Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbaum here with a classic episode of the podcast.
Speaker 1: In this one, we delve into how the partially magical
Speaker 1: or spiritual study of alchemy, over the course of the
Speaker 1: second half of the second millennium ce slowly morphed into
Speaker 1: the scientific field of chemistry that we know today.
Speaker 2: Hey Brainstuff, Lauren bogelbaumb here with a question. When you
Speaker 2: think of alchemy, do you imagine wizards brewing up concoctions
Speaker 2: of bat wings and blood? Historians? What have you reconsider?
Speaker 1: Most researchers see alchemy not as fodder for fantasy stories
Speaker 1: and wickan ceremonies, but as the forerunner of modern science,
Speaker 1: particularly chemistry. Some of these people might have been among
Speaker 1: the best scientific minds of their eras blazing trails that
Speaker 1: led to scientific insights all over the world.
Speaker 2: Alchemy was, at its core, a way for inquisitive minds
Speaker 2: to explore the way the world worked, attempting to decipher
Speaker 2: nature's functions and leverage them for various purposes. To achieve
Speaker 2: those ends, alchemists theorized it was necessary to purify the body, spirit,
Speaker 2: and mind. People who practiced alchemy were searching for ways
Speaker 2: to a produce elixirs which would hopefully cure all kinds
Speaker 2: of diseases and b turn base metals like lead into
Speaker 2: precious ones like gold via some yet to be found
Speaker 2: substance called the Philosopher's Stone. We spoke via email with
Speaker 2: Peter Maxwell Stuart, who teaches history at the University of
Speaker 2: Saint Andrew's in Scotland. He explained the Chinese were particularly
Speaker 2: interested in the first search, the Western Europeans in the second.
Speaker 2: From the first centuries CE, China and India were practicing
Speaker 2: a form of alchemy. Europeans widely practiced alchemy during the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages, which was roughly one thousand CE through fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred CE, though the practice continued afterwards, waning through the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds but extending all the way into the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: thanks in part to beliefs that ultimately went back to
Speaker 2: Aristotle and the Greek philosophers. Alchemists thought that nature was
Speaker 2: always striving to perfect itself, and since gold was considered
Speaker 2: the perfect metal in part because it doesn't rust or tarnish,
Speaker 2: it was regarded as the end all be all of metals.
Speaker 2: There was an idea that because it was so perfect,
Speaker 2: all other metals would eventually turn into gold given enough time,
Speaker 2: due to some unknown natural process. So the alchemist was
Speaker 2: seeking to speed up this natural process in the laboratory.
Speaker 2: Maxwell Stewart said, given the basic assumptions of their belief systems,
Speaker 2: the alchemist's endeavors were entirely rational. Theoretically, too, alchemical experimentation
Speaker 2: might give an insight into God's intentions in creating the universe,
Speaker 2: the way he did with their boiling cauldrons and intricate crucibles. Alchemists,
Speaker 2: who were predominantly but not exclusively men, exhibited a willingness
Speaker 2: to experiment, a trial and error mentality that explored multiple
Speaker 2: disciplines in hope of illuminating nature's intricacies. Through on a
Speaker 2: scholarship and research, alchemists tinkered with chemical processes like dies
Speaker 2: and perfumes, and of course also found ways to change
Speaker 2: the properties of various alloys. One didn't attend any kind
Speaker 2: of university to learn these skills. Instead, the knowledge of
Speaker 2: master alchemists was transferred to apprentices under a shroud of secrecy.
Speaker 2: Because that knowledge was so powerful, alchemists wrote in obscure symbols,
Speaker 2: codes and metaphors to protect their ideas and insights. Despite
Speaker 2: all the mystery, not all the experiments were bogus. One
Speaker 2: Lawrence Principe, a chemist and science historian at Johns Hopkins University,
Speaker 2: decided to recreate a medieval alchemy experiment, one that he
Speaker 2: hoped would conjure a philosopher's tree, a structure that was
Speaker 2: thought to be a precursor to the philosopher's stone. He
Speaker 2: blended gold and mercury into a flask, which he then
Speaker 2: placed under warm sand in his lab. Days later, he
Speaker 2: was astonished to see that the recipe had in fact worked,
Speaker 2: generating a golden tree like structure that would have undoubtedly
Speaker 2: drawn even more awe. Centuries ago, these kinds of wonders
Speaker 2: may not have been possible if not for the work
Speaker 2: of countless alchemists of yore, who often used techniques like
Speaker 2: sublimation and distillation that would be familiar to any modern chemist.
Speaker 2: Swiss physician Paracelsus was one famous alchemist from the sixteenth century.
Speaker 2: Part prophet, part metallurgist, part doctor, he became known as
Speaker 2: the world's first toxicologist because he realized the correlation between
Speaker 2: dosage and toxicity that poisons in small doses might be
Speaker 2: helpful to humans, while larger doses could be fatal. In
Speaker 2: his work, Paracelsus gave rise to the concept of making
Speaker 2: clinical medical diagnoses and then treating conditions with specific medicines.
Speaker 2: During the seventeenth century, British inventor, philosopher and scientist Robert
Speaker 2: Boyle wished to find the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, which,
Speaker 2: in the alchemic tradition, was the most powerful force in nature.
Speaker 2: That power, he thought was a key to the secrets
Speaker 2: of the universe. Although Boyle is best known today for
Speaker 2: pioneering the scientific method and for the law named after him,
Speaker 2: he was enamored with alchemy all.
Speaker 1: Of his life.
Speaker 2: Boyle's law, by the way, says that the volume of
Speaker 2: a gas varies inversely with pressure. At the same time,
Speaker 2: Boyle was hard at work. Isaac Newton, that guy who
Speaker 2: gave shape to the laws of gravity and optics, was
Speaker 2: actively involved in alchemy for decades. He pursued alchemic secrets
Speaker 2: that he felt were perhaps even more fundamental than gravity.
Speaker 2: He hoped that in teasing out the chemical and mineral
Speaker 2: makeup of the world, scientists could perhaps find the one
Speaker 2: true essence of nature, thereby wielding immense power. With its
Speaker 2: roots divided between philosophical, religious, mystical, and scientific pursuits, alchemy
Speaker 2: eventually ran into the buzzsaw of rational thinking that developed
Speaker 2: during the Age of Enlightenment. Its secret of tendencies drew
Speaker 2: suspicions from the government and the church, and its associations
Speaker 2: with the occult didn't help e there As such, alchemy
Speaker 2: faded into obscurity, leaving behind a reputation colored by charlatanism
Speaker 2: and quackery. It's no wonder that ancient peoples first gaped
Speaker 2: at the perceived power of alchemists, and later, as more
Speaker 2: refined signice methods took hold, began to mock them. But
Speaker 2: with their legitimate chemical experimentations and applications, alchemists had already
Speaker 2: made their mark, paving the way for modern chemistry. Maxwell
Speaker 2: Stewart said experimentation almost inevitably resulted in the discovery of
Speaker 2: various substances hitherto either unknown or not understood. Phosphorus is
Speaker 2: an obvious example, and so that aspect of alchemy leads
Speaker 2: into modern chemistry. One particularly famous aspect of that chemistry
Speaker 2: is distillation, including distilling alcohol from sugary bruise into wine
Speaker 2: or beer and then into liquors. Today's episode is based
Speaker 2: on the article how Alchemy Paved the Way for Chemistry
Speaker 2: on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Nathan Chandler. Brain Stuff
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