Transmutation refutation

Ice or snow is converted by the action of heat into water. Therefore it was first water then snow or ice. But all metals can be converted into quicksilver, therefore they were first quicksilver. The method of converting them into quicksilver I shall teach below. But it being granted that a metal can be converted into quicksilver, there is refuted the opinion of those who assert that it is not possible for spirits (spiritus, that is volatile substances) and other materials to be transmuted into the elements and into the nature of metals, unless first reduced to their primal matter. This reduction to their primal matter is easy as I shall show below. Therefore the transmutation of metals is possible and easy. In the same way it can be shown you that the multiplication of metals is possible for everything that is born and grows is multiplied, as is clear with plants and trees. For from one seed a thousand seeds are procreated,... 

Known as the Prince of Physicians , Avicenna was an Arab alchemist and doctor. He refuted the possibility of transmutation, believing that alchemical gold was merely a clever imitation... 

By this point Stahl has come to believe that under no circumstances can one species of metal be produced out of another, and he refutes transmutational propositions with reflections on empirical reports or observations. Different metallic species... 

We have imbibed, sweated, and excreted water since time immemorial—so it might be nice to know what it s made of. Water boils, freezes, and is recovered unchanged from salts and other earths. It is absolutely elemental to our very existence, as is air. One of the four Aristotelian elements, water can be transmuted to air by adding heat, to earth by removing wetness, and it neutralizes its contrary element—fire. Its status as an element survived Robert Boyle s scathing criticism of the ancients in his 1661 classic The Sceptical Chymist. As late as 1747, Ambrose Godfrey, Boyle s very capable assistant, reported the chemical conversion of water to earth, an experimental conclusion once and for all time refuted in 1770 by Antoine Lavoisier. So, when and how did we learn the true nature of water, or how to get From H to eau, as Philip Ball so wittily phrases it ... 

The idea of transmutation (transformation) of elements was born in distant times. The idea was upheld by alchemists for their specific aims. But all attempts to achieve transmutation proved futile. As chemistry was developing into an independent full-fledged science and accumulating knowledge of the structure and properties of matter the very feasibility of transformation of elements was questioned. By the end of the 19th century serious scientists ignored this problem though did not dare to refute it definitely. 

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