Henry de Rochas, médecin spagirique et les eaux minérales aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles

Abstract

Henry de Rochas, alchemist physician and mineral waters the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – In the seventeenth century, mineral waters were used as medicinal waters and took all the more importance as salt chemistry was being developed under the influence of Paracelsus. Henry de Rochas d’Ayglun, King Louis XIII’s and King Louis XIV’s physician, famous then, forgotten today, also a geologist, analysed mineral waters, by distilling them following the ways of medieval alchemists so they could be used as remedies. He was to prove very innovative in the practice of medicine.