Alchemy Part 7
Later History of Alchemy.--In the earlier part of the
16th century Paracelsus gave a new direction to alchemy by
declaring that its true object was not the making of gold but
the preparation of medicines, and this union of chemistry with
medicine was one characteristic of the iatrochemical school
of which he was the precursor. Increasing attention was paid
to the investigation of the properties of substances and of
their effects on the human body, and chemistry profited by
the fact that it passed into the hands of men who possessed
the highest scientific culture of the time, Still, belief
in the possibility of transmutation long remained orthodox,
even among the most distinguished men of science. Thus it
was accepted, at least academically, by Andreas Libavius (d.
1616); by F. de la Boe Sylvius (1614-1672), though not by
his pupil Otto Tachenius, and by J. R. Glauber (1603-1668);
by Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and, for a time at least, by Sir
Isaac Newton and his rival and contemporary, G. W. Leibnitz
(1646-1716); and by G. E. Stahl (1660-1734) and Hermann
Boerhaave (1668-1738). Though an alchemist, Boyle, in his
Sceptical Chemist (1661), cast doubts on the ``experiments
whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their
ssalt, ulphur and mercury to be the true principles of things,''
and advanced towards the conception of chemical elements
as those constituents of matter which cannot be further
decomposed. With J. J. Becher (1635-1682) and G. E. Stahl,
however, there was a reversion to earlier ideas. The former
substituted for the salt, sulphur and mercury of Basil
Valentine and Paracelsus three earths--the mercurial, the
vitreous and the combustible--and he explained combustion
as depending on the escape of this last combustible element;
while Stahl's conception of phlogiston--not fire itself,
but the principle of fire--by virtue of which combustible
bodies burned, was a near relative of the mercury of the
philosophers, the soul or essence of ordinary mercury.
Perhaps J. B. van Helmont (1577-1644) was the last distinguished
investigator who professed actually to have changed mercury
into gold, though impostors and mystics of various kinds
continued to claim knowledge of the art long after his
time. So late as 1782, James Price, an English physician,
showed experiments with white and red powders, by the aid
of which he was supposed to be able to transform fifty
and sixty times as much mercury into silver and gold. The
metals he produced are said to have proved genuine on assay;
when, however, in the following year he was challenged to
repeat the experiments he was unable to do so and committed
suicide. In the course of the 19th century the idea that
the different elements are constituted by different groupings
or condensations of one primal matter--a speculation which,
if proved to be well grounded, would imply the possibility
of changing one element into another--found favour with
more than one responsible chemist; but experimental research
failed to yield any evidence that was generally regarded as
offering any support to this hypothesis. About the beginning
of the 20th century, however, the view was promulgated
that the spontaneous production of helium from radium may
be an instance of the transformation of one element into
another. (See RADIOACTIVITY; also ELEMENT and MATTER.)
See M. P. E. Berthelot, Les Origines de l'alchimie (1885);
Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (text and
translation, 3 vols., 1887-1888); Introduction a l'etude de
la chimie des anciens et du moyen age (1889): La Chimie au
moyen age (text and translation of Syriac and Arabic treatises
on alchemy, 3 vols., 1893). Much bibliographical and other
information about the later writers on alchemy is contained
in Bibliotheca Chemica (2 vols., Glasgow, 1906), a catalogue
by John Ferguson of the books in the collection of James
Young of Kelly (printed for private distribution). (H. M. R.)
