Chemistry cinnabar

Perhaps it was only natural that people steeped in Greek philosophy would think of trying to make gold when they encountered the rich Egyptian tradition of practical chemistry. Hadn t Aristotle said that transformations were possible Isn t that what happened when, for example, cinnabar (mercury ore) was heated Heating the red material, cinnabar, caused a pool of liquid metal to form. Didn t other chemical transformations take place when substances were heated, dissolved, melted, filtered, and crystallized ... 

We find in Albertus a general knowledge of many specific facts and operations of chemistry. He knew of the operations of distillation and sublimation and of the apparatus used in these operations, of the purification of gold and silver by cementation and by the use of lead. He knew that quicksilver may be successively distilled without loss of weight that cinnabar can be produced by the union of quicksilver and sulphur that wine, when heated gives off an inflammable substance which he calls an oil (oleum) supernatant and inflammable. 61 He describes many metals, minerals, salts and other substances, without, however, adding any facts of interest not comprised in the authorities which precede him. 

Al-Razi described much other equipment that would be familiar to any student of chemistry beakers, flasks, crystallizing dishes, spatulas, funnels, filters made of cloth, and pestles and mortars. His shelves contained not only all the known metals, but also many other substances such as pyrites, malachite, lapis lazuli, gypsum, hematite, galena, turquoise, stibnite, alum, green vitriol, natron, borax, salt, lime, potash, cinnabar, white and red lead, iron oxide, copper oxide, vinegar, and probably caustic soda, glycerol, and sulfuric and nitric acids. 

One of the most tantalizing chemical transformations known to ancient practitioners of inorganic chemistry involved roasting of mercuric sulfide ores such as cinnabar to form hydrargyrum or quicksilver (60). As the toxic properties of mercury became more widely appreciated in the middle ages, formulations of the metal and its salts were used in medical applications. 

For analyses of the chemistry of the Flower of Cinnabar based on the Baopu zi see Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 5.Ill 83-85 and Mura ami Yoshimi, Ren in jutsu, 314-23. 

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