DIPPEL, Johann Conrad (1673-1734), a German theologian and alchemist, who assumed as an author the name “Christianus Democritus,” was born at the castle of Frankenstein, near Darmstadt, his father being a Lutheran clergyman. He studied at Giessen, where he took the degree of master in philosophy in 1693. After a short visit to Wittenberg he went to Strasburg, where he delivered lectures on astrology and chiromancy, and occasionally preached. He gained considerable popularity, but was obliged after a time to quit the city, owing to his irregular manner of living, and the suspicion attaching to him of having been concerned in a murder. He had up to this time espoused the cause of the orthodox as against the pietists, and had justified his gay and worldly habits on the ground that he intended to make a practical protest against pietism; but in his two first published works, Orthodoxia Orthodoxorum (1697) and Papismus vapulans Protestantium (1698), he assailed vehemently the fundamental positions of the Lutheran theology, denying the inspiration of Scripture, the efficacy of the sacraments, and the doctrine of justification by faith. He held that religion consisted not in dogma but exclusively in love and selfsacrifice. To avoid persecution he was compelled to wander from place to place, and he resided successively in various towns of Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. He took the degree of doctor of medicine at Leyden in 1711. From 1698 he devoted himself to experiments in alchemy, which wasted a considerable fortune, and he was frequently imprisoned for debt. He made several valuable discoveries in chemistry, one being Prussian blue, and another an oil, still known as Dippel’s animal oil, which he offered as a panacea, and which has useful medicinal properties ...