Alchemy: Chemistry's predecessor pt.1
Honestly, I blame the anime I was watching earlier, else I wouldn't be reading this up
Alchemy could very well be counted as the earliest form of chemistry, seeing as both disciplines involved the study of matter by analysis, synthesis and transmutation. But the origin of the word chemistry has been said to have come from the Arabic word alkimiya (al+kimiya), which means black magic. It was also thought to have come from the Greek word keme, which means black (you’ll find out why later). Basically, both disciplines were actually called magic before too but how is alchemy different from chemistry?
Well, alchemy is a much larger form of discipline. It’s a combination of religion, mythology, astrology, philosophy, magic, spirituality and folklore and given the fact, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that each continent has its own version of alchemy in one way or the other but the most well-known civilization that was first believed to have studied this were the Greeks. It was from them that the idea of having four elements came to play (earth, wind, fire, water) in the name of “roots”. It was believed that these roots could never be split but can only be combined (sounds like the game of doodle god, right?) but back then, this really was what they believed, constituted matter. They were the building blocks of the universe. Later on, the early alchemists came to the idea of turning one element to another, what we come to know as transmutation.
Further developments of alchemy came in the time of the great conqueror, Alexander the great. In his conquests, he collected as much scriptures as he did with gold and women. And from his conquest, much advancements in metal processing and transmutation came to life but so did metal plating and advancements in medicine.
And because I'm such a nerd with these things, I laid out the fundamentals of alchemy bit by bit from transmutation to the philosopher's stone to the stuff they used. Count this as the intro, perhaps?
History of Alchemy, (Solis, 2008)
I hope all is well in history 🤣