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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
94
*Transcriber's
Note:
Original
"Cagliosto".
CHAPTER
IX.
PARACELSUS
AND
SOME
OTHER
ALCHEMISTS.
The
accounts
which
have
come
to
us
of
the
men
who
followed
the
pursuit
of
the
One
Thing
are
vague,
scrappy,
and
confusing.
Alchemical
books
abound
in
quotations
from
the
writings
of
Geber.
Five
hundred
treatises
were
attributed
to
this
man
during
the
middle
ages,
yet
we
have
no
certain
knowledge
of
his
name,
or
of
the
time
or
place
of
his
birth.
Hoefer
says
he
probably
lived
in
the
middle
of
the
8th
century,
was
a
native
of
Mesopotamia,
and
was
named
Djabar
Al-Konfi.
Waite
calls
him
Abou
Moussah
Djafar
al-Sofi.
Some
of
the
mediæval
adepts
spoke
of
him
as
the
King
of
India,
others
called
him
a
Prince
of
Persia.
Most
of
the
Arabian
writers
on
alchemy
and
medicine,
after
the
9th
century,
refer
to
Geber
as
their
master.
All
the
MSS.
of
writings
attributed
to
Geber
which
have
been
examined
are
in
Latin,
but
the
library
of
Leyden
is
said
to
possess
some
works
by
him
written
in
Arabic.
These
MSS.
contain
directions
for
preparing
many
metals,
salts,
acids,
oils,
etc.,
and
for
performing
such
operations
as
distillation,
cupellation,
dissolution,
calcination,
and
the
like.
Of
the
other
Arabian
alchemists,
the
most
celebrated
in
the
middle
ages
were
Rhasis,
Alfarabi,
and
Avicenna,
who
are
supposed
to
have
lived
in
the
9th
and
10th
centuries.
The
following
story
of
Alfarabi's
powers
is
taken
from
Waite's
Lives
of
the
Alchemystical
Philosophers:--
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
