URBAN HIAERNKTHE FIRST SWEDISH CHEMIST BERTIL ABERG Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
U R B A N HIAERNE,the name is often spelled Hjiirne, was born on the 20th of December, 1641, in a vicarage in Ingermanland, then a part of Sweden. At the age of fifteen he fled from the Russian armies, since his father was dead, and without money or relatives he arrived in a small vessel a t Stockholm and walked nine Swedish miles to Striingnas, where he bad heard that he had an uncle. However, when he arrived in Striingnas he discovered that nobody knew anything about his uncle, and so in despair he told the headmaster of the gymnasium of his dificnlties. The headmaster, Tranaeus, took the boy into his own family, and thus Hiaerne got his basic education in Strangna,~,after which he went to the University of Uppsala. Because of his extraordinary talents in the most different fields, Hiaerne soon acquired many important friendeforemost, the King, Charles XI. Hiaerne wrote many plays and poems, many of which are still counted among the best of those of the 17th century in Sweden (I). He was also very interested in the Swedish language and modernized the speU'mg which had been greatly influenced by Danish spelling. Although he was known as a learned poet a t the early age of 23, his main interests turned to the field of science. Bromelius was professor of botany a t Uppsala a t that time and became Hiaerne's teacher; his medicine he learned from Rndbeck and Hoffvenius, "the fathers of Swedish medicine." His intention was to become a physician and he spent much time in the university dispensary, established by Rudbeck: "A doctor who does not understand the art of preparing drugs has to see with other persons' eyes and cannot know if his prescript,ionsare prepared in the right or the wrong way."
Unisereity and Cathedral e t Uppeala
In those days one could not get the degree of doctor of medicine in Sweden, and Hiaerne therefore went abroad-first as a family doctor to Count Claes Tott and later as chief doctor for the Swedish regiments in the Baltic. He was present a t the election of the Polish king-"which took place with a great deal of confusionv-and also visited the best known hospitals in France, Germany, and England. In England he-was honored with a membership in the Royal Society. He took his degree a t Angers, but throughout his whole life he was very English-minded and his library, one of the largest private ones, contained works by Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, authors who in those days were not generally read in Sweden (2). In 1676 Hiaerne became famous throughout Sweden when he, a member of a special Royal commission, d e clared that witches were nothing but mentally deficient women. That put an end to a very dark period in Swedish history, that of the witch-trials, during which people had for no less than eight years been condemned to death even on the accusations made by small children. In his declaration Hiaerne also emphasized that confessions made during torture, in itself an extraordinary thing in Sweden (S), could not be considered as reliable. In those days it was very popular among the upper classes to travel to some place abroad and "take the waters," e. g., a t Karlsbad, Selter, or Vichy. The water of those mineral wells contained iron, carbon dioxide, sulfur, etc., as Hiaerne could show in skilfully performed analyses of the different water. He now traveled to many places in Sweden in orderto 6nd equally good wells, but had little success until Baron Gustaf Soop sent him some water from a well a t his estate, Medevi, in the south of Sweden. It is said that Soop during a voyage to Italy had read in an old book from the 13th century written by a monk, about a well with medicinal water in Bstergotland in southern Sweden. Hiaerne found by his analysis of the water that it contained "minerals as well as acids and is a real medicinal water." At first people did not believe in his results, but when the Queen had honored the place with a visit and declared that the water had done her a great deal of good, it soon became popular to go to Medevi and take the waters there for some weeks. The popularity was naturally increased by the fact that Hiaerne himself during the first years worked as Royal Physician a t Medevi during "the season." It was not long before a number of mineral wells were discovered all over Sweden and Hiaerne wrote indignantly: "Only
a year ago, mineral wells were as unknown in Sweden as an Elephant or Rhinoceros, but today every little seller of teriac claims that he has discovered a wellt h e ~ eis not muc.~to say about them except that their water is good to drink when one is thirsty." In 1663 the government founded a "Collegium medicornm" in Stockhdm, which was to superintend the care of the sick in the country and its members were to teach medicine in the capital. Hiaerne became a member of the "collegium" and gave lectures in anatomy and tried to establish a maternity hospital in Stockholm. The drugs in the pharmacopoeia interested him very much and he made a great many alterations (always for the better) and was the first to prescribe fresh cloudberries for scurvy-a common disease in Sweden when the diet chiefly consisted of salt meat, Swedish turnips, and beer. In the 17th century the study of chemistry was chiefly localized to the Royal Bureau of Mines, which since 1639 employed a chemical assistant. It was impossible to get a Swede, but Germans, skilled in the chemistry and alchemy of the time, accepted the post and often caused the Bnrean trouble. Between 1641 and 1660 one Lihorius Fmtzenhagen worked here-a cunning, imaginative, and sottish rascal whose successor, the Paracelsist Wendlmus Sybellista did not leave the country until 1670. Both of these gentlemen did little but draw their salaries, and no scientific work worth mentioning was performed. When in 1674 Hiaerne came home from his travels abroad he was fully aware of the important part chemistry could play in medicine. He became Assessor of the-~ureaubf Mines and established a private laboratory. When his analyses of the water from Medevi had caused a Swedish mineral well to be established, he pointed out to the King that no enlightened government could but take an interest in chemistry, as most European regents had employed chemists and goldmakers. In 1679 a first attempt was made in forming a "Laboratorium Chymicum" in Stockholm, but not until 1683 did a royal decree order the establishment of a laboratory with Hiaerne as its head. The institution was originally planned to be independent of other governmental organizations but this independence was lost the following year when the laboratory became connected with the Bureau of Mines. Soon it became evident that this was an undesirable arrangement. After having been lodged in differenthouses for some time, the laboratory was moved into a house of its own in 1695, The Gripenhielm House, situated in Knngsholmen where the Serafimer Hospital now stands, partly surrounding the original building. The new "Laboratorium Chymicum Holmiense" received first-class equipment, comprised of a microscope, Boyle's air pump, Papin's digester, thermometers, as well as a large smelting-furnace. In front of the house, Hiaerne arranged a large garden with medicinal herbs and a bathing establishment for "bathing either in water or in hot air with sweating" (Russian bath). He was generous with governmental money and so the labora-
tory became famous all over Europe; Leibnitz wrote to Hiaerne and asked for information and Homberg traveled all the way from Paris to Stockholm in order to visit Hiaerne (4). Hiaerne had an assistant. employed by the Bureau of Mines. Here the adventurous Markus Matthias Farner (1684-87) worked, as well as the student Nils Wallerius who later became professor of medicine in Abo; also Herman Niklas Grim (1698-99), the skillful physician, and a German, Johan Georg Gmelin (16991706), an extraordinarily clever chemist and first member in a family of prominent German scientists. Besides scientific work, Hiaerne had to provide medicine for the mines and for the army, a time-absorbing task in the days of Charles XII. He also bad to distribute medicine to the poor of Stockholm and estimate the contents of gold, silver, and copper in minerals for the Bnrean of Mines. About 1700 he succeeded in shifting part of this work onto the shoulders of his assistant so as to be able to devote himself entirely to scientific work-in the first place analytical chemistry, since he was one of the best in that branch. Scientifically, Hiaerne was a son of the age in which he lived. His view of chemistry was religiously metaphysical, like that of the Paracelsian school, in sharp contrast with the Cartesians represented by men like
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
336
-. -.. ~,. .
S ~ O C ~ in ~ Oniaernels I ~ time. from
~
~
~
~ ~h~. ~
h~
~i
Boyle and van Helmont. ("The Cartesians are thick in t,heir heads.") Hiaerne intended to publish his ideas in a large "Physica Generalis," but it never got printed, although its main parts were published in 1712 in the first volume of his "Acta et Tentamina Chymica in regio Laboratorio Stoclcholmiensi elaborata," the second part of which, together with a reprint of the first volume, was edited in 1753 by J. G. Vallerius. Thanks to Vallerius, such important results of Hiaerne's scientific work as his discovery of formic acid, the origin of alkalies t,hrough combust,ion of plants, and t,he increase in weight of metals by calcination were published. The Bureau of Mines had not been ahle to follow Hiaerne in his manifold interests, and sold the Gripenhielm House in 1712, after whichthe laboratory again was forced to put up with different quarters. When Hiaerne died in 1724, no work had been performed in the laboratory for some years, and not until 1727, when Georg Brandt, discoverer of cobalt, was given t,he post as chemist a t the Bureau of Mines, was Laboratorium Chymicum Holmiense re-established and Swedish chemistry. mas in time able to foster men like Torhern Bergman, Scheele, Gahn, Ekeberg, and Berzelius. Urban Hiaerne's interest in mining-one of Sweden's primary trades-was exceedingly great and he mas the inventor of many technical improvements. "Our great Hiaerne was as good a miner as a medical man, and was of greater use to Sweden with what he knew about mining, than we acknowledge" (Abraham B h k ) . In order to arouse the King's interest in mining Hiaerne wrote a small boolclet: "Miner's Lantern by Means of Which We May Enlighten Ourselves in the Dark Art of Mining" (5). The result was t,hat the King went with Hiaerne to the silver mine in Sala.
During his travels in Jamtland and Harjedalen (northern Sweden) Hiaerne discovered some valuable new deposits of copper ore. During the 17th and 18th centuries.the lack of physicians was deplorable in Sweden and the country people had to resort to charlatans. I n a proposition to the King, Hiaerne therefore suggested that the clergy should learn the elements of practical medicine "so as to alleviate the ailments and the pains of the peasantry." Some of the clergymen--. g., A. L. Burman in Offerdal in Jamtland (1689-1737)is said to have practiced t,he profession of doctor among the workers in his copper mine so successfully ~lnovae ~~ in~~thehroreground ~ i : ~ l ~ that he had an ~ e s c u l a ~ i a n rod carved on his tombstone. Urban Hiaerne also suggested that the Collegium medicorum should publish small booklets in times of pestilence, containing advice as to protection and treatment for the henefit of t,he people. Although the consumption of corn brandy was enop mous in those days, Hiaerne's attitude mas that of a teetotaler: "Brandy is to he regarded as a medicine and not as nourishment, therefore drink it only in an emergency, that is, rarely and in small quantities, and not every morning and evening-a bad habit causing great damage." At the age of eighty Hiaerne had to witness the introduction of a new constitution in Sweden. To him and to Baron Gyllencreutz, the lawyer, the task was given to scrutinize it before it was read in Parliament ("the Four Estates"). Hiaerne disapproved of Frederick I being elected King. Therefore in 1720 he applied for his discharge and was awarded the honorary title of Governor. His industriousness was astounding and he had a wax tablet on which he wrote down the ideas he got while lying awake in the night. Over t,he door to his study he had written: "Friends are thieves who steal our time, worse than others not being ahle t,o restore the stolen property." Hiaerne was married three times, his first wife, Maria Svan, as the niece of Nicodemus Tessin, the famous Swedish architect. They had 9 children. Upon her death he married Elisabeth Bergenhielm who became the mother of 7 children and then at the age of 62 he mas married for the third time to Elisabeth Cederstrom who was mother t,o 9 children. Of his 25 children, 9 were sons and 16 weredaught,ers. UrbanHiaerne died in 1724, 83 years old.
JUNE, 19% GEN!ZRAL REFERENCES (1) BESKOW. BERNE. v.. "Minne ofver.. .Urban H i b e " (~tocl&olm,I&). ' SACKLEN, "Sveriges Iikarehistori8." LMDROTE,"Urban Hjlrne och Laboratarium Chymicum," Lyahnos, 1946-47, 51-116. GRIDERG,Svenska Folketa underbars oden IV." Biografiskt Lexikon VI, 163 (Stockholm, 1876). HIAERNE,U., "Een utforli'rlig berattelse om Medevi" (Stockholm, 1680). RIAERNE,U., "Den korta dedoingen.. ." (Stockholm, 1702).
(8) HIAERNE,U., "Den lille Wattuprofvaren."
LITERATURE CITED (1) SCHWCK, "Svensk litteraturhistorizt,"
I, '378 (Stockholm,
1R96).
(2) DAHL,S., ''BibIiotekshandbok" (Stockholm, 1931). (3) MUNETELL, "Tortyren i Svensk Rattshistoria," in Lychnos, 1939, p. 127 ff. (4) "Hist. de 1'Acad. de Sciences," 1715, p. 86. (5) Bergslyckhta, formedelst vilken man uthi den morka bergshandtering sjelf leda ock lysa kan.
