A history of chemistry from the earliest times till the present day / by the late James Campbell Brown; with a portrait and one hundred and six illustrations.

  • James Campbell Brown
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of chemistry from the earliest times till the present day / by the late James Campbell Brown; with a portrait and one hundred and six illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ad Tingenda of the eighth eentiiry, and the Mappae Clavicula of the tenth. Berthelot has even identified some of these with recipes of Heraclius and Theophilus. In a similar way, in medical history, we learn that therapeutic recipes and materia medica were preserved by practice and translated from the Greek in the time of the Roman Empire, compiled from the first to the seventh century, and transmitted from land to land, being frequently recopied. The conclusion, therefore, at which we have arrived is this, that the alchemical collections until the thirteenth century were made up of knowledge derived through both the channels we have named—translations of old theoretical treatises, and practical traditions reduced to written recipes, some of which last we shall now examine. The Libzr Igniiim ad Comburandos Hostes of Marcus Graecus has been preserved in a Latin manuscript of the thirteenth century. Berthelot, from an examination of the book, infers that it had been compiled from different treatises, giving details under different heads, but all mainly transmitted from the Greek through the Arabic. The following are its principal contents :— 1. Reci])es on military fires, certainly from the Greek, some of them drawn from Eneus the Tactician (fourth century B.C.), and some from other Greek authors down to Julius Africanus (third century A.I).). One recipe for a spontaneously inflammable mixture is, “ sulphur, salt of the mountain (saltpetre), cimlus, exploding stone, pyrites ; take of these equal parts, powder at midday, mix with bitumen to a paste, and add a little quick lime.” Many similar mixtures of sulphur, cpiick fine, and organic matter are mentioned in manuscripts. 2. Phosphorescent matters. 3. Compositions for rendering things and persons incombus- tible, e.g., “ take 1 lb. of talc, 1 lb. gum arable, 4 lbs. red clay, as much as you please of white farina of Ilauran, white of egg, and 6 lbs. urine ; add vinegar of wine.” These recipes are drawn from old Greek sources through the Arabic.
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