Then in the centuries of medieval persecution and suppression every alchemist invented his own secret symbols. Charlatans, quacks and cheats took over and alchemy became, along with sorcery and witchcraft, infamous for fraud and extortion. In the 18th century scientists tried to pry loose the real achievements in chemistry, pharmacology and medicine from this confusing cornucopia of science and magic. Explore all alchemical elements. Membership Become a member Connect with others Supporting individuals Supporting organisations Manage my membership.
By means of the stone they sought to speed up nature and produce gold or silver in a much shorter time. Another belief was that base metals are 'ill' and have to be 'cured' with 'the stone'. From the 4th century onwards there developed a theory that mercury instead of gold is original part of all metals. With the decline of the old religion there of course was connected a decline of the status of the priests. In reaction to this the priests adopted the claim of not creating substitutes of equal value but of making gold and silver itself.
Under the influence of the younger Stoa superstition and mysticism rose. Alchemy became increasingly connected with magic and mancy. Alchemical treatises began to demand outer and inner purity. The adept should be free from envy, hatred and avarice. What's more, the adept must be chaste and for the time of the work keep a strict diet. Magical formulas and invocations together with purifying rituals emerged.
An oath of secretness was established that ruled to speak about the art either not at all, or tecte encrypted. The alchemist now had to observe the stars and wait for favourable constellations and some authors claimed, that the work must be begun on special days or in a special season. The methods and substances were being more and more obscured and the practical value of the writings gradually sank.
As possible causes for the failure of the work were listed envy of demons, bad influence of the planets, the wrong season, ignorance or inappropriate use of the rituals and formulas.
Let me now come to some of the representatives of that period's alchemy and, in passing, their works. The first one to mention is Bolos of Mendes around BC.
He brought with him the idea of the unity of the cosmos and interpreted the works of the Egyptian in this way. He seems to have been a practically working man because he wrote a book called 'Physica et Mystica' title of the Latin translation. It contains a number of, rather obscure; recipes for the making of gold and colouring of metals. The next one is the disputed Hermes Trismegistos. The actual Corpus Hermeticum consists of 18 works, none of which really speaks about alchemy.
According to Haage the Corpus Hermeticum realiter is more a Gnostic than alchemical work and it merely was interpreted alchemically. The most tangible and historically authentic alchemist of the Hellenistic period, and perhaps its last great one, was Zosimos of Panopolis.
He lived at the turn of the 4th to the 5th century. He was both a critical and productive author who built several apparatus himself.
Zosimos was convinced of the possibility of transmuting base metals into gold by means of a certain substance. His works are 'the divine water', 'of chemical devices and furnaces' to him goes back the Athanor 13 , 'of chemistry' and 'of the holy art'. In all his works he stresses that the way to the xerion leads via observation of and insight into nature.
He also repeatedly pleads for keeping the art secret and encoded. Those who are really learned and chosen will be able to understand, those who aren't should leave the matter untouched. Throughout the whole period there emerged lots of pseudepigraphs ascribed to Democritos, Isis, Maria Hebraica, Cleopatra and Hermes Trismegistos. A quite famous example for these pseudepigraphs is the chryspoiia by an author who called herself Cleopatra. The writings of Synesius of Kyrene, Heliodoros, Dioskoros et alii have come down to us, however their historical existence is disputed.
The preferred genres of these alchemical works were recipe, allegory, riddle poetry, visions of revelation, didactic poetry and letters, dialogue treatises, and commentaries. Evidently the 'making' of gold was very popular and successful in Hellas, because in emperor Diocletian of Byzantium saw himself forced to order the burning of alchemical works, either because he feared that Alexandria could stand up against his kingdom, or he as a Christian deemed these writings heretical.
In fact he might have been afraid of an economic chaos because of counterfeit money. While in Hellenistic Egypt and Greece alchemy was still in full bloom a new era was approaching with the expansion of the Arabic influence from Syria and Persia. Unlike other conquerors they did not destroy the culture and philosophy they encountered on their campaigns but treated them with great interest and respect.
According to Lippmann no other expanding culture ever was so tolerant towards other cultures. Unavoidably they came across the blooming alchemy at the school of Alexandria and soon after c. At their work the translators did not hesitate simply to take over Greek terms for devices and substances and prefix them with the Arabic al- The Arabs had a slightly more technical view on alchemy.
Of course they also worked on transmuting base metals into gold but increasingly they discovered its use for medicine, If 'the stone' al-iksir, elixir is able to cure metals it must also be able to cure humans. The Arabic physicians dealt with the humoral pathology of Galenos, a concept on the basis of the four bodily liquids blood, black and yellow gall, and mucus. Galenos thought that if all these liquids are in equilibrium, man is healthy and even-tempered.
He explains the human tempers 16 with the gaining of the ascendancy of one of the four liquids. The medicine so far depended on herbal remedies. The experiments of the alchemists, however, gradually led to a pharmacopoeia of mineral remedies which step by step replaced the herbs.
The same experiments with 'strong, i. He strove in vain for the crown of the caliph and therefore he allegedly occupied himself with medical, astrological, and alchemical studies. He initiated the translation of several Greek works into Arabic. He gathered a number of scholars of his time at his court but had them incarcerated and executed because the promised transmutation always failed.
A shining authority of Arabic alchemy was Djabir Ibn Hajjan c. He advocated the experiment and practical work as the sources of theory. According to him mere brooding is futile. He developed a new theory of transmutation. At the beginning the matter must be reduced to the four elements. As a second step the ingredients must be brought into an equilibrium.
For that purpose Djabir worked out a system of mathematical proportions that basically goes back to neo-Platonian and Pythagorean ideas. Now the matter must be reconstructed to the configuration of gold. He also worked on the concept of the lapis philosophorum. He defined it as trinity of soul, spirit and body in an equilibrium. In that state it is both volatile and constant, male and female, hot and cold, and moist and dry. The long version of the Corpus Gabirianum is an extensive treatise on antique sciences in general.
The short version, apparently written by Djabir himself, consists of 70 volumes and contains an again extensive but complete and systematic description of the Djabirian alchemy. In these books Djabir repeatedly refers to the works of Greek authorities, not knowing that most of these are pseudepigraphs.
He was a famous and successful physician and managed a hospital in Baghdad. He occupied himself with the Greek philosophy of nature and the Galenic humoral pathology and alchemy. In general he accepted Djabir's theories except his idea of the proportions of the ingredients.
He again adopted a Sal-Sulphur-Mercury theory. During his practical studies he worked out a new classifying system. He distinguished between animal, vegetable, and earth-like matter and sub-divided the latter into volatile spirits , metals bodies , stones, vitriols, boraxes, and salts, thus making a big step towards systematic chemistry.
Another theory of his was a corpuscular theory according to which all matter consists of atoms. The properties of the single matters depends from the density of the atoms - a very progressive view regarding the time when it was formulated.
He perhaps did not know how close he was to truth. His main work was the Liber Secretorum 17 in which he laid down his theories and methods. Towards the end of his life he re-edited it and published an abridged version under the title Secretum Secretorum. Like his colleague Rhazes he actually was a physician of high reputation. He studies the works of his predecessors and comes to believe that a real transmutation of metals is plainly impossible.
Alchemy and the alchemists only can copy and imitate nature. He occupies himself with the elixir only for medical purposes. The search for gold has been abandoned for the sake of longevity. His main work Canon Medicinae in the 12th century translated by Gerhard of Cremona is one of the fundamental works of mediaeval medicine. A large number of pseudepigraphs was published under his name. During the 11th and 12th century Christian scholars became increasingly interested in science and philosophy of the Greek and Arab and thus became aware of alchemy as well.
Cities like Paris, Salerno and Toledo became centres of education and science. Many philosophical and alchemical were translated into Latin, first of all in Spain and Sicily, then still occupied by the Arab. These works were regarded as the wisdom of 'the Old' and avidly studied, however some scholars, among them Adelard of Bath , stood up against the blind and un-reflected reception of the works.
After their opinion one certainly should read these works but should not see in them the ultima ratio but rather a basis for own research. His contemporary Hortulanus wrote a compendium and a dictionary of alchemy and published a commentary of the tabula smaragdina.
Alanus ab Insulis again wrote against the lack of scholarly self-consciousness he encountered among his contemporaries. He was abbot of Clairvaux and a very learned man. Because of his almost biblical age his contemporaries believed that he must have found the elixir. The books that by that time were read most were Djabir's Liber divinitatis de LXX , pseudo-Rhazes Liber lumen luminum and De aluminibus et salibus, a mixture of exoteric- scientific parts and esoteric - mystical allegories.
One of the greatest scholars of the middle Ages, Albertus Magnus , dedicated much of his life and work to alchemy. He, despite the works of Avicenna which he should have read, believed in the possibility of the transmutation and accordingly took effort in research. The essence of his theories and ideas he wrote down in his important works De Alchymia, De rebus metallicis et mineralibus, and Octo capita de philosophorum lapide.
His contemporary Roger Bacon , like Albertus Magnus a very learned man 18 , had studied and taught at the important universities of his time. It is a double-vessel airtight container with a sheet of copper upon its upper side that heats substances without scorching them.
All three are still used today for chemical experiments. With his work on the effect of chemicals on the human body, his discovery of carbon dioxide, and his belief that understanding the body and the world needed to begin with alchemy, Belgian scientist Van Helmont helped synonymise alchemy and chemistry.
He reckoned that nothing could advance without alchemy. Also, his theory was that gold created by alchemy would never decay or die, and consuming the manmade gold would have the same effect on the body. During his gold-finding experiments, he inadvertently created the basis for gunpowder by combining sulphur and saltpetre. He spent 30 years collating and translating everything he could, pulling out all the stops to uncover the formula for the supreme object of alchemy.
Like transmuting base metals into gold with alchemic processes, sick organs in the body could be made healthy with the help of chemicals. On the plus side, Paracelsus was credited with discovering laudanum, or tincture of opium. This prompted a summons to the court of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony, who ordered him to make this claim a reality, as he loved gold but was always short of money.
German alchemist Brand, like his 17th century peers, saw human urine as more than just waste and he discovered something truly precious in pee — phosphorus.
He collected around 5, litres of urine during his experiments and he apparently preferred getting it from people who drank beer due to the distinct colouration.
It is believed that he boiled and extracted the components of the urine in different ways. Upon final distillation, the product left behind was white, smelly and glowed in the dark. It was also extremely flammable. Brand had successfully created phosphorus, which we use today for items such as safety matches, flares and synthetic fertilisers. Taken from chymistry. Some parts of the manuscript are illegible.
The fumes are white but sattle into this reddish liquor. Then change ye receiver but lute it not on. Toggle navigation Menu. The debt science owes to alchemy. Image credit: Science Photo Library. Here are some of the most famous alchemists of all time and their scientific achievements.
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