Nicolas Lémery (or Lemery as his name appeared in his international publications) (17 November 1645 – 19 June 1715), French chemist, was born at Rouen.

[1] Lemery did not concern himself much with theoretical speculations, but holding chemistry to be a demonstrative science, confined himself to the straightforward exposition of facts and experiments.

In consequence, his lecture-room was thronged with people of all sorts, anxious to hear a man who shunned the barren obscurities of the alchemists, and did not regard the quest of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life as the sole end of his science.

[1] In 1680, using the corpuscular theory as a basis, Lemery stipulated that the acidity of any substance consisted in its pointed particles, while alkalis were endowed with pores of various sizes.

His son Louis Lémery (1677–1743) was appointed physician at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris in 1710, and became demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi in 1731.