History of Chemistry (Thorpe)
181 quotes
"Chemistry, as an art, was practised thousands of years before the Christian era; as a science, it dates no further back than the middle of the seventeenth century.<!--p. 1-->"
"The monumental records of Egypt and the accounts left us by Herodotus and other writers show that the ancient Egyptians... had a considerable knowledge of processes essentially chemical in their nature. ...The operations of chemistry as performed by them were of the nature of manufacturing processes, empirical in character and utilitarian in result.<!--p. 1-->"
"China, India, Chaldæa have each in turn been regarded as the birthplace of the various technical processes from which chemistry may be said to have taken its rise. Nevertheless, it is mainly from Egyptian records, or from writings avowedly based on... Egyptian sources, that such knowledge... is derived.<!--p. 2-->"
"[T]he word "chemistry" has its origin in chêmi, "the black land," the ancient name for Egypt. The art... was constantly spoken of as the "Egyptian art."<!--p. 2-->"
"Boerhaave gathers that chemistry was... originally denominated because it was considered of old as "not fit to be divulged to the populace, but treasured up as a religious secret"<!--p. 3-->"
"[The] legend of the " feministic" origin of chemistry is... much older than the fifth century of our era, and is but a variant of that which, according to Jewish writers, led to the expulsion of man from Paradise. A similar myth was current among the Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, and Magi. ...Some of the ecclesiastics who elaborated these myths included the use of charms, a knowledge of gold and silver and precious stones, the art of dyeing, of painting the eyebrows, etc. the kind of arcana, in fact, which women in all ages were presumably most keen to know.<!--p. 4-->"
"[H]owever, in all allusions to chemia, even after the translation of the seat of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, it is implied that a knowledge of it was a sacred mystery, to be known only to the priesthood, and jealously guarded by them. It was characteristic of writers who had affixed an eternal stigma on Eve to make the sex in general answerable for an illicit knowledge of "things unfit for men to know."<!--p. 4-->"
"[C]hemistry originated with men, and it was not so much in the love of women as of wine that it took its rise.<!--p. 4-->"
"The manufacture of alcohol by processes of is probably the oldest of the chemical arts. The word vine means, in fact, a product of . ...[T]he ancient Egyptians ascribed the origin of wine to . It was a sacrificial offering even in the earliest times, as was bread. Wine seems to have been prepared by the Chinese as far back as the time of the Emperor Yü, circa 2220 B.C. Beer was manufactured in Egypt in the time of Senwosret III... B.C. 1880.<!--p. 4-->"
"The Egyptians were skilled in dyeing and in the manufacture of leather, and in the production and working of metals and alloys. They were familiar with the methods of tempering iron. They made glass, artificial gems, and enamels.<!--p. 5-->"
"[I]t is through [the Jews] and the ns, who were among the earliest of traders, that Europe was gradually made acquainted with many technical products of Eastern origin.<!--p. 5-->"
"Gold was undoubtedly one of the earliest metals to be made use of by men, as it probably was one of the first to be discovered. It occurs free in nature, and is met with in many rocks and in the sands of rivers. Its colour, lustre, and density would early attract attention... its malleability and ductility and the ease with which it could be fashioned, together with its unalterability, would render it valuable.<!--pp. 5-6-->"
"Ethiopian and n gold were known from the earliest times, and crushing and gold washing were practised by the Egyptians. Representations of these processes have been found on Egyptian tombs dating from 2500 B.C. Gold-wire was used by the Egyptians for embroidery, and they practised plating, , and ing as far back as 2000 B.C.<!--p. 6-->"
"Silver... like gold, to have been coined into money. It was originally known as "white gold." Some of the oldest coins in existence are alloys of silver and gold, obtained probably by the fusion of naturally occurring argentiferous gold, such as the pale gold of the . Such an alloy was termed , from its resemblance in colour to .<!--p. 6-->"
"Copper is also found to a limited extent in the metallic state, but probably the greater part of that used by the ancients was obtained from its ores, which are comparatively abundant and readily smelted. It was also used for coinage by the Egyptians, and was fashioned by them into a variety of utensils and implements. The older writers drew no clear distinction between copper, , and ...<!--p. 6-->"
"Pure copper is too soft a metal to be used for swords and cutting instruments, but copper ores frequently contain associated metals, as, for example, tin, which would confer upon the copper the necessary hardness to enable it to be fashioned into weapons. Such copper would be of the character of , and it was known to the early workers that the nature of the metal was greatly modified by the selection of ores from particular localities.<!--p. 7-->"
"It was comparatively late in the metallurgical history of copper that was produced by knowingly adding tin to the metal.<!--p. 7-->"
"Aurichalcum, or golden copper that is, was well known to the early workers in copper, and was made in Pliny's time by heating together copper, cadmia (calamine), and charcoal.<!--p. 7-->"
"was employed by the Assyrians, and was cast by the Egyptians for the manufacture of mirrors, vases, shields, etc., as far back as 2000 B.C.<!--p. 7-->"
"Tin... known to the early Egyptians, would appear to have been first obtained from the , and to have been known under the Sanskrit name of Kastîra (Kâs, to shine), whence... the Arabic word for tin, Kàsdir, and the Greek κασσιτερος, used by Homer and Hesiod.<!--p. 7-->"
"Tin ores are found in Britain (Cornwall), and were brought thence by the Phoenicians.<!--p. 7-->"
"The Latin word for tin was stannum; it was also known as plumbum album, in contradistinction to lead, which was called plumbum nigrum. Tin was used by the Romans for covering the inside of copper vessels, and was also occasionally employed in the construction of mirrors.<!--p. 8-->"
"Lead was well known to the Egyptians. In Pliny's time it was mainly procured from Spain and from Britain ().<!--p. 8-->"
"Leaden pipes were used by the Romans for the conveyance of water, and sheet lead was employed by them for roofing purposes. Argentarium was composed of equal parts of lead and tin; tertiarium, used as a solder, consisted of two parts of lead and one part of tin.<!--p. 8-->"
"Iron, although now the most important of the common metals, was not in general use until long after the discovery of gold, silver, and copper. ...[A]lthough its ores are relatively abundant and widely distributed, its extraction as a metal demanded greater skill and more appliances... Metallic iron was, however, well known to the Egyptians, who employed it in the manufacture of swords, knives, axes, and stone-chisels, both as malleable iron and as steel.<!--p. 8-->"