Francis Bacon (January 22, 1561 - April 9, 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. His political career ended in disgrace in 1621. After he fell into debt, a Parliamentary Committee on the administration of the law charged him with twenty-three separate counts of corruption. He remained influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. His works established methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. In his most important work, Novum Organum, he proposed a rational method for scientific inquiry, one based on observation and experimentation. He died, at the age of 65, of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.