medical almanacs in Leipzig , Nuremberg and other cities (moon tables 1486 to 1489), wrote about a comet that appeared in 1468 and also wrote horoscopes for Nuremberg citizens.

In his work Clavis philosophorum of 1489 he was one of the first to observe that combustion (in his case of mercury ) leads to an increase in mass and that the bound substance ( oxygen ) escapes again during distillation . The absorbed or escaping substance ( spirit ) was called by him spiritus unitur corpori . He also precipitated silver from a solution with mercury . His writings were included in the Theatrum Chemicum collection in the 17th century . As an alchemist he was influenced by pseudo-givers (mercury doctrine when converting metals).

literature

• Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists . With the collaboration of Heinz Cassebaum. Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main / Thun 1989, ISBN 3-8171-1055-3 , p. 129
• Alphons Oppenheim:  Eck von Sulzbach, Paul . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 606.
• Joachim Telle : Eck, Paul, German astrologer, astrological doctor and alchemist (approx. 1440/50-after 1509) , Lexicon of the Middle Ages , Volume 3, 1986, Sp. 1546–1547
• K. Haebler: Paulus Eck against Wenzel Faber, magazine for book lovers NF 6, 1914/15, 200–204