The lure and romance of alchemy / by C.J.S. Thompson.

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The lure and romance of alchemy / by C.J.S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    82/300 page 66
    He gives the first clear description of mercuric oxide and how it should be prepared: I took quivering mercury free from impurity and placed it in a glass vessel like an egg. This I put inside another vessel like a cooking pot, and set the whole apparatus over a gentle fire at such a degree of heat that I could bear the hand upon it. Then I would heat it for forty days, after which I opened it. I found the mercury absolutely converted into a red powder, soft to the touch, the weight remaining the same as it was originally. Among the Syriac manuscripts still extant is one entitled The Doctrine of Democritus, which was translated from the Greek between the seventh and eighth centuries. It contains recipes for the preparation of gold and the Philosopher’s Stone, while it also mentions sulphur, antimony, and arsenic, and gives a key to the symbols used in the work. It is of particular interest on account of the drawings it contains of various pieces of appar¬ atus employed at the time. The Moors acquired some knowledge of alchemy from Arabia as early as the twelfth century, and a treatise on the art entitled The Keys of Providence and the Secrets of Science was written by Ismail ibn Lhocine Toughrai, who was head vizier to the Emir Messaoud ibn Mohammed about that period. This work is also interesting on account of the drawings which it contains representing some of the apparatus employed. Before leaving the Arabian alchemists men¬ tion should be made of Abu’l-Quasin Mu¬ hammad ibn Ahmad-al-Iraqi, who settled in Mesopotamia toward the end of the thirteenth century. He was the author of a work entitled Knowledge acquired con¬ cerning the Cultivation of Gold, in which he claims that fire alone 66 A GRADUATED RECIPIENT From a twelfth- century Arab manu¬ script on alchemy
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