Rhazes

Dilute hydrochloric acid prepared by Arabian alchemist Rhazes... 

Rhazes. "Extracts. .. from the Light of Lights by Rhasis." In New pearl of great price, ed. Bonus of Ferrara, 365-388. London , 1894. 

Rhazes. Practical chemistry in the twelfth century Rasis de aluminibus et salibus translated by Gerard of Cremona by R. Steele. Isis 12, no. 1 (1929) 10-46. 

Ranking, G.S.A. "The life and works of Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Zakariya ar-Razi)." In 17th Int CongrMed Sect 23 Hist Med, 237-268. Oxford OUP, 1914. 

Browne, E.G. Arabian medicine. Cambridge Cambridge Univ P, 1921. 138p. Jabir, Rhazes, etc... 

Through trade with many regions, the Arabians learned and extended medical knowledge. Their major contribution is perhaps the knowledge of medical preparations and distillation methods, although the techniques were probably derived from the practices of alchemists. Avicenna, around ad 900-1000, recorded a vast encyclopedia of medical description and treatment. Another noted physician was Rhazes, who accurately described measles and smallpox. 

Arabic alchemy was unknown in the west until the eleventh century when the first translations from Arabic into Latin were made. Two Arab alchemists were especially well known and widely read Jabir ibn Hayyan, known to Europeans as Geber, and Abu Bakr ibn Zakariyya al-Razi, known as Rhazes. Of more than 2,000 pieces of writing attributed to Jabir, most were compiled by a Muslim religious sect called the Faithful Brethren or Brethren of Purity after he died. The works are written in different styles, which would indicate that they were penned by different authors. The compilation was completed around the year 1000, more than a hundred years after Jabir died. However, it has been established that the work translated into Latin under the title Summa Perfectionis was based on translations of Jabir s writing. Thus, although little is known about his life, we know something about the role Jabir played in the evolution of alchemical theory. 

Al-Razi (Rhazes, 854-925) was a Persian who studied in Baghdad. Al-Razi wrote extensively on medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and alchemy, but he was primarily a physician. Al-Razi was less mystical than his contemporary alchemists and classified chemicals by their origin. According to Al-Razi, chemicals came from either animals, plants, and minerals or were derived from other chemicals. Al-Razi wrote The Comprehensive Book, which was an enormous medical encyclopedia that synthesized medical practices of ancient Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, and Persians. Al-Razi was the first person known to describe the disease smallpox. Most of his alchemical writings have been lost, but Al-Razi believed in the atomic nature of matter. Al-Razi took a systematic approach to science and rejected the idea of divine intervention. His rational methods and descriptions were more consistent with modern science than most individuals of his time. Ali al Husayn ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037) was another Persian physician whose voluminous works, including The... 

The notion of the origin of the metals from quicksilver and sulphur was also in the writings of the Faithful Brothers supplemented by the theory of the origin of quicksilver from water and earth, and of sulphur from aerial or oily elements with earth. Vincent quotes from the De Aluminibus et Salibus attributed to Rhazes with respect to this theory.30... 

The first mention of boron compounds is found in a book by Persian alchemist Rhazes (c. 865-c. 925). Alchemists studied the nature of... 

The names borax and boracic acid probably originated as far back as the time of Rhazes as buraq (in Arabic) or burah (in Persian). 

Plato s Timaeus, which gave medieval scholars an introduction to matter theory. Known to the Latin scholars as Geber, Jabir ibn Hayyan authored alchemical works that were translated from Arabic during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as were the medical and alchemical works of Al-Razi (or Rhazes, in Europe). Commentaries on Aristotle by Avicenna, Alpetragius, and Averroes led to a huge interest in Aristotle s actual work, so that important works like the Physics, Meteorologica, and De Animalibus were found and translated into Latin by the end of the thirteenth century. 

Paul of Aegina was the last of the physicians of the Byzantine culture to practice in Alexandria, which fell to the Arabs in his professional lifetime in 642 ad. He refers to both mithridatium and ther-iac. Paul of Aegina was a link between Greek medicine and Mohammedan medicine. His book was used by Rhazes (854-930 ad), one of the greatest of the Arab physicians. Avicenna (980-1037 ad) approved of mithridatium as an antidote to poisons, and Maimonides, a Jew bom in Moslem Spain, was also familiar with mithridatium. Mithridatium re-entered Western medicine culture by two routes. A Saxon leechbook of the eleventh century records that Abel, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, sent mithridatium or theriac to King Alfred the Great, who died on 26 October 899 (Stenton, 1947). 

Rhazes al-Razi (Persia) Pills with Psyllium seed... 

And there was more. In two instances, especially, Aristotle posited the rise of intermediate substances as a result of elemental transformation. The element earth gave rise to a substance referred to as smoky earth when a shift of qualities changed earth into fire. Water, on the other hand, produced an intermediate watery vapor as the exchange of its qualities transformed it into air. The combination of smoky earth and watery vapor yielded, in Aristotle s description, the various metals and minerals of the world. Later, especially in the hands of the Arabic writers Jabir (Geber) and Rhazes, smoky earth was renamed sulphur and watery vapor also got a new name—mercury. The purity of sulphur and mercury in combination accounted for the purity and impurity of the resulting metal. Gold was the purest of all the metals in which sulphur was dominant, silver the purest in which mercury was the cardinal part. 

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