Hiärne, Urban

(b. Skworitz, Ingria, Sweden, 20 December 1641; d. Stockholm, Sweden, March 1724)

medicine, chemistry, mineralogy.

The province where Hiärne was born was Sweden’s farthest outpost against Russia, and when it was invaded by the Russians in 1656 his family was forced to flee. Urban managed to reach safety in Sweden, and in 1661 he began his medical education at the University of Uppsala. That Olof Rudbeck (the discoverer of the lymphatic vessels) and Petrus Hoffwenius were just then beginning to teach medicine at the university proved to be of great importance in Hiärne’s education. Both of them saw clearly that Descartes (who was in Stockholm at that time), through his mathematical-mechanical interpretation of the world, had created a promising starting point for experimental research in nature; and that this offered an alternative to the Aristotelian-Scholastic doctrine which was being undermined by Paracelsian thought.

Hiärne was greatly impressed by the new ideas and willingly took the side of his Cartesian teachers in their first conflict, in 1663, against academic Scholasticism. He meanwhile completed his medical studies and became in 1666 personal physician to the governor-general of Livland. This situation enabled him to study abroad in Holland, England (where he was elected to the Royal Society in 1669), and France (where he graduated in medicine at Angers in 1670). The most important result of his travels was an advanced grounding in analytical and experimental chemistry, which he acquired chiefly during three years of study in Paris with the famous Christopher Glaser.

Upon his return to Sweden in 1674, Hiärne settled as a physician in Stockholm and soon acquired a considerable practice. He was elected to the Collegium Medicum in 1675. In 1684 he was appointed first personal physician to the king and in 1696, the year in which he became president of the Collegium, he was given the high honorary title of archiater. His medical practice did not prevent him from turning more and more to chemistry. It was Hiärne’s expert analysis of spring water which led to the discovery of Sweden’s first spa, Medevi, in 1678.

Shortly thereafter, Hiärne and several interested colleagues established a chemical research laboratory, which later became a national institution under the Board of Mines. Hiärne was appointed head of this Laboratorium Chemicum and simultaneously was named ordinary assessor at the Board of Mines (he became the board’s vice-president in 1713). Hiärne set forth as the main purposes of the laboratory the examination of minerals and ores and the discovery of useful inventions. Extensive pharmaceutical research was also included in his program, and it is clear from detailed records how much Hiärne cherished the field of spagyric pharmacology. But even basic research had a place in the laboratory, he felt, and when discoveries would be made they “should be published to the greater glory of the King and the good of the fatherland.”

The chemical research program was comprehensive enough to make its full realization exceedingly difficult. But Hiärne’s supervision, unusual energy, and outstanding laboratory equipment brought rapid success to the venture, a success evident even in the 1680’s. He had capable laboratory workers, the most able of them being Johann Georg Gmelin from Tübingen. The foundations laid by Hiärne, who envisioned the eventual creation of a viable Swedish center for advanced chemical research, proved to be enduring. Following Hiärne’s death in 1724, the research program remained virtually at a standstill for several years. But as soon as a qualified successor, Georg Brandt, took over, it soon began anew to foster many of the remarkable advances in Swedish chemistry in the 1700’s.

Hiärne’s contributions in applied chemistry included work on improved methods for producing alum and vitriols, on impregnating agents to safeguard trees against rot, and on rust preventatives. In the field of pure chemistry he worked on problems concerning the formation of materials and the composition of bodies and ultimate particles; as his analytical method, he dissolved the substances and then tested them with different reagents and indicators which would elucidate the acid or alkaline nature of the bodies. He also studied alkalies in plants and the phenomenon in metals of increased weight through calcination. He is best known for his work on formic acid, which he produced through the distillation of ant specimens.

The lifework of Hiärne, a giant of learning, cannot readily be compressed into a short résumé A polymath whose breadth of activity stretched over many disciplines, he did outstanding work in each of his fields and was one of the luminaries of Sweden’s golden age of science. But until the great volume of written material which he left behind has been completely examined, no definitive evaluation of his work can be made.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A comprehensive listing of Hiaärn’s works can be found in J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, III (London, 1962), 162–163; and in Sten Lindroth, in Lychnos (1946–1947), 51–116; within the last named essay is an itemized list of the most important archival materials concerning Hiärne.

II. Secondary Literature. Olof Strandberg, Urban Hiärnes ungdom och diktning (Uppsala, 1942), a dissertation; Åke Åkerström, “Urban Hiärnes resa till Tyskland och Holland 1667,” in Lychnos (1937), 187–211; Sten Lindroth, “Hiärne, Block och Paracesus. En redogoärelese för Paracelsusstriden, 1708–1709,” ibid. (1941). 191–229, and “Urban Hiärne och Laboratorum Chymicum,” ibid. (1947), 51–116; Tore Frängsmyr, Geologi och skapelsetro. Förestäallningar om jordens histroria fràn Hiärne till Bergman (Uppsala, 1969); and Hugo Olsson, “Kemiens Historia i Sverige intill år 1800” (Uppsala, 1971), pp. 40–71.

Uno Boklund