Nicolas Lemery. Engraving of Nicolas Lemery (1645-1715), French chemist and pharmacist, lecturing in Paris in about 1700. Lemery's lectures were hugely popular with fashionable society and pharmaceutical students, attracting many foreigners. His style was unusual at the time because he demonstrated many experiments himself and rejected alchemy and mysticism. Although he discovered little new, Lemery was hugely influential as a teacher. His book Cours de Chymie (1675) ran to 31 editions by 1756 and was translated into several languages. It gave a clear account of the chemical methods and pharmaceutical compounds used at the time.