Alchemy Being Rehabilitated

No, it's not being reintroduced to society like astrology's been: by "rehabilitated," I mean winning new respect from historians of science. Although alchemists never turned lead into gold, they pioneered primitive chemistry and came up with useful processes.

For example, alchemists could be considered as an early form of industrial researcher. William Newman of the University of Indiana points out that alchemists "integrated a host of pursuits that can be loosely labeled 'chemical technologies' with an experimental practice that was linked to various theories about the nature and operations of minerals and metals."

Newman provides plenty of examples. Alchemists, he says, were active in assaying metals, refining salts, making dyes and pigments, making glass and ceramics, artificial fertilizers, perfumes, and cosmetics. An alchemists' shop was often the place in a town where you would go for medicine. Even today in many parts of Europe you go to "the chemist," for medicine, rather than to a "drug store."

Of interest to some is the fact that alchemists were skilled distillers, although the article is careful to note that their distillation skill was deployed to make strong acids. Interestingly, those acids were used to seperate metals from their ores.


It makes me wonder: was "lead" a name affixed to gold ore that looked something like shale? Is that the source of the lead-into-gold myth?