Johann Joachim Becher (6 May 1635 – October 1682), was a German physician, alchemist, precursor of chemistry, scholar and adventurer
"... chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasure among smoke and vapor, soot and flame, poisons and poverty, yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly, that [I'd die before I'd] change places with the Persian King..." JB
