part in the history of chemistry. The French chemist Charas,

who lived in the seventeenth century, called it arcana corallina
on account of its colour. Robert Boyle prepared it by boiling
mercury in a bottle which was fitted with a stopper provided
with a narrow tube by which air was admitted. The product
was afterward called ‘ Boyle’s Hell,’ because it was believed that
it caused the metal to suffer extreme agonies during the process.
It was from the red oxide that Priestley first produced what he
called ‘ dephlogisticated air,’ which we now know as oxygen
— a discovery which opened a new era in the history of
chemistry.

The internal administration of the salts of mercury was
popularized in the sixteenth century by Paracelsus, who advo¬
cated the use of the perchloride, the oxide, and the nitrate of the
metal. It was employed as a remedy in the form of fumiga¬
tions, frictions, ointments, and plasters. John de Vigo, of
Naples, physician to Pope Julius II, devised a mercurial plaster.
Quicksilver girdles, or belts prepared with mercury and the
whites of eggs, also became popular as a remedy for itch.

It was recognized in the sixteenth century that mercury in the
state of minute subdivision had a distinct physiological effect,
and attempts were made to extinguish or ‘kill’ the metal by
trituration and so render it efficient for internal administration.
A preparation of this kind known as ‘grey powder,’ made by
triturating mercury with chalk, is still largely used in medicine.

Braun, of Petrograd, was the first to solidify mercury, which
he effected by placing a thermometer in a mixture of snow and
nitric acid. The mercury sank with great rapidity, and when
Braun examined the bulb he found it contained a metallic mass
which could be hammered like lead.

Another important event in the history of mercury was the
experiment made in 1643 by Torricelli, who determined the
pressure of the atmosphere as equal to 30 inches in a column
of mercury. This discovery resulted in the invention of the

21

LURE fif ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

mercurial barometer. Fahrenheit introduced the use of mer¬
cury in thermometers about 1720, and Priestley was the first to
use the metal as a sealing agent when working with gases that
were soluble in water.

In the arts mercury was used by the Venetians in the prepara¬
tion of tin amalgam for silvering mirrors as early as the six¬
teenth century.

Iron, which was associated with the planet Mars, is said to
have been known from at least 1537 b.c. It was tempered by
heating to redness and then plunging the metal into cold water.
There are representations of a bellows being used in smelting,
together with a furnace and crucible, in an Egyptian wall- carving
dating from 1500 B.c. Iron rust was recognized as a tonic and
styptic in classical times. Homer refers to the rust of the
spear of Telephus being used to heal wounds which the weapon
had inflicted. The traditional Melampus (1380 B.c.), who is
said to have studied Nature while tending his sheep on the
mountain-sides, and afterward acquired the reputation of being
a great healer, when called to treat Iphiclus, King of Phylacea,
who was suffering from extreme weakness, instructed him to
take the rust of iron in wine. The remedy proved eminently
successful, and iron wine is used for its tonic properties to this
day.

Iron has ever been associated with strength, and its supposed
connexion with Mars probably influenced its early use in medi¬
cine, especially as its value in chlorotic diseases was doubtless
soon observed. Dioscorides (a.d. 40) refers to its astringent pro¬
perties, and recommends its use in certain cases of haemorrhage,
while Celsus and Pliny both allude to the value of iron in water
or wine as a remedy for dysentery and enlargement of the spleen.

The salts of Mars, as the preparations of iron were called,
became popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
mainly through Sydenham and Willis, two famous English
physicians, who advocated the use of iron in the treatment of
debilitated conditions. Willis originated and prescribed a secret
22

THE ROMANCE OF THE SEVEN METALS

preparation of iron which was known as ‘Dr Willis’s Pre¬
paration of Steel’ and, according to a contemporary, “was
the best preparation of any that iron can yield us.”

Crocus mortis , the sesquioxide, cethiops martial , the black
oxide, andyfom martias , the ammoniated chloride of iron, the
old names for which suggest their connexion with the god of
war, were all popular remedies in the seventeenth century.

Early in the eighteenth century a secret preparation of iron
known as the ‘Golden Drops of General La Mothe’ became
extremely popular in France, and a similar remedy called
‘ Bestucheff ’s Nerve Tincture’ had a great vogue in Germany
and Russia. They were believed to be solutions of gold, and
were recommended for their marvellous restorative properties.
Although the price of a small bottle containing about four tea¬
spoonfuls was a livre, they became so famous that Louis XV
sent two hundred bottles to the Pope as a particularly precious
gift. Later Louis granted La Mothe a yearly pension of 4000
livres for the right of making the preparation for the Hotel des
Invalides. When the formula was subsequently published the
much-renowned ‘Golden Drops’ were found to consist of
tincture of perchloride of iron and spirit of ether.

Lead was known to the Egyptians at a very early period, and
they employed both the protoxide, or litharge, and minium, or
red lead, as pigments. White lead, or cerussa , the carbonate,
they obtained by exposing sheets of the metal to the fumes of
vinegar in a warm place. It was associated with the planet
Saturn, and many of the preparations of the metal took their
name from the planet. Thus, the ‘ Magistery of Saturn,’ which
was prepared by precipitation from a solution of the acetate of
lead with potassium carbonate, became famous in the seven¬
teenth century. It formed the chief ingredient in the renowned
‘Powder of Saturn,’ which was originated by Mynsicht and
largely used in the treatment of asthma and phthisis. Later,
about the middle of the eighteenth century, a revival in the use
of lead in medicine was brought about by Goulard, a surgeon

23

LURE S? ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

of Montpellier, who wrote a treatise on the ‘ Extract of Saturn ’
which made preparations of lead celebrated throughout the
world, and its employment as an external application continues
at the present day.

Tin, which was associated with the planet Jupiter, was known
to the Egyptians as far back as 2000 B.c. The Phoenicians, who
were the earliest-known traders in the metal, obtained it first
from India and Spain and afterward from Britain, where the tin-
mines of Cornwall have been worked from a remote period of
antiquity. It was originally regarded as of higher value than
copper. The alchemists first prepared the salts of the metal by
calcination, upon which vinegar was poured, and they found
that by heating them together they obtained a crystalline salt.
They made the oxide by strong ignition with charcoal.

The chief salts of tin were known as sal jovis , the nitrate or
chloride, and calx jovis , the binoxide, the former of which was
used medicinally as a vermifuge. Aiirum musivum , well known
to the alchemists, was prepared by combining tin and mercury
into an amalgam and then distilling it with sulphur and sal
ammoniac. The product, a beautiful golden metal of crystal¬
line structure and brilliant lustre, was highly esteemed and
recommended in the treatment of fevers and hysteria; it was
also said to possess sudorific properties.

Much more might be written concerning the seven metals on
which the early alchemists laboured for centuries, but this brief
outline will serve to show how far they succeeded in preparing
certain salts that have proved of great value to mankind, many
of which are in use at the present time.

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