The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell.

  • George Farrer Rodwell
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that matter very generally was. “ The life of metals,” he writes, “ is a secret fatness ; ... of salts, the spirit of aquafortis; ... of pearls, their splendour; . . . of marcasites and antimony, a tinging metalline spirit; ... of arsenics, a mineral and coagulated poison . . . The life of all men is nothing else but an astral balsam, a balsamic impression, and a celestial invisible fire, an included air and a tinging spirit of salt. I cannot name it more plainly, although it is set out by many names.” The peculiarly secret and mystical language which the alchemists adopted was intended to prevent the vulgar from acquiring the results of their long-con- tinued labours. Their language purported to be intelligible to the true adept; but as a rule the alche- mists of one age gave various interpretations to one and the same secret communicated by their pre- decessors. Long recipes for the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone exist, which the authors have generously (as they tell us) given to the world, after much labour, for the benefit of their fellow-men. The obscurity of the science was increased by the multiplication of symbols ; the presence of which in alchemy clearly points to its connection with astrology and the sister sciences. In time alchemical symbols multiplied almost as much as astrological symbols. In an Italian MS. of the early part of the seventeenth century which we have before us, mercury is repre- sented by 22 distinct symbols, and 33 names, many of which are of distinctly Arabic origin:—such as Chaibach, Azach, Jhumech, Caiban. Lead is repre- sented by the symbols in Fig. 17, and in addition to
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