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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 742 



to the very speculative condition of ancient 

 science. Mr. Eichardson remarks that "An- 

 cient records and books are extremely few in 

 number, and worse than that, the scientific 

 writings, when they are not purely speculative, 

 are quite unreliable." This statement, while 

 undoubtedly true, in a certain sense seems to 

 me open to criticism in that it is apt to give 

 one an entirely mistaken idea of what classic 

 writers have recorded regarding the achieve- 

 ments of the ancients in practical chemistry. 

 As a matter of fact, enough reliable practical 

 chemical knowledge has come down to us in 

 the writings of Pliny, Dioscorides and others 

 to form a very respectable treatise. The 

 "Natural History" of Pliny, for example, is 

 completely interwoven with little digressions 

 upon what is now termed the " chemistry of 

 every-day life " and the reader is often sur- 

 prised to run across statements, which might 

 have been taken from some modern work, such, 

 for example, as references to the use and well- 

 recognized efficiency of burning sulphur for 

 fumigating and purifying the interior of 

 dwellings (book 25, ch. 50), or to the use of 

 suspended cords upon which to crystallize sub- 

 stances (book 34, ch. 32), or to the lowering 

 of a burning light into wine vats to determine 

 whether or not it was safe for workmen to 

 descend in order to remove the lees. "As 

 long as the light refuses to burn it is signifi- 

 cant of danger" (book 23, ch. 31). Pliny's 

 book is filled with such little practical points 

 as these, all of which, together with his de- 

 scription of many technical processes in which 

 the Romans were recognized masters, such as 

 the mixing of mortars and cement, the manu- 

 facture of white lead and other pigments, the 

 fermentation of wine, the use of legumes in 

 crop-rotation, etc., serve as a most striking 

 commentary upon the manner in which the 

 practise of a science may anticipate the dic- 

 tates of its theory — even by thousands of 

 years. Much of the 'matter which Pliny has 

 gleaned in his "Natural History" was com- 

 mon knowledge centuries before his time. The 

 use of burning sulphur as a disinfectant, for 

 example, is mentioned in the " Odyssey " of 

 Homer (book 22, ch. 481). Odysseus, after 



the murder of the suitors, cries out to his 

 aged nurse : " Bring sulphur, old woman, the 

 cleanser of pollution and bring me fire, that 

 I may sulphur the chamber." 



The science of the ancients was extremely 

 weak, however, upon its analytic side and in 

 the course of its whole history may be said 

 to have produced but one mind truly great in 

 this respect — ^that of Archimedes. This philos- 

 opher and experimenter by his method of dis- 

 placement was the first to establish a physical 

 constant — that of specific gravity — and the 

 first to apply such a constant to certain an- 

 alytical problems as in the well-known example 

 cited by Vitruvius, where Archimedes deter- 

 mined the purity of the gold in King Hiero's 

 votive crown. 



The application of specific gravity to the 

 testing of various bodies, liquid as well as 

 solid, seems to have been common after the 

 time of Archimedes. Pliny (book 31, ch. 23), 

 in fact, alludes to the use of some form of 

 specific gravity balance (Stater a) by which the 

 purity of water could be tested. 



The search for a means to detect adultera- 

 tion was what led Archimedes to his epoch- 

 making discovery and this we will find to be 

 always a leading stimulus in the development 

 of analytical chemistry in ancient as well as 

 in modern times. The adulteration of foods 

 and other commodities of life was as common 

 in the early days of the Roman Empire as it 

 is to-day. Pliny repeatedly calls attention to 

 the many frauds of his time. " It is the nat- 

 ural propensity of man to falsify and corrupt 

 everything," he exclaims while writing of the 

 adulteration of honey, and again, when speak- 

 ing of the use of gypsum, pitch, lime, rosin, 

 wood ashes, salt, sulphur, artificial pigments, 

 etc., for treating wines (book 14, ch. 25), he 

 cries out : " By such poisonous sophistications 

 is this beverage compelled to suit our tastes, 

 and then we are surprised that it is injurious 

 in its effects ! " Pliny blames the druggists 

 especially for their practises in this respect 

 and is most bitter in his denunciations of the 

 whole fraternity of Eoman apothecaries. 

 Many pages of the " Naturalis Historia " are 

 in fact devoted to the disclosure of the 



