Professor of Chemistry, Baltimore Medical College.
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Address Delivered At The Opening of The Sixteenth Annual Session Of The
Baltimore Medical College, September, 30, 1896.
We shall err greatly if we take the popular view that alchemy was merely a delusion or a fraud — a pretended art of transmuting baser metals into gold and silver, practiced and professed by quacks and swindlers to impoverish their dupes and enrich themselves. It is true that this gold - making appealed most strongly to the imagination of the public and was popularly considered to be the whole mystery of alchemy—but it was much more than this. Alchemy was really the whole science of chemistry, as it was studied in the dark and middle ages; it had intimate connections with the physics, astrology and therapeutics of the time and influenced its philosophy, theology and demonology. For not less than 800 years, and probably much more, all the natural science of Europe and of a large part of the East was closely interwoven with and shaped by the theories of alchemy.
There is difficulty in studying the subject philosophically and tracing it back to its source, for the reason that most of the writings on the subject that have descended to our time have been from the pens of the later alchemists, who delighted in wrapping their statements up in an enigmatic jargon, intelligible only to the adepts, and in claiming a fabulous antiquity for their art. Moses, they said, was an alchemist, because he made the Israelites drink the golden calf they had fashioned, therefore he had the secret of dissolving gold. Solomon was an alchemist, because the Bible says he "made silver and gold as plenteous as stones." (2 Chronicles, I. 15.) A legend of St. John represents him as changing sticks of wood into bars of gold and pebbles into jewels; hence he was an alchemist.
In the broader sense, as the study of the composition and reactions of bodies, we cannot fix the beginnings of alchemy; but the first historical attempts to transmute metals date back as far as the fifth century, A.D. The alchemists of this time refer the origin of their art to a certain Hermes (called Trismegistus, or "thrice-greatest"), a personage of remote antiquity and probably mythical. Various writings bearing his name are still extant, but their style proves them to be forgeries. From this Hermes alchemy was called the "hermetic art," and its students "hermetic philosophers"; and the "hermetic seal" is still in use.
From the fifth to the seventh century alchemy was studied and practiced by the Alexandrian philosophers, who blended it with the peculiar mysticism of their school and gave it that color of magic and association with elemental spirits or demons, which it ever afterwards retained.
The Arabs received this art from the Alexandrians and in their hands it became more rational and experimental. In Spain, in particular, under the Arab domination, it was zealously pursued; the eminent philosopher Geber of Seville, being one of its leading lights in the ninth century, succeeded by a long series of Arab physicians and naturalists coming down to the fourteenth century.
These Arab schools of alchemy—that is, chemistry—in Seville, Cordova and Toledo, were attended by scholars from all parts of Europe and their doctrine and practice were carried to England, Germany, France and Italy. Albertus Magnus in Germany and Roger Bacon in England were alchemists of the thirteenth century.
The popes at first set their faces against alchemy, probably because it seemed too closely allied to magic; but notwithstanding this, the most ardent alchemists were found in the clergy and especially in the monasteries, hardly one of which was without a laboratory of some sort where alchemical researches and processes were carried on and many important discoveries made.
The one idea of the transmutation of the baser metals into gold and silver, fixed, as was natural, most strongly on the popular mind, and alchemy came generally to be regarded as the art of gold-making, and a passion for it pervaded all classes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was generally understood that the process was exceedingly long, difficult and expensive, requiring quite exceptional knowledge on the part of the practitioner and the coincidence of so many favorable circumstances that years might pass without a single success. Many princes attached alchemists to their courts and furnished them with the necessary apparatus and materials. Societies, such as the Rosicrucians, were formed for carrying on the operations. One of these societies (which, however, treated alchemy in the broader sense), the Nuremberg Alchemical Society, founded in 1654, had the illustrious Leibnitz for its secretary. But the investigations and principles on which modern chemistry is founded gave alchemy its death-blow; though a belief in it still lingers with a few visionaries, such as still practice astrology and such obsolete follies.
Two fundamental ideas lay at the root of all alchemy, which will be briefly explained. It was held that God, in the beginning of all things, created from nothing one simple homogeneous substance and this they called materia prima, the first matter. To this he gave variety by attaching to it, in various proportions and quantities, certain sensible qualities such as weight, density, color, form, hardness, etc, thus distinguishing all the substances that are. This characteristic combination of qualities was called the "form" of the substance. Weight, yellowness, ductility, unsusceptibility to rust, and so forth, were the form of gold; transparency, fluidity, etc., the form of water; the underlying matter being the same in all cases.
After God had completed the creative act, Nature (which could not create something from nothing, but could change forms) took up the task and carried on the endless transformations that we see, in all phases of change, growth and decay. Many of these transformations man could himself perform; he could burn wood to ashes, boil water to steam, extract metals from ores, dissolve metals to salts, and so forth; some of the processes being easy and some difficult. Hence arose a belief that with sufficient knowledge and skill, man might imitate Nature in all her processes and carry the original matter through any of its transformations.
Another fundamental idea arose from their attributing to Nature something like a human personality. As man, as a rule, desires the best and most perfect, so Nature, as a rule, aimed at producing the best. As gold and silver were held to be more perfect and noble than the baser metals, and gems than stones, Nature, if unhindered, would produce the better. And so it really was, they said, before the fall of man; and would be again in the New Jerusalem. But the fall of man had cast a blight upon all things and balked Nature's beneficent intentions. The earth teemed with thorns and thistles instead of fruits and flowers. Man himself became feeble and subject to disease and death. Nature continued her operations, but they were thwarted, and when she strove to make gold or silver, copper or lead or tin resulted.
Now, they argued, if we can take up these failures of Nature, which she has, so to speak, thrown away in disgust, if we can take this copper or this lead, which are on the way to becoming gold and silver, and carry them through a process similar to that which Nature would have used if she had had her way, we can complete her unfinished work. And this process, or series of processes, which they sought so painfully, was "the way," or "the road," which figures in alchemical books.
Various things helped to encourage this belief. They held that between the first matter and the first form these were intermediate steps. Thus they held—or at least some held—that metals were composed of sulphur and mercury in various proportions. They were acquainted with various natural sulphides and knew that when heated these gave out fumes of sulphur and often left a metallic bead, which sometimes resembled silver.
In some of their experiments they seemed to see actual transformations of metals. Zinc (as well as some of its ores) imparts a golden color and luster to copper; and though they did not mistake the resulting alloy for gold, it seemed to be a step toward gold. In the process of extracting lead from its ores, silver was also found; and this was thought to be the small percentage of nature's success. Gold was found in some ores of arsenic.
The process of transmutation, or "the way," was extremely long and complex, and nearly every alchemist had some secret of his own. From the infinity of experiments, many valuable discoveries resulted; and many important processes were invented. Distillation was invented by Moorish alchemists in the 12th century. Geber, in the 13th, invented cupellation, and discovered, among other things, corrosive sublimate and the salts of ammonia. Others invented the reverberatory furnace, and the self-feeding furnace, to which they gave the grand name of "athanor." The "hermetic seal" has been mentioned already.
Nearly all agreed that the process involved the finding or preparation of a mysterious substance which, when added to the metal in a state of fusion, wrought the transformation. This efficient substance was called "the philosopher's stone," or "the elixir," and was variously described; and most of the extant alchemical treatises contain directions for obtaining it, but concealed under such enigmatical phraseology, and such a mystic jargon, as to make them almost unintelligible, and the student could never be quite sure that he was obeying the master's directions. This uncertainty, and the various accidents of the laboratory, continually baffled honest investigators, and afforded an easy escape for charlatans, who invented innumerable ways to dupe their patrons and lure them on to liberality. And these charlatans were often the deceived as well as the deceivers, and while they were entrapping their patrons with the simplest tricks, were carrying on the search with confident hopes in their own behalf. Chaucer tells of one of these who deceives his patron by means of a hollow stick with silver filings in it, stopped with wax, and again a hollow piece of charcoal similarly charged. The coal being laid above a crucible, when the wax melted, the filings ran out into the crucible and were then melted to a lump of pure silver. In the same way, the stick was used to stir the fire above another crucible. Yet this alchemist was only cheating his dupe to obtain money for his own researches.
Medals are still in existence bearing the inscription that they were struck from gold made by this or that alchemist; but examination has shown that they are of base metal plated with gold. In the last century a nail, half of iron and half of gold, was exhibited in Florence, accompanied by a certificate that an adept had made the transmutation simply by plunging the point into a hot liquid, in the presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other credible witnesses, who attested the fact. Later investigations showed that the golden half was simply neatly soldered to the iron half, and the adept had, no doubt, covered the gold with some black substance which dissolved away in the liquid.
Such tricks as these served to put off for a while the evil day which the alchemist who was engaged in a prince's service had always to fear. When the patron lost patience, he not unfrequently put the alchemist to torture to make him deliver up his secret, or confess his fraud. Or, if he retained his faith, he imprisoned the alchemist for life, lest he should go to some rival prince and be more successful. But if all faith in him departed, he was hanged without mercy on a gallows of extraordinary height.
Botticher, the alchemist of King Augustus II. of Saxony, had a narrow escape. Failing to make the philosopher's stone, he was imprisoned, but allowed to continue his researches. In these he discovered the secret of the manufacture of porcelain, on which the King not only set him at liberty, but made him the director of the royal porcelain works at Meissen.
I might have added to the discoveries of the alchemists the production of sulphuric and nitric acids and their salts; alcohol, ether, phosphorus and gunpowder; and the processes of filtration, sublimation and crystallization.
Some of these discoveries were, in the light of our present knowledge, overestimated in value.
A sulphide of calcium was made by treating lime with sulphur. This compound fumed when acted upon by vinegar, producing sulphuretted hydrogen, which I may say for the uninitiated is the substance that renders eggs after a certain time disagreeable, to say the least. Directions for the preparation of it are given, and the maker merely says that the gas is "very unpleasant," nevertheless gives it the name of the "divine water," probably from the fact that it produces so many colored precipitates.
Another feature of the alchemist's doctrine led directly to the next phase of chemical science, which I shall presently consider.
I have already spoken of their view that the human race shared, physically as well as spiritually, in the disastrous consequences of the fall of man. Here too, as in the metals, nature aimed to produce the best, but was continually baffled; and here too, it was thought that science might come to nature's aid, and discover a remedy which would banish disease, and prolong life and vigor indefinitely. This remedy was called "the elixir of life," and by some it was held to be identical with the philosopher's stone. Several famous charlatans professed to have discovered it, and to have lived through centuries. Investigations in this direction naturally led to experiments in therapeutics, and the study of the effects of chemical compounds on the human body in health and in disease.
A very amusing illustration of this is the application of distillation. Alcoholic drinks like beer and wines have been known since the dawn of history. When these were distilled stronger mixtures of alcohol were obtained and these were believed to be most potent medicines and were therefore called aqua vitae. One of the inventors of a method for rectifying it says that it will make old people young again and was "consolatio ultima corporis humani," or the ultimate solace of humanity.
As Liebig has said: The philosopher's stone was eminently calculated to be an incentive to exhaustive work. Their idea was false, but science has benefited thereby. The same thing is going on today. Our ideas are of a higher order, perhaps, but the principle is still the same.
As soon as the alchemist began to feel that his search was for the impossible, he ceased his labors. But before many did so, the ideas of medical or Iatro-chemistry became the new incentive to labors of a chemical sort. So science came to possess more of the truly scientific spirit. Its purposes were already of a higher kind.
Now what was the cause of this change? We usually ascribe such changes to some great man, who impressed the minds of others with the truth of his ideas, true and not true; there is almost always a subtle preparation leading up to the revolution, of which the great man is the result rather than the cause. The theory of evolution is always spoken of as the Darwinian theory. But it was announced, and pretty clearly and strongly announced, long before Darwin identified himself with the movement. Many were growing to hold similar ideas, and it was only for him to give definiteness and power to the advance. Thus we almost always find that preparation is necessary to the birth of great eras.
In this case, however, we have to do with a truly remarkable man. So remarkable, in fact, that I have some hesitation in speaking of him. A man who, in many respects, was far from admirable; was, indeed, a debauche and renegade of the most pronounced stamp. Still, he pointed out the applicability of chemistry and chemicals to various forms of disease, and the world owes him an immeasurable debt.
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hohenheim, who took the name of Paracelsus, was born in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, in 1493. His father trained him in medicine, which had been his own profession. The son took up a wandering life very early in his career. Magician, alchemist, astrologer, fortune-teller, and withal an arrant scamp, he roamed for years about the mining districts of various neighboring countries. To these wanderings and the results of observations there made some of his theories may, as we shall see, be readily traced. He possessed the gift of attracting men by his speech and personal presence, and became a sort of wandering talker to such chance crowds as he might encounter.
On his return to Switzerland without any of that preparation which a university man, even in those days, was supposed to have as a necessity, he was called to the chair of medicine at Bale, and was duly installed in his professorship. He rapidly became popular, for various reasons. Some remarkable cures were attributed to him. His lectures were delivered in German, as he scouted Latin, and boasted of his ignorance of it, saying that German was good enough for him. The works of Galen and Avicenna he burned before his audience, saying that he would show men how to do better than these. He was addicted to the use of stimulants, and it is said was often intoxicated during his lectures. Driven, at length, from the university for his intemperance and general misconduct, he traveled in the far East, studying and experimenting, and finally returned to Switzerland, there to do a little more work, and die in the year 1541.
An odd character to lead a great scientific movement; but he did. He impressed the minds of the greatest thinkers of his time. The old methods of medical treatment had been in the highest degree based upon superstition, the use of particular parts of various animals, and very careful preparations made with reference to the phases of the moon and positions of the planets. His doctrine was one of plain chemical common sense, with still somewhat of the theories of the alchemist clinging about them.
All metals consisted of sulphur and mercury. It is easy to see the origin of this idea. Similar ideas, however, he transferred to the human body, which he held consisted of salt, sulphur and mercury in varying proportions.
By these terms must not be understood sodium chloride, mercury and sulphur, but certain properties and peculiarities. Salt was the incombustible portion of the body. The sulphur was that part of the body which was destroyed by fire, while the mercury was that which was volatilized without change. These must be present in just the correct proportions for the various parts of the body, or disease would result. If the functions failed in any way, it was the physician's business to ascertain which of the necessary elements was in excess or deficient, and by the removal or addition to correct the difficulty. These theories were not very definite, nor very correct, but they were far in advance of the old mystical ideas of occult forces, charms and spells. He found that certain salts of sulphur and mercury produced powerful effects upon the human system, and that some {perhaps those whom he could not kill) got well. Some of his methods were barbarous, and he held that atmospheric conditions exercised powerful influences upon health. These theories were the outgrowth of his wanderings among the mines and his observations of the great effects of certain metallurgical vapors. At the same time he collected an enormous amount of information.
Still, these theories and his experiments served to point out the possibility of applying chemical substances and chemical knowledge to the purposes of medicine. There was here also one great object in view. It was thought that there was a specific (some one substance) that would heal all diseases. This led to the making of a very large number of new compounds and to many experiments of various sorts upon the human body.
Still, so long as chemistry served simply as handmaiden to medicine, or any of the arts, it did not occupy its true position—was not pursued for its own sake.
The followers (in doctrine and work) of Paracelsus were men like himself, of strong personality, possessed by similar ideas, and they served to fill the period of Iatro-chemistry with many valuable discoveries, with which some of you are familiar from your reading of the history of medicine, but which we cannot consider under alchemy.
The reasoning of the alchemists, now that we understand the basis of their beliefs, is clearly set forth in Ben John son's comedy, "The Alchymist," of which I shall cite an extract.
The speakers are Subtle, the alchemist, and Surly, an unbeliever.
Surly says it seems to him impossible
"That you hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Kgypt."
Subtle — Why, I think that the greater
miracle;
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.
Surly--That can not be.
The egg's ordained by Nature to that end
And is a chicken in potentia.
Subtle — The same we say of gold and other
metals,
Which would be gold if they had time.
For 'twere absurd
To think that Nature in the earth had gold
Perfect in the instant. Something went
before.
There must be remote matter.
Surly— What is that?
Subtle — It is of the one part
A humid exhalation, which we call
Materia liquida, or the unctuous water.
On the other part a certain crass and viscous
Portion of earth; both which concorporate
Do make the elementary matter of gold,
Which is not yet propria materia
[The peculiar substance of gold],
But common to all metals and all stones,
For, when it is forsaken of that moisture
And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone.
When it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter suddenly
Progress so from extreme unto extreme
As to grow gold and leap o'er all the means.
Nature does first beget the imperfect, then
Proceeds she to the perfect. . .
These two [i.e., Hg. and S.]
Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive,
And even in gold they are; for we do find
Seeds of them by our fire, and gold in them,
And can produce the species of each metal
More perfect thence than Nature does in Earth.
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