The Romance of Modern Chemistry

THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE equally absurd. Thus, for example, it was thought that just as an exhausted soil becomes fertile again after a time of rest, so a gold mine which was exhausted would, if left to itself for a long period, again yield abundance of the precious metal! As time went on many chemists, while still adhering to their belief in the transmutation of metals, began to work on other and more useful lines. One school, headed by Paracelsus, devoted themselves to studying the bearing of chemistry on medicine, and made a number of valuable discoveries in this direction. Paracelsus taught that “ the object of chemistry is not to make gold, but to prepare medicines,” and although this by itself is rather a limited field, it had the effect of gradually drawing men away from the pursuit of alchemy. The way was thus prepared for the rejection of the alchemistic doctrines, which had so long rested like a blight on real chemical science. A healthy desire arose to investigate chemical phenomena for the sake of knowledge alone, and it was under these con- ditions that Nature began to reveal her secrets more rapidly. Especially when the explorers discovered the great value of the balance and learned what it had to teach them about the commonplace phenomena of burn- ing, they got back again to the right lines of exploration. From that day to this there has been on the whole steady progress, and it is now our task to look at some of the secret marvels of Nature which have been revealed in these last one hundred and fifty years. 27