The symbols are shown as images at the end of the file.
＋ Denotes anything sharp, gnawing, or corrosive; as vinegar or fire: being supposed to be stuck around with barbed spikes.
☉ Denotes a perfect immutable simple body, such as gold, which has nothing acrimonious or heterogeneous adhering to it.
☽ Denotes half gold, whose inside, if turned outward, would make it entire gold, as having nothing foreign or corrosive in it; which the alchemists observe of silver.
☿ Denotes the inside to be pure gold, but the outer part of the colour of silver and a corrosive underneath, which, if taken away, would leave it mere gold, and this the adepts affirm of mercury.
♀ Denotes the chief part to be gold; whereto, however, adheres another large, crude, corrosive part, which, if removed, would leave the rest possessed with all the properties of gold, and this the adepts affirm of copper.
♂ Likewise denotes gold at the bottom, but attended with a great proportion of a sharp corrosive, sometimes amounting to a half of the whole, whence half the character expresses acrimony; which, accordingly, both alchemists and physicians observe of iron,and hence that common opinion of the adepts that the aurum vivum, or gold of the philosophers, is contained in iron, and that the universal medicine is rather to be sought in this metal than in gold itself.
♃ Denotes half the matter of tin to be silver, the other a crude corrosive acid, which is accordingly confirmed by the assayers; tin proving almost as fixed as silver in the cupel, and discovering a large quantity of crude sulphur well known to the alchemists.
♄ Denotes almost the whole to be corrosive, but retaining some resemblance with silver, which the artists very well know holds true of lead.
♁2Denotes a chaos—world, or one thing which includes all: this is the character of antimony, wherein is found gold, with plenty of an arsenical corrosive.
The symbols, or at least some of them, may be traced even in the Chinese characters for gold, silver, &c.
The connection of Egypt with India shortly after the Christian era is distinctly indicated in the works of Apuleius. He lived in the early part of the second century after Christ, and was educated first at Carthage, then renowned as a school of literature. He then travelled extensively in Greece, Asia, and Egypt, and became initiated into many religious fraternities and an adept in their mysteries. He was admitted a priest of the order of Æsculapius, and describes the ceremony of the offering of the first-fruits by the priests of Isis, when the navigation opened in spring. The vessel, which was to be set adrift upon the ocean freighted with the offering, was splendidly decorated and covered with hieroglyphics, and after having been “purified with a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur,” was allowed to sail away into the unknown as a sacrifice to procure the safety of the convoy of ships which would soon after start upon their voyage. These rites were of great antiquity.
He speaks, in his first tale, of a witch who, by means of her magic charms, made not only her fellow-countrymen love her, but “the Indians even,” and in his initiation into the mysteries of Isis, his robes “bore pictures of Indian serpents.”
From what I have now laid before you, in what must necessarily be a very imperfect manner, you will see that there is good reason to believe that in the study of science and philosophy the Indian races were much in advance of the Western nations. The age of science amongst them is very great; we fail utterly intrying to find its beginning, unless we accept the tradition which ascribes toMenu, their great lawgiver (who is supposed to have been Noah), the saving of three out of the four divine books or Vedas from the deluge. This would carry us back to the Antediluvian times for the beginning of our investigations; but without taking any such extreme view of the subject we will find traces of science clearly marked out for us in the history of the Indian races.
The picture of the Brahmins, drawn by Apuleius in the second century, shows how little they have changed in historical times. He says:—
“The Indians are a populous nation of vast extent of territory, situated far from us to the east, near the reflux of the ocean and the rising of the sun, under the first beams of the stars, and at the extreme verge of the earth, beyond the learned Egyptians and the superstitious Jews and the mercantile Nabathæans; and the flowing robed Aracidae, and the Ityraeans, poor in crops, and the Arabians, rich in perfumes.
“Now, I do not so much admire the heaps of ivory of the Indians, their harvests of pepper, their bales of cinnamon, their tempered steel, their mines of silver, and their golden streams, nor that among them, the Ganges, the greatest of all rivers,
‘Rolls like a monarch on his course, and poursHis eastern waters through a hundred streams,Mingling with ocean by a hundred mouths,’
“nor that these Indians, though situated at the dawn of day, are yet of the colour of night, nor that among them, immense dragons fight with enormous elephants, with parity of danger to their mutual destruction, for they hold them enwrapped in their slippery folds, so that the elephants cannot disengage their legs or in any way extricate themselves from the scaly bonds of the tenacious dragons. They are forced to seek revenge from the fall of their own bulk and to crush their captors by the mass of their own bodies.
“There are amongst them various kinds of inhabitants. I will rather speak of the marvellous things of men than of those of nature.
“There is among them a race who know nothing but to tend cattle, hence they are called neatherds; there are races clever in trafficking with merchandise, and others stout in fight, whether with arrows, or hand to hand with swords.
“There is also among them a pre-eminent race called Gymnosophists.
“These I exceedingly admire, for they are men skilled not in propagating the vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They know not how to cultivate the fields, nor to wash gold, or to break horses, or to shear or feed sheep or goats.
“What is it, then, they know? One thing instead of all these. Theycultivate wisdom, both the aged professors and the young students. Nothing do I so much admire in them as that they hate torpor of mind and sloth.”
This does not look as if the Indians had been unknown or unappreciated in the second centuryA.D.
Apuleius is not alone in his respect for the Brahmins. Many of the Greek writers speak of them under the names of Brahmins or Gymnosophists, but always with great respect.
Strabo states, on the authority of Megasthenes (who it will be remembered was Ambassador from Persia, and lived for some years at Palibothra, about 307B.C.), that “there were two classes of philosophers or priests, the Brachmanes and the Germanes, but the Brachmanes are best esteemed.” Towards the close of his account of the “Brachmanes” he says:—
“In many things they agree with the Greeks, for they affirm that the world was produced, and is perishable, and that it is spherical; that God, governing it as well as framing it, pervades the whole; that the principles of all things are various, but water is the principle of the construction of the world; that besides the four elements there is a fifth, nature—whence heaven and the stars; that the earth is placed in the centre of all.
“Such, and many other things are affirmed of reproduction and of the soul. Like Plato, they devise fables concerning the immortality of the soul, and the judgment in the infernal regions, and other similar notions. These things are said of the Brachmanes.”
Clemens Alexandrinus, after saying that philosophy flourished in ancient times amongst the barbarians, and afterwards was introduced amongst the Greeks, instances the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldees of the Assyrians, the Druids of the Gauls (Galatæ), the Samauæans of the Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians, and the Gymnosophists of the Indians. The Greek authors distinctly speak of the Brahmins as the chief of the castes or divisions of the Indian people fromthe time of Megasthenes, who wrote of them in the fourth centuryB.C.
Sir William Jones, in a paper on the philosophy of the Asiatics, pointed out that “the old philosophers of Europe had some idea of centripetal force, and a principle of universal gravitation,” and affirms that “much of the theology and philosophy of our immortal Newton may be found in the Vedas.”
“Thatmost subtle spiritwhich he suspected to pervade natural bodies, and lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulsion, the emission, reflection and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as afifth element, endowed with these very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the sun, thence called ‘Aditya, or the attractor,’ a name designed by the mythologists to mean the child of the goddess Aditi. But the most wonderful passage on the theory of attractions occurs in the charming allegorical poem of ’Shi’ri’n and Ferhai’d, or the Divine Spirit, and a human soul disinterestedly pious,’ a work which, from the first verse to the last, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire.
“The whole passage appears to me so curious that I make no apology for giving you a faithful translation of it:—
“There is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to earth (the four elements!), from all below the moon to all above the celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of that natural attractability. The very point of the first thread in this apparently tangled skein is no other than such a principle of attraction, and all principles beside are void of a real basis: from such a propensity arises every motion perceived in heavenly or in terrestrial bodies; it is a disposition to be attracted which taught hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet; it is the same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itself firmly on amber; it is this quality which gives every substance in nature a tendency towards another, and an inclination forcibly directed to a determinate point.”
In Sir W. Ainslie’s Materia Medica of India the opinion of an old Hindoo author is given as to the qualifications required in a physician.
“He must be a person of strict veracity, and of the greatestsobriety and decorum: he ought to be skilled in all the commentaries on the ‘Ayur-Veda,’ and be otherwise a man of sense and benevolence: his heart must be charitable, his temper calm, and his constant study how to do good.
“Such a man is properly called a good physician, and such a physician ought still daily to improve his mind by an attentive perusal of scientific books.
*********
“Should death come upon us while under the care of a person of this description, it can only be considered as inevitable fate, and not the consequence of presumptuous ignorance.”
The knowledge of the Hindoos may be all said to be contained in their sacred books called the Vedas, which, although perfect as a whole, are actually divided into four parts, each in itself constituting a separate Veda under a special title. These are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda (white and black), the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, or Ayur-Veda. Although the last is admitted to be as a whole not so ancient as the other three, still there are portions of it that are probably as old as any of the others. Even in the oldest epic poems of the Hindoos mention is made of four Vedas as already in existence and as of great antiquity. Sir William Jones estimates the date of its compilation as certainly not afterB.C.1580.
These Vedas are considered by the Hindoos to contain the groundwork of all their philosophy, as well as of their arts and sciences, and they contain treatises on music, medicine, the art of war, and architecture.
Sir William Jones, in referring to the Ayur-Veda, says that, to his astonishment, he found in it an entire Upanishad on the internal parts of the human body, enumerating the nerves, veins, and arteries.
The Ayur-Veda was considered by the Brahmins to be the work of Brahma—by him it was communicated to Dacsha, the Prajapati, and by him, the two Aswins, or sons of Surya—the sun—were instructed in it, and thus became the medical attendants of the gods. A legend that cannot but recall to our mind the Greek myth of the two sons of Æsculapius and their descent from Apollo.
In the case of immortal gods the practice was confined to surgery, in treating the wounds received in the conflicts which were constantly described as occurring amongst the gods themselves, orbetween the gods and the demons. Of course they performed many miraculous cures, as would be expected from their superhuman character.
Professor Wilson published in theOriental Magazine, in 1823, some notices on early Hindoo Medicine, and he points out that the tradition is, that the above “two Aswins instructed Indra in medical and surgical art, that Indra instructedDahnwantari; although others make Atreya, Bharadwaja, and Charaka prior to the latter:—Charaka’s work, which goes by his name, is extant. Dahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah, or Prince of Kasi, or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, his work also exists.”
The Ayur-Veda, as the oldest medical writings of the Hindoos are collectively called, was divided into eight divisions. These are described by Professor Wilson as follows:—
“1st.Salya.—The art of extracting extraneous substances, violently or accidentally introduced into the body, with the treatment of the inflammation and suppuration thereby induced.
“The wordSalyameans a dart or arrow, and points clearly to the origin of this branch of Hindoo science.
“2nd.Salakya.—The treatment of external affections or diseases of the eyes, nose, ears, &c.
“3rd,Kayao Chikitsa.—The general application of medicine to the body, or the science of medicine, as opposed to surgery under the two first heads.
“4th.Bhutavidya, or demonology: the act of casting out demons, which we may take to mean the treatment of insanity, such as it was.
“5th.Kaumara bhritya, or the treatment of the diseases of women and children.
“6th.Agada.—The administration of antidotes.
“We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison was only too common an instrument of ambition or revenge.
“7th.Rasayana.—Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to say alchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substances mostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine or elixir which was to give immortal life.
“8th.Bajikarana.—Was connected with the means of promoting the increase of the human race.”
One of the articles of Hindoo medicine wasKsharaor alkaline salts,—these are directed to be obtained by burning different substancesof vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six times their measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used both internally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient applications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain.
I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been at the Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and also that the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the time of the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubt concerning this fact, as in Serapion’s works we find Charak actually mentioned by name; under the headDe Mirobalaniswe find “Et Xarch indus dixit;” and again, in another section “Xarcha indus;” there being no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight change in the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna, again, we find reference to “Scirak indum.” Rhazes, again, who was previous to Avicenna, has “Inquit Scarac indianus,” and again “Dixit Sarac;” in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yet been traced, “Sindifar,” or, as it is in another place, “Sindichar indianus.”
Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos, published in theOriental Magazine, examines into the distinctive qualities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that the description given in Avicenna, in the section “De Sanguisugis,” is almost identical with the Hindoo author’s description of the twelve sorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of the various sorts.
That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact that Avicenna says “Indi dixerunt.”
I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had access to the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if we carefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine as distinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that science of medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit.
It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant and highly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and the changes occurring in mixtures of various substances should have been unstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from being neglected by them.
Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate ofpotash, borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, common salt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinary men; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medical works, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they made by distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that they prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen pots, calling itGunduk Ka Attar, or “attar of sulphur.” Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined by Vauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids.
Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, dried and pounded with the above acid liquor.
Arsenic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venereal diseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and in intermittent fevers.
It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at the present time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still made and sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from time immemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation in the arts of subliming, distilling, &c.
Mr. Rodwell says, “that the distillation of cinnabar with iron, described by Dioscorides, is the first crude example of distillation, which afterwards became a principal operation among the alchemists and chemists for separating the volatile from the fixed.”
That this is an assumption which has no foundation in fact is evident, when we find in the Institutes ofMenumany enactments against the drinking of distilled spirits, and these made of various kinds and distilled from molasses (or sugar-cane juice), rice, and the madhuca flowers.
“A soldier or merchant drinking arak, mead, or rum are to be considered offenders in the highest degree,” and “for drinking spirits are to be branded on the forehead with a vintner’s flag,” rather a summary way of treating a drunkard, and one which would indicate that the ill effects of over-indulgence in spirituous liquors had been long known, when such severe enactments were made against it.
The method of distilling described by Mr. Kerr in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 1, is so simple that it is almost certain that it was employed in very ancient times for the purpose of distilling spirits, and also attars of various sorts, which, from time immemorial, would seem to have been a special production of India.
“The body of the still is a common large unglazed earthen water jar, nearly globular, of about 25 inches diameter at the widest part of it, and 22 inches deep to the neck, which neck rises 2 inches more, and is 11 inches wide in the opening; this was filled about a half with fermented mâhwah flowers, which swam about in the liquor to be distilled.
“This jar they placed in a furnace, not the most artificial, though not seemingly ill adapted to give a great heat with but very little fuel. This they made by digging a round hole in the ground, about 20 inches wide and full 3 feet deep, cutting an opening in the front sloping down to the bottom, perpendicular at the sides, about 9 inches wide and about 15 inches long, reckoning from the edge of the circle: this is to serve to throw in the wood and to allow a passage for the air; at the other side a small opening about 4 inches by 3 inches is made to serve as an outlet for the smoke, the bottom of the hole thus made was rounded like a cup.
“The jar was placed in this as far as it would go, and banked up with clay all round to about a fifth of its height, except at the two openings, when all was completed so far as the furnace was concerned.
“Fully one third of the still or jar was exposed to the heat when the fire was lighted; the fuel was at least 2 feet from the bottom of the jar.
“On to this jar there was now fitted what is called an adkur, this being made of two earthen pans with their bottoms turned towards each other, and a hole of about 4 inches diameter in the middle of each of them, the lower of these pans fitted the hole in the jar, and was luted with clay, the upper was luted to the lower one, and had a diameter of about 14 inches, the juncture formed a neck of about 3 inches, the upper pan was about 4 inches deep, with a rim round the central hole, this formed a gutter, and by means of a hollow bamboo luted to this, the spirit, as it condensed, ran off into the receiver.
“The arrangement was now completed by luting on a small copper pot or vessel about 5 inches deep, 8 inches wide at mouth, and about 10 inches at bottom, with its mouth downwards.
“The cooler was formed by placing on a support at the back of the furnace an earthen vessel containing a few gallons of water, from which, by means of a bamboo tube, the water was allowed to run on to the centre of the copper pot, from where it collected in the clay saucer, and ran off by a small hole and bamboo tube for use again.
“In about three hours’ time from lighting the fire, they draw off fully fifteen bottles of spirits.”
Comparing this simple form of apparatus with those described by Geber, we must admit that there is no doubt of the earlier date of this simple apparatus; and, as we have seen, distilled spirit is expressly mentioned in the Institutes ofMenu, we are bound to admit that distillation was in use long ere the Arabian times and that of Dioscorides.
Many such examples might be examined, but I will take one for illustration—that of the manufacture of common salt.
Let us take this manufacture as a typical one.
We find in Jackson’s Antiquities and Chronology of the Chinese that, 2500B.C., Shin-nong invented the method of obtaining salt from sea-water. He also gets credit for having composed books on medicine.
In George Agricola’s De Re Metallica (1561) there is a curious set of woodcuts representing the manufacture of salt, and in the first, in which the whole process of evaporating sea-water by the sun’s rays is shown most completely from the raising of the sluices to allow the water to flow into the various evaporating ponds, to the packing of the finished salt in barrels—it is a curious fact that the trees which are introduced arepalms, and the figure in the distance is dressed inOriental costume, while even the ship seems to partake of this character.
A more advanced state of things is shown in the third drawing of the 12th book, where a pan is shown, made of iron plates riveted together so as to form a flat sheet, which forms the bottom of the pan, of which the sides are composed of thick wood, strengthened with plates of iron at the corners.
The bottom of the pan has a series of iron eyes or loops, and these, when it is fixed over its furnace, are attached to iron rods, which are hung from a network of wooden bars, so that the whole bottom of the pan is supported securely at a considerable number of points.
The furnace is very simple, being simply a wall surrounding an oblong space, a little smaller than the pan, so that the sides of thelatter may rest on the walls all round, except for a small space in front where the fuel is introduced, which apparently burns on the ground alone.
The method of manufacturing salt in Japan is almost identical with that figured in Agricola. There is the same arrangement of salt garden or series of ponds and ditches, and the dirty salts mixed with sand are again lixiviated, and the filtered liquid is boiled down in curiously formed pans or boilers.
Of these there are two chief forms, the first being a tank or pan formed of large pieces of slate, with the joints made with clay, and surrounded with a mud wall. The whole is covered with an arch or vault and is filled with the brine, which is then evaporated by surface heat, the fire being placed at one end and the flue at the other.
The other form is very curious and interesting, and is almost identical in its principle of construction with the pan I have referred to as figured in Agricola, only in this case the materials are very different, being, instead of wood and iron, nothing more than clay or mud.
It was described officially by the Japanese, in their publications at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. The Japanese description of this apparatus is highly interesting. It is as follows:—
A low wall is built, enclosing a space of about 13 feet by 9 feet, the bottom forming a kind of prismatical depression, 3 feet deep in the centre line. An ashpit, 3 feet deep, is then excavated, starting from the front wall, and extending about 4 feet into this depression at its deepest place; it communicates with the outside by a channel sloping gradually upwards, and passing underneath the front wall. The ashpit is covered by a clay vault, with holes in its sides, so as to establish a communication between the ashpit and the hollow space under the pan. This vault is used as a fire grate, the fuel (brown coal and small wood) being inserted by the fire-door in the front wall. The air-draught necessary for burning the fuel enters partly by the fire-door, partly through the ashpit and the openings left in the vaulted grate. Through these same openings the ashes and cinders are from time to time pushed down into the ashpit, for which purpose small openings are left in the side-wall of the furnace, through which the rakes may be introduced. A passage in the back wall supporting the pan leads off the products of combustion and the hot air into a short flue, sloping upwards, and ending in a short vertical chimney. At the lowerpart some iron kettles are placed in the flue for the purpose of heating the lye before it is ladled into the evaporating pan.
With reference to the pan, it is made in a way that requires a great deal of skill and practice. In the first place, beams reaching from the one side to the other are laid on the top of the furnace walls, and are covered with wooden boards, forming a temporary floor. Two or three feet above this floor a strong horizontal network of poles of wood sustains a number of straw ropes, with iron hooks hanging down, and of such a length that the hooks nearly touch the wooden floor. The floor is thereupon covered with a mixture of clay and small stones, 4 to 5 inches thick, the workman being careful to incrustate the iron hooks into this material. It is allowed to dry gradually, and when considered sufficiently hardened, the wooden beams and flooring are removed with the necessary precautions. The bottom of the pan remains suspended by means of the ropes. The open spaces left all round between the bottom and the top of the furnace walls are then filled up, and the border of the pan, 9 inches to 10 inches high, is made of a similar mixture. It is said that this extraordinary construction lasts from 40 to 50 days when well made, and that it can be filled 16 times in 24 hours, with an average of 500 litres of concentrated lye at each filling; but the quantity depends upon the weather, and is less in winter than in summer. During the cold season one pan yields 140 litres (of salt) each time it is filled, and in the hot season from 190 to 210 litres. The average consumpt of fuel is said to be 1500 kilos. in 24 hours.
In Persia, near Ballakhan, salt is still made, and has been made from time immemorial, in a very primitive way, which is described by Bellen, in his description of his journey in 1872 from the Indus to the Tigris, as follows:—
“For several miles our road led over a succession of salt pits and ovens, and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary salt prepared here from the soil. It was in fine white granules massed together in the form of the earthen vessel in which the salt had been evaporated. The process of collecting the salt is very rough and simple. A conical pit or basin, 7 or 8 feet deep and about 12 feet in diameter is dug, and around it are excavated a succession of smaller pits, each about 2 feet diameter by 1½ feet deep. On one side of the large pit is a deep excavation, to which the descent from the pit is by a sloping bank. In this excavation is a domed oven with a couple of fireplaces. At a little distanceoff are the piles of earth scraped from the surface and ready for treatment. And, lastly, circling round each pit is a small water-cut led off from a larger stream running along the line of pits.
“Such is the machinery. The process is simply this:—A shovelful of earth is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a shovelful to each) circling the pit.
“The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run into the great central pit, by breaking away a channel for it with the fingers. The channel is then closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of earth washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears. It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and boiled to evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular salt. The jars are then broken, and the mass of salt (which retains its shape) is ready for conveyance to market.
“Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, and a good deal is taken to Kandahar. The quantity turned out here must annually be very great. The salt pits extend over at least ten miles of the country we traversed, and we certainly saw some thousands of pits.”
From what I have laid before you, it will be seen that I am strongly of opinion that we must go far beyond the time of Geber or the Arabian school for the origin of our science. The study of the question of its antiquity leads up to such remote times that there is little probability of any date being assigned to its beginning, and to some it may appear but a waste of time to indulge in researches upon the subject; but it has a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in addition, brings before our minds so many phases in the philosophical thought of the world, that it will no doubt long continue to exercise the minds and attract the attention of chemists.
In the course of my own study of the subject, I have felt much dissatisfied with the derivation of the name chemistry or alchemy, as it is given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to be derived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancient name for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the character of the science, I think I have found it in quite a different direction.
It is well known that in the old Hindoo philosophy there were recognized five elementary bodies or rather types. These were Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air, and the system ofMenu, of which the antiquity is enormous, recognizes as the greatest conception of the universe—
1st, God.2nd, Mind.3rd, Consciousness.4th, Matras.5th, Elements.
(matras being the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose the five elements previously named—viz., Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air).
Now, these elements, with the sun and moon, composed the attributes of the dual deity Iswara and Isi, representing the male and female natural powers, and, applying this to the famous Pythagorean triangle, we find that the upright symbol or male, which was the number or power 3, when combined with the female prostrate symbol, which was the number or power 4, gives a product in the Hypotenuse of 5, which is the number of the typical elements of the oldest known Hindoo philosophy. It is also the product of the first male and female numbers, and was anciently called the number of the world—repeated anyhow by an odd multiple it always reappears.
If now we consider chemistry as that science which has to deal with the changes and combinations of the five elements, and if we call it—
The science of the five parts or elements, should we not, when we find that the Arabic word for five iskhams, rather refer the name of our science to this word khams, and read it as
Al-Khams,The five-part science?
I am inclined, however, to go yet a step further, and remembering that thefifthelement or Ether of the most ancient Hindoo philosophy, was in reality an expression for active force, or, that emanating from the central sun caused the natural phenomena of attraction and repulsion, the emission and refraction of light, andother sensible changes of condition, would read the compound word
Al-Khamis(The fifth),
as the grand and simple title of our ancient science, meaning
The force—
that which causes the changes in the elementary types and their combinations—than which no more descriptive title could be assigned to it, even in the present enlightened age.
1.As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given in Bellew’sIndus to the Tigris), who, merely to pray for the recovery of his sick son, travelled with him from Ghazni by way of Kandahur and Shikarpur to Bombay, thence by way of sea to Baghdad, from there to Karbola, and back to Baghdad; and then by Kirmanshah and Kum to Teheran, on his way home to Ghazni, gives an indication of the long journeys taken under the most frightful difficulties. This long journey had occupied six months only, and we read that in former times twelve years were sometimes taken in trading journeys.
2.Transcriber’s Footnote:This symbol should look like an inverted “female” or “Venus”— a cross above a circle— but some fonts represent it as a crosswithina circle.
The complete set of symbols should appear as follows: