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Updated: June 8, 2025
Of chymistry, so far as it relates to medicine, the Arabs may be considered as the inventors; and botany, in the same connexion, they cultivated with great success. Geber, in the eighth century, is known as their principal chymical writer; he is said to have composed five hundred volumes, almost every one of which is lost.
Geber, however, vastly increased the possibilities of chemical experiment by the discovery of sulphuric, nitric, and nitromuriatic acids. He made use also of the processes of sublimation and filtration, and his works describe the water bath and the chemical oven.
The most famous of those early Arabic writers is the somewhat mythical Geber, who lived in the first half of the eighth century, and whose writings had an extraordinary influence throughout the Middle Ages.
He convinced every one that ventured to dispute with him; and spoke so eloquently upon the science of alchymy, that he was at once recognised as only second to the great Geber himself. One of the doctors present inquired whether a man who knew so many sciences was acquainted with music? Alfarabi made no reply, but merely requested that a lute should be brought him.
Trevisan was not without friends and advisers in the great search. Philosophers gathered about him like bees; and by their assistance, together with the formulæ in the works of Geber, he had soon spent 2000 crowns more. But he was not discouraged.
Be not deluded; some of the Philosophers which have wrote of such things, as Geber, Albertus Magnus, Rasis, Rupecissa, Aristotle, and many others: But observe this: Some say, that if Antimony be made to a Vitrum or Glass, the bad volatile Sulphur is gone, and the Oil which may be prepared out of that Glass, will be a very fixt Oil, and will really give an ingress and Medicine of perfection to the imperfect Metals.
He studied him assiduously for two years; and, being young, rich, and credulous, was beset by all the chymists of the town, who kindly assisted him in spending his money. He did not lose his faith in Geber, or patience with his hungry assistants, until he had lost two thousand crowns a very considerable sum in those days.
'Thalaba, the Destroyer' is progressing. There is a poem called 'Geber' of which I know not whether my review of it, in the Critical' be yet printed, but in that review you will find some of the most exquisite poetry in the language. The poem is such as Gilbert, if he were only half as mad as he is, could have written.
In the course of the night, the old man had several fits of restlessness and delirium; he would call out upon Theophrastus, and Geber, and Albertus Magnus, and other sages of his art; and anon would murmur about fermentation and projection, until, toward daylight, he once more sunk into a salutary sleep.
"Von Helmont, in the same pursuit, discovered the properties of gas," says Mackay; "Geber made discoveries in chemistry, which were equally important; and Paracelsus, amid his perpetual visions of the transmutation of metals, found that mercury was a remedy for one of the most odious and excruciating of all the diseases that afflict humanity." As we shall see a little farther on, alchemy finally evolved into modern chemistry, but not until it had passed through several important transitional stages.
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