Polish

Alchemy developed most in the time of the greatest development of the Arab country. Dżabir ibn Hajjan, who lived from about 760 until about 815 was the most famous alchemist. In the after years he was better known under the name of Geber. Until now, he is well known as the first one who made use of plaster for immobilising broken limbs. In the course of research in the field of dry substances (powders) conducted by Dżabir and other scholars the most famous term in the history of alchemy was created - ‘the philosophers’ stone’. What was it? The philosophers’ stone is a mysterious substance, continuously and unsuccessfully searched for by alchemists, which was supposed to turn all ‘common’ metals into gold. It was also said to prolong life and make people younger, treat all diseases and give abilities to contact ghosts and give them orders. However, continual investigations of the philosophers’ stone and alchemists’ experiments contributed to the origin of chemistry, discovery and analysis of many chemical compounds, discovery of such elements as arsenic, antimony, bismuth, phosphorus. Searching for this stone, Roger Bacon, as one of the first in Europe, worked out the way of gunpowder production, van Helmont began research on the nature of gases (and he introduced this term into chemistry), Johann Glauber gave recipes of production of many chemical compounds, e.g. sodium sulphate, called in his honour Glauber’s salt, and Böttger was the first one in Europe to obtain white, hard porcelain in 1709. But let’s go back to the history of alchemy.

The inhabitants of Europe came into the first contact with the Muslim world during crusades. Due to the direct contact between two such distinct cultures Christian knights brought Eastern culture and its achievements to Europe. Therefore, beginning from 1200 A.D., European scholars were given possibility to absorb alchemic knowledge and continue its development. The first more notable European alchemist was Albert von Bollstädt, known as Albert the Great, i.e. Albertus Magnus. Continuing conducted by Arab scholars research, he described arsenic so precisely that he is often said to discover this element, though it had been done earlier.

Another English scholar, already mentioned above, Roger Bacon (about 1214 - about 1294) was Albert’s contemporary. He made himself famous by laying foundations to empirical and mathematical knowledge. Although, the state of knowledge of that times was imperfect, Bacon managed to write the encyclopaedia of knowledge. In this book, for the first time, among other things he described gunpowder , which was why he was said to discover it, while the real discoverer has remained unknown.

Gunpowder usage was the first practical effect of putting alchemical knowledge into practice, and its significance is world-wide.

But production of gold was still unapproachable in those times. This led to the third decline, in the history of chemistry, of this branch of knowledge. Gold hunting became the domain of work of various forgers’, which as a result brought distortion and slowing down in the development of real knowledge. This recession lasted constantly until the 17th century, so until Boyl and Newton’s times, but even those great scholars succumbed to a temptation to produce gold.

In 1597 German alchemist Andreas Libau, called Libavius in Latin (about 1540 - 1616), published his work Alchemy. It was not only the encyclopaedia of past achievements of alchemy for Libavius skilfully removed all the mysticism and unclearness from the original material. As a result, the first chemical work was created.

He was also the first one to describe the method of obtaining muriatic acid, tin tetrachloride, ammonium sulphate as well as aqua regia (a mixture of muriatic and nitric acids dissolving gold, due to which it gained such spectacular name). Finally, he stated that minerals can be recognised on the ground of the shape of crystals obtained after their evaporation from solutions.

Johann R. Glauber (1604-1668), who discovered how to produce muriatic acid by treating table salt with sulphuric acid, lived a little bit later. In this process, he obtained a new salt - sodium sulphate - which is now called after its discoverer, Glauber’s salt. Having discovered its purgative properties Glauber named it a ‘miraculous salt’ - sal mirabile - and he suggested that it is a cure for all diseases, a miraculous elixir of life. He himself started to produce it on a larger scale for medical purposes and gained some fortune out of it. In his case, we do not notice a full of tension way of the chemist searching for a method of gold production, but we see the way which is not only more useful but, moreover, yields real profits. Besides, it was not the only example of obtaining benefits from scientific work and chemical research.

In the 17th century scholars realised that a specific research may be a source of, both ethical as well as financial, benefits. Although until 1800 all scientists had still been called philosophers, they definitely gave up mystical studies in the field of immortality and other wonders that were supposed to be worked by the philosophers’ stone, in favour of studies on elements and chemical compounds. That is how alchemy had ended up and since the 17th century a new exact science, today known as chemistry, has begun to develop.

Bibliography

• Isaak Asimov: Krótka historia chemii. Warszawa 1970
• Radosław Pawelec: Wieża Babel. Warszawa 1999
• Władysław Kopaliński: Słownik mitów i tradycji kultury. Warszawa 1991
• Słownik wyrazów obcych PWN. Warszawa 1988
• Jerzy Stobiński: Chemia zdobywa świat. Warszawa 1974
• Stanisław A. Wotowski: Tajemnice świata magii. Sosnowiec 1992

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the teachers mgr Elżbieta Firlej and mgr Agnieszka Komendera for their support in consultation.

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