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IATROCHEMISTRY (coined from Gr. tarp6s, a physician, and " chemistry ")
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IATROCHEMISTRY (coined from Gr. tarp6s, a physician, and " chemistry "), a stage in the history of chemistry, during which the object of this science was held to be " not to make gold but to prepare medicines." This doctrine dominated chemical thought during the 16th century, its foremost sup-porters being Paracelsus, van Helmont and de la Boe Sylvius. But it gave way to the new definition formulated by Boyle, viz. that the proper domain of chemistry was " to determine the composition of substances." (See CHEMISTRY: I. History; MEDICINE.)