The law of conservation of matter, to which I assume you're referring, has been around for ages. It's attributed to the ancient Greeks that nothing can come from nothing, which is about as far back as you can go. Modern chemistry, which deals with this law a lot, is hugely influenced by the industrialization of Europe, particularly in the late 1700's and 1800's. It's the scientist of this time period that we can attribute much of modern chemical thought.