2.

However, it appears that in most of his experiments al-Razi disregarded the gaseous products,
concentrating instead on the color changes that could be effected in the residue.[12] According to
Robert P. Multhauf, hydrogen chloride was produced many times without clear recognition that, by
dissolving it in water, hydrochloric acid may be produced.[13]

Drawing on al-Razi's experiments, the De aluminibus et salibus ("On Alums and Salts"), an eleventh- or
twelfth-century Arabic text falsely attributed to al-Razi and translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona
(1144–1187), described the heating of metals with various salts, which in the case of mercury resulted in
the production of mercury(II) chloride (corrosive sublimate).[14] In this process, hydrochloric acid
actually started to form, but it immediately reacted with the mercury to produce corrosive sublimate.
Thirteenth-century Latin alchemists, for whom the De aluminibus et salibus was one of the main
reference works, were fascinated by the chlorinating properties of corrosive sublimate, and they soon
discovered that when the metals are eliminated from the process of heating vitriols, alums, and salts,
strong mineral acids can directly be distilled.[15]

One important invention that resulted from the discovery of the mineral acids is aqua regia, a mixture of
nitric acid and hydrochloric acid in a 1:3 proportion, capable of dissolving gold. This was first described
in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth", after c. 1300), where aqua regia
was prepared by adding ammonium chloride to nitric acid.[16] However, the production of hydrochloric
acid itself (i.e., as an isolated substance rather than as already mixed with nitric acid) depended on the
use of more efficient cooling apparatus, which would only develop in subsequent centuries.[17] Thus,
recipes for the production of hydrochloric acid only appear in the late sixteenth century, the earliest
being found in Giovanni Battista Della Porta's (1535–1615) Magiae naturalis ("Natural Magic") and in the
works of other contemporary chemists like Andreas Libavius (c. 1550–1616), Jean Beguin (1550–1620),
and Oswald Croll (c. 1563– 1609).[18] The knowledge of mineral acids such as hydrochloric acid would
be of key importance to seventeenth-century chemists like Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) and Robert
Boyle (1627–1691), who used their capability to rapidly dissolve metals in their demonstrations of the
composite nature of bodies.[19]