Alchemy :: essays research papers

Alchemy, ancient art practiced especially in the Middle Ages, use chieflyto discovering a substance that would transmute the more common metals into lucky or silver and to finding a means of indefinitely prolonging human life.Although its purposes and techniques were indeterminate and often illusory, alchemywas in many ways the predecessor of modern science, especially the science ofchemistry.The birthplace of alchemy was ancient Egypt, where, in Alexandria, it began toflourish in the Hellenistic period simultaneously, a school of alchemy wasdeveloping in China. The writings of some of the early Greek philosophers mightbe considered to contain the depression chemical theories and the theory advancedin the 5th century BC by Empedoclesthat all things are composed of air, earth,fire, and waterwas influential in alchemy. The papistical emperor Caligula is saidto have instituted experiments for producing gold from orpiment, a sulfide ofarsenic, and the emperor Diocletian is said to h ave ordered all Egyptian worksconcerning the chemistry of gold and silver to be burned in order to stop suchexperiments. Zosimus the Theban (about AD 250-300) discovered that sulfuricacid is a solvent of metals, and he liberated oxygen from the red oxide ofmercury.The fundamental concept of alchemy stemmed from the Aristotelian doctrine thatall things tend to reach perfection. Because other metals were thought to beless "perfect" than gold, it was reasonable to assume that nature formed goldout of other metals deep within the earth and that with sufficient skill and labor an artisan could duplicate this process in the workshop. Effortstoward this goal were empirical and practical at first, but by the 4th centuryAD, astrology, magic, and ritual had begun to gain prominence.A school of pharmacy flourished in Arabia during the caliphates of the Abbasidsfrom 750 to 1258. The earliest k directlyn work of this school is the SummaPerfectionis (Summit of Perfection), attributed to t he Arabian scientist andphilosopher Geber the work is consequently the oldest book on chemistry properin the world and is a collection of all that was then known and believed. TheArabian alchemists worked with gold and mercury, arsenic and sulfur, and saltsand acids, and they became familiar with a wide range of what are now calledchemical reagents. They believed that metals are compound bodies, made up ofmercury and sulfur in different proportions. Their scientific creed was thepotentiality of transmutation, and their methods were mostly blind gropingsyet, in this way, they found many new substances and invented many usefulprocesses.>From the Arabs, alchemy generally found its way through Spain into Europe.