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| “ | The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost maniacal impulse to seek their pleasures amongst smoke and vapour, soot and flames, poisons and poverty – yet amongst all these evils I seem to live so sweetly that I would rather die than change places with the King of Persia. | ” |
| — Johann Joachim Becher, Physica Subterranea (1667), translated by Paul Strathern in Mendeleyev's Dream (2001) | ||