Bernard suggests that in today's terms, Agricola could well have
been a Professor of Mining.
Maybe not.
Although he wrote the well-known De Re Metallica, a world-
renowed text book on mining, he was in fact a doctor!
His first degree, from the Unviersity of Leipzig, was in the Classics,
and he spent a few years lecturing in Latin and Greek at the
municipal school in Zwichau.
He then studied medicine at the universities of Bologna, Venice
and Padua, taking a further degree in medicine.
In 1527 he was appointed physician and apothecary to the town
of Joachimstal -- a busy silver mining town (coins minted there,
Joachimstalers, a name shortened to talers, were the origin of the
coinage name dollars). Agricola's interest in mining arose
because that was what most of his male patients did.
He was later appointed city physician at Chemnitz, a well
estabished mining town, where he lived for the rest of his life.
He took an interest in the town's affairs, being elected a burgher
at the age of 52 and appointed Burgomater for four terms of office.
He also undertook doiplomatic missions for the Duke of Saxony.
Those interested in mining know him for De Re Metallica, but he
also wrote on medical, religious, political and historical subjects,
including a smal book on the Plague.
References:
The Pick and the Pen, A.J. Wilson, Mining Journal Books Ltd, 1979,
ISBN 0 900117 168
The Rise of Scientific europe, 1500-1800, eds D. Goodman and
C.A. Russell, Open University, 1991, ISBN 0 340 55861X
Tony Brewis
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