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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
73
The
practitioners
of
the
Sacred
Art
of
Egypt
must
have
been
acquainted
with
many
operations
which
we
now
class
as
belonging
to
applied
chemistry;
witness,
their
jewellery,
pottery,
dyes
and
pigments,
bleaching,
glass-making,
working
in
metals
and
alloys,
and
their
use
of
spices,
essential
oils,
and
soda
in
embalming,
and
for
other
purposes.
During
the
centuries
when
alchemy
flourished,
gunpowder
was
invented,
the
art
of
printing
was
established,
the
compass
was
brought
into
use,
the
art
of
painting
and
staining
glass
was
begun
and
carried
to
perfection,
paper
was
made
from
rags,
practical
metallurgy
advanced
by
leaps
and
bounds,
many
new
alloys
of
metals
came
into
use,
glass
mirrors
were
manufactured,
and
considerable
advances
were
made
in
practical
medicine
and
sanitation.
Basil
Valentine,
who
was
one
of
the
greatest
alchemists
of
the
16th
century,
discovered
many
of
the
properties
of
the
metal
antimony,
and
prepared
and
examined
many
compounds
of
that
metal;
he
made
green
vitriol
from
pyrites,
brandy
from
fermented
grape-juice,
fulminating
gold,
sulphide
of
potash,
and
spirits
of
salt;
he
made
and
used
baths
of
artificial
mineral
waters,
and
he
prepared
various
metals
by
what
are
now
called
wet
methods,
for
instance,
copper,
by
immersing
plates
of
iron
in
solutions
of
bluestone.
He
examined
the
air
of
mines,
and
suggested
practical
methods
for
determining
whether
the
air
in
a
mine
was
respirable.
Hoefer
draws
attention
to
a
remarkable
observation
recorded
by
this
alchemist.
Speaking
of
the
"spirit
of
mercury,"
Basil
Valentine
says
it
is
"the
origin
of
all
the
metals;
that
spirit
is
nothing
else
than
an
air
flying
here
and
there
without
wings;
it
is
a
moving
wind,
which,
after
it
has
been
chased
from
its
home
of
Vulcan
(that
is,
fire),
returns
to
the
chaos;
then
it
expands
and
passes
into
the
region
of
the
air
from
whence
it
had
come."
As
Hoefer
remarks,
this
is
perhaps
one
of
the
earliest
accounts
of
the
gas
discovered
by
Priestley
and
studied
by
Lavoisier,
the
gas
we
now
call
oxygen,
and
recognise
as
of
paramount
importance
in
chemical
reactions.
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