ALCHEMY, a study of nature with three special objects: (1) That of ob taining an alkahest or universal solvent. (2) That of acquiring the ability to trans mute all metals into gold or silver, es pecially the former. (3) That of ob taining an elixir vitae, or universal medi cine, which might cure all diseases and indefinitely prolong human life.
The word is derived from the Arabic alkimia, compounded of the Arabic article and a Greek word chemia, used in Diocle tian's decree against Egyptian works treating of the chemia (transmutation) of gold and silver.
Tradition points to Egypt as the birth, place of the science. Hermes Trismegis tus is represented as the father of it; but it should be remembered that the speculations of some of the early Greek philosophers, as of Empedocles, who first named the four elements, pointed in the direction of a rudimentary chemical the ory. Zosimus the Theban discovered in sulphuric acid a solvent of the metals, and liberated oxygen from the red oxide of mercury. The students of the "sacred art" at Alexandria believed in the trans mutation of the four elements. The Roman Emperor Caligula is said to have instituted experiments for producing gold out of orpiment (sulphuret of arsenic) , and in the time of Diocletian the passion for this pursuit, conjoined with magical arts, had become so prevalent in the em Aire that that emperor is said to have ordered all Egyptian works treating of the chemistry of gold and silver to be burned. For at that time multitudes of books on this art appeared, written by Alexandrian monks and by hermits, but bearing famous names of antiquity such as Dernocritus, Pythagoras, and Hermes.
At a later period, the Arabs, who had enthusiastically adopted Aristotle from the Greeks, appropiated the astrology and alchemy of the Persians and the Jews of Mesopotamia and Arabia; and to them European alchemy is directly trace able. The school of polypharmacy, as it has been called, flourished in Arabia dur ing the caliphates of the Abbassides. They worked with gold and mercury, arsenic and sulphur, salts and acids; and had, in short, become familiar with a large range of what are now called chemicals. Gebir discovered corrosive sublimate, the process of cupellation of gold and silver, and distillation. To the Arab alchemists we owe the terms alco hol, alkali, borax, elixir.
From the Arabs, alchemy found its way through Spain into Europe generally, and speedily became entangled with the fantastic subtleties of the scholastic phi losophy. In the Middle Ages, the monks occ"pied themselves with alchemy. Pope John XXII. took great delight in it, but denounced the searchers for gold "who promise more than they can perform, and the art was afterward forbidden by his successor. The earliest authentic works on European alchemy now extant are those of Roger Bacon (1214-1294) and Albertus Magnus (1193-1280). Roger Bacon, who was acquainted with gun powder, condemns magic necromancy, charms, and all such things, but believes in the convertibility of the inferor metals into gold. Still, he does not profess to
have ever effected the conversion. Alber tus Magnus had a great mastery of the practical chemistry of his times; he was acquainted with alum, caustic alkali, and the purification of the royal metals by means of lead. In addition to the sul phur-and-mercury theory of the metals, drawn from Gebir, he regarded the ele ment water as still nearer the soul of nature than either of these bodies. He is the first to speak of the affinity of bodies, a term he uses in reference to the action of sulphur on metals. Thomas Aquinas also wrote on alchemy, and was the first to employ the word amalgam. Raymond Lully is another great name in the an nals of alchemy. He was the first to introduce the use of chemical symbols, his system consisting of a scheme of arbitrary hieroglyphics. He wrote more than 500 works on alchemy.
Basil Valentine introduced antimony into medical use. He, along with some previous alchemists, regarded salt, sul phur, and mercury as the three bodies contained in the metals. His practical knowledge was great; he knew how to precipitate iron from solution by potash, and was acquainted with many similar processes, so that he is ranked as the founder of analytical chemistry.
But more famous than all was Para celsus, in whom alchemy proper may be said to have culminated. He held, with Basil Valentine, that the elements of compound bodies were salt, sulphur and mercury—representing respectively earth, air, and water, fire being already regarded as an imponderable—but these substances were in his system purely representative. All kinds of matter were reducible under one or other of these typical forms; everything was either a salt, a sulphur, or a mercury, or, like the metals, it was a mixed or compound. There was one element, however, com mon to the four; a fifth essence or quintessence of creation; an unknown and only true element, of which the four generic principles were nothing but de rivative forms or embodiments: in other words, he inculcated the dogma that there is only one real elementary matter, nobody knows what. This one prime element of things he appears to have considered to be the universal solvent of which the alchemists were in quest, and to express which he introduced the term alkahest.
After Paracelsus, the alchemists of Europe became divided into two classes. The one class was composed of men of diligence and sense, who devoted them selves to the discovery of new com pounds and reactions. The other class took up the visionary, fantastical side of the older alchemy, and carried it to a degree of extravagance before unknown. Instead of useful work, they compiled mystical trash into books, and fathered them on Hermes, Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, and other really great men. These visionaries formed themselves into Rosicrucian societies and other secret associations.