The New International Encyclopædia/Stahl, Georg Ernest

STAHL, Georg Ernest (1660-1734). A German physician and chemist, born at Ansbach. He was called in 1694 to the chair of medicine, anatomy, and chemistry in the newly founded university of Halle, whence he removed to Berlin in 1716, and was appointed physician to the King of Prussia. Stahl was one of the ablest chemists of his time, and destroyed numberless absurd opinions which had found their way into science, and propounded the first general theory of chemical transformations (see Chemistry), which was universally accepted till the time of Lavoisier. His works, according to Haller, number 250, the most important being Theoria Medica Vera (1707, and 1831-33), which contains his medical theory, and Experimenta, Observationes et Animadversiones Chymico-Physicæ (1731), in which his chemical opinions are set forth. An account of his opinions is found in Lemoine, Le vitalisme et l'animisme de Stahl (Paris, 1864). Consult also Lasègue, De Stahl et sa doctrine médicale (ib., 1846).