A STUDF IN PRIMITIVE CHEMISTRY. 39 



"Accipe de tutia ! unam libram, de capillis hominis libram semis, pisa totum, et fac 

 cum aceto distillate-, et fac panes de tribus unciis, et sicca ad solem, et cum fuerint sicci, 

 accipe de cupro tres libras, et funde, et jacta ibi duos panes, et agita tantum, donee bene 

 misceatur, et jacta in foveis, et est bonus modus." 



The remaining cases merely represent different aspects of a single reaction, since the 

 mixture of compounds produced by the agency of the aqueous distillate from hair was 

 also found to possess the property of readily melting — without any evolution of fumes — 

 when dropped on to a heated metallic plate. Substances answering to this test were said 

 to be ' cerated,' and owing to their loose combination, their particles were supposed to be 

 peculiarly accessible to the transmuting influence of the Elixir. 2 



As regards the actual chemistry of the reactions, there can be little doubt that 

 it depended almost entirely on the ammonium salts that were generated during the 

 combustion of the hair. Cases (a) and (c) are instances of the use of ammonium chloride 3 

 as a flux, while in (6) and (d) the chemical reactions that occur are the formation of a 

 chloride (or sulphide), followed in all probability in the case of mercury by the conversion 

 of the compound first produced into a readily fusible ammonium double salt. 4 It is easy, 

 therefore, to understand — once the belief in the magical equality of hair and its crystalline 

 derivative was supported by proof of their alchemical equivalence — how ammonium 

 chloride quickly usurped the place of hair in alchemical operations. Since sal-ammoniac, 

 when heated in a confined space, often acts like gaseous hydrochloric acid, 5 substances 

 were found to be as easily attacked as if hair had been used — or probably even more so ; 

 whilst many of the products of the reaction with sal-ammoniac, e.g., Silver Chloride, 

 were obtained without need of any further treatment in the desired state of ceration. 



There is, in fact, a marked parallelism between the history of hair and sal-ammoniac 

 in medicine and alchemy. Just as in the case of medicine the introduction of sal- 

 ammoniac was aided by its physiological effect, so in alchemy the chemical properties of 

 the salt greatly facilitated its adoption. In medicine the idea of the ancient doctor was 

 to oust the spirit of disease by a health-giving human spirit. The object of alchemy, 

 where man takes the place of nature in perfecting a base metal into gold, was to endow 

 the base metal with a soul or spirit ( in early alchemical writings, the terms are practically 

 synonymous), whereby it would be forthwith transformed into gold. fi Fostered as Arabian 



' On p. 304 of the De Anima, the following definition of Tutia occurs. "Tutia est una materia de terra naturali, afferunt 

 etiam de /3sgypto ; et quia lapis ille tingit latonem de tali colore, dicunt quod est unus ex lapidibus," i.e., one of the 'Stones ' of 

 the alchemists, cf. p. 28 antea. Tutia was apparently, therefore, Zinc Oxide, or Carbonate. 



2 E.g , " Signum perfections salis hoc erit, si illius granum in laminam argenti ignitam projectum, statim liquabitur. . . . sine 

 ulla expiratione in vaporem (Theatrum Chemicum, 1659 e d> IV, p. 408). 



3 Practically speaking, the ammonium salts may be taken as equivalent to ammonium chloride, as in most alchemical opera- 

 tions common salt seems to have been added in addition to the other reagents (cf. the De Anima, passim) ; also antea, p. 28. 



4 E.g., Fusible White Precipitate (NHgjCl. 3 NH 4 C1), made by the joint action of ammonium carbonate and ammonium 

 chloride on mercuric chloride. 



6 Cf. Watts' Dictionary of Chemistry, Morley and Pattison Muir's ed., 1888, Vol I, p. 202, where examples are given of the 

 interaction of ammonium chloride with both metals and oxides. 



8 Ibn Khaldun, trans, cit., Ill, p. 207. The Malays still believe that Gold and Tin possess personal souls, which must be 

 conciliated before the prospector can hope to find the metals in any quantity (Skeat, Malay Magic, pp. 266 and 271). 



