Alchemy & Early Chemistry Annibal Barlet giving a demonstration to students on his chemical course,...

Alchemy & Early Chemistry Annibal Barlet giving a demonstration to students on his chemical course, 1657. Woodcut showing Barlet teaching in his laboratory; students take notes in the foreground. He shows them dephlegmation, distillation, filtration, and digestion of animal blood and milk. They use a small portable stove, a reverberatory furnace, three alembics and a number of other vessels. Illustration in a section discussing how animals and the substances derived from them can be used, from Barlets 'Le Vray et Methodique Cours de la Physique Resolutive Vulgairement dite Chymie' ('The True and Methodical Course in Resolutive Physick, Commonly called Chemistry'), published in Paris in 1657. Barlet gave regular chemical courses in Paris, attended by the diarist John Evelyn (1620-1706) amongst others. ©SSPL/Science Museum