CHEMISTRY AND ALCf/i:.M) . 177 



celebrated (iebcr (Fig. 127), or Ycber, a native of Mesopotamia, who dis- 

 covered and analyzed red oxide and the deutochlorure of mercury (corrosive 

 sublimate), nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitrate of silver, &c. Al-Chindus 

 ^avc special attention to the arts of magic; but Geber, whose works, 

 translated into Latin, are still extant, notably the "Summa Perfcctionis " and 

 the "Liber Philosophorum," laid down the true principles of chemistry, in 

 his researches on the fusion, the purifying, and the malleability of metals. 

 After this great chemist, whom Roger Bacon calls the Master of Masters, and 

 who deserved to be the oracle of chemists in the Middle Ages, we must 

 come down to the beginning of the ninth century for the next work of 

 importance on chemistry, which was the book of the great Arab doctor, 

 Razi, or Rhazes. This encyclopaedia mentions for the first time, as belonging 

 to the materia medica, orpiinent, realgar (a compound of arsenic and 

 sulphur), borax, and certain mixtures of sulphur with iron and copper, of 

 mercury with acids, and of arsenic with various substances hitherto unknown, 

 or at all events not used. It is with no little surprise that we read of 

 Rhazes recommending to doctors the use of various alcoholic preparations and 

 animal oils, such as oil of ants, which modern chemists claim as remedies of 

 their own invention. "The secret art of chemistry," says Rhazcs, who 

 wrote a treatise on this science which has become extinct, " is nearer possible 

 than impossible ; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of 

 labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise a 

 corner of the veil which conceals the works of God ! " 



The learned 'M. Emile Begin, whose writings on chemistry furnish us 

 with material for this chapter, states that, from the Middle Ages downwards, 

 the science of chemistry has been guided by experimental analysis. He says, 

 "From Schal, the model experimentalist, to Galen, how many important 

 discoveries, original and fertile ideas, and valuable applications have issued 

 from the chemist's crucible ! How many lives have been spent over it ! 

 How many laborious minds have investigated the mysterious relations 

 established between organic and organized matter, and the internal combina- 

 tions of mat tor with itself! The truth, it must be added, has been blurred 

 with many superstitious beliefs and wild fancies." At this remote epoch 

 nearly every savant was more or less of a dreamer. Almost as a matter of 

 eour-e, Klia/es's jjreat work, translated into Latin, with the title of "ElHhawi," 

 a vast pharmaceutical repertory completed by a man of genius who looked at 



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