THE BIRTH OF CHEMISTRY 
VII. 
Avicenna.—Albertus Magnus.—S. Thomas Aquinas.—Roger 
Bacon.—Raymond Lulli.—Arnoldus de Villa Novd.— George 
Ripley.—Basil Valentine. 
THE Schools and Colleges of Arabia soon gave evidence of their 
value by the development of several considerable geniuses, 
whose works formed the text-books of Europe during a portion 
of the Middle Ages. Prominent amongst these learned Arabians 
was Ali-ben-Sina, or Avicenna, who was born in 980 in the 
neighbourhood of Shiraz. His abilities were considerable, and 
no pains were spared in his education ; as a boy he read the 
Almagestum of Ptolemy, the Geometry of Euclid, and the 
‘Philosophy of Aristotle, and later in life he studied medicine 
with great success. We are told indeed that at the age of six- 
teen he was an eminent physician, and that at eighteen he cured 
a caliph of some grave disorder, and was hence promoted to 
great honour. 
Avicenna is best known by his celebrated ‘* Canons,” which 
were translated at an early date into Latin, and often printed 
under the title of ‘*Canones Medicinz.” This work has been 
translated into the languages of all civilised countries, and for no 
less than six centuries was the standard medical treatise of 
the world. 
Avicenna also wrote on Alchemy and on Chemistry. If the 
works attributed to him are genuine he appears to have adopted 
the Aristotelian theory of the tour mutually convertible ele- 
ments. He speaks of air as the aliment of fire, and of the 
metals as compounds of a humid substance and an earthy sub- 
stance. This last idea evidently arose from the observation of 
the calcination of metals. It was well known that if certain 
metals, such as lead and tin, are heated fora length of time in 
the air they are converted into a powdery substance or calx, and 
it was long before \t was proved that this calx is not the metal 
from which one of its constituents has been expelled by fire; but, 
on the other hand, the metal combined with another substance. 
Avicenna divides all minerals into four classes; viz., (1) Infus- 
ible mimerals ; (2) Minerals which are fusible and malleabie, that 
is, metals; (3) Sulphurous minerals ; and (4) Salts. He noticed 
that mercury can, by heat, be caused to unite with sulphur and 
produce a solid body, having different, properties from its con- 
stituents. 
Avicenna was largely indebted for his knowledge to Alfarabi 
and to Rhazes. The latter wrote on medicine, and was one of 
the first to introduce substances formed artificially by chemical 
means into medicine. 
Turning now our attention to European alchemists we meet 
at the outset with the name of Albertus Magnus (b. 1193, d. 
1282), who became Bishop of Ratisbon in 1259. Various works 
on Alchemy are attributed to him: he wrote on the philo- 
sopher’s stone, on the origin of metals, and on minerals ; and 
he has described at some length various chemical operations, 
such as sublim ition and distiliaiion, and various forms of appa- 
ratus, such as aludels, alembics, and water-baths. He followed 
Geber in the belief thar metals are composed of sulphur and 
mercury, and that different metals are produced by different 
combinations, and to some extent by the variations in the purity, 
of these substances. Albertus Magnus employs the term affinity 
(affinitas) to designate the cause of the combination of sulphur 
with silver and other metals; in this precise sense, applied to 
all cases of chemical combination, the term is used in the pre- 
sent day. He also speaks of sulphat: of iron as vitriol, a name 
which it long retained. He describes the Bereparerion of nitric 
acid, its principal effects upon certain metals, and its utility for 
separating silver from gold, inasmuch as it will dissolve the 
former and not the latter. Cinnabar, or sulphide of mercury, 
had long been known and used as a source of mercury ; Albertus 
proved that it consists of sulphur and mercury by preparing it 
artificially, by subliming sulphur with mercury. 
Albertus was not alone learned in Alchemy ; he was a profound 
theologian, a scholar, an astronomer, a physician, and some said 
an adept in magic and necromancy. He embodied his wisdom 
in twenty-one’ folios, which were published in a collected form 
in 1651. M.Lenglet Dufresnoy, in his ‘* Histoire de la Philosophie 
Hermetique,” has mentioned several magical operations gravely 
attribued to Albertus Magnus by various writers. The most 
noticeable piece of magic was the sudden transformation of a 
winter's day into glowing summer :—‘‘ Horridam hyemem,” says 
Trithemius, ‘in florigeram fructiferamque vertit.” It is said 
that once during a very severe winter, he invited Count William 
of Holland, when he was passing through Cologne, to a feast. 
The Count, on his arrival with a considerable retinue, was sur- 
prised to find the feast spread in the garden, in which there were 
several feet of snow; and this treatment so angered him that 
he remounted his horse and prepared at once to leave his inhos- 
pitable host. 
Then the monk falling on his knees besought 
The Count to sit one moment at the board. 
He having done so, a most wondrous change 
Passed on the instant over all around. 
The dark clouds floated off, and left a sky 
Intensely blue, an air exceeding clear ; 
The sun shone brightly, and the warm south wind 
Laved their pale cheeks and warmed them into life. 
They sit on greenest grass, the snow is gone, 
Sweet flowers bloom beneath their very feet, 
Ripe peaches blush upon the garden wall, 
And orange blossoms scent the humid air. 
A swarm of insect life on droning wing 
Is floating up above them in the breeze. 
The voice of birds is heard ; the cooing dove 
Speaks softly to her mate ; the nightingale 
Trills a sweet lay, half hidden in the leaves. 
All nature is most joyous in her garb 
Of brightest summer day, and all things seem 
To glory in the flood of warmth and light. 
Upon this, the Count expressed considerable astonishment, as 
although he had heard a good deal of the magical powers of his 
host, he was quite unprepared to find him capable of changing 
the seasons. As soon as the feast was ended, Albertus Magnus 
repeated a magical formula— 
Now snow obscures the air, the flowers fade. 
The trees are torn by pitiless strong winds 
And weep their shrivelled fruit upon the earth ; 
All sound of life is gone, a roar of elements 
Succeeds the plaintive quavering of the leaves, 
The birds fall dead to earth, and the dark air 
Betokens fearful tempests yet to come. 
So the Count and his retinue rush off into the house to warm 
themselves, and thus ends the feast of Albertus Magnus, Some 
will have it that the story alludes to a winter garden, unknown 
at that time, which had been devised by Albertus for the preser- 
vation of rare plants. Middle Age books on science abound 
with such stories, and the belief in them was almost universal, 
as it well might be in an age in which the power of witches and 
wizards was acknowledged, and the raising of the dead was 
an admitted possibility. Briicker (Jvstitutiones Historie Philo- 
sophice) says :—‘* Quee enim de ejus convivio magico narrantur, 
merito inter inficeti seculi fabulas referuntur, que ex ignorantia 
rerum naturalium. eo tempore crassissima et Alberti mirabili 
rerum physicarum cognitione prodierunt.” 
In the church of S. Andreas in Cologne they show to this 
day the shrine and relics of Albertus—the accomplished church- 
man, scholar, magician and alchemist, of whom Trithemius says, 
‘* Magnus in Magia Naturali, major in Philosophia, maximus in 
Theologia.” 
Albertus had for his pupil the ‘‘angelic doctor,” S. Thomas 
Aquinas (b. 1225, d. 1274), who was a great alchemist, and who 
wrote a treatise called ‘‘ The most secret Treasure of Alchemy,” 
together with some other works on the subject, which are equally 
obscure and unintelligible. He wrote also on the artificial 
preparation of gems, by fusing glass with certain substances, 
like oxide of copper, to communicate different colours; he 
mentions that if copper be heated with white arsenic, the former 
becomes white, something like silver. According to some, 
S. Thomas Aquinas was the first to employ the term amalgam, to 
de-ignate a compound of any metal with mercury. S, Thomas 
was, like his master, a magician. We are told that between them 
they constructed a brazen statue, which Albertus animated with 
his elixir vite. It was useful as a domestic servant, but very 
talkative and noisy; nor could they cure it of this propensity. 
It happened one day that S. Thomas, who was a mathe- 
matician, was deeply engaged in a problem, but was continu- 
ally interrupted by the talking statue ; at length in a rage he 
seized a hammer and smashed it to atoms, to the great regret of 
his master. 
Our great countryman Roger Bacon (b. 1214) also suffered from 
a charge of magic, and during his residence in Oxford was severely 
persecuted in consequence. He replied to thecharges made against 
him by the admirable treatise “De nullitate magiz,” and in it 
clearly showed that what his contemporaries mistook for the work 
of spirits, were in good sooth the ordinary operations of Nature. 
In this work he speaks of gunpowder, although somewhat ob- 
scurely, ‘* Mix,” says he, “together saltpetre, /uru vopo vie 
