Copy 1

The dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians, London, translated into English with remarks, etc / By H. Pemberton.

  • Royal College of Physicians, London
Date:
1773
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians, London, translated into English with remarks, etc / By H. Pemberton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/432 (page 23)
    among us an abfurd pretence to a fecret art, whereby to make filver and gold by convertinp; other fubflances into thefe me- tals. Though they feem not tliemfelves to have given the hrft rife to this con- ceit, but to have received it with the reft of their learning from the Greeks j for it is defcribed, as prevailing in the eauern empire, by authors, who writ prior to the Saracen conquefts and an Afiatic hillo- rian-f- informs us, that the Arabs before thofe times, nay for fome ages after, pre¬ tended not to any kind of natural philo- fophy, whereas thefe writers fpeak of their art, as if the only one worthy of that ap« pellation. Thefe people probably received the very name of the art from the Greeks, among whom we find it called ,* Mneas Gazaus in the fifth century defcribes the artj as real. His v/ords are --- zsotp 01 rv/v vK'/iV (ro(po\ ^ TO Siiog ocipocvKTOi^vhg^. Itt] to crfi/xyoripou fj.il(xQotXov rnv KccXXifov iTroir.Tav, [Er/» Gaz, Theophrq/i*'] Alfo Themljlhis in the preceding age /peaks of the purfuit, as theii in great requefl:, Nuv SI Tis^ ^a.XKou fj.h sig f.^srocC(X.XsTv^ rS, to yipiov itg d(Tfj.£voog u)) rtvoc riyvw* [Orat, ad Falent,’i^ip\ f Jhli Pharaj, Dynaji, IX. p, 10O3 160. B A -.1