17th-century alchemist equal parts physician, con man, rogue, scholar

Plagued? Try a dried toad around the neck.

Professor William Newman's study of George Starkey's alchemy might suggest images of transforming metal into gold or creepy thoughts of the occult, especially now at Halloween. But don't be misled. Newman considers Starkey America's most significant scientist before Benjamin Franklin.

This alchemist (center), believed to be George Starkey, is from a 1687 translation of Starkey's Pyrotechny. The biblical motto states: "You must earn your bread by the sweat of your brow." The humble nature of the laboratory conspicuously contrasts to depictions of Philalethes, who was usually pictured in a "fabulous aura."

With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Newman, a professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University Bloomington, is resurrecting this largely ignored 17th-century scholar who was part alchemist, part physician, part con man, part rogue.

Starkey worked with and had much influence on Robert Boyle, the English scientist known as the father of chemistry. Starkey also touched the lives of other important scientists, among them Isaac Newton, whose interest in alchemy has recently come to light.

The major perpetrator of Starkey's influence was a fictitious writer, Starkey's pseudonym, Eirenaeus Philalethes (peaceful lover of truth). Starkey communicated through Philalethes to avoid taking responsibility for flubs he might make. Philalethes remained in America, distanced from English scientists. Starkey was so brilliant and so successful in the deception that Philalethes "lived" on, basking in success after his creator died.

Starkey was born in Bermuda in 1628, son of an English clergyman who died in 1637. George was educated at Harvard, where he was introduced to alchemy. He got a bachelor's degree in 1646 and then a master's. For awhile he practiced medicine and looked for a universal medicine. For Starkey, alchemy involved separating salts, not changing metal into gold.

Starkey soon gave up his practice, went to England and joined Robert Boyle, who was wealthy and probably financed their research.

Starkey told Boyle of Philalethes, crediting him with discovering the philosophers' stone. "It was widely believed that the philosophers' stone, which could turn metal to gold, also could cure disease, as well as transmute base metals," Newman said. Few of Philalethes' admirers ever suspected that his writings were really Starkey's.

Starkey's own creditability was handicapped by the fact he was a rogue. His lifestyle got him into such financial trouble that he spent time in debtors' prison.

In 1665, he flouted the dan-gers of the Plague epidemic, convinced that his medical know-how would protect him. His remedy, a preparation called "xeneton" (which involved hanging a dried toad around the neck) did not work, possibly because Starkey imbibed so much alcohol that his body could not absorb the "medicine."

"Starkey's colorful cures and the flamboyance of his fictive adept, Eirenaeus Philalethes, have done much to obscure the genuine significance of his work," Newman wrote in the Harvard Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1994. "Yet it is clear that Starkey's writings were an important vehicle for spreading the doctrine that chemical phenomena can be explained as the interaction of insensible particles -- this belief has long been considered integral to the Scientific Revolution."

Newman's current research, being conducted with Larry Principe of Harvard, focuses on comparing Starkey's alchemy and Boyle's chemistry.

See reviews of Newman's Gehennical Fire at:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/Web_Backlist/Backlist_Categ /Gehennical_Fire.html

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