38 
To this it has been objected that the original spelling was 
Xnjuida and not which, although Hermann Kopp, the 
great historian of chemistry, inclines to this view, has not 
yet been proved satisfactorily. Humboldt believes that the 
latter word got into some manuscripts by a mistake of the 
transcriber, and continues : “ Alchirny commenced with the 
metals and their oxides, and not with the juices of plants.” 
This objection, however, cannot be maintained at all, because 
vegetable juices or, at least, substances designated by their 
names, are mentioned by the older alchemists as the most 
potent substance by which transmutations could be effected.^ 
Some time ago my friend Professor Theodores called my at- 
tention to an interesting paper on this subject, published by 
Professor Gildemeister,"!* in which he maintains the deriva- 
tion of the word chemistry from According to him 
Mmiyd in Arabic does not originallyhave an abstract meaning, 
and is the name, not of a science, but of a body by which, or 
rather by a substance obtained from which, the transmuta- 
tion of metals is effected ; it is synonymous with iksir. 
Alchemy, as a science, was called : The preparation of 
Mmiyd or iksir, also the science of the preparation of 
Mmiyd or, more shortly, science of Mmiyd. In the Arabic 
Lexicon (Qamus) al-iksir is explained by al-kimiyd, and the 
latter again by the former, or by any medium which, applied 
to a metal, transports it into the sphere of the sun or the 
moon, i.e., converts it into gold or silver. 
Even to this day the word is used in the concrete sense ; 
KotschyJ relates that the pasha of Nicosia talked much of 
flowers, chiefly kimia, a plant having the property of con- 
verting metals into gold. 
The later writers, however, called the science shortly 
cd-kimiyd and retained the term al-iksir (elixir) for the 
transmuting medium or the philosopher s stone. This latter 
* Kopp, loc. cit. 76. 
t Zeitsch. deutscli. morgenland. Ges. XXX., 684. 
J Petermann. Geog. Mittli. VIII., 294. 
