Angelo Sala
[2] He promoted chemical remedies and, drawing on the relative merits of the conflicting chemical and Galenical systems of medicine, dismissed alchemical transmutation and 'universal medicine'; objected to tartar which had deliquesced being called an 'oil'; observed that metals reacted differently with acids; that sulphur extracted something from the air in order to burn; that silver nitrate darkened on exposure to light; surmised the existence of elementary (atomic) particles; and described newly discovered compounds and methods of preparation.
A Calvinist, he left Italy and his career as a doctor without academic studies led him to Dresden (1602), Sondrio (1604), Nuremberg (1606), Frauenfeld (1607) and settled in Geneva (1609).
[citation needed] Sala began publishing extensively in the disciplines of chemistry and medicines in about 1608-9, including a book of medications in 1624.
[6] He subscribed to corpuscular theory, asserting, for instance, that fermentation was a regrouping of elementary particles that resulted in the formation of new substances,[7][8] an idea that was supported by Sala's experiments which provided evidence that the same substance persisted through a series of chemical changes, so that it could be assumed that minute atoms were the unchangeable parts that persisted through all the steps.
[14] In Ternarius bezoardicorum he explicitly declares that he does not want to have anything in common with those of his colleagues "ensnared in vain hope" who still dream of the possibility of being able to obtain the philosopher's stone.
In Italy, Germany, England and France royal patronage supported Paracelsianism[17] and new medicines were adopted by distillers, apothecaries and physicians.
[18] During this time, Sala advanced on Paracelsianism through his publishing in the new "chemical" medicine and the analysis of Vitriol, which he dedicated to the banker Bonaventura von Bodeck.
[12] The principle in chemistry that the names of a compound should indicate its constituents was recognised in Sala's suggestion that the residue of the calcination of green vitriol (i.e. ferric oxide) might be called Substantia Ferrea Vitrioli as an improvement on the Paracelsan colcothar.
At the end of May 1628, Sala accompanied Duke Johann Albrecht II, expelled by Wallenstein, into exile in Bernburg in Anhalt.
On 26 June 1628 FürstLudwig I of Anhalt-Köthen admitted by him to the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft at the same time as Johann Albrecht II and Otto von Preen.
Lauremberg's polite questioning was answered polemically by Sala's later son-in-law Anton Günther Billich which escalated the dispute.
