Alchemy. What a misunderstood science. I hope this article can help clear things up for whoever reads it.
Alchemy is an ancient art, first practiced in the Middle Ages. He set out to find a substance that would transmute (or turn) base metals into gold, silver, or other precious metals, and also to cause immortality in humans. Alchemy was probably the first time people immersed themselves in chemistry.
Alchemy began in Ancient Egypt and was especially prevalent in Alexandria in the Hellenistic period. At the same time, China had also been toying with ideas. The earliest writings on alchemy by the Greek philosophers are sometimes considered the earliest chemical theories. Empedocles (im-ped-oh-klees) formulated the famous theory that all things that exist are made of air, fire, earth, and water. Later, Emperor Diocletian (die-oh-klee-shun) ordered all Egyptian texts on the chemistry of gold and silver to be burned and all expirations to be stopped.
Zosimus the Theban discovered that sulfuric acid is a solvent for metals and, with this, he eliminated the oxygen from the red oxide of mercury, making the oxidized mercury pure again, as if you were removing the oxide from a nail, it would be a normal nail. new. The fundamental concept of alchemy comes from an Aristotelian doctrine that all things tend to reach perfection at some point. Since other base metals were “less perfect” than gold and other precious metals, it made sense to these researchers that these metals would eventually become gold. It was also thought that nature must produce gold from base metals deep in the earth, so with any luck this process could be done in the lab with good results.
Finally, alchemy reached Arabia, where the first book on chemistry was written. From there he traveled through Spain, to Europe. Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus believed that transmutation into gold was possible. Most people, including these two famous alchemists, believed that gold was the perfect metal, and that if the Philosopher’s Stone were created, it would be a much more perfect substance than gold, causing less perfect metals to transmute.
Roger Bacon believed that the gold dissolved in Aqua Regia* was the elixir of life. The Italian scholastic philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Catalan clergyman Raimundo Lulio and the Benedictine monk Basilio Valentin also contributed much to the progress of chemistry and alchemy by discovering the uses of antimony, the manufacture of amalgams and the isolation of spirits. of wine, or ethyl alcohol.
Perhaps the most famous alchemist was the Swiss Philippus Paracelsus. He believed that the elements of composite bodies were salt, sulfur, and mercury, representing earth, air, and water. However, the fire was imponderable to him. He also believed that there was one more element, the source of the four ancients. This one element that created everything was called Alkahest, and he claimed that if found, it would prove to be the universal medicine, an irresistible solvent, and the philosopher’s stone. In other words, it was the ultimate form of perfection.
After this, the alchemists of Europe divided into two main groups. Those based on facts and hard research, and those that dabbled in the metaphysical, entangled alchemy in fraud, necromancy, and imposture. This gives alchemy its current mysterious status.
Perhaps the funniest part of Alchemy is the coded engravings that were made over time. Many of them still exist and are almost impossible to decipher without an explanation. Using obscure characters, including the planets themselves, as symbols of who knows what. Kings, queens, ravens, multi-flowered flowers and green lions abound.
