The age of alchemy

History of chemistry, metallurgy, and civilisation

PROFESSOR FATHI HABASHI

Department of Mining and Metallurgy, Laval University, Quebec, Canada

Alchemy started in the East with the mummification conducted by the ancient Egyptians and ended with the
chemical revolution of Lavoisier. During this period man tried to adjust to his environment using natural products,
whether mineral, vegetable, or animal. Fire played an important role in this respect. A vast literature was created
that was transmitted to the West mainly by the Arabs. The chemical revolution took place in 1777, nearly at the
same time as the Industrial Revolution. With it, alchemy came to an end and the age of chemistry, metallurgy,
and colonisation of the East began.

Alchemists are the predecessors of today's chemists
and metallurgists. Until the beginning of the nine-
teenth century chemists were part of the medical
profession and metallurgists were part of the mining
sector. Chemistry was integrated in schools of medi-
cine and metallurgy in schools of mines. Only students
of medicine and pharmacy had to take chemistry
courses, while metallurgists had to take 'metallurgical
chemistry' .
The age of alchemy covers the period from ancient
times to the early Renaissance. It ended in 1777 with
the discovery of oxygen two years earlier and the
understanding of the phenomenon of combustion.
The transition from alchemy to chemistry and the
emergence of metallurgy was gradual, since some
scientists at that time rejected alchemical concepts
and theories. The end of alchemy coincided with the
beginning of the age of the steam engine and with
the end of feudalism in Europe. The alchemists
extracted many useful substances from plants, ani-
mals, and rocks but did not know why such materials
were formed. For example, they produced indigo blue
from a plant or metallic tin from a fossil (a mineral)
but did not know what reactions were involved. It
took many centuries for this practical knowledge
to be given a theoretical basis; henceforth alchemy
became chemistry and the processes of extracting
metal from ores became metallurgy.
Origins
Alchemy, like religion, has its origin in the East, and
both were closely related. When the Arabs dominated
the Middle East they created large cultural centres in
Damascus and Baghdad to translate Greek manu-
scripts into Arabic. When they occupied the Iberian
peninsula in the eighth century, Latin and Jewish
scholars translated Arabic manuscripts into Latin
and Spanish, hence transferring knowledge from the
East to the West. Some of the causes of the rise of
alchemy were attempts by man to explain natural
phenomena, to find reasons for his survival on this
planet, and to make use of anything around him to
maintain his survival. These may be outlined as
follows.
Belief in life after death
The ancient Egyptians believed that the spirit which
had left the body at death would return and be
reunited with the body. It was therefore of the utmost
importance that the body should be preserved. This
was the purpose of mummification, described by
Herodotus after he visited Egypt. In general the
internal parts of the body were removed except the
heart and the kidneys. The cavities were filled with
myrrh and other aromatic substances, and the body
was then treated with solid natron to dehydrate. The
natron was then washed away, the body rubbed by
ointments and fragrant materials, and then wrapped
in bandages (Fig. I). Many chemicals were used
and the operation was not simply medical but had
religious significance. Hence alchemy became obscure
and mysterious. When Alexander the Great invaded
Egypt and founded Alexandria in 332BC the city
flourished gradllally and by 200BC it had become the
largest city in the world and a cultural centre. It was
also the centre pf alchemy.
Ignorance of nature of fire
In the early days of his evolution, man made an
enormous stride forward when he used Nature's gift
of fire. He did not know how fire worked, but used
it for hundreds of centuries. He was familiar with
volcanoes, lightning, meteors, and forest fires. The
mysterious changing flame, the similarity of its effects
with those of the sun, its intimate connection with
light, and its terrible and yet genial power easily
account for the reverence in which it was held in
ancient times. The Zoroastrians in Iran still keep fire
burning in their temples as they have done since

348 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL 23, NO.4 © 1998 The Institute of Materials
 a removal of internal organs; b drying organs with natron; c bandaging of mummy;
Scenes of mummification in ancient Egypt, demonstrating beginnings of alchemy and its connection to
religion: note large amount of stockpiled chemicals (University of Chicago Museum)
ancient times. Christians light candles in churches.
Fire became a distinguished element in mythology. It
is mentioned in the Old Testament on numerous
occasions. God appeared to Moses in the form of
a fire upon the bush and there are many passages
that portray the analogy between the purification of
people and the refining of metals by fire. In most
religions sinners are promised a hot fire in Hell, and
the heretics of the Catholic Church were burnt alive.
No wonder then that since the time of ancient
civilisations man has tried to understand the action
of fire on solids and liquids. He was able to melt
rocks and boil and evaporate liquids. Besides wood,
which burns and disappears, it was observed that
another substance, sulphur, also burns. There was
always a loss in weight during these processes except
with gold which melted unchanged and hence had a
special place among metals.
Fire could be intensified by using blowpipes and
later by large bellows. Focusing sunlight with a
concave mirror can generate intense heat. Plutarch
claims that Archimedes used burning mirrors to set
fire to the fleet of Marcellus in the sea off Syracuse.
The use of lenses and mirrors as standard laboratory
heat sources was well established by the seventeenth
century. Before the invention of matches in 1851, the
generation of fire at home or in the laboratory was
quite a difficult task. Sparks had to be produced by
striking flint with pyrite or steel with grindstone,
thus igniting a tinder. Fire was essential for man to
cook food.
A theory was put forward in the seventeenth cen-
tury to explain this process. According to the theory,
a substance burns because it contains the combustible
substance 'phlogiston', which is liberated in the form
of a flame. When wood burns it loses its phlogiston.
d proceeding to burial place
Wood charcoal, which is produced when wood is
heated without a flame, is pure phlogiston. Adding
phlogiston (charcoal) to an ore (calx) produces pure
metal. On heating, the metal loses its phlogiston and
reverts to calx. On careful examination however, it
was observed a hundred years later that some metals
gained weight when heated. The exact explanation of
this distinct behaviour resulted in a chemical revol-
ution and the end of alchemy.
Need to transform matter for service of
man
Man needed shelter, utensils, ornaments, tools, etc.
He dried mud to make bricks, fired clays to make
pottery, melted sand to make glass, crushed coloured
stones to make pigments, squeezed juice from plants
and fruit, made wine and beer, evaporated sea water
to make salt, etc. He used leaven, or yeast (as it is
more often called), to make dough undergo changes
that caused it to form bubbles and make soft, tasty
bread. Spinning and weaving were among the oldest
of the arts. Extracting dyes from the roots of certain
plants, and from dried bodies of certain insects to
colour fabric was extensively practiced. Alum was
used as a mordant for dyeing. Glue was extracted
from bones and skins by boiling with water. Natural
gums, resins, beeswax, egg albumen were all used as
adhesives for wood or otherwise. Animal skin was
used for clothing, leather was used for bags and
footwear. Mining and quarrying were extensively
practised to obtain materials for construction, min-
erals were melted to obtain metals, and herbs were
used for medicine.
Strangely enough many useful things were disco-
vered in this way, as discussed below. The operations
might have been conducted with great efficiency but
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 349
certainly neither the composItIon of the materials
handled, nor why such transformation took place
were known. Spirits and demons were behind unsuc-
cessful experiments and the gods must have agreed
with the intentions of the experimenter when they
succ~eded.
Belief in spontaneous generation
While it was easy to see that hUIllan beings and larger
animals arose only from the bodies of their mothers
or from eggs laid by the mothers, this was not so
clear in the case of smaller living organisms. It was
taken for granted, for example, that worms and
insects grew out of decaying meat and spoiled food,
i.e. there was spontaneous generation of life from
non-living material. This view was strengthened when
stony objects that seemed to possess structures like
those of living organisms, what are now called fossils,
were occasionally found. It seemed unlikely that these
stones imitated life forms accidentally, and it was felt
that they must have once been living and somehow
turned to stone, the reverse of non-living matter
generating living matter. It was only in 1856 that
Pasteur discovered the existence of micro-organisms
and that the leaven that was used by ancient civilis-
ations to make wine was actually living cells capable
of spontaneous division, and that these cells contained
a ferment (enzyme) which transforms sugar into
alcohol.
Belief in transmutation of metals
Gold was so precious that from the earliest times
man has left no stone unturned in searching for it in
nature. It is not surprising, therefore, that man should
have sought to convert other metals into gold. It
is the essential nature of chemical change that one
substance with certain properties disappears while
another with different properties takes its place, and
there was nothing in the knowledge of that time from
which one could conclude that it was impossible
to obtain gold from lead, as one obtains lead itself
from litharge or mercury from cinnabar. Copper was
already obtained when a piece of iron was immersed
in a solution of blue vitriol (copper sulphate). It
could also be turned yellow like gold during smelting
when mixed with a certain substance such as calamine
or orpiment.
It was also believed that all metals known at that
time were of one and the same substance, only in
varying forms of purity, and that metals underwent
natural transmutation with the lapse of time. Even
as late as the eighteenth century miners believed that
lead gradually became silver and that bismuth was
an intermediate stage in the process. The alchemists
concluded that this process of transmutation could
be accelerated in a laboratory, and if this was possible,
why not convert a base metal directly into gold? The
purification of metals could be accomplished with the
aid of a substance which they called the 'philosopher's
stone', or a catalyst in our modern terminology. The
search for this substance became an important objec-
350 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4
tive in alchemy. Blood was distilled, urine was evapor-
ated, soot from burning dung was collected, washings
from soil were evaporated, all to find this catalyst.
The concept of transmutation is deeply rooted in
human thought. In the Old Testament the Egyptian
magicians changed iron rods into serpents. In the
New Testament, Jesus while attending a wedding
feast changed water into wine. In Homer's 'Odyssey',
Minerva, with a rod, turned the aged Ulysses sud-
denly into a youth.
Belief in the 'elixir of life'
'Elixir' is derived from an Arabic word meaning
medicine or drug. The idea of the existence of a drug
that prolongs life is absent from Alexandrian alchemy
but is often described in ancient Chinese medical
books. The Arabs were responsible for bringing this
idea from China. It is sometimes confused with
the philosopher's stone because Chinese alchemists
believed that a special medicine could be used to
cause transmutation. Often, it was the same substance
as that which produced immortality. The elixir not
only cured metals but could also cure human diseases
and prolong life. The concept of using chemicals for
healing human illness was taken over by the medieval
alchemist Philipp us Theophrastus Bombastus von
Hohenheim (1493-1541), known as Paracelsus. He
founded what became known as iatrochemistry, or
in modern terms chemotherapy.
Superstition and belief in existence of
demons
Mentally ill people were believed to be under the
control of demons. They were cruelly treated up to
the nineteenth century. There were also beliefs among
miners, especially Germans, that there were devils in
the mines who played tricks on them. A poisonous
ore apparently placed in the mines by the goblins
was known as Kobold. Another mineral resembling
copper in appearance but which never yielded copper
was thought to be so coloured by the devil to deceive
the miners, and was called Kupferniekel, i.e. devil's
copper.
Belief in existence of a 'vital force'
Matter was divided into three categories: mineral,
animal, and vegetable. The acids and alkalis, calxes,
and salts which were made from mineral raw mater-
ials were unlike the products derived from vegetables
or animals. There was a 'vital force', which operated
only in living matter. It was possible, for example, to
extract a red dye from a plant or an insect, but it
was believed impossible to prepare this same dye
outside these living objects. A vital force had to be
present when making this substance. This barrier was
broken down only in 1827 when Wohler prepared
urea, a typical product of animal metabolism, from
materials derived from the stock of an ordinary
chemical laboratory, namely potassium cyanide,
ammonium sulphate, and lead oxide. Since that date
the synthesis of organic compounds from simpler
materials has been the subject of constant research.
As a result, many organic products have been manu-
factured industrially by synthetic processes.
Belief in fluid nature of heat
Heat was considered to be a fluid free to pass in and
out of the smallest pores of materials, present in
varying amounts depending on temperature. It was
named 'caloric' by Lavoisier in 1787 and was consid-
ered an element. It could not be ascertained whether
this caloric possessed weight because it was difficult
to weigh a substance accurately at varying temper-
atures. It was Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford,
1753-1814) who in 1799 concluded from observations
made during the boring of brass cannons that heat is
not a fluid.
Belief in corpuscular nature of light
The fact that sunbeams could be focused with a lens
to form a hot spot used by alchemists, even by
Lavoisier, to decompose or melt a solid gave the
impression that corpuscles were emitted from the sun
and when these bombarded the solid they resulted in
its decomposition or fusion. The view was supported
by such famous scientists as Newton. Lavoisier in his
book 'Traite elementaire de chimie', published in
1789, mentioned light among the list of the simple
substances 'which may be considered as the elements
of bodies'.
Belief in conversion of water into earth
The alchemists believed that, on heating, water was
converted, at least in part, into earth. This was the
result of the observation that on boiling water some
residue was always formed (from impurities in solu-
tion). This problem faced Lavoisier when he was
assigned to improve the supply of drinking water to
Paris. At that time no chemical method for ascer-
taining the purity of water was available and the only
way was to determine the density of water by hydrom-
eter. After studying all that had been published on.
the conversion of water into earth, Lavoisier con-
cluded that it was not satisfactory and decided that
further experiment was necessary.
From 24 October 1768 to 1 February 1769 he
heated a known mass of water, as pure as could be
obtained by repeated distillation, in a weighed sealed
glass vessel, the alchemist's 'pelican', in which a liquid
could be continuously distilled in itself. At the end
of this 100 day experiment, the total weight of the
unopened vessel and its contents was the same as it
was at the beginning. He then weighed the pelican
after opening it and pouring the contents into another
vessel. Some earth had been formed. However, he
found that the weight of the pelican had decreased
by an amount nearly equal to the weight of the earth
obtained. He therefore concluded that the earth had
been produced by the erosive action of the water on
the glass, not by the conversion of water into earth.
This refuted the theory held for centuries and was
accepted by many of his contemporaries.
Mining and metallurgy in the
East
Mining and quarrying, metallurgy and metalworking
were important activities of the ancient peoples. Thc
pyramids of Egypt built 4000 years ago are a testi-
mony to this effort. Metals widely known in the East
were gold, copper, and iron. Artefacts made of these
metals are displayed in museums all over the world.
Metallic zinc became known in the East around
AD1200 and was sold to the West.
Minerals
It is obvious that minerals found in the ground that
possess colour and beauty will be sought after. Typical
of such minerals found only in the East were the
following:
• alum, also known as alunite, is hydrated sulph-
ate of aluminium and potassium. The ancient
Egyptians used it as a mordant in dyeing
• iron vitriol occurs in nature as green crystals
similar to pieces of broken glass, hence its name.
It was heated by the Arabs in special flasks and
the vapours formed were condensed and became
known as vitriolic acid (H2S04)
• emerald, also known as aquamarine, is beryllium
aluminium silicate. The mines in the Red Sea hills
in Egypt were the only source of emeralds in the
ancient world. Pliny the Elder realised that beryl
and emerald were closely related. The compos-
itions of beryl and emerald were determined by
Abbe Rene Hally in Paris
• diamond: India had the monopoly on diamond
until 1723 when it was discovered in Brazil; it was
not discovered in South Africa until 1867
• jade is mainly a silicate of magnesium and calcium,
green in colour, and was supplied mostly from
China
• zircon, also known as hyacinth or jargon, is
zirconium silicate (ZrSi04). The chief source of
supply was Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Occurs as
transparent crystals, colourless like diamond or
coloured brown, yellow, blue, or green
• topaz is a complex aluminium silicate, generally
yellow, found mainly in Ceylon
• rubies and sapphires are transparent varieties of
corundum (AI203). Rubies are carmine red and
sapphires bright blue. Other colours also occur,
including yellow, green, and purple. The finest
rubies were found in Burma (Myanmar), Siam
(Thailand), and Ceylon
• lapis lazuli is a dark blue coloured stone made of
a complex mixture of minerals, the most important
constituent being lazurite (sodium aluminium
sulphosilicate), occurring mainly in north west
Afghanistan. The only other occurrence of this
mineral is near Ovalle, 350 km north of Santi-
ago, Chile.
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 351
2 Delhi Iron Pillar: a masterpiece of Indian metal-
lurgy from fourth century AD

Metals
While gold, copper, and iron were extensively used
in the East, bronze, a copper-tin alloy, was produced
when the Phoenicians imported cassiterite from
Cornwall in England. It was found that adding this
ore to a copper ore produced an easily melted harder
metal that became known as bronze.
• gold: the ancient Egyptians used gold extensively
and perfected its metallurgy. They were able to
hammer it into extremely thin foils as well as
casting it into numerous artefacts
• copper: the production of copper was an ancient
Egyptian invention. The Pharaohs used to send
large expeditions to Sinai to exploit the copper
ores as witnessed by the inscriptions left there
along with huge slag piles
• iron: production of iron is attributed to the
Hittites in Asia Minor 1000 years after copper
was produced, but the perfection of this tech-
nology is due to the Indians during the Gupta
dynasty (AD320-480). The Delhi Iron Pillar
(Fig. 2) is a masterpiece of Indian metallurgy
3 Top: metallic zinc production in India in thir-
that could only be simulated in Europe no less
teenth century, and bottom: metallic zinc pro-
than 1000 years later. It is a massive piece' of duction in China around 1600
iron that weighs 7 t and has a total height of
7·5 m, of which 1 m is underground. Its diameter
at its indent point is 40 em. It is nearly pure iron, • zinc: centuries before zinc was isolated in its
containing 0·08 C, O·ll%P, 0·006%S, and traces
%
metallic form, its ores were used for making brass
of manganese and silicon. The Arabs transmitted and zinc compounds, which were used for healing
this technology to Damascus, then to Toledo in wounds and sore eyes. The production of metallic
Spain zinc was described in the Hindu book 'Rasarnava',

352 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4

 written around 1200. A fourteenth century Hindu
work describes how the new 'tinlike' metal was
made by indirectly heating calamine with organic
matter in a covered crucible fitted with a con-
denser. Zinc vapour was evolved and the vapour
was air cooled in the condenser located below the
refractory crucible (Fig. 3). By 1374, the Hindus
had recognised that zinc was a new metal, the
eighth known to man at that time, and a limited
amount of commercial zinc production was under
way. Both zinc metal and zinc oxide were pro-
duced. At Zawar, in Rajasthan, great heaps of
small retorts bear testimony to extensive zinc
production from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries.
From India, zinc manufacture moved to China
around 1600, where it developed ·as an industry
to supply the needs of brass manufacturers.
Calamine ore, mixed with powdered charcoal, was
placed in clay jars and heated to evolve zinc
vapour. The crucibles were piled up in a pyramid
with lump coal between them, and, once red hot,
were cooled and broken (Fig. 3). The metal was
found in the centre in the form of a round regulus.
Zinc production expanded and metal began to be
exported to the West.
Alchemy in the East
The alchemists in the East had a variety of materials
at their disposal, either naturally occurring or pre-
pared by them, that were not known in the West.
This stimulated experimentation and study which
resulted in primitive but important operations. The
process of distillation was first described in detail by
the Alexandrians at the beginning of the fifth century
AD, and was developed and used by their successors,
the Arabs, during the eighth century in a variety of
products. The alchemists were able to prepare acids
from minerals, a variety of animal and plant products,
and an explosive mixture that became known as
gunpowder.
Salts
Among the salts known and used in the East were
common salt, produced by solar evaporation of sea
water and described in Chinese books dating from
2700BC. Rock salt was described in Egyptian papyri.
In addition, trona, naturally occurring sodium car-
bonate, occurs abundantly in Egypt and was used in
mummification.
Borax, a saline substance, was imported from the
East Indies for use as a flux in the fusion of metals.
The raw material was refined by the Dutch and sold
as borax. Boric acid was first prepared in 1702 by a
Dutchman, Will em Homberg (1652-1715), who was
born in Batavia on the island of Java. When his
family returned to Amsterdam, Homberg studied law
in Germany but then toured mines in Saxony,
Hungary, and Bohemia and finally settled in Paris.
Homberg heated borax with a solution of iron vitriol.
The sublimed product he called 'volatile sedative salt
from the vitriol'. Bergman in Sweden corrected this
view later by indicating that this salt was an acid
(boric acid). In 1808 Gay-Lussac and Thenard in
France and Davy in England succeeded in decompos-
ing the boric acid with potassium, liberating a new
elenlent, boron. Boric acid was first exploited in
Europe in 1815 from the Tuscan lagoons in north-
ern Italy.
Saltpetre (from Latin sal petrae, i.e. salt of rock)
also known as 'nitre', is the wonder salt that grows
in the ground. It forms in humid soil as a result of
the action of nitrifying bacteria on urine and other
organic matter over extended periods of time. The
top layers of the soil were collected by scraping,
leached with water, filtered, and the solution was
concentrated by evaporation. Crude crystals of potas-
sium nitrate were then separated, redissolved, and
recrystallised. Saltpetre was mentioned by J abir in
the eighth century and its production was described
in detail by both Biringuccio in 1540 and Agricola in
1556. Glauber was the first to prepare saltpetre
artifically by throwing putrefiable matter of both
vegetable and animal origin into pits and adding
wood ash. In due time he obtained a 'saltpetre earth'
which was extracted by water. On evaporating the
solution yielded crystals of this salt.
Acids
Oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) was described by
alchemists as a 'spirit' which could be prepared by
strongly heating alum and condensing the vapours
formed. Aqua fortis (nitric acid) was described in the
Latin works of Geber. The alchemists of the Orient
prepared it by distilling a mixture of copper vitriol
(CuS04), saltpetre, and alum. In the sixteenth cen-
tury, there arose great demand for it for the parting
of gold and silver. Aqua regia was described by Gebel'
and was made by adding sal ammoniac to aqua fortis.
Animal products
Sal ammoniac, or ammonium chloride, was known
to Jabir Ibn Hayyan from distillation of blood or
hair. In 1719 the French consul at Cairo described
for the Academy of Sciences in Paris how the
Egyptians at Damayer (Damietta) prepared sal
ammoniac in numerous large laboratories. It was the
Swedish chemist Fredrik Hasselqvist who made a
scientific journey to Egypt and Palestine in 1749-52
and gave a firsthand description of the process.
According to him Egyptian labourers collected and
dried dung of horses, donkeys, and camels. When the
dung had been burnt, the soot was collected and then
heated in glass flasks for three days. They were able
to collect _acake of sublimed sal ammoniac from the
flasks. Hasselqvist visited many such plants in
Rosetta, Gizeh, and other places.
Kermes, an insect found in the kermes oak, was
collected by the ancient Egyptians, killed by exposure
to vapours of vinegar, and dried. The product was
then used as a scarlet dye with alum as a mordant.
Kermes is from the Arabic qirmis, meaning deep red.
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 353
 The ancient Egyptians used lamp black with gum
arabic as ink from at least three millennia BC. The
Chinese also used lamp black held together with
animal or fish glue.
Parchment was prepared in ancient Egypt from the
skins of animals by first removing the hair and then
rubbing the skin smooth with an abrasive material.
It was used as a material for writing and for covering
drum heads and the sounding boxes of musical
instruments.
Pearls were collected from various molluscs and
oysters in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and off the
coast of Ceylon and used as jewellery. Their compos-
ition was elucidated in 1888 in Europe to be mainly
calcium carbonate identical to the mineral aragonite
with about 60/0 organic matter.
Perfumes were obtained from glands of certain
animals such as the musk deer in Central Asia or the
civet cat in Africa.
Tyrian purple was produced from shellfish 1500
years BC by the people of Tyre in present day
Lebanon.
Plant products
Spices are plant products such as pepper, cinnamon,
cloves, nutmegs, and caraway which are used for
flavouring foods. They all contain essential oil which
gives to the substance an aromatic odour. They are
derived from various parts of plants: fruit, seed, stem,
flower bud, bark, and root. They were found only in
India and Indonesia. One of the primary motives
which impelled Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and other
explorers of the late fifteenth century to seek a water
route to the Orient was their desire to reach the spice
growing lands of the East. Spices were almost
unknown in Europe before the fifteenth century,
except for small amounts which passed laboriously
over the caravan routes from India to eastern
Medi terrane an ports, and they were in great demand.
Egyptian perfumes were described by Theophrastus
and Pliny and mentioned by Athenaeus as the best.
They were extracted from cinnamon, myrrh, bitter
almonds, unripe olives, and other plants. According
to Dioscorides, the Egyptians knew the root of the
iris as a perfume.
Tannins are metabolic waste products of certain
plants which tend to accumulate in dead tissues such
as heartwood, cork, and old leaves. They were
extracted from bark in ancient times and used for
rendering animal hide into leather by reacting with
its proteins. Their structure was elucidated by Emil
Fischer in 1908 who showed that on hydrolysis,
tannin obtained from nut galls yields 1 mol glucose
and 10 mol gallic acid.
Indigo has been known in India and Egypt from
remote periods of antiquity as indico. The Greeks
called it indikon, i.e. the Indian substance. It began
to be imported to Europe in 1516 by way of the Cape
of Good Hope. The blue dye was obtained by steeping
the plant in water to allow fermentation followed by
the oxidation in air of the obtained solution. The
354 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4
fermentation is caused by enzymes present in the
plant which cause hydrolysis of the glucoside and
liberation of the precursors of indigo blue. The struc-
ture of indigo was elucidated by Adolph von Baeyer
in 1880 and the synthetic product put on the market
in 1897 by the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik in
Ludwigshafen.
The leaves of a shrub known today in Egypt as
henna were used by the ancient Egyptians, much as
they are today, in the form of a paste to colour red
the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, the nails,
and hair. The plant is also known as madder and
was used in India. About the time of the Crusades
the cultivation of madder was introduced into
Italy and France. The roots were removed from
the ground, washed, dried, then finely ground. The
colouring matter alizarin was isolated by European
chemists at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
its structure elucidated, and in 1868 it was synthesised
by Graebe and Liebermann and immediately manu-
factured on a large scale.
The papyrus plant, which grew abundantly in the
marshy districts of Lower Egypt, was employed by
the Egyptians for making sheets of material for
writing upon. Its production was described by
Herodotus, Theophrastus, and Pliny.
Paper was first produced in the imperial Chinese
court in the first century AD. Composed of the beaten
fibres of the inner bark of the mulberry tree, when
matted together the fibres formed a white sheet used
for writing and painting. The art spread rapidly in
China, and when the Arabs captured the Central
Asian countries bordering China, they allowed several
Chinese artisans to continue their art which became
known in Europe through the Silk Road around the
twelfth century.
Coffee is prepared from the dried and roasted seeds
of an evergreen shrub known from time immemorial
in the Cava district in Abyssinia. It spread to the
neighbouring Islamic countries and subsequently to
other parts of the world. It was introduced in England
in 1652. Tea was used in China for several centuries
BC. It was introduced in Europe in 1517 by Portuguese
and Dutch traders.
The narcotic drug known as opium was obtained
by drying the juice of the unripe seeds of a species of
poppy. The plant was grown mainly in Asia Minor
and its use was spread by the Arabs. The Latin name
is taken from Greek opion, a diminutive of oPOS, the
juice of plants. The drug was known to the Greeks
in the third century BC. The Chinese obtained their
opium from India.
Cane sugar had been obtained in crystalline form
in northeastern India by about AD300, but it did not
become known until about AD640 to the Arabs, who
introduced the growing of cane into Egypt and
southern Europe.
Alkali is the saline substance obtained from the
calcined ash of marine plants. The term is from the
Arabic al qaliya (the roasted ashes). In the seven-
teenth century it was applied to any substance having
the characteristics of soda. In the middle of the
eighteenth century three alkalis were recognised:
marine (soda), vegetable (potash), and volatile
(ammonia), each existing in a mild form (carbonate)
and a caustic form (hydroxide).
Sill<
Alchemists produced nothing more spectacular than
silk, which came exclusively from China, where its
production began around 2000BC. Silk is a lustrous
fibre produced by the most useful insects known. The
threads that form the beautiful and costly fabrics are
taken from cocoons spun by thousands of silk moths.
Silk fabrics are among the most handsome textiles
used by mankind, a symbol of the luxury and elegance
of the most splendid civilisations.
The silk moth is an insect with a short body, stout
legs, and broad white wings marked by several black
lines running parallel with the borders. The female
moth lays her eggs in the early summer, depositing
from 200 to 500 about the size of a pin head and
glueing them together with a gummy secretion. The
eggs hatch the following spring, the larvae being
about O'5 cm long when they emerge. They are
voraciously hungry, and soon consume about their
own weight of chopped mulberry leaves as a daily
ration. They grow with great rapidity, and cast their
first skin after a period of about 10 days. This process
is repeated about four times during a period of six
weeks, after which the caterpillar is ready to spin its
cocoon. It is then 7·5 cm long and 1·2 cm in diameter.
The caterpillar then ceases to eat and begins spin-
ning its cocoon. The silk is wound in a continuous
thread about the body, the worm shrinking in size as
it spins out its substance. This thread is about 500 m
long. If left undisturbed, the pupa will hatch in two
or three weeks, boring its way through the shell and
emerging as a small, white moth. In cocoons from
which silk is to be drawn, the insect is killed before
it attacks its silky sheath. This is accomplished by
placing the chrysalis in an oven.
Destructive distillation of wood
Wood was heated in retorts in the absence of air, the
volatile matter was condensed, and the remaining
charcoal was used to smelt ores and to make gun-
powder (see below). Vinegar (acetic acid), a main
distillation product, was mentioned in the Bible and
by the ancient Greeks. It was known as pyroligneous
acid. The crude acid contains suspended tar which
separates on standing. It was used to paint the bottom
of boats to render them waterproof, while the purified
acid was used in the manufacture of white lead and
verdigris pigments.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is an
explosive mixture of about 750/0 potassium nitrate,
100/0sulphur, and 150/0wood charcoal. It was invented
in China in the ninth century and used in battle to
make a noise to frighten horses. The Chinese rulers
were not a military class but a body of professional
administrators who were oriented towards land own-
ership and literature. They developed agriculture
and expanded on printing to supply new crops and
new books, but did not use gunpowder for military
purposes.
Transfer of alchemy to the West
The mysterious East supplied spices to give taste to
food, silk to make luxury dresses, diamonds and
rubies to make jewellery, colourful carpets to furnish
palaces, paper for scholars, ivory for craftsmen, and
frankincense for cremation, which was a Roman
custom. Frankincense and myrrh ranked with gold
as gifts suitable for the Christ child. Trade routes
were established, such as the Silk Road from China
to Constantinople, passing by Samarkand and
Bukhara, and the Frankincense Road from Yemen
to Aleppo.
Cultural centres to copy and translate Arabic works
were created in Toledo, Andalusia, and Palermo,
Sicily. Frederick II (1194-1250), who ruled Sicily
and Germany and became the Holy Roman Emperor
and King of Jerusalem at the beginning of the
Crusades, followed the tradition of his predecessors
Roger I and Roger II and patronised Arabic culture,
appointed Muslims to the highest positions in govern-
ment, and filled his court with Arab philosophers,
poets, and physicians. The Crusades, which lasted for
about two centuries, brought to Europe things they
had never seen before, while famous European travel-
lers such as Marco Polo (1254-1324?) wrote incred-
ible stories about the East.
In the fourteenth century there began a new intel-
lectual movement which found expression everywhere
as a reaction against authority and an assertion of
the rights of the individual to think and act for
himself. Momentum was given to the movement by
the fall of Constantinople in 1453 which scattered the
scholars of the Byzantine Empire throughout the
West, while the invention of printing, which came at
about the same time, made possible the multiplication
of books and gave a new impulse to literary effort.
This was also the age of great discoveries. The
voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama opened
new fields of exploration. At the same time a revolt
against religious authority was going on in Germany
led by Luther.
In spite of the relatively small amount of chemical
information known at the time of alchemists, science
in general and astronomy in particular were mak-
ing great advances: Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the
Danish astronomer living in Prague under the patron-
age of the Emperor Rudolf II, made accurate ob-
servations that helped his successor, the German
astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), also in
Prague, to formulate his three laws of motion. These
later helped Isaac Newton (1642-1727) to reach the
law of gravitation; Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543),
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 355

4 'Golden Lane' in Prague, where a group of
alchemists, hired by Rudolf II, attempted to
transmute base metals into gold
the Polish astronomer of German descent, discovered
in 1530 that the sun is the centre of the solar system,
a fact that was supported later by the great astron-
omer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the inventor of
the telescope; Ole Roemer (1644-1710), the Danish
astronomer in Paris, obtained the first trustworthy
demonstration of the finite velocity of light by obser-
vations on the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites in 1675;
European chemists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries realised the importance of the perfumes,
dyes, and drugs of plant and animal origin that were
used by the ancients and devoted their time to
extracting them in pure form and elucidating their
structure.
Transmutation of metals
Prague was founded as a castle in the ninth century
and under Emperor Charles IV (1316-78) it became
the largest city in Europe and the capital of the
Holy Roman Empire. Under Rudolf II (1552-1612),
Prague was the centre of alchemy and science in
Europe. Rudolf hired alchemists and sheltered them
in the Prague castle to transmute base metals into
gold. Their laboratories stood in the 'Golden Lane',
now occupied by boutiques (Fig. 4).
Alchemy in art and literature
After alchemy reached Europe, alchemists soon
appeared in Western literature. Dante Alighieri
356 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4
5 'The alchemist' by David Teniers (1610-90)
(1265-1321) placed them in his 'Inferno'. They were
used as characters by Petrarch (1304-74), by Wil-
liam Langland (1330-1400) in 'Piers Plowman', by
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) in 'Canterbury tales',
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) in some of his
sonnets, by Ben Jonson (1573-1637) in his play 'The
alchemist', by Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) in 'Faust',
which was made into an opera by Charles Gounod
in 1811, and in the story 'L'elixir du reverend pere
Gaucher' by Alphonse Daudet (1840-97).
Alchemists have been portrayed by numerous art-
ists, including Pieter Brueghel the Elder, David
Teniers the Younger (Fig. 5), Hendrick Heerschop,
Matheus van Hellemont, Thomas Rowlandson,
Thomas Wyck, and Charles Meer Webb.
Rise of the West
Mining and metallurgy
Mining in the Harz Mountains for silver, lead, and
copper began around the tenth century. Operations
in the Saxon Erzgebirge, where ores of silver, lead,
zinc, copper, tin, and nickel are found, began at
Freiberg in 1160. Iron was worked at an early date
in the Thuringian Forest. Intensive mining activity
for silver and lead was taking place in Joachimsthal
in the thirteenth century. Lead was needed for
the roofs of the numerous cathedrals under construc-
tion, silver for coins to make payments, iron for
implements and ploughshares, and copper to cast·
cannons for war and bells for cathedrals. Georgius
Agricola (Fig. 6), the town physician in Joachimsthal,
wrote important books on mining, geology, miner-
alogy, and metallurgy that were used by students for
over two centuries. A characteristic of these books
was the woodcuts which illustrated mining and metal-
lurgical operations. Figure 7 shows a typical example
of metallurgists at work.
By about 1600, European scientists became aware
of the existence of zinc. All the metal they had
examined, however, was likely to have been imported
from the East by Portuguese, Dutch, and Arab

6 Georgius Agricola (1494-1555), a doctor who
devoted his attention to earth sciences, played
a major role in advancing mining and metallurgy
in the West
traders. Andreas Marggraf in 1746 reduced calamine
from Poland, England, Breslau, and Hungary with
carbon in closed retorts, and obtained metallic zinc
from all of them. He described his method in detail
thereby establishing the basic theory of zinc pro-
duction. Marggraf also showed that the lead ores
from Ramme1sberg contained zinc and that zinc could
be prepared from sphalerite. Marggraf was probably
unaware that in 1742 the Swedish chemist Anton von
Swab (1703-68) had distilled zinc from calamine and
that, two years later, he had even prepared it from
blende. Since the vapours rose to the top of the
alembic before passing into the receiver, this process
was called distillation per aseendum. In 1752 Swab
and another Swedish chemist Axel Frederic Cronstedt
(1722-65) developed at government expense the use
of Swedish zinc ores for the manufacture of brass in
order to avoid the necessity of importing calamine.
When the Spaniards established their empire in the
New World, they sent Antonio de Ulloa (1716-95)
to New Granada to study and advise on the exploi-
tation of mines. On his return in 1746, he brought
with him a sample of grey metallic sand which he
collected from the gold placer deposits in the Choco
district in present day Colombia and gave it the name
platina, dimunitive of plata, meaning silver. The metal
in the sand later became known as platinum.
When the ore known as Kobold, which was consid-
ered by miners to be placed by goblins, was analysed
in 1730 by the Swedish chemist Georg Brandt, he
discovered that it contained a new metal which he
called cobalt. Another ore, known as Kupferniekel,
was analysed in 1751 by the Swedish chemist
Cronstedt, and found to contain a new metal that he
called nickel. The toxicity of these ores was explained
later to be a result of the presence of arsenic.
7 Woodcut from Agricola's 'De re metallica',
showing metallurgists at work (1556):book was
published a year after the death of the author
Manganese was discovered in 1774 by the Swedish
mining engineer Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818).
He was appointed director of the Falun mine in 1784
and was a partner with Berzelius in a sulphuric
acid plant.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder was introduced to Europe in the four-
teenth century by the Arabs. By 1500, firearms were
becoming the decisive weapons of war instead of the
bow and arrow and rock throwing equipment. The
first cannons were made of forged iron strips set edge
to edge to form the wall of a barrel held together
with a ring. These however were costly and inefficient.
Cast iron was not yet known because high temper-
ature iron blast furnaces were not in use yet. They
depended on water power to produce a greater blast
and the high temperature necessary to melt the iron,
which were not yet available. Hence bronze and brass
were used for casting cannons. This took place in
many countries and on a large scale. The mining of
copper and tin expanded greatly to fulfil the supply
of these metals. This contributed to the end of cavalry
as well as feudalism.
When warfare depended on horses, the owners of
land and livestock provided rulers with their most
essential military resources and formed an aristocracy
with considerable influence. On the other hand, when
warfare depended on gunpowder and cannons, a
central government became essential: its duty was to
acquire the metals and chemicals needed, to manufac-
ture arms, and to raise infantry units. Hence, the
traditional upper class became less important.
As cannons and guns came into use, thick walls,
deep moats, and other castle defences became of little
value. Also, the armour worn by the knight could no
longer protect him against gunpowder. Thus the
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 357

8 Painting by Joseph Wright of Derby (1771) show-
ing discovery of phosphorus by Hennig Brand
artilleryman, the metalworker, and the engineer, all
belonging to a class other than the nobility, became
of primary importance in a military campaign; this
was the end of feudalism in Europe. The constant
struggle between the kings and nobles came to an
end, and the kings were able to overthrow many
nobles and take possession of their lands. They then
built roads, made them safe for travel, and granted
merchants special privileges, thus changing Europe
from many small areas, each ruled by a lord, into
several different nations.
Discovery of phosphorus
Late in the seventeenth century a physician in
Hamburg named Hennig Brand subjected more than
50 pails full of human urine to a variety of treatments
- evaporation, distillation, etc. - in the hope of
finding a substance that would convert iron to gold.
He did not find that, but he did isolate a waxy white
solid that glowed in the dark, and that, unless kept
under water, could spontaneously burst into flames.
This was the discovery of the element phosphorus
around 1674 (Fig. 8). The name phosphorus comes
from the Greek meaning 'light bringing'. The dis-
covery was kept secret by Brand who wanted to earn
money by selling it. Many great scientists of his
time were interested in this discovery. Gottfried Wil-
helm Leibniz (1646-1716), the great mathematician
who was serving as librarian under Duke Johann
Friedrich, was considering exploiting this discovery
for illuminating purposes. In 1679 the Duke agreed
to hire Brand, on recommendation from Leibniz, to
prepare a large amount of phosphorus. Samples were
then sent to the Royal Academy in Paris and the
Royal Society in London. Robert Boyle (1627-91)
examined the sample of phosphorus, studied its prop-
erties, and devised an improved method of prep-
358 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4
aration in 1680. Boyle's assistant A. G. Hanckwitz
( 1660-1741) developed the process on a commercial
scale and exported phosphorus to the continent. He
made sure that phosphorus was always preserved
under water to prevent its loss by burning.
The discovery of phosphorus by Brand was a result
of the fact that phosphorus is found in many diets
and is essential to humans. As a result it is always
found in human urine to the extent of 2-3 g L -1 as
phosphate ions. On evaporation of the urine, elemen-
tal phosphorus is formed as a result of reduction of
the phosphate ion by the organic matter present. It
can be distilled and recovered in the condensate since
it has a low boiling point of only 280°C. It was the
Swedish chemists Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-86)
and Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818) who disco-
vered in 1769 that phosphorus is a constituent of
bones and hence an easier way to prepare it was
devised.
A major discovery, however, took place in 1780
when Gahn found that the green lead ore of Breisgrau
was actually a lead phosphate and thus demonstrated
the presence of phosphorus in the mineral kingdom.
Before that time it was thought that phosphorus was
only an animal product. This discovery was confirmed
a few years later by Heinrich Klaproth in Germany
when he analysed a green crystalline cerussite from a
mine in the Erzgebirge, now known as pyromorphite,
Pb3Cl(P04)3·
The discovery that phosphorus was an essential
plant nutrient was made by Justus von Liebig
(1803-73), who prepared the first phosphatic fertil-
iser by soaking crushed bones in sulphuric acid.
Phosphate rock was first discovered in the Province
of Quebec and exploitation, which started in 1850,
was most active between 1878 and 1892, reaching a
peak in 1890. It was shipped to England to supply
the growing fertiliser industry. By 1895, however, the
output of the mines declined owing to the discovery
of rich deposits in Florida.
Many early chemists observed that when ordinary
white phosphorus was exposed to light, even in a
vacuum, it became red. The Swedish chemist Berzelius
regarded the red substance as a modification of
phosphorus. In modern terms, phosphorus exists in
two allotropic forms: white (or yellow) which is a P 4
molecule, and the red (or violet) P x amorphous form.
Light radiation or thermal energy occasionally rup-
tures the weak covalent bonds in a P4 molecule. New',
bonds are formed between atoms of different P 4
molecules to produce a giant P x molecule covalently
bonded in a disordered fashion. Yellow phosphorus
melts at 44°C and boils at 280°C. The red variety
does not melt but sublimes at a high temperature.
Since the red modification can be handled much more
safely than white phosphorus this discovery has been
extremely beneficial to workers in the match industry.
As early as 1851 Anton von Schrotter in Austria
prepared matches with it.
The luminescence of phosphorus was explained in
1928 by the Russian physical chemist Nikolai
Nikolaievich Semenov (1896-1986) based on the
formation of slow chain reactions under certain con-
ditions of humidity and oxygen concentration room
temperature. These reactions are accompanied by
light. Semenov received the Nobel Prize for chem-
istry in 1956 (together with Cyril Hinshelwood).
Phosphorus is produced today exclusively by the
reduction of phosphate rock in an electric furnace.
Discovery of hydrogen
In 1766, the English scientist Henry Cavendish
(1731-1810) investigated the gas generated when iron
dissolved in acid. The gas became known later as
hydrogen since water is formed when it burns in
air (1784).
Discovery of nitrogen
Nitrogen was discovered in 1772 by Daniel
Rutherford (1749-1819) who was preparing for his
doctorate under the supervision of Joseph Black at
the University of Edinburgh. Black had noticed that
when a carbonaceous substance was burned, a certain
amount of air remained even after the 'fixed air'
(COz) had all been absorbed by caustic potash. He
therefore gave to Rutherford the problem of studying
the properties of this residual 'air'.
Discovery of chlorine
In 1774, the Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele
(1742-86) discovered a green suffocating gas when
he reacted manganese dioxide with strong hydro-
chloric acid; he called it chlorine because of its colour.
Metalloids of the alchemists
The three metalloids known to the alchemists, arsenic,
antimony, and bismuth, occur together in the same
group of the modern periodic table and occur in
small amounts in the native state. The natural sul-
phides, realgar and orpiment, were known in pre-
Christian times and had already been named by
AristotIes and Theophrastus. In the first century AD,
Pliny mentioned sandarac (realgar) as occurring in
gold and silver mines. Realgar, AszSz, occurs in
Hungary, Saxony, and China. It disintegrates readily
to powder. Its name comes from the Arabic Rahj al
Ghar, the powder of the mine. Orpiment, AszS3, is
always associated with realgar. It is lemon yellow
in colour and the name is derived from Latin
auripigmentum, the golden paint, in allusion to its
colour and because the substance was supposed to
contain gold. Dioscorides (first century AD) reported
on the roasting of the sulphides and that they were
used as remedies and artists' colours. The alchemists
called the roasted product 'white arsenic' and were
aware of its poisonous nature. Albertus Magnus
apparently obtained the element in 1250. In the
Renaissance it was Paracelsus who pioneered the
use of arsenic compounds in medicine. The metallic
nature of arsenic was established through the research
of J. F. Henckel, who in 1725 showed how to prepare
it by sublimation. Arsenic acid and arsenic hydride
were discovered by Scheele in 1775.
Stibnite, SbzS3, is a lustrous black material having
the appearance of metallic lead and is easily fusible.
It was known to the Greeks as stebi from which the
Latin stibiu111 and the symbol Sb was derived. The
ancient Egyptians \vere also acquainted with it, but
they considered it to be a variety of lead. Eastern
women used the black pulverised mineral as an eye
paint, which is characteristic in Egyptian portraits.
Light was gradually shed on the chemistry of anti-
mony and on antimony therapy by Paracelsus,
Libavius ('Alchemia', 1597 and the 'Syntagmatis
arcanorum' volumes, 1613-15), Basilius Valentinus
('Triumphwagen antimonii', 1604), N. Lemery
('Traite de l'antimoine', 1707), and other works of
the iatrochemical epoch. The recovery of antimonium
crudum from its ores was described in detail by
Ercker (1574) and Agricola ('De re metallica', 1556).
Bismuth was mentioned first by Albertus Magnus.
Around 1450 Basilius Valentinus called it bismutum
and Paracelsus named the metal wismut. Agricola
thought it to be a special kind of lead and described
the winning of plumbum cinerum from ores mined
near Schneeberg in the Erzgebirge. In his 'De re
metallica' Agricola gave several methods of obtaining
the metal by simple liquation of the native bismuth
or by reduction with charcoal. In the middle of the
fifteenth century, the demand for bismuth increased.
The early Gutenberg printing presses first used type
cast from brass. In about 1450 a secret method of
casting type from a bismuth alloy came into use.
Caspar Neumann (1683-1737) clearly recognised
bismuth as a specific metal.
Discoveries by the
last alchemists
Valerius Cordus (1515-44) described clearly for the
first time the preparation of ether by th~ action of
oil of vitriol on alcohol. Tobacco was smoked by the
American Indians. Its culture was introduced into
France in 1560 by the French biologist Jacques Nicot
(1530-1600) while he was the French ambassador to
Portugal. When an alkaloid was extracted from the
leaves in 1819 it was named nicotine in his honour.
During the process of fermentation of grape juice, a
hard crust was deposited on the sides of wine casks
called tartar (from the French tartre). When purified,
small white crystals were obtained called cream of
tartar (potassium hydrogen tartarate). Tartar emetic,
potassium antimonyl tartarate, is a poisonous sub-
stance used in pharmacy.
In 1704 a German manufacturer in Berlin, the
capital of Prussia, fused dried blood with potassium
carbonate, then treated the aqueous extract with
ferrous sulphate. He obtained a blue pigment which
he called Prussian blue and kept his process secret.
The pigment was in great demand and studies to
investigate its origin and its properties by many
researchers intensified. When treated with sulphuric
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 359
 Alchemist's Dalton's Berzelius,
symbol symbol symbol

@
Metals Gold
0 Au

®
Silver
D Ag

@
Copper
Q Cu

Iron
~
o Fe

-,
Mercury Hg
~
Lead o Ph

So
4-
Tin

Non-metals Sulphur S
~
Carbon C

10 Elements known to the Ancients

9 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-94), the major

force behind the chemical revolution
acid a gas was formed (HCN) which became known
as 'blue gas' to refer to its origin from the blue
pigment. The salts of the acid became known as
cyanides from cyanos, the Greek word for blue.
Cod liver oil was obtained from the liver of the
cod, which appeared annually at certain times on
the coasts of Norway, Scotland, Newfoundland, and
elsewhere. The oil contains vitamins A and D and
was used in medicine. Whale oil was an important
fuel before kerosene was obtained from petroleum.
A large whale yields between 100 and 200 barrels of
oil. Fat was chopped from the whale and used as fuel
and in soap manufacture. Lard and tallow were
also recovered from pigs and sheep. Sperm oil was
obtained from a cavity in the head of the sperm
whale. When the oil was cooled it deposited a solid
wax, the spermaceti, used in candlemaking.
Marggraf discovered sugar in beet roots in 1747
and revealed the possibility of the sugar beet industry.
In 1749 he distilled red ants and obtained pure acid
which he called formic acid from the Latin formica
(ant).
The end of alchemy
Alchemy ended in 1777 with the explanation of the
phenomenon of combustion by Lavoisier (Fig. 9),
two years after the discovery of oxygen by Priestley.
This resulted in the fall of the phlogiston theory that
had influenced alchemists for over a hundred years
and was immediately followed by three major
reforms.
Naming of chemical substances
In 1787 a proposal was put before the Academie des
Sciences in Paris that the name given to a substance
should indicate its chemical nature and its compos-
ition, i.e. to which class of substance it belonged and
which elements it contained.
Separation of chemistry from medicine
and metallurgy
In 1789 the German poet and government minister
in the Weimar Duchy Wolfgang von Goethe app-
ointed a professor of chemistry in the Faculty of
Philosophy at the University of lena and not in the
Faculty of Medicine. Hence chemistry was separated
from medicine for the first time. A few years later, in
1795 when Wilhelm August Lampadius (1772-1842)
was engaged as a professor at the Mining Academy
in Freiberg, succeeding Christlieb Gellert, he separ-
ated metallurgical chemistry taught by Gellert into
two courses: chemistry and general metallurgy.
Representation of chemical substances
This took place in two stages (Figs. 10 and 11): first,
John Dalton's reform of 1808 introduced his atomic
theory and gave new simpler symbols to the elements
than the alchemical symbols. This helped greatly in
realising the nature of chemical reactions. Second,
Jacob Berzelius' reform of 1825 introduced letters in
place of symbols to indicate the elements, helping the
diffusion of chemical knowledge. These remain in
use today.
Epilogue
The chemical elements known by 1777 consisted of
12 metals, seven non-metals, and three metalloids.
Although the alchemists were unsuccessful in trans-
mitting base metals into gold and finding the elixir
that would prolong life, they nevertheless produced
a vast amount of information; many important reac-
tions were observed and many important compounds
prepared. This helped future generations greatly.

360 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4

 Berzellus'
that this element is present only as a result of human
Alcbemist's Dalton's
symbol symbol symbol activity. A similar situation existed in 1828 when the
German chemist Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) syn-
Metals Zinc ~ 0 Zn
thesised urea, a product of human activity, from the
Platinum Pt
inorganic compound ammonium cyanate. This first
synthesis of an organic conlpound destroyed the 'vital
Cobalt Co force' theory that organic compounds could be pro-
duced only by living organisms.
Nickel NI
Alchemy originated in the East and was gradually
Manganese Mn
transmitted to the West. With the rise of the Industrial
Revolution in England, the need for raw materials
Non-metals Phosphorus P and markets for finished products began. The East
~ was ideal for both, and hence started its colonisation
Hydrogen
0 H
by means of gunpowder and steel- the two substances
the East had transmitted to the West.
Nitrogen
<D N

Cblorine CI
Bibliography
Oxygen 0 0 W. c. DAMPIER: 'A history of science'; 1944, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Metalloids Arsenic As w. E. FLOOD: 'A dictionary of word origin'; 1963, London,
0-0 Oldburne.
Antimony Sb F. HABASHI (ed.): 'A history of metallurgy'; 1994, Sainte
~
Foy, Metallurgie Extractive Quebec.
Bismuth
0 81
A. LUCAS: 'Ancient Egyptian materials and industries'; 1948,
London, Arnold.
11 Elements known in the West from 1200 to 1775 J. R. PARTINGTON: 'A short history of chemistry'; 1948,
London, Macmillan.
E. THORPE (ed.): 'Dictionary of applied chemistry'; 1916,
The discovery of phosphorus in the mineral king- London, Longman.
dom in 1780 more than a hundred years after its M. E. WEEKS: 'The discovery of the elements'; 1960, Easton,
discovery in the animal kingdom destroyed the theory MA, Journal of Chemical Education.

University of Technology in Vienna, and a DSc (honoris

Professor Fathi Habashi
Department of Mining and
Metallurgy
Laval University
Cite Universitaire
Quebec
Canada G1K 7P4
Fathi Habashi is Professor of Extractive Metallurgy at
Laval University in Quebec City. He holds a BSc degree in
chemical engineering from the University of Cairo, a Dr
techn degree in inorganic chemical technology from the
causa) from Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. He held
a Canadian Government Scholarship in Ottawa, taught
at Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology,
then worked in the Extractive Metallurgical Research
Department of Anaconda Co., Tucson, AZ, before joining
Laval University in 1970. He has been guest professor at a
number of foreign universities, consultant to the United
Nations Development Program, and an active member of
the Russian Academy of Sciences. His publications include
'Principles of extractive metallurgy' in three volumes, of
which the first two were translated into Russian and
Chinese; 'Chalcopyrite. Its chemistry and metallurgy'; 'A
textbook of hydrometallurgy'; 'Pollution problems in the
mineral and metallurgical industries'; and the American
Chemical Society audio course 'Metallurgical chemistry';
he is also a coauthor of 'Mineral resources of the Arab
countries', and editor of a number of books.

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 1998, VOL. 23, NO.4 361