Edmund Dickinson facts for kids

Edmund Dickinson (1624–1707) was an English doctor who worked for kings. He was also an alchemist, someone who studied chemistry in an old way, often trying to turn regular metals into gold or find a special medicine for everything. Dickinson also wrote books about his own philosophical ideas.

Life Story

Edmund Dickinson was born on September 26, 1624. His father, William Dickinson, was a church leader in Appleton, England. Edmund went to Eton College for his early schooling. In 1642, he started studying at Merton College, Oxford. He earned his first degree in 1647 and a master's degree in 1649.

He then decided to study medicine. By 1656, he had earned his medical degree. Around this time, Dickinson said he met a person named Theodore Mundanus. Mundanus was an expert in alchemy, and he encouraged Dickinson to focus on chemistry.

The famous writer John Evelyn once visited Dickinson. Evelyn wrote about their talk:

I went to see Dr. Dickinson the famous chemist. We had a long conversation about the philosopher's elixir, which he believed attainable and had seen projection himself by one who went under the name of Mundanus...

This means they talked about the "philosopher's elixir," a legendary substance alchemists hoped would cure all diseases and make people immortal. Evelyn also connected Dickinson with a group of smart people in Oxford who later helped start the Royal Society, a famous scientific group.

After college, Dickinson became a doctor in Oxford. He worked there for almost 20 years. In 1664, he became an honorary member of the Royal College of Physicians. He became a full member in 1677.

In 1684, he moved to London. He took over the house of another doctor, Thomas Willis. One of his patients was Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, whom he helped with a health problem. This Earl recommended Dickinson to King Charles II.

King Charles II then made Dickinson one of his main doctors. The king liked Dickinson so much that he had a special laboratory built for him in Whitehall Palace. Here, the king, along with the George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Dickinson, would do chemistry experiments. When James II became king in 1685, Dickinson continued as the king's doctor until James left the throne in 1688.

Later in life, Dickinson had a health problem called "the stone." Because of this, he stopped working as a doctor. He spent the last 19 years of his life studying and writing books. He passed away on April 3, 1707, at 83 years old. He was buried in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

His Books and Ideas

When he was younger, Dickinson published a book called Delphi Phoenicizantes in 1665. In this book, he tried to show that the ancient Greeks got some of their stories, like the one about Pythian Apollo, from old Hebrew writings.

Later, he shared his ideas about alchemy in a letter to T. Mundanus, called Epistola ad T. Mundanum de Quintessentia Philosophorum, published in 1686.

His most important work was a big book about philosophy called Physica vetus et vera (which means "Old and True Physics"), published in 1702. In this book, he created a system of philosophy based on ideas from the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch). He mixed these religious ideas with concepts like the atomic theory (the idea that everything is made of tiny particles) and writings from ancient Greek and Latin thinkers. This book became quite popular and was published in other cities like Rotterdam and Leoburg. An American writer named Cotton Mather even used Dickinson's ideas in his own book, Biblia Americana.

Images for kids

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  Physica vetus et vera, one of Dickinson's main books.