9
Bergman Becomes a Chemist
Sweden has a long tradition of mining, and copper mined in the Falun copper mine
was vital for financing Sweden’s extensive participation in, for example, the Thirty
Years’ War. As much as two-thirds of Europe’s copper consumption originated
from Falun during its peak in the mid-seventeenth century; 3,000 tons of copper
was produced in 1650. Sweden was also one of the major European iron producers
in the early eighteenth century, with bar-iron being Sweden’s most important export
product. With falling iron prices in the 1730s, Sweden limited its iron production,
allowing Russia to take an increasing market share, but the Swedish iron export still
amounted to 46,700 tons in 1748 [1]. “Iron is Sweden’s most significant commodity, but [Sweden] has now strong competitors, especially since one in foreign
countries has started to content with Russian [iron] for inferior needs,” as Bergman
wrote [2]. In 1637, a special authority, the Board of Mines (Bergskollegium), was
established in order to control the mining. The following year, the Board of Mines
established a small laboratory for assaying (determining the metal content of ores
and analysing the produced metals) in Stockholm.
By the mid-seventeenth century, Sweden had four universities (called Academies): Uppsala (founded in 1477), Dorpat (present-day Tartu in Estonia; founded in
1632), Åbo (in present-day Finland; founded 1640) and in Lund (founded in 1666).
In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was no chemical research at
the Swedish universities and hardly any chemistry teaching [3]. Instead, the first
Swedish chemist was a multitalented physician, Urban Hiärne (Fig. 9.1), who was
instrumental in the establishment of a chemical research institute, Laboratorium
chymicum, in Stockholm in 1683. Hiärne was born in Svorits (present-day Kolppana in Russia) in Swedish Ingermanland, where his father was vicar. He attended
school in nearby Nyen (present-day St Petersburg), but due to war, he ended up in
Stockholm in 1657, at the age of 16. Throughout his life, Hiärne had the ability to
secure support from influential persons and, without money, he could still attend the
Gymnasium in Strängnäs and Uppsala University, where he studied botany and
medicine. He earned money as a portrait painter and, in his spare time, he was a
playwright and poet. His tragedy Rosimunda was played at the Uppsala castle with
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
A. Lennartson, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Torbern Bergman, Perspectives on the
History of Chemistry, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49194-9_9
109
Bergman Becomes a Chemist
Sweden has a long tradition of mining, and copper mined in the Falun copper mine
was vital for financing Sweden’s extensive participation in, for example, the Thirty
Years’ War. As much as two-thirds of Europe’s copper consumption originated
from Falun during its peak in the mid-seventeenth century; 3,000 tons of copper
was produced in 1650. Sweden was also one of the major European iron producers
in the early eighteenth century, with bar-iron being Sweden’s most important export
product. With falling iron prices in the 1730s, Sweden limited its iron production,
allowing Russia to take an increasing market share, but the Swedish iron export still
amounted to 46,700 tons in 1748 [1]. “Iron is Sweden’s most significant commodity, but [Sweden] has now strong competitors, especially since one in foreign
countries has started to content with Russian [iron] for inferior needs,” as Bergman
wrote [2]. In 1637, a special authority, the Board of Mines (Bergskollegium), was
established in order to control the mining. The following year, the Board of Mines
established a small laboratory for assaying (determining the metal content of ores
and analysing the produced metals) in Stockholm.
By the mid-seventeenth century, Sweden had four universities (called Academies): Uppsala (founded in 1477), Dorpat (present-day Tartu in Estonia; founded in
1632), Åbo (in present-day Finland; founded 1640) and in Lund (founded in 1666).
In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was no chemical research at
the Swedish universities and hardly any chemistry teaching [3]. Instead, the first
Swedish chemist was a multitalented physician, Urban Hiärne (Fig. 9.1), who was
instrumental in the establishment of a chemical research institute, Laboratorium
chymicum, in Stockholm in 1683. Hiärne was born in Svorits (present-day Kolppana in Russia) in Swedish Ingermanland, where his father was vicar. He attended
school in nearby Nyen (present-day St Petersburg), but due to war, he ended up in
Stockholm in 1657, at the age of 16. Throughout his life, Hiärne had the ability to
secure support from influential persons and, without money, he could still attend the
Gymnasium in Strängnäs and Uppsala University, where he studied botany and
medicine. He earned money as a portrait painter and, in his spare time, he was a
playwright and poet. His tragedy Rosimunda was played at the Uppsala castle with
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
A. Lennartson, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Torbern Bergman, Perspectives on the
History of Chemistry, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49194-9_9
109