!!!Becher, Johann Joachim

b. Speyer (Germany), May 6, 1635, 
d. London (United Kingdom), Oct. 1682, economist and political 
scientist, physician and chemist. After years of study and travels in 
Germany, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands he worked as a personal 
physician in Mainz and Munich, from 1666 at the Imperial Court in 
Vienna, where a commercial committee as a central authority for 
economic affairs was created at his suggestion, left Austria again but 
returned 1670 to be appointed alchemist and economic adviser to 
Emperor Leopold I. In the meantime his silk manufacturing plant had 
been established in Walpersdorf (Lower Austria, 1666-1678) and the 
First Oriental Trade Company had been founded in 1667; he proceeded to 
set up a House of Arts and Crafts in Vienna as a model work shop 
(1676-1683). 1679 he resumed his travels and journeyed widely 
throughout the Netherlands and England. With his mercantilist 
theories, B. was ahead of his time, although he seldom managed to put 
his ideas into practice. Was the first to succeed in extracting 
lighting gas from hard coal; his treatises dealt with theology, 
philosophy, chemistry and economics.

!Works
Physica subterranea, 1667-1669, German 1680 and 1703 (natural 
philosophy); Moral Discurs, 1669; Methodus didactica, %%sup 2/%1674 
(philosophical pedagogical paper); Polit. Discurs von den eigentl. 
Ursachen des Auf- und Abnehmens der Staedte, Laender und Republiken, 
%%sup 2/%1673; Psychosophia, 1674 (his experience of the world); 
Naerrische Weisheit, 1682 (inventions); Chym. Glueckshafen, 1682.

!Literature
H. Hassinger, J. J. B. Ein Beitrag zur 
Geschichte des Merkantilismus, 1951 (with catalogue of works); G. 
Fruehsorge and G. F. Strasser, J. J. B. (1635-1682), 
1993; NDB.



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