d
gas. When he studied man's physical nature, health, and disease,
he opined that the usefulness of a talisman was not to bring about
a physical change, but to bring the patient into a frame of mind
more conducive to physical healing. He urged that there be
experiments in chemistry to develop medicinal drugs.

He studied different kinds of plants and the differences between
arable land, forest land, pasture land, and garden land.

He studied the planetary motions and astronomical tables to
forecast future events. He did calculations on days in a month and
days in a year which later contributed to the legal definition of
a leap year.

Bacon was an extreme proponent of the inductive method of finding
truths, e.g. by categorizing all available facts on a certain
subject to ascertain the natural laws governing it. His
contribution to the development of science was abstracting the
method of experiment from the concrete problem to see its bearing
and importance as a universal method of research. He advocated
changing education to include studies of the natural world using
observation, exact measurement, and experiments.

His explanation of a rainbow as a result of natural laws was
contrary to theological opinion that a rainbow was placed in the
heavens to assure mankind that there was not to be another
universal deluge.

The making and selling of goods diverged e.g. as the cloth
merchant severed from the tailor and the leather merchant severed
from the butcher. These craftsmen formed themselves into guilds,
which sought charters to require all craftsmen to belong to the
guild of their craft, to have legal control of the craft work, and
be able to expel any craftsman for disobedience. These guilds were
composed of master craftsmen, their journeymen, and apprentices.
These guilds determined the wages and working conditions of the
craftsmen and petitioned the borough authorities for ordinances
restraining trade, for instance by controlling the admission of
outsiders to the craft, preventing foreigners from selling in the
town except at fairs, limiting purchases of raw materials to
suppliers within the town, forbidding night work, restricting the
number of apprentices to each master craftsmen, and requiring a
minimum number of years for apprenticeships. In return, these
guilds assured quality control. In some boroughs, they did work
for the town, such as maintaining certain defensive towers or
walls of the town near thei