Johann Joachim Becher (; 6 May 1635 – October 1682) was a German physician, alchemist, precursor of chemistry, scholar and adventurer, best known for his development of the phlogiston theory of combustion, and his advancement of Austrian cameralism. Early life and education Becher was born in Speyer during the Thirty Years War. His father was a Lutheran minister and died when Becher was a child. At the age of thirteen Becher found himself responsible not only for his own support but also for that of his mother and two brothers. He learned and practiced several small handicrafts, devoted his nights to study of the most miscellaneous description and earned a pittance by teaching. In 1654, at the age of nineteen, he published the Discurs von der Großmächtigen Philosophischen Universal-Artzney / von den Philosophis genannt Lapis Philosophorum Trismegistus (discourse about the almighty philosophical and universal medicine by the philosopher called Lapis Philosophorum Trismegistus) under the pseudonym 'Solinus Salzthal of Regiomontus.' It was published in Latin in 1659 as Discursus Solini Saltztal Regiomontani De potentissima philosophorum medicina universali, lapis philosophorum trismegistus dicta (translated by Johannes Jacobus Heilmann) in vol. VI of the Theatrum Chemicum. Career In 1657, he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Mainz and physician to the archbishop-elector. His Metallurgia was published in 1660; and the next year appeared his Character pro notitia linguarum universali, in which he gives 10,000 words for use as a universal language. In 1663, he published his Oedipum Chemicum and a book on animals, plants and minerals (Thier- Kräuter- und Bergbuch). In 1666, he was made councillor of commerce () at Vienna, where he had gained the powerful support of the prime minister of Emperor Leopold I. Sent by the emperor on a mission to the Netherlands, he wrote there in ten days his Methodus Didactica, which was followed by the Regeln der Christlichen Bundesgenossenschaft and the Politischer Discurs von den eigentlichen Ursachen des Auf- und Abblühens der Städte, Länder und Republiken. In 1669, he published his Physica subterranea; the same year, he was engaged with the count of Hanau in a scheme to acquire Dutch colonization of Guiana from the Dutch West India Company. Meanwhile, he had been appointed physician to the elector of Bavaria; but in 1670 he was again in Vienna advising on the establishment of a silk factory and propounding schemes for a great company to trade with