Alchemy later European

Above Arab symboBc figures and diagrams of stills (on the right) from a 12th-century Arab text on alchemy. In gener the Arab alchemists were less secretive about their discoveries, and the Arab manuscripts are less shrouded in complicated symbolism than the later European chemical works. 

The Hermetic writings had an impact on Alexandrian alchemy and on later European alchemy and science. Among the ideas they contained were that certain combinations of numbers possessed mystical properties, and that the stars could exert an influence on human endeavours. The secrets of the magical world portrayed in the Hermetic writings were only open to the chosen few. It is because of the influence of the Hermetic writings that alchemy was often referred to as the hermetic art, and this is also the origin of the term hermetically sealed. 

Avicenna is the last of the important writers of the Islamic period of alchemy. He is primarily remembered as a physician, and his medical text was regarded as highly authoritative for 600 years after his death. In his chemical writing he dismisses the possibility of a transmutation being achieved by the administration of an elixir to a base metal. If a transmutation is to be achieved at all, the metal must first be broken down into its constituent elements, and then an appropriate recombination attempted. Avicenna s views exerted an important influence on later European alchemy. 

Jabir introduced a theory, which was to influence much of later alchemy, that metals were mixtures of sulfur, mercury, and arsenic, except for gold, which was made up of sulfur and mercury alone. The sulfur and mercury of which Jabir spoke were not the substances found in nature. They were purified essences which European alchemists later called philosophical sulfur and philosophical mercury. They were supposed to be quite unlike the common substances. For example, it was said that philosophical sulfur didn t burn. According to Jabir, of all the metals, gold contained the most mercury and the least sulfur. Thus other metals could be transformed into gold if ways were found to increase their mercury content. 

The best of Arabic alchemy came at the start of the period of their domination. Thus, the most capable and renowned of the Moslem alchemists was Jabir ibn-Ha5ryan (c. 760-c. 815), who was known to Europeans, centuries later, as Geber. He lived at the time when the Arabic empire (under Haroun-al-Raschid of Arabian Nights fame) was at the height of its glory. 

This was not the case outside of Europe By 1300 Chinese and Indian alchemists were actively engaged in iatrochemistry—the application of alchemy to medicine—but iatrochemistry did not fully evolve in Europe until 200 years later. Chinese and Indian alchemical writers also devoted much thought to the proper design of a laboratory, another concept that did not appear in European alchemical literature until about 1500. For example an Indian treatise of this period, the Rasaratnasamuchchaya, contains the following description ... 

One of the ideas that arose in the early phase of European alchemy was that all substances were composed not only of the four terrestrial elements but also of a fifth, which Aristotle had maintained was confined to the heavens. This fifth element was known as the quintessence of the substance in which it occurred. The marvellous properties of alcohol led to the belief that it was the quintessence of wine. Furthermore, alcohol was the first organic solvent known, and could extract essential oils fi om plants. These, with their distinctive odours, seemed to be the quintessences of the plants. Thus the quintessences of herbs and other plants could be extracted by solution or distillation with alcohol to form a liqueur. The earliest liqueurs were prepared for their medicinal properties only later was their use appreciated in a purely social context. 

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