The Early Alchemists

The chemistry of the ancients, as expressed by the writers from Theophrastus to Pliny and Dioscorides, was thoroughly practical. Their theories of the origin and changes of matter were based on their interpretation of the four elements as constituents of matter, principally as formulated by Plato and Aristotle. 

Other writers of about the same or of somewhat later date whose writings have been preserved to us in manuscripts in copies of about the eighth to eleventh centuries, 

Certain it is that, by about the fourth century, the word was used to designate the art of making the precious metals from base metals, the actuality of which was the common belief of the alchemists. 

The actual basis for the belief in transmutation consisted in just such operations as we have seen illustrated in the two Theban papyri. That these arts in Egypt were 

Hofmann in Ladenburg s, Bandworterbuch der Cliemie, Bd. 2, Article Chcmie, and especially V. Lippmann, Entsteliung und Ausbreitung der Al-chemie-Berlcvnft des Namens Chcmie, p. 293 ff. 

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Taylor, Frank Sherwood. "The theoretical basis and practical methods of transmutation of metals as practised by the early alchemists (before 800 A.D.)." BSc thesis, Oxford Univ, 1925. 

The character of specific chemical actions as described may be illustrated by his discussion of the mortification of metals (from mors death, a term much used by the early alchemists for any process which seemed to deprive metals of their life of spirit. In general it corresponded to any process which we should call direct or indirect oxidation). 

The early alchemists used to do an experiment in which water was boiled for several days in a sealed glass container. Eventually, some solid residue would begin to appear in the bottom of the flask. This result was interpreted to mean that some of the water in the flask had been converted into earth. When Lavoisier repeated this experiment, he found that the water weighed the same before and after heating, and the weight of the flask plus the... 

In fact, while writing the outcome of his experiments on mercury to the learned men of the Royal Society, Boerhaave praised the efforts of the early alchemists. He argued that the alchemists are all convinced that minerals that are not yet changed by fire contain a medicinal power that can resolve the sharpness of the fluids. Boerhaave himself does not doubt the truth of their claim as he witnessed the successful treatment of constipation and mania with medicines made from the minerals from the Hungarian mines. However, Boerhaave is not yet able to identify the medicinal power of the mineral as he is talking about the medicine he had produced from the first dehvery of minerals and so far he had failed to produce the same medicine. On the ninth of September 1735 Boerhaave writes for the last time to Bassand about the experiments, stating that he would not rest until either he would find the... 

The Arabs had preserved the writings of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, and had carried on the beliefs and practices of the early alchemists. They had also added a great deal of their own to alchemy, mainly in terms of chemical discoveries and improvements in apparatus. It was not until the 12th century, with the translations made by Robert of Chester and his followers, that medieval Europe learned of the mysterious science of alchemy. 

In later years the term sulphureous was synonymous with inflammable. The early alchemists represented fire by an equilateral triangle. Fire, or heat, was known to effect the decomposition of most substances it was supposed to penetrate into them and split them up. An equilateral triangle has the most acute angles of any regular two dimensional figure. So it was chosen to represent fire. As the spiritual sulphur represented the essence of fire or inflammability it, too, was represented by an equilateral triangle, but with the sign of the cross beneath it, thus... 

The early alchemists and natural philosophers believed in the duality of matter —sun and moon male and female sulfur (fixed) and mercury (volatile). When Davy electrolyzed pure potash (KOH) and produced a volatile (female) spirit (oxygen) at the positive pole and an explosive, fixed (male) matter (potassium) at the negative pole, this would have been intuitively obvious to them. 

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