378 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



he understood mucli raore by it tlian tlie separation by beat of two 

 metals of different melting points. Albucasis, a famous alchemist 

 of the eleventh century, speaks of the process in less doubt- 

 ful terms, and late in 

 the thirteenth century 

 the art of distillation 

 and the preparation, 

 properties, and uses of 

 alcohol were clearly 

 described by two Euro- 

 pean alchemists, Ray- 

 mond Lully and Ar- 

 mand de Villeneuve. 



In view of the fierce 

 and indeed not unde- 

 served abuse that has 



Old Stills, from Early Edition of Geber. 



been levied against distilled liquors, it is interesting to note that 

 for some hundreds of years after its discovery alcohol was dis- 

 tinctly the most valuable product of chemistry. The old alche- 

 mists went wild over it. They wondered at its power of dissolv- 

 ing oils and resins and balsams, calling it oleum vini and bal- 

 samus universalis, and making with it varnishes and perfumes 

 and cosmetics, by the sale of which they replenished their not 

 overfilled purses. They admired the clear, colorless, smokeless 

 flame with which it burned, and named it sulphur cceleste, 

 in contradistinction to the ordinary or earthly sulphur, 

 which burns by no means so pleasantly. They used it 

 as a preservative, they used it for the preparation 

 of their chemicals, and above all they 

 used it as a medicine. 



For during many hundred 

 years this aqua vitcB, water of 

 life as it was almost universally 

 called, was the most valuable 

 medicine in their large but ineffi- 

 cient pharmacopoeia. Each al- 

 chemist, each physician, prepared 

 his own elixirs, his own cordials, 

 and claimed miraculous results 

 for his own particular nostrums : 

 but the basis of them all was the ^"^^ ""^ ^^'^^^^ ^"^' Countrie Farme. 

 same namely, alcohol, sweetened with sugar, and flavored by dis- 

 tillation or infusion with herbs and spices. Some of these " cor- 

 dials" or heart remedies exist at the present day in the form of 

 the various liqueurs. The Chartreuse and Benedictine are simply 

 the same old medicines, prepared after practically the same old 



