Ercker, Lazarus

Ercker, Lazarus

(born c. 1530, Annaberg, Saxony—died c. 1594, Prague, Bohemia) German writer on early metallurgy. In 1554 Ercker was appointed assayer at Dresden, the first of his many positions in the Saxony bureaucracy, and later became a control tester of coins. His systematic review of the techniques then in use for testing alloys and minerals of silver, gold, copper, antimony, mercury, bismuth, and lead, of obtaining and refining such metals, and of extracting acids, salts, and other compounds may be regarded as the first manual of analytical and metallurgical chemistry.