1638
Joannes Agricola [1589-1643] - Treatise on Gold
Commentaries, Notes, and Observations Regarding, the CHYMICAL MEDICINE of JOHANNES POPPIUS
Wherein all processes are carefully examined, corrected of errors, and augmented and illustrated by several hundred new processes and secret manipulations taken from his own experience,
Where also the right use of medicines is verified by several hundred case histories,in addition to a complete revelation of what is to be done with them in surgery, and alchemy, or the transmutations of metals. For all persons of respectability, physicians, surgeons, chymists, barbers, army-surgeons, horse-doctors, goldsmiths, and all householders most useful to read and use. Oportet sapietiam transferr ad medicinam, & medicinam ad sapientiam. Medicus enim Philosophus est Deo aequalis.
Printed by Gregorius Ritzschen in the year 1638.
Translated from the original by Leone Muller, 1988.
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1640??
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Discourse on the Method.Return to top
1651
John French - The Art of DistillationThe Art of Distillation. Or, A Treatise of the Choicest Spagyrical Preparations Performed by Way of Distillation, Being Partly Taken Out of the Most Select Chemical Authors of the Diverse Languages and Partly Out of the Author's Manual Experience together with, The Description of the Chiefest Furnaces and Vessels Used by Ancient and Modern Chemists also A Discourse on Diverse Spagyrical Experiments and Curiosities, and of the Anatomy of Gold and Silver, with The Chiefest Preparations and Curiosities Thereof, and Virtues of Them All. All Which Are Contained In Six Books Composed By John French, Dr. of Physick London.
Printed by Richard Cotes and are to sold by Thomas Williams at the Bible in Little-Britain without Aldersgate, 1651.
This is the complete book with 42 woodcuts of alchemical apparatus in the text. Return to top
1652
The English PhysitianCulpeper, Nicholas, 1616-1654.
The English physitian: or an astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar herbs of this nation. London : Peter Cole, 1652.
8 p.l., 255 p. (i.e. 159 p.), [5] p., front. (port.)
Pages numbered 1-92, 189-255.
This electronic version was prepared by Richard Siderits, M.D., and colleagues by keying from the copy at the Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. Adaptation to HTML by Toby Appel.
The Historical Medical Library at Yale in conjunction with Richard Siderits, M.D., is putting up a series of popular medical works of the 16th-18th centuries on the Web. Return to top
1678
Robert Boyle - Degredation of Gold
This is an interesting piece by Robert Boyle in the form of allegorical discourse about the possibility of alchemical transmutation. It was first published under the title Of a Degradation of Gold made by an anti-elixir: a strange chymical narrative. London, 1678. This book is now extremely rare. The text below was transcribed for me by Justin von Bujdoss from the second edition, issued in London in 1739. Return to top
1689
Glauber's work can be found including A Short Book of Dialogues, or, (Certain Colloquies) of some Studious Searchers, After the Hermetick Medicine and Universal Tincture.
[This extract is taken from the English translation by Christopher Packe of The Works... of Johann Rudolph Glauber printed in London in 1689. Although historians often portray Glauber as a proto-scientific chemist (he is credited with the identification of Glauber's Salt now known as Sodium Sulphate), Glauber worked extensively with alchemical ideas as well as developing laboratory techniques for distillation and control of furnaces. This extract illustrates very well Glauber's reworking of the classic sequence of colour changes in the process of transmutation. -A. McLean] | Return to top || Page 2 |
1854
Richard Green Parker , A school compendium of natural and experimental philosophy, embracing the elementary principles of mechanics, hydrostatics, hydrauics, pneumatics, acoustics, pyronomics, optics, electricity, galvanism, magnetic, electro-magnetic, magneto-electricity, and astronomy, containing also a description of the steam and locomotive engines, and of the electro-magnetic telegraph. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. 1854.
The first three chapters only are online.
- Division of the Subject
- Of Matter and Its Properties
- Of Gravity
1861
Scientific Secrets - Daniel Young 1861. Young's demonstrative translation of scientific secrets; or a collection of above 500 useful receipts on a variety of subjects. Toronto: Rowsell & Ellis, 1861 The whole book is recorded.