Chemical arts, ancient

It is, after all, comparatively a narrow range of products of chemical arts that, through their analytical examination, can give us evidence as to the materials and, in-ferentially sometimes, as to the processes in use before any literary remains from ancient times are to bo found. From such few ancient writings as touch upon the arts and manufactures in comprehensible detail, and which have survived the destruction of time, we may learn much that is more specific regarding the chemical knowledge of the ancients. 

As the materia mediea of the ancients included almost everything conceivable in tlie vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms, the writings of Dioscorides include consideration of many substances prepared by chemical arts, or serving as raw materials for chemical arts. His point of view is that of the medicinal uses of substances, and there is no reason to suppose that he personally had any experience... 

In this statement, Lavoisier cut the bond between the old search for ultimate elements or principles and the chemical analysis that had been developing alongside that search for many decades. As we have seen above, that bond had been further elaborated and refined, especially by G. E. Stahl and P. J. Macquer. By contrast, Lavoiser proclaimed that it was metaphysical ballast, which caused endless problems. One of his main achievements, which may justify to some extent the claim that his chemistry was revolutionary, was the rigid destruction of the many sophisticated links his predecessors had created between experimental analysis and its perceptible analytical products, on the one hand, and theories of matter such as the philosophy of principles and atomism, on the other. Lavoisier s definition of elements or principles as substances which cannot be further decomposed by chemical analysis came as a postulate we must not take elements to be more than substances that can actually be isolated from more compound substances in the laboratory and we must not speculate about the possibility of further decomposing substances as long as we cannot achieve that decomposition in practice. This definition of element was relative, that is, it depended on the available tools and techniques of chemical analysis. Lavoisier did not argue theoretically for his notion of element, and he did not exclude the idea that simpler elements existed than the ones hitherto isolated by chemical art. Therefore he substituted the term simple substance for the ancient term element. In so doing he left open some space for theoretical speculation about the proper ultimate... 

Traditions of ancient writers attribute some discoveries in these lines to India or Persia, or other Asiatic countries, but as to whether any of these countries contributed in any important way to the development of Egyptian chemical knowledge, or whether at some time these countries learned their arts from Egypt, we cannot safely determine from such tradition. It is quite certain that both in China and in India the chemistry of the metals and alloys, methods of dyeing and the use of certain chemicals in medicine were practiced at ancient periods, but their chronology is diffi-... 

The works of these practical chemists of the sixteenth century manifest a more serious appreciation of the dignity and importance of chemistry in its relation to the practical arts, and had a great stimulating influence on all chemical workers. It will be noticed however that with the exception of Paracelsus these men were not greatly interested in the problems of chemical philosophy. To the extent that they refer to chemical theory they accept the conventional Aristotelian or Arabian concepts. Paracelsus by the- impression made by his three principles indeed did much to shatter the blind faith in the ancient theories and to pave the way for later constructive speculation. In so far as chemical theory is concerned the sixteenth century marks... 

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