THE SCIENCE OF CHEMISTRY AND 

 ITS DEVELOPMENT 1 



THE SCIENCE 1 



CHEMISTRY is that branch of Natural Science which deals 

 with the various material substances that are capable of 

 existence, with their relations to one another, and with the 

 laws governing their various transformations. 



THE NAME. The origin of the word chemistry is uncer- 

 tain. Chemia (or Chemie) is the old name of Egypt, and 

 as the art of making gold and silver was first practised in 

 that country, the science of chemia may have meant orig- 

 inally "the science of Egypt." Later, however, at the 

 time of the Alexandrian alchemists, the word was used to 

 denote some substance ; and as, on the one hand, the word 

 chemi means "black," and, on the other hand, the first 

 step in the transmutation of metals is known to have been 

 a process of blackening, we conclude chemia may have at 

 that time denoted the "philosopher's stone" i.e., the sub- 

 stance employed in the process of blackening the metals. 

 Similarly, in the form al-kimiyd, the term is used also by 

 the early Arabic writers to denote, not their art, but the 

 substance employed in that art. With them, however, the 

 term was used in much the same sense as the word al-iksir, 

 and this suggests another possible derivation. The word 

 iksir is derived from the Greek xeros, which means dry. 

 Possibly, then, the word Jcimiyd may have been derived 

 from the Greek chymos, which means liquid; and while at 

 one time both iksir and kimiyd were used to denote a sub- 

 stance, the words chymia and alchymy gradually came to 



J Taken from The New International Encyclopaedia, vol. iv, page 

 559. Copyright 1902, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909 by Dodd, Mead 

 & Co. 



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