THE EARLY DAYS OF SCIENCE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 25, 13 February 1937, Page 11

THE EARLY DAYS OF SCIENCE

Secrets of the Ancients • * v

GEOIJP OF SCIENTISTS and scholars are combining for the serious study of alchemy and early chemistry, cays the London "Observer." Their aim is hot to Tevive the elixir-hunting, metal-changing enthusiasm- of the^medieval alchemists, but to ■ investigate much that is unexplained about the origins of chemical science, "We don't know," Dr. Sherwood Taylor explained, "what tha early. alchemists were • doing, but we do know that, while - they , were doing it, they invented most of our chemical apparatUS."' Turning the paveS of a rare edition of Manget 's "Bibliotheca Cliemica," in which are colleeted alchemical treatises from the twelfth to the seventeentk century, he- pointed out that tho early ; illustrations depict, side by side with mystical designs and figures, _dis-tillatidn-flasks, water-baths, and other chemical apparatus used to-day, -'"Aritetotle," he said, mentions the' method of obtaining fresh water by. boiling salt water and catching the steam in a sponge. That is the only mention of distillation before the alchemists of the first century A.D., when ;*pcrf ected distillation * apparatus suddenly crops up from no where in particular. *■ "The . most ancient alchemiste said that their knowledge came' from early Egypt. That may be, but ' we'can't find any trace of it ;in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The earliest alchemists lived for the most part in Alexandria. After the Arabs had taken possession of Egypt, the centre of alchemical activity shifted to Byzantium, while at the same time the Arabs themselves became enthuSiastic students of alchemy. "Some of the Arab's knowledge came from Greek writings which were translated into Syriac, and thence into Arabic. Not all the Arab knowledge of alchemy may have come from Greece. Some of it may have come from India, and some from the Sabaeans, who preserved much of the an- %

cient Chaldean **mralng. Th'e 'Arahle manuscripts were translated by Jews in Spain into Latin, and these Latin translations introduced alchemy to ,medieval Europe. , ^'The Chinese had a knowledge of alchemy from about , 200 B.C. What they wanted was not so'much to make gold-as to find the. elixir of life. They believed that gold was a most potent ingredient - of the pill of immortality, and" that artificial gold was superior to 1 uatur al gold, > Buf it , isn 't - likely that there. is any connection between the Chinese and the Greek tradition. v "The main object of the Society fqr the Study of Alchemy and Early Chia. mistry is to study the beginnings ©f chemistry before the real science waa founded by Eobert Boyle in the sevjen* teenth -century. Our aim' is not to help ^the^ modern alchemist,- but apnply to conduct ' historical research. Aaty ally there are- no alchemists in the- labor- - -ntory sense in- this country, although they. are ;quite common in the.East.j I have: met an ' Indian student . whose uncle had - lost quite a ; Considerable ;fortune by seeking the help of alchemdsts^ '"Before the seventeenth eentury al"chemy 'and? chemistry ' are:. insepaiajble. " Alchemy wasn 't 'by any " means purely chemistry, ' 'Although' alchemy waa'piimarily' the* attempted " production :of gold from base metals, it also becajae a ' mystical systfemf * - ; } *fThe. alchemist worked on.his own peculia^r theory of matter, h!s idea being that matter had a soul and a body, and that it was possible to operato by. methoda which we ■ should not nowadays describ© as physical. ' "Theofetically^.we might believe ito- - day that ' it is ' possible ". to f transmnte mercury into gold, but there, woifld„-bo no mysticism about the method. It would , have. to' be done ' by violfence, such as the bqmbardment of, matter >hy the alpha particles from radiuxa, "The old alchemical books dont explain the full process, of transxnutation. The alchemist is always led to believe that, if he studies diligently, there will , presently appear a stranger who will impart.to'- him the secret "which he in turn must reveal to only one other person. There is, however, reason to believe that one early alchemical method • was simply that of the goldsmith — to increase the weight of gold by debasing it with other metals. "But, apart from all that,. the -study of alchemy , is of great interefct both from the point ,of view of mystical thought and chemical practice.'*