Pierre Borel
Encyclopedia
Pierre Borel (ca. 1620 – 1671) was a French savant: a chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 (and reputed alchemist
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

), physician, and botanist.

He concerned himself with an eclectic range of subjects: optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

, ancient history, philology and bibliography. His biographers have tended to deplore his spreading of himself over so many areas.

Life

Borel was born in Castres. He became a doctor of medicine at the University of Montpellier
University of Montpellier
The University of Montpellier was a French university in Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon région of the south of France. Its present-day successor universities are the University of Montpellier 1, Montpellier 2 University and Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III.-History:The university...

 in 1640. In 1654 he became physician to the King of France, Louis XIV.

In 1663 he married Esther de Bonnafous. In 1674 he became a member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

. He died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Works

  • Les antiquités de Castres, 1649
  • Bibliotheca chimica, 1654
  • Trésor de recherches et d'antiquités gauloises et françaises, 1655
  • Historiarium et observationum medico-physicarum centuriae IV ;
  • De vero telescopii inventore, 1655.

External links

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:ZUsG1QXu1ngJ:cehm.toulouse.free.fr/fichier/T63.doc+%22Pierre+Borel%22+Chabbert&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=10
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK