Hugh Munro Ross

“ Possibly this is one of the books about gold and silver of which Diocletian decreed the destruction about A.D. 290—an act which Gibbon styles the first authentic event in the history of alchemy (Decline and Fall, chap. xiii.) . The author of these receipts is not under any delusion that he is transmuting metals; the MS. is merely a workshop manual in which are described processes in daily use for preparing metals for false jewellery, but it argues considerable knowledge of methods of making alloys and colouring metals. ”

“ Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the temples and monasteries of Egypt: much useful experience might have been acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures, but the science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the industry of the Saracens. ”

“ It must be noted that the processes described by the alchemists of the 13th century are not put forward as being miraculous or supernatural; they rather represent the methods employed by nature, which it is the end of the alchemist’s art to reproduce artificially in the laboratory. But even among the late Arabian alchemists it was doubted whether the resources of the art were adequate to the task; and in the West, Vincent of Beauvais remarks that success had not been achieved in making artificial metals identical with the natural ones. ”

“ In the Leiden museum there are a number of papyri which were found in a tomb at Thebes, written probably in the 3rd century A.D., though their matter is older. Some are in Greek and demotic, and one, of peculiar interest from the chemical point of view, gives a number of receipts, in Greek, for the manipulation of base metals to form alloys which simulate gold and are intended to be used in the manufacture of imitation jewellery. ”

“ In the course of the 19th century the idea that the different elements are constituted by different groupings or condensations of one primal matter—a speculation which, if proved to be well grounded, would imply the possibility of changing one element into another—found favour with more than one responsible chemist ”

“ But the Arabs did not acquire their knowledge of this literature at first hand. The earliest Hellenic culture in the East was Syrian, and the Arabs made their first acquaintance with Greek chemistry, as with Greek philosophy, mathematics, medicine, &c., by the intermediary of Syriac translations. (See Arabian Philosophy and Syriac Literature.) Examples of such translations are preserved in MSS. at the British Museum, partly written in Syriac, partly in Arabic with Syriac characters. ”

“ This statement represents a doctrine widely held in the 13th century, and also to be found in the Greek alchemists, that everything endowed with a particular apparent quality possesses a hidden opposite quality, which can be rendered apparent by fire. Later, as in the works attributed to Basil Valentine, sulphur, mercury and salt are held to be the constituents of the metals. ”

“ La chimie au moyen âge (text and translation of Syriac and Arabic treatises on alchemy, 3 vols., 1893) . Much bibliographical and other information about the later writers on alchemy is contained in Bibliotheca Chemica (2 vols., Glasgow, 1906) , a catalogue by John Ferguson of the books in the collection of James Young of Kelly (printed for private distribution) . (H. M. R.)
↑ An alchemistical work bearing the name of Ostanes speaks of a divine water which cures all maladies—an early appearance of the universal panacea or elixir of life. ”

“ About the beginning of the 20th century, however, the view was promulgated that the spontaneous production of helium from radium may be an instance of the transformation of one element into another. (See Radioactivity; also Element and Matter.)
See M. P. E. Berthelot, Les Origines de l’alchimie (1885) ; Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (text and translation, 3 vols., 1887–1888) ; Introduction à l'étude de la chimie des anciens et du moyen âge (1889) ”

“ Similar systems of symbols, but elaborated to include compounds, appear in Greek MSS. of the 10th century, preserved in the library of St Mark’s at Venice. Subsequently electrum (an alloy of gold and silver) disappeared as a specific metal, and tin was ascribed to Jupiter instead, the sign of mercury becoming common to the metal and the planet. Thus we read in Chaucer (Chanouns Yemannes Tale) :—
The bodies sevene eek, lo! ”