Editing Georgius Agricola (section)

==Professional life==
===Town physician and pharmacist===
[[Image:Agricola1.jpg|thumb|right|A water mill used for raising ore]]
[[File:Fire-setting.jpg|thumb|Fire-setting underground]]

He returned to Zwickau in 1527 and to Chemnitz in autumn of the same year, where he married Anna Meyner, a widow from Schneeberg. Upon his search for employment as town physician and pharmacist in the [[Ore Mountains]], preferably a place, where he could satisfy his ardent longings for the studies on mining, he settled in the suitable little town [[Jáchymov|Joachimsthal]] in the ''Bohemian Erzgebirge'', where in 1516 significant silver ore deposits were found.<ref name=FZC/> The 15,000 inhabitants made Joachimsthal a busy, booming centre of mining and smelting works with hundreds of shafts for Agricola to investigate.

His primary post proved to be not very demanding and he lent all his spare time to his studies. Beginning in 1528 he immersed himself in comparisons and tests on what had been written about mineralogy and mining and his own observations of the local materials and the methods of their treatment.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.glauchau.de/glauchau/content/23/20140506180140.asp |title=Denkmal Georgius Agricola |publisher= Glauchau de | access-date= April 5, 2019 }}</ref> He constructed a logical system of the local conditions, rocks and sediments, the minerals and ores, explained the various terms of general and specific local territorial features. He combined this discourse on all natural aspects with a treatise on the actual mining, the methods and processes, local extraction variants, the differences and oddities he had learnt from the miners. For the first time, he tackled questions on the formation of ores and minerals, attempted to bring the underlying mechanisms to light and introduce his conclusions in a systematic framework. He laid out the whole process in a scholarly dialogue and published it under the title ''Bermannus, sive de re metallica dialogus'', (Bermannus, or a dialogue on metallurgy) in 1530. The work was highly praised by [[Desiderius Erasmus|Erasmus]] for the attempt to put the knowledge, won by practical inquiry into order and further investigate in reduced form. Agricola, in his capacity of physician, also suggested, that minerals and their effects on and relationship to human medicine should be a future subject of investigation.<ref name="FZC" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tms.org/pubs/books/pdfs/09-1002-e/09-1002-0.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150807040220/http://www.tms.org/pubs/books/pdfs/09-1002-e/09-1002-0.pdf |archive-date=2015-08-07 |url-status=live |title= The Pirotechnica of Vannoccio Biringuccio - Translated from the Italian with an introduction and notes by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi, p. 45 | publisher = The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers  |author=Cyril Stanley Smith, Martha Teach Gnudi |access-date= April 4, 2019  }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.zeit.de/1994/12/der-mann-der-aufschrieb-wie-das-silber-aus-dem-berg-kommt |title=Der Mann, der aufschrieb, wie das Silber aus dem Berg kommt |newspaper=Die Zeit |publisher= DIE ZEIT Archiv | date=March 18, 1994 | access-date= April 5, 2019 }}</ref>

In 1531 [[Christian Egenolff]] in [[Frankfurt]] published his German book named ''Rechter Gebrauch d'Alchimei, mitt vil bissher verborgenen, nutzbaren unnd lustigen Künsten, nit allein den fürwitzigen Alchimismisten, sonder allen kunstbaren Werckleutten, in und ausserhalb Feurs. Auch sunst aller menglichen inn vil wege zugebrauchen''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alchemical Imagery - illustrated title Agricola |url=https://alchemywebsite.com/Emblems_Title_Agricola_Rechter.html |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=alchemywebsite.com}}</ref> (''The Proper Use of Alchemy'') which argued that true "alchemy" should not attempt transmutation of metals to gold or synthesizing the [[philosopher's stone]] but rather study and develop the industrial methods of skilled craftsmen.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Niermeier-Dohoney |first=Justin |date=December 2022 |title="Rusticall chymistry": Alchemy, saltpeter projects, and experimental fertilizers in seventeenth-century English agriculture |journal=History of Science |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=546–574 |doi=10.1177/00732753211033159 |issn=0073-2753 |pmc=9703379 |pmid=34533386}}</ref>

=== Mayor of Chemnitz ===

In the same year Agricola received an offer of the city of ''Kepmnicz'' (Chemnitz) for the position of ''Stadtleybarzt'' ([[City physician|town physician]]), which he accepted and he relocated to [[Chemnitz]] in 1533.<ref>Georgius Agricola, ''De re metallica, translated from the first Latin edition of 1556'', [[Herbert Clark Hoover]] and Lou Henry Hoover, tr., New York: Dover Publications, 1950, (reprint of the London: Mining Magazine edition of 1912), p. viii of the introduction.</ref> Although little is known about his work as physician, Agricola entered his most productive years and soon became lord mayor of Chemnitz  and served as diplomat and historiographer for [[George, Duke of Saxony|Duke George]], who was looking to uncover possible territorial claims and commissioned Agricola with a large historical work, the ''Dominatores Saxonici a prima origine ad hanc aetatem'' (Lords of Saxony from the beginning to the present time), which took 20 years to accomplish and was only published in 1555 at [[Freiberg]].<ref name="M.D.2012">{{cite book|author=Raphael S. Bloch, M.D.|title=Healers and Achievers: Physicians Who Excelled in Other Fields and the Times in Which They Lived|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4UhPAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT125|date=31 May 2012|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=978-1-4691-9248-2|pages=125–}}</ref>

In his work ''De Mensuris et ponderibus'', published in 1533, he described the systems of Greek and Roman measures and weights. In the 16th century Holy Roman Empire there were no uniform dimensions, measures, and weights, which impeded trade and commerce. This work laid the foundation for Agricola's reputation as a humanist scholar; as he committed himself to the introduction of standardized weights and measures, he entered the public stage and occupied a political position.<ref name="Naumann2013">{{cite book|author=Friedrich Naumann|title=Georgius Agricola, 500 Jahre: Wissenschaftliche Konferenz vom 25. – 27. März 1994 in Chemnitz, Freistaat Sachsen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TgWbBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27|date=9 March 2013|publisher=Springer-Verlag|isbn=978-3-0348-7159-4|pages=27–}}</ref>

In 1544, he published the ''De ortu et causis subterraneorum'' (On Subterranean Origins and Causes), in which he criticized older theories and laid out the foundations of modern physical [[geology]]. It discusses the effect of wind and water as powerful geological forces, the origin and distribution of ground water and mineralizing fluids, the origin of subterranean heat, the origin of ore channels, and the principal divisions of the mineral kingdom. However, he maintained that a certain 'materia pinguis' or 'fatty matter,' set into fermentation by heat, gave birth to fossil organic shapes, as opposed to fossil shells having belonged to living animals.<ref name="Lyell1832">{{cite book|author=Sir Charles Lyell|title=Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation|url=https://archive.org/details/principlesgeolo01unkngoog|year=1832|publisher=J. Murray}}</ref>

In 1546, he published the four volumes of ''De natura eorum quae effluunt e terra'' (The nature of the things that flow out of the earth's interior). It deals with the properties of water, its effects, taste, smell, temperature etc. and air under the earth, which, as Agricola reasoned, is responsible for earthquakes and volcanoes.<ref>{{cite web  |url=https://archives.georgfischer.com/media/gfa_30_35-0001  |title=DIE EISENBIBLIOTHEK UND IHRE AGRICOLA-BESTÄNDE  |publisher=archives  |author=Annette Bouheiry  |access-date=April 12, 2019  |archive-date=April 12, 2019  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412194824/https://archives.georgfischer.com/media/gfa_30_35-0001  |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

The ten books of ''De veteribus et novis metallis'', more commonly known as ''[[De Natura Fossilium]]'' were published in 1546 as a comprehensive textbook and account of the discovery and occurrence of minerals, ores, metals, gemstones, earths and igneous rocks,<ref name="Thomson1830">{{cite book|author=Thomas Thomson|title=The History of Chemistry (Complete)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Egz9CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT197|year=1830|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=978-1-4656-0789-8|pages=197–}}</ref><ref name="Agricola2004">{{cite book|author=Georgius Agricola|title=D Natura Fossilium (Textbook of Mineralogy)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qNOB-vcob88C&pg=PR1|year=2004|publisher=Courier Corporation|isbn=978-0-486-49591-0|pages=1–}}</ref> followed by ''De animantibus subterraneis'' in 1548 and a number of smaller works on the metals during the following two years. Agricola served as Burgomaster (lord mayor) of Chemnitz in 1546, 1547, 1551 and 1553.<ref name=farl/>