It is agreed almost by all, that chemistry was first cultivated in
Egypt, the country of Cham, of whom it is supposed primarily to have
taken its name, Χημεῑα, _Chemia, sive Chamia_, the science of Cham.
Tubal-Cain, and those who with him found out the way of working in brass
and iron, must have been able chemists; for it was impossible to work
upon these metals, without first knowing the art of digging them out of
the mine, of excavating them, and of refining and separating them from
the ore.
_Potable Gold._
From the story of the golden fleece, the golden apples that grew in the
gardens of the Hesperides, and the reports of Manethon and Josephus with
relation to Seth’s pillars, deductions have been made in favour of the
translation of metals; but to come to real and established facts, it
appears that Moses broke the golden calf, reduced it into powder, to be
mingled with water, and gave it to the Israelites to drink: in one word,
he rendered gold potable.
It was objected within a century, that this operation was impracticable,
and by some it was affirmed as having been impossible. But the famous
Joel Langelotte affirms in his works, that gold may be entirely
dissolved by attrition alone; and the ingenious Homberg assures us, that
by pounding for a long while certain metals, and even gold itself, in
_plain water_, those bodies have been so entirely dissolved as to become
potable. Frederic III., king of Denmark, being curious to ascertain the
fact, engaged some able chemists of his time to attempt it. After many
trials they at last succeeded, but it was in following the method of
Moses; by first of all reducing the gold into small parts by means of
fire, and then pounding it in a mortar with water, till it was so far
dissolved as to become potable. This fact is unquestionable; and
probably Moses, who was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians,
became acquainted with the method from that ancient and erudite people,
from whom the most eminent philosophers of Greece derived their
knowledge.
_Mummies._
The art of embalming bodies, and of preserving them for many ages, never
could have been carried so far as it was by the Egyptians, without the
greatest skill in chemistry. Yet all the essays to restore it have
proved ineffectual; reiterated analyses of mummies have failed to
discover the ingredients of which they were composed. There were also,
in those mummies of Egypt, many things besides, which fall within the
verge of chemistry: such as their gilding,[507] so very fresh, as if it
were but of fifty years’ standing; and their stained silk, vivid in its
colours at the end of three thousand years. In the British Museum there
is a mummy covered all over with fillets of granulated glass, various in
colour, which shows that at that time they understood not only the
making of glass, but could paint it to their liking. These glass
ornaments are tinged with the same colours, and set off in the same
taste, as the dyes in which almost all other mummies are painted.
_Painting on Cloth._
Their manner of painting upon linen was, by first drawing upon it the
outlines of the design, and then filling each compartment of it with
different sorts of gums, proper to absorb the various colours; so that
none of them could be distinguished from the whiteness of the cloth.
They then dipped it for a moment in a caldron full of boiling liquor
prepared for the purpose; and drew it thence, painted in all the colours
they intended. These colours neither decayed by time, nor moved in the
washing; the caustic impregnating the liquor wherein it was dipped,
having penetrated and fixed every colour intimately through the whole
contexture of the cloth.
_Imitation of Precious Stones._
The preceding instance is sufficient to prove that chemistry had made
great progress among the Egyptians. History affords similar instances of
extraordinary attainment by this wonderful people, who were so ingenious
and industrious, that even their lame, blind, and maimed were in
constant employment. With all this, they were so noble-minded, as to
inscribe their discoveries in the arts and sciences upon pillars reared
in holy places, in order to omit nothing that might contribute to the
public utility. The emperor Adrian attests this in a letter to the
consul Servianus, upon presenting him with three curious cups of glass,
which, like a pigeon’s neck, reflected, on whatever side they were
viewed, a variety of colours, representing those of the precious stone
called _obsidianum_, and which some commentators have imagined to be
_cat’s-eye_, and others the opal. In this art of imitating precious
stones, the Greeks, who derived their knowledge from the Egyptians, were
also very skilful. They could give to a composition of crystal all the
different tints of any precious stone they wanted to imitate. They
remarkably excelled in an exact imitation of the ruby, the hyacinth, the
emerald, and the sapphire.
_Gold--Nitre--Artificial Hatching, &c._
Diodorus Siculus says, that some of the Egyptian kings had the art of
extracting gold from a sort of white marble. Strabo reports their manner
of preparing nitre, and mentions the considerable number of mortars of
granite, for chemical purposes, that were to be seen in his time at
Memphis. They likewise, by artificial means, hatched the eggs of hens,
geese, and other fowls, at all seasons.
_Medical Chemistry._
Egyptian pharmacy depended much upon chemistry; witness their extracted
oils, and their preparations of opium, for alleviating acute pains, or
relieving the mind from melancholy thoughts. Homer introduces Helen as
ministering to Telemachus a medical preparation of this kind. They also
made a composition or preparation of clay or fuller’s earth, adapted to
the relief of many disorders, particularly where it was requisite to
render the fleshy parts dry, as in dropsy, &c. They had different
methods of composing salts, nitre, and alum, sal cyrenaïc or ammoniac,
so called from being found in the environs of the temple of Jupiter
Ammon. They made use of the litharge of silver, the rust of iron, and
calcined alum, in the cure of ulcers, cuts, boils, defluctions of the
eyes, pains of the head, &c.; and of pitch against the bite of serpents.
They successfully applied caustics. They knew every different way of
preparing plants, or herbs, or grain, whether for medicine or beverage.
Beer, in particular, had its origin among them. Their unguents were of
the highest estimation, and most lasting; and their use of remedies,
taken from metallic substances, is so manifest in the writings of Pliny
and Dioscorides, that it would be needless, and indeed tedious, to enter
upon them. The latter especially often mentions their metallic
preparations of burnt lead, ceruse, verdigrise, and burnt antimony, for
plasters and other external applications.
All these chemical preparations the Egyptians were acquainted with in
their pharmacy. The subsequent practice of the Greeks and Romans
presents a field too vast to be observed on. Hippocrates, the
contemporary and friend of Democritus, was remarkably assiduous in the
cultivation of chemistry. He not only understood its general principles,
but was an adept in many of its most useful parts. Galen knew that the
energy of fire might be applied to many useful purposes; and that, by
the instrumentality of it, many secrets in nature were to be discovered,
which otherwise must for ever lie hid; and he instances this in several
places of his works. Dioscorides has transmitted to us many of the
mineral operations of the ancients, and in particular that of extracting
quicksilver from cinnabar; which is, in effect, an exact description of
distillation.
[507] The ancients also understood gilding with beaten, or water
gold.--Æs inaurari argento vivo, legitimum erat. Plin. Hist. Natur.
lib. xxxiii. c. 3. Vitruv. lib. vii. c. 8.
* * * * *
_For the Table Book._