The word chemistry was used for the first time by Suidas, a lexicographer of the tenth century, and at that time meant an alloy of gold and silver. It is alluded to in connection with the Emperor Diocletian, of whom it is said, that irritated by a revolt of the Egyptians against the laws of the empire, he had all their books of chemistry committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business arising out of the melting and working of precious metals. There is little doubt the Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with certain chemical operations, or what was termed the hermetic science, which was afterwards called alchemy in the first century of the Christian era.
The first two great lights that appeared were Al-Chindus, and Geber who discovered the red oxide and bichloride of mercury, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and nitrate of silver. Geber’s Summa Perfectionis and Liber Philisophorum embody his researches on the purification and malleability of metals. In the ninth century, the Arab alchemist Rhazes flourished. In his great work entitled El Hharvi, he alludes to realgar, orpiment, borax, mixtures of sulphur and iron with copper, and of mercury with acids, and arsenic. He further recommends physicians to use alcoholic preparations and animal oils, etc. He states: “The secret art of chemistry is nearer possible than impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise a corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!” The knowledge displayed of chemistry and its application to the arts at that early period is wonderful, but books were few. The chief evidence of this knowledge is exhibited in the many specimens and art monuments in the museums of Spain, showing the skill of the Saracens and of the Moors.
A little later Mesué states, “certain principles had been recognised as to the analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic matter”.
Of the ancient necromancers who have figured in history and romance, Merlin was perhaps the most extraordinary. The earliest mention of his name is in records of the eleventh century, although he appears to have flourished about the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, in the latter part of the fifth century.
He is first mentioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern, who is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as at that time King of England. Vortigern having lost all his strongholds in his struggle with the Saxons, at length consulted his magicians as to how he was to defend himself from his troublesome foe. They advised him to build an impregnable tower, and chose a suitable site for its erection. The builders set to work with might and main, but were astonished to find, that as fast as they built in one day, the next morning the earth had swallowed it up, and not a vestige remained. So the king called the wise men together again, when they arrived at the conclusion that the only way to remedy the matter was to cement the walls of the tower with the blood of a human being who was born of no human father.
Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search of this rara avis, and at length by good fortune they came across Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being. The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the historian tells us, “proved to be true”.
But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the 300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the form in which they now stand.
Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to pronounce on their veracity.
Among the more famous of the early alchemists was St. Dunstan, who flourished in the tenth century; but, if tradition speaks truly, he was anything but a saint in character. He is said to have been a man of distinguished birth, who in his young days lived a life of great self-indulgence, even for that period of peculiar morality. At length, he was seized with a dangerous illness which threatened to terminate his career; but at the last extremity an angel appeared, bringing a medicine which speedily restored him to health. Hastening to the nearest church to return thanks, he was stopped by the devil with a pack of black dogs, whom however he speedily put to flight. In order to expiate his former irregularities, he now secluded himself in the abbey of Glastonbury, where he occupied a cell in which he could neither stand upright nor stretch his limbs in repose, and mortified his flesh exceedingly. Here he studied alchemy and magic, in which arts he soon became well versed. While in this cell, he is said to have had the most extraordinary visitations, and among others the devil was constantly thrusting his head in at the window and taunting the saint, while immersed in his studies. At length, one day, wearied out, Dunstan lost all patience, and seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in which he conducted his chemical operations, caught the devil by the nose, and held him firmly, “while the bellowings of Satan,” says the historian, “filled the whole neighbourhood for many miles round”. This incident is frequently represented in ancient carvings.
Dunstan was a Benedictine monk, and next came forth and took a prominent part in political and religious matters. He seems to have been the king-maker of his time, and took a prominent part in the ruling of the kingdom during the reigns of Edwy and Edgar.
In the year A.D. 1260, Albertus Magnus, formerly a Dominican monk, was made master of the sacred palace at the court of Rome, and afterwards Bishop of Ratisbon. This great philosophical student was learned in all the then known arts of chemistry, and his manuscripts and works were copied by the thousand. All kinds of extraordinary powers were attributed to him, and it was commonly stated that he could make gold, and that he was a magician. Accused of “having dealings” with the evil one, he resigned his high position and returned to his cloistered cell to carry on his favourite researches and end his days. Next we come to Vincent de Beauvais, often called the Pliny of the middle ages. He, too, was accused of sorcery, and it is said that “at midnight people would creep along the quays of the Seine towards his laboratory in St. Chapelle yard, to see if they could get a glimpse reflected in the river of the magic furnaces in which De Beauvais was supposed to evoke his familiar spirit”.
About the same time Raymond Lulli became known to fame. He also was a monk, and born in the island of Majorca, but having a roving disposition he wandered over Europe. He wrote several works on alchemy, among others Libilli Aliquot Chemici, etc. Fabulous stories are related of his adventures; and he was cruelly stoned to death by the populace in Tunis, in 1315. He left behind him a following of believers, who called themselves Lullists and spread all over Europe. The genius of the West at this time was Arnauld de Villeneuve, who made several important discoveries in chemistry. His researches were particularly directed to the relation of chemistry to medicine. He is credited with having discovered sulphuric and other acids, and is said to have been the first to distil alcohol or spirit of wine.
Contemporary with these men of learning was our own Roger Bacon, whose love for his art nearly cost him his life, besides many years in prison. The discoverer of gunpowder and the telescope spent most of his life in experimental researches, with the result that he revolutionised the art of war, and gave to astronomers the power of exploring the heavens. He was a man of great ability, never justly appreciated by his contemporaries, and has been rightly named the father of experimental physics. He described most of the laws which regulate matter, and the regular motion of the planets. Although a man of undoubted knowledge and great power of conception, he was bitten with the mania of endeavouring to discover the philosopher’s stone, his views respecting which he set forth in his work entitled Radix Mundi. Following Bacon came Antonio Quainer, of Pavia, who was the first to manufacture artificial mineral waters.
It has been said by some that the discoveries made by the alchemists were mainly the result of chance, and they were mostly ignorant charlatans; but although they had little method in their research, and a great deal of their knowledge was wrapped up in absurd and superstitious theories, when we look at the result of their discoveries up to the fifteenth century, the most prejudiced must admit that their labours were not spent entirely in vain. They demonstrated the existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, and regulus of antimony, the distillation of alcohol, volatilisation of mercury, and preparation of aqua regia, sulphuric and other mineral acids, and the purification of alkalies. They had the scarlet dye for cloth, the secret of which has now been lost and cannot be equalled, and their processes of glass-staining cannot be approached by those employed at the present day. It is said that Eck, a German alchemist of Sultzbach, ascertained the existence of oxygen 300 years before it was demonstrated by Priestly. For these and other discoveries we have to thank the early alchemists.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alchemy began to shake itself free from the wild theories and absurd practices which had impeded its progress. Henry VII. issued a severe edict against alchemical practices, which put a stop to the impositions of a number of charlatans. About this period John Baptist Porta discovered the means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver, and Isaac and Jean Hollandus made great improvements in enamelling, and demonstrated the manufacture of artificial gems.
From the time of Paracelsus and the introduction of printing, the science received a fresh impetus, and a new order of chemists came into being, whose conflict with the old order for many years is a matter of history.
The old theories of the alchemists were gradually exploded and superseded, and many were driven to the most flagrant quackery to earn a living.
Cornelius Agrippa, who was one of the leaders of the new order, says: “It would take too much time to recount all the follies, the idle secrets, and the enigmas of this trade, of the green lion, the fugitive stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, the crow’s head of the black blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of the mud of wisdom, and other countless absurdities of the time. Many of them travelled from fair to fair in order to make a little money by the sale of white lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by women for painting the face, and drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of lust.” Meanwhile the efforts of the practical workers were encouraged by administrators and princes, with the result that the application of chemistry and the technical arts became predominant, and metallurgy the leading spirit of the science.
A notable character in the time of Queen Elizabeth was Dr. Dee, alchemist and astrologer. The career of this man, who was more a charlatan than aught else, was one of extraordinary vicissitude. A Welshman by birth, he was educated at Oxford, and then travelled throughout Europe, claiming that he had discovered the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone. He was a man of overweening ambition, and delighted to hear himself called “Most Excellent”. In company with a man named Kelly, it is said he discovered a quantity of the elixir in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; this they at once annexed and carried off to Poland, accompanied by a nobleman of that country. After travelling from one Court to another, where he is said to have performed wonderful feats with his elixir, he returned to England and settled at Mortlake, where Elizabeth often visited him to consult him on astrology, and he even ventured to predict her death. He was a great favourite at Court in 1595, and the Queen made him Chancellor of Paul’s and Warden of Manchester, but he died in great poverty.