[Transcriber’s Note:Typographical errors are listed at the end of the file. Misspelled Greeknames were treated as errors; others are noted but not changed. ]

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President’s Opening Address to Chemical Section. 

 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CHEMICAL ART. 

 By JAMES MACTEAR, F. C. S. , F. C. I. 

THE PRESIDENT’S OPENING ADDRESS TO THE CHEMICAL SECTION. 

_On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art. _ By JAMES MACTEAR, F. C. S. , F. C. I. , Member of the International Jury, Paris, 1878, and Medalist of the Society of Arts. 

 [Read before the Section, December 8th, 1879. ]

The study of the History of Chemistry as an art, or as a science, is onewhich possesses peculiar fascination for its votaries. It has been thesubject of deep research and much discussion, much has been written uponthe subject, and many theories have been broached to account for itsorigin. We have had laid before us by Professor Ferguson, in his paperson this subject of Chemical History, very clearly and fully thegenerally-accepted position as regards the origin of the science, and inthe last of these papers, entitled “Eleven Centuries of Chemistry, ” hedeals with the subject in a most complete manner, tracing back throughits various mutations the development of the science to the time ofGeber, in or about the year A. D. 778. 

Of Geber, as a chemist, Professor Ferguson writes, “He was thefirst--because, although he himself speaks of the ancients, meaningthereby his forerunners, nothing is known of these older chemists. ”

Rodwell, in his “Birth of Chemistry, ” after a careful examination of thequestion, comes to the conclusion that, “in spite of all that has beenwritten on the subject, there is no good evidence to prove that alchemyand chemistry did not originate in Arabia not long prior to the eighthcentury, A. D. , ” bringing us again to the times of Geber. 

He is not alone in this opinion, and it seems to be generally acceptedthat chemistry originated in the Arabian schools about this period. 

In dealing with the question of the antiquity of chemical art, it hasbeen too much the habit to look at the question with a view ofdiscovering when and who it was that first brought forth, fully clothedas a science, the art of chemistry. 

Let us look at the definition of the science given by Boerhæve, about1732. He describes chemistry as “an art which teaches the manner ofperforming certain physical operations, whereby bodies cognizable to thesenses, or capable of being rendered cognizable, and of being containedin vessels, are so changed by means of proper instruments as to producecertain determinate effects, and at the same time discover the causesthereof, for the service of the various arts. ”

Now, it is amply evident that, long before the various known facts couldbe collected and welded into one compact whole as a science, there musthave existed great store of intellectual wealth, as well as merehereditary practical knowledge of the various chemical facts. 

I do not think it will be disputed that, until comparatively recenttimes, technical knowledge has constantly been in advance of theory, andthat it is not too much to conclude that, no matter where we first findactual records of our science, its natal day must have long beforedawned. Even in our day, when theoretical science, as applied tochemistry, has made such immense strides, how often do we find that itis only now that theory comes in to explain facts, known as such longprevious, and those engaged in practical chemical work know how muchtechnical knowledge is still unwritten, and what may even be calledtraditionary. 

I purpose taking up the subject from this point of view, and attempting, with what little ability I can, to follow back to a still more remoteperiod than that of Geber and the Arabian school of philosophers thetraces of what has often been called the divine art. 

An aspect of the question that has often presented itself to me is this, that the history of what we call our world extends over some 4000 yearsbefore Christ and 1878 years since, so that, according to the usuallyaccepted idea, if chemistry originated in Arabia in the eighth century, it was not known during say the first 5000 years of the world’s history, but has advanced to its present high position amongst the sciences inthe last 1000 years. 

I hope to be able to show that, while the Arabian school of philosophyget the credit of originating most of the sciences, that it is asundeserved in the case of chemical science as in that of astronomy ormathematics. At the same time let us not undervalue the servicesrendered to science by this school: it is to them we owe thedistribution of the knowledge of most of our sciences, and the Arabicliterature of most of these was widely spread abroad over all the knownworld of their time. 

The central portion of Baghdad between the eastern and western portionsof the Old World, and the wise and enlightened policy of its rulers, which welcomed to its schools, without reference to country or creed, the wise and learned men of every nation, drew to it as to a centre theaccumulated wisdom and knowledge of both the rising and the setting sun. Long ere this time, however, we find, as regards the Greeks, that theyconstantly travelled eastward in search of learning, while we know thatthe expedition of Alexander the Great, about B. C. 327, in which hetraversed a considerable portion of India, had already opened up thestore-houses of Indian lore to the minds of the West. 

In connection with this, the following extract from an old book: called_The Gunner_, dated 1664, is interesting:--

“In the life of Apollonius Tyanæus, written by Philostratus 1500 yearsago, we find, in reference to the Indians called Oxydra: These trulywise men dwelled between the rivers Hyphasis and Ganges; their countryAlexander the Great never entered, being deterred, not by fear of theinhabitants, but, as I suppose, by, religious considerations, for had hepassed the Hyphasis, he might doubtless have made himself master of thecountry all round him; but their cities he could never have taken, though he had led a thousand as brave as Achilles or ten thousand suchas Ajax to the assault. For they come not out into the field to fightthose who attack them; but these holy men, beloved of the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunder-bolts shot from theirwalls. 

“It is said that Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus (Dionysius), when theyoverran India, invaded this people also, and having prepared warlikeengines, attempted to conquer them. They made no show of resistance, butupon the enemy’s near approach to their cities they were repulsed withstorms of lightning and thunder hurled upon them from above. ”

May we not here have the original of the Greek fire, that was in its dayso celebrated and so destructive?

Beginning then at the period of Geber, about 776 A. D. , let us try towork backwards and trace, if we can, the progress of chemical knowledgedown the stream of time. 

While the Western Roman Empire had fallen, the Eastern still held itssway as far as the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and continued thecontest with the Persian power for the supremacy in Asia. At this timethe various creeds and beliefs of the Arabian tribes--which had beenmuch influenced by the settlement amongst them of Jews who had beendispersed at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and many of thesects of Christians who had been driven from the Roman empire by themore orthodox--were deeply stirred by the new doctrine of Islam, preached by Mahomet, A. D. 622, proclaiming the Koran as the rule oflife, and the destruction of the ancient Arabian worship of the starsand sun and moon. 

The religion of “the one God and Mahomet his prophet” took deep root, and the injunction to pursue the unbelieving with fire and sword wasfollowed out with such unrelenting vigour that, within less than acentury from the death of Mahomet, the Arabian power had extended itssway amongst nearly every tribe and nation that had owned the rule ofthe Roman or Persian empires, and had reached from Spain to India, fromSamarcand to the Indian Ocean. 

Egypt and Syria were conquered between A. D. 632-39, and Persia aboutA. D. 632-51. Their attempts to take Constantinople by siege failed bothin A. D. 673 and 716. But they were more successful on the African shoresof the Mediterranean, which they swept along till they crossed theStraits of Gibraltar and entered Spain in A. D. 709. Their furtherprogress--through France--was stayed by their defeat in a great battlefought at Tour’s, when the Gauls, under Charles Martel, forced them toretire ultimately across the Pyrenees. 

Internal dissension had, however, arisen amongst them, and the rulingdynasty of the Ommiades was overthrown in A. D. 750 by the Abassides, whoestablished themselves at Damascus; and with them began that cultivationof the arts and sciences which has thrown such lustre on the Arabianschool. 

One of the princes of the Ommiades who had escaped made his way to Spainand there re-established the power of his family, with Cordova as acentre, about A. D. 755. Thus it was that the Saracenic power was dividedinto an Eastern and a Western Caliphate. 

It was under the prosperous rule of the Abassides that such an impulsewas given to learning of every kind, and that the Arabian school ofphilosophy, which has left behind it such glorious records of itsgreatness, was founded. The Caliph Al-Mansour was the first, so far aswe know, who earnestly encouraged the cultivation of learning; but itwas to Haroun Al-Raschid, A. D. 786-808 (?), that the Arabians owed theestablishment of a college of philosophy. He invited learned men to hiskingdom from all nations, and paid them munificently; he employed themin translating the most famous books of the Greeks and others, andspread abroad throughout his dominions numerous copies of those works. 

His second son, Al-Mamoon, while governor of the province of Kohrassan, we are told, formed a college of learned men from every country, andappointed as the president John Mesue, of Damascus. It is said that hisfather, complaining that so great an honour had been conferred on aChristian, received the reply--“That Mesue had been chosen, not as ateacher of religion, but as an able preceptor in useful arts andsciences; and my father well knows that the most learned men and themost skilful artists in his dominions are Jews and Christians. ”

That this was the case can scarcely be doubted when we consider that theJews had always been familiar with many arts and sciences, and that, asis well known, at the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, when the Jewswere dispersed in every direction, they spread over, not alone thecountries under the Roman rule, but to Greece, Egypt, and theMediterranean coast, as well as great part of Asia Minor, carrying withthem, not only their peculiar religious traditions, but also their arts, which, we know, especially as regards the working of metals, were of nomean order, and their sciences, of which the so-called magic andastrology had been assiduously cultivated. 

In Asia the dispersed Jews established patriarchates at Tiberias in thewest, and at Mahalia, and afterwards at Baghdad, for the Jews who werebeyond the Euphrates. 

Seminaries were founded at these centres for the rabbis, and constantintercourse was kept up between them. It was in these schools that theTalmud was compiled from the traditionary exposition of the OldTestament, between A. D. 200 and A. D. 500, when it was completed, andreceived as a rule of faith by most of the scattered Jews. 

That the cultivation of science was not neglected we may be sure fromthe keen interest taken in all ages by the Jews in magical andastrological inquiries. We read in Apuleius, in his defence on theaccusation of magic brought against him, that of the “four tutorsappointed to educate the princes of Persia, one had to instruct himspecially in the magic of Zoroaster and Oromazes, which is the worshipof the gods. ” Apuleius wrote about 200 A. D. , and his works teem withreferences to magic and astrology. 

The fact that Jews and Christians were looked on as learned men will notsurprise us, when we find that the Jews had established schools so longanterior to the foundation of the college of Baghdad. The rapid progressmade by the Arabians, and the wise policy of the Abasside Caliphs, underwhose judicious rule learning was so liberally encouraged, aided by theposition of Baghdad, which formed, as it were, a centre to which thewisdom of both eastern and western minds gravitated, attracted to theirschools all those of every nation who boasted themselves philosophers. 

The first translations from the Greek authors are supposed to have beenmade about A. D. 745, and are known to have been on the subjects ofphilosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. These translations areunderstood to have been made by Christian or Jewish physicians. 

As we have seen, the Jews had already established themselves at Baghdad, and had founded schools of their own previous to the formation of thecollege under Caliph Al-Mansour; but further than this we find theChristians spread widely over the countries of Asia Minor, and we aretold, on the authority of Cosmo-Indicopleustes, that so early as A. D. 535 there was in almost every large town in _India_ a Christian Churchunder the Bishop of Seleucia. 

With these facts before us--1st, that Christian physicians were theleaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that largenumbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India atleast two hundred years previously to the establishment of the collegeat Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the centralpoint of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been thecourse of communication between the East and West, can we doubt that anextensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not expect tofind some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the teachingof the Arabian school. [1]

 [Footnote 1: As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given in Bellew’s _Indus 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. ]

In Vol. VIII. Of the Journal of Education we find a notice that“Professor Dietz, of the University of Königsberg, who had spent fiveyears of his life in visiting the principal libraries of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, and England, in search of manuscripts ofGreek, Roman, and Oriental writers on medicine, is now engaged inpublishing his ‘Analecta Medica. ’

“The work contains several interesting papers on the subject of physicalscience among the Indians and Arabians, and communicates severalintroductory notices and illustrations from native Eastern writers. Dietz proves that the late Greek physicians were acquainted with themedical works of the Hindus, and availed themselves of theirmedicaments; but he more particularly shows that the Arabians werefamiliar with them, and extolled the healing art, as practised by theIndians, quite as much as that in use among the Greeks. 

“It appears from Ibn Osaibe’s testimony (from whose biographical workDietz has given a long abstract on the lives of Indian physicians), thata variety of treatises on medical science were translated from theSanscrit into Persian and Arabic, particularly the more importantcompilations of Charaka and Susruta, which are still held in estimationin India; and that Manka and Saleh--the former of whom translated aspecial treatise on poisons into Persian--even held appointments asbody-physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Raschid. ”

As the age of the medical works of Charaka and Susruta is incontestablymuch more ancient than that of any other work on the subject (except theAyur Veda)--as we shall see when we come to consider the science of theHindoos--this in itself would be sufficient to show that the Arabianswere certainly not the originators of either medical or chemicalscience. 

We should not forget that it is only to their own works and theirtranslations, chiefly by the Greeks, we owe our knowledge of the stateof Arabian science, and that it is only in rare cases that we have givena list of works consulted, so that we can gather the sources from whichtheir knowledge was derived. It would scarcely be imagined, from readingthe works of Roger Bacon, or of Newton, that they had derived some, atleast, of their knowledge from Arabian sources; and yet such is known tohave been the case with them both. 

Let us now glance backwards from the Arabians to the Greeks. 

It is supposed that the first translations from the Greek authors weremade for the Caliphs about 745 A. D. , and were first translated intoSyriac, and then into Arabic. The works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides are known to have been translatedunder the reign of Al-Mansour. 

Granting for the moment that the first knowledge of the sciences wasobtained by the Arabians from the Greeks, we are at once face to facewith the question. From whence did the Greeks obtain their knowledge? Toany careful reader it will be clear that Grecian science and philosophy, like Grecian theology, was not of native birth. It is comparatively wellknown that the Greeks were indebted to the Egyptians for much of theirtheology as well as science. The great truths which really underlay themysterious religious rites of Egypt seem to have been altogether lostwhen the Greeks wove their complicated system of theology; and we readthat the Egyptian priests looked on the Greeks as children who failed tounderstand the great mysteries involved in their religious rites, disguised as they were in symbolic form. But, besides their indebtednessto Egypt, we will find that they also owed much to Persia, and throughit again to Indian sources of knowledge. 

There was constant communication between the Grecian and Persiannations. We learn that it was not uncommon for Grecian generals to takeservice under the Persian Satraps, tempted by the liberal recompencewith which their services were rewarded. About the year 356 B. C. Thissystem of Greeks accepting service under Persian Satraps nearly causedthe outbreak of war between Greece and Persia--Chares, a Greciancommander, having assisted with his fleet and men, Artabanus, the Satrapof Propontis, who was then in revolt against the Persian king. Butbefore this, during the great plague which desolated Athens in 430 B. C. , and which also extended to Persia, Hippocrates was invited to go to thePersian Court; and it is on record that Ctesias was for seventeen yearsphysician at the Persian Court about 400 B. C. , during which period hewrote his history of Persia, and an account of India, which ProfessorWilson, in a paper read to the Ashmolean Society of Oxford, has shown tocontain notices of the natural productions of the country, “which, although often extravagant and absurd, are, nevertheless, founded ontruth. ”

There were, too, Grecian soldiers employed as paid auxiliaries, and acolony of Greeks who had been taken prisoners of war was founded withina day’s journey of Susa. 

The great expedition to Persia, and the graphic description of theretreat of the “ten thousand” Greeks, given by Xenophon in his Anabasis, must have been well known to Alexander the Great when he set out on hiscareer of conquest. He overthrew the Persian empire in 331 B. C. , havingdestroyed Tyre and subdued Egypt in the previous year and carried histriumphant progress to the banks of the Indus, and there he “heldintercourse with the learned sages of India. ” On Alexander’s deathSeleucus succeeded to the throne of Persia in 307 B. C. , and not longafter he forced his way beyond the Indus, and ultimately as far as thesacred river Ganges. He formed an alliance with the Indian kingSandrocottus (otherwise known as Chandra-gupta), which was maintainedfor many years, and it is said, also, that he gave his daughter inmarriage to the Indian king, and aided him with Grecian auxiliaries inhis wars. 

He sent an expedition by sea, under the command of Patrocles hisadmiral, who visited the western shores of India, and a little later hedespatched an embassy under Megasthenes and Onesicrates, the former ofwhom resided for some years at the “great city” of Palibothra (supposedto be Patna). 

Not long after Megasthenes was at Palibothra, Ptolemy Philadelphus sentan expedition overland through Persia to India, and later PtolemyEuergetes, who lived between 145-116 B. C. , sent a fleet under Eudoxiuson a voyage of discovery to the western shores of India, piloted, as issaid, by an Indian sailor who had been shipwrecked, and who had beenfound in a boat on the Red Sea. Eudoxius reached India safely, andreturned to Egypt with a cargo of spices and precious stones. 

The proof of very ancient communication between Greece and India isquite clear, both by way of Persia and Egypt, and we find that theGreeks, who were in the habit of calling all other nations barbarians, speak constantly with respect of the gymnosophists--called “SapientesIndi” by Pliny. We read also of the Greek philosophers constantlytravelling eastward in search of knowledge, and on their return settingup new schools of thought. Thales, it is affirmed, travelled in Egyptand Asia during the sixth century B. C. , and it is said of him that hereturned to Miletus, and transported that vast stock of learning whichhe had acquired into his own country. 

He is generally considered as the first of the Greek philosophers. Strabo says of him that he was the first of the Grecian philosophers whomade inquiry into natural causes and the mathematics. 

The doctrine of Thales, that water was the first elementary principle, is exactly that of the ancient Hindoos, who held that water was thefirst element, and the first work of the creative power. This idea wasnot completely exploded even up till the 18th century. We find VanHelmont affirming that all metals, and even rocks, may be resolved intowater; and Lavoisier, so lately as 1770, thought it worth while tocommunicate an elaborate paper “On the nature of water and theexperiments by which it has been attempted to prove the possibility ofconverting it into earth. ”

Pythagoras, perhaps the greatest of all Greek philosophers, it is known, travelled very widely, spending no less than twenty-two years in Egypt. He also spent some considerable time at Babylon, and was taught the loreof the Magi. 

In the famous satire of Lucian on the philosophic quackery of his day(about 120 A. D. ), “The Sale of the Philosophers, ” we have a mostinteresting account of the system of Pythagoras. 

_Scene--A Slave Mart. _Jupiter_, _Mercury_, _philosophers_, in the garbof slaves, for sale. Audience of buyers. _

_Jupiter. _--Now, you arrange the benches, and get the place ready forthe company. You bring out the goods and set them in a row; but trimthem up a little first, and make them look their best, to attract asmany customers as possible. You, Mercury, must put up the lots, and bidall comers welcome to the sale. Gentlemen, --We are here going to offeryou philosophical systems of all kinds, and of the most varied andingenious description. If any gentleman happens to be short of readymoney he can give his security for the amount, and pay next year. 

_Mercury (to Jupiter). _--There are a great many come; so we had bestbegin at once, and not keep them waiting. 

_Jupiter. _--Begin the sale, then. 

_Mercury. _--Whom shall we put up first?

_Jupiter. _--This fellow with the long hair--the Ionian. He’s rather animposing personage. 

_Mercury. _--You, Pythagoras, step out, and show yourself to the company. 

_Jupiter. _--Put him up. 

_Mercury. _--Gentlemen, we here offer you a professor of the very bestand most select description. Who buys? Who wants to be a cut above therest of the world? Who wants to understand the harmonies of the universeand to live two lives?

_Customer (turning the philosopher round and examining him). _--He’s notbad to look at. What does he know best?

_Mercury. _--Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, andconjuring. You’ve a first-rate soothsayer before you. 

_Customer. _--May one ask him a few questions?

_Mercury. _--Certainly--(_aside_), and much good may the answers do you. 

_Customer. _--What country do you come from?

_Pythagoras. _--Samos. 

_Customer. _--Where were you educated?

_Pythagoras. _--In Egypt, among the wise men there. 

_Customer. _--Suppose I buy you, now, what will you teach me?

_Pythagoras. _--I will teach you nothing--only recall things to yourmemory. 

_Customer. _--How will you do that?

_Pythagoras. _--First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all therubbish. 

_Customer. _--Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh thememory?

_Pythagoras. _--First, by long repose and silence, speaking no word forfive whole years. 

_Customer. _--Why, look ye, my good fellow, you’d best go teach the dumbson of Crœsus! I want to talk and not be a dummy. Well--but after thissilence, and these five years?

_Pythagoras. _--You shall learn music and geometry. 

_Customer. _--A queer idea, that one must be a fiddler before one can bea wise man!

_Pythagoras. _--Then you shall learn the science of numbers. 

_Customer. _--Thank you, but I know how to count already. 

_Pythagoras. _--How do you count?

_Customer. _--One, two, three, four----

_Pythagoras. _--Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle, and the great oath by which we swear. 

_Customer. _--Now, so help me, the great ten and four, I never heard moredivine or more wonderful words!

_Pythagoras. _--And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth, and Air, and Water, and Fire--what is their action, and what their form, and what their motion. 

_Customer. _--What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?

_Pythagoras. _--Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how couldthey move! Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in Number, Mind, and Harmony. 

_Customer. _--What you say is really wonderful. 

_Pythagoras. _--Besides what I have just told you, you shall understandthat you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebodyelse. 

_Customer. _--What! do you mean to say I’m somebody else, and not myself, now talking to you?

_Pythagoras. _--Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time youappeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you willpass again into another shape still. 

(After a little more discussion of this philosopher’s tenets, he ispurchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Græca for tenminæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic. )

Apuleius says in the Florida, Section XV. , in reference to Pythagoras, that he went to Egypt to acquire learning, “that he was there taught bythe priests the incredible power of ceremonies, the wonderfulcommutations of numbers, and the most ingenious figures of geometry; butthat, not satisfied with these mental accomplishments, he afterwardsvisited the Chaldæans and the Brahmins, and amongst the latter theGymnosophists. The Chaldæans taught him the stars, the definite orbitsof the planets, and the various effects of both kinds of stars upon thenativity of men, as also, for much money, _the remedies for human usederived from the earth, the air, and the sea_ (the elements earth, air, and water, or all nature). 

“But the Brahmins taught him the greater part of his philosophy--whatare the rules and principles of the understanding; what the functions ofthe body; how many the faculties of the soul; how many the mutations oflife; what torments or rewards devolve upon the souls of the dead, according to their respective deserts. ”

There is ample evidence, therefore, that the Greeks had communicationwith, and borrowed the philosophy of, both Persia and India at a veryearly date. 

That there was intimate intercourse with India in very ancient timesthere can be no doubt. In addition to the classical sources ofinformation collected chiefly by the officers of Alexander the Great, Seleucus and the Ptolemies, and which was condensed and reduced toconsistent shape by Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian, within thefirst century before and the first century after Christ, we have thefurther proof of the fact by the constant finds of innumerable Greekcoins over a large portion of north-western India, and even at Cabul. These, so far as yet known, commence with the third of the Seleucidæ, and run on for many centuries, the inscriptions showing that the Greekcharacters were used in the provinces of Cabul and the Punjab even solate as the fourth century A. D. The consideration of these coins of theGræco-Persian empire of the Seleucidæ naturally leads us to theconsideration of the Persians. 

I have already shown that the Greeks and Persians held intimaterelations with each other as early as the fourth century B. C. , and fromthe speech of Demosthenes against a proposed war with Persia, deliveredin 354 B. C, we may well believe that they had already had a long andintimate connection with each other. The passage rends thus:-

“All Greeks know that, so long as they regarded Persia as their commonenemy, they were at peace with each other, and enjoyed much prosperity, but since they have looked upon the King (of Persia) as a friend, andquarrelled about disputes with each other, they have suffered worsecalamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon them. ”

The Persian empire was founded by Cyrus, about B. C. 560, and rapidlyrose to be perhaps the greatest power of the world of that age. The riseof the Persian empire is not unlike that of the Arabian power in regardto the wide range of conquest achieved in a very limited period. Itsactual existence, from the foundation of the empire by Cyrus in B. C. 560to the death of Darius III. , was barely two centuries and a half. 

Previous to the Persian empire there existed three principal powers inAsia--the Medes, the Chaldæans or Babylonish, and the Lydian. Of thesethe Medes and Chaldæans were the most ancient, and their joint powerwould seem to have extended eastward as far as the Oxus and Indus. 

Of these nations the Babylonians were the most highly civilized, and, did time permit, we might find much that would interest and instruct inexamining the various facts relating to the arts and sciences amongstthese nations. We know that arts and sciences must have been diligentlycultivated amongst them, and that magic and astrology were held in highrepute. 

That the Persians were well acquainted with other nations is shownclearly from the remains of their great city of Persepolis, where thesculptured figures represent many types of mankind--the negro, withthick lips and flat nose, and with his crisp, wooly hair, clearly cut;and the half-naked Indian, with his distinguishing features, beingeasily singled out from many others. 

Persia held sway over a huge district of India--the limits of this arenot known; but, in addition, they were well acquainted with a largeportion of the north-western part of India. 

The traditions and historical records of the Persians are contained inthe famous series of writings culled the Zend-avesta. These writingsare, it is thought, of an age even before the Persian dynasty wasestablished; and it has been shown by the researches of M. Anguetil andSir W. Jones that there is indeed a great probability of the Zend havingbeen a dialect of the ancient Sanscrit language. In the vocabularyattached to M. Anguetil’s great work on the Zend-avesta no less than 60to 70 per cent. Of the words are said to be pure Sanscrit. 

As the oldest known language of Persia was Chaldæic, we are again thrownback on Indian sources for the origin of the great book of the ancientPersians. Even the name of the priests of the Persian religion ofZoroaster, Mag or Magi, is of Sanscrit derivation. 

The Persians kept up an enormous army, which was spread through all thevarious provinces and Satrapies, and consisted in great part of paidauxiliaries. In at least the later period of Persian power the Greekswere preferred to all others, and in the time of Cyrus the Younger theycomposed the flower of the Persian army, and were employed ingarrisoning most of the chief cities of Asia Minor. 

The description given by Herodotus of the vast army and fleet preparedfor the expedition of Xerxes against the Greeks gives us an idea of theextent of the Persian power, and of the wide range of countries andnations over which they held sway. The review held on the Plain ofDoriscus was perhaps the greatest military spectacle ever beheld eitherbefore or since. Herodotus enumerates no less than 56 different nations, all of them in their national dress and arms. Besides the Persians therewere “Medes and Bactrians; Libyans in war chariots with four horses;Arabs on camels; Sagartians, wild huntsmen who employed, instead of theusual weapons of the time, the lasso; the nomadic tribes of Bucharia andMongolia; Ethiopians in lions’ skins, and Indians in cotton robes;Phœnician sailors, and Greeks from Asia Minor. ” All these and manyothers were there assembled by the despotic power of the Persian king. 

The system of government employed by the Persians, and the constantreports and tributes sent from every province to the central court ofthe king, were well calculated to bring to it, as to a focus, thecurious lore of the various nations who came in contact with or weresubdued by them. 

The Persians were famed for their knowledge of astronomy and astrology, and were said “to have anciently known the most wonderful powers ofnature, and to have therefore acquired great fame as magicians andenchanters. ”

The close relation between the Persian religious traditions and those ofthe Hindoos is very striking. According to Mohsan, “The best informedPersians, who professed the faith of Hu-shang as distinguished from thatof Zeratusht, believes that the first monarch of Iran, and, indeed, ofthe whole world, was Mahabad (a word apparently Sanscrit), who dividedthe people into four orders, --the religious, the military, thecommercial, and the servile, to which he assigned names unquestionablythe same as those now applied to the four primary classes of theHindoos. ”

They added, “that he received from the Creator and promulgated amongstmen a _sacred book in a heavenly language_, to which the Musselmanauthor gives the _Arabic_ title of _Desatir_, or Regulations, but theoriginal name of which he has not mentioned; and that _fourteenMahabads_ had appeared, or would appear, in human shapes for thegovernment of this world. ”

“Now when we know that the Hindoos believe in _fourteen Menus_, orcelestial persons with similar functions, the _first_ of whom left abook of _regulations_, or divine ordinances, which they hold equal tothe _Veda_, and the language of which they believe to be that of thegods, we can hardly doubt that the first corruption of the purest andoldest religion was the system of _Indian_ theology invented by the_Brahmins_ and prevalent in those territories where the book of Mahabad, or Menu, is at this moment the standard of all religious and moralduties. ”

Having established, then, the long and intimate nature of the Persianintercourse with India, let us see how it bears on our more immediatesubject. 

The works on medicine which are known to exist, and to have been writtenin Persian, are not very many in number, but they cover a period of timeof nearly 400 years. The oldest of them is of the year 1392 A. D. , and init and its successors there are long lists of Arabian authors whoseworks had been consulted, and also various Indian works. 

Greek physicians were in great request at the Persian court, and whenthe daughter of the Emperor Aurelian was sent in marriage to the Persianmonarch, Sapor II. , she had a number of Greek physicians in her train. This king founded a new city called Jondisabour in honour of his Queen, and owing to the settlement here of a number of Greek physicians, whohad, on account of religious differences, retired into Persia, this citybecame celebrated as a medical school. Dr. Friend gives the names ofthese as “Damascius the Syrian, Simplicius of Cilicia, Diogenes ofPhænicea, Isidorus of Gaza, and others, the most learned and greatestphilosophers of the age. ” It is thought by some authors that many of theArabian writers who belonged to the college of Baghdad were educated atJondisabour. 

The district of Jondisabour is even yet one of the most nourishing inPersia, and contains mines which still yield turquoise, salt, lead, copper, antimony, iron, and marble. 

During the reign of the Persian king Nooshirwan, his physician Barzouehmade various journeys into India, one of which was specially for thepurpose of obtaining copies of Indian literature, and another to obtainmedicaments and herbs. 

How to account for the strange fact that all schools of medicine whichhave risen, flourished, and disappeared, have left some trace inhistorical records, with the exception of that of India, is mostdifficult, unless under the hypothesis that the language in which thescience and philosophy of India was recorded has been almost a sealedbook to the world, and is even now quite unintelligible to the people ofIndia itself, generally speaking, and that thus the only way in whichthe results of the long ages of philosophic study, which unquestionablyhave had a place in India, have only been known by this dark reflectionfrom the writings of Greek and Arabic writers, which were scatteredbroadcast over the ancient world. The Greeks, we know, borrowed theirscience largely from the Egyptians, both in respect to theology andphilosophy; and we might, with much profit, pursue the examination ofour subject amongst the records of that highly civilized amongst theancient nations. 

Many authors have attempted to show that there is a wonderfulresemblance between the Egyptians and the Hindoos, the sculptures on themonuments of the former are most wonderfully like those of India, andthe features, dress, and arms are all as like as may be. 

Both nations had the various arts of weaving, dyeing, embroidering, working in metals, and the manufacture of glass, and practised them withbut little difference in their methods. The fine muslins of India findtheir counterparts as “woven wind” in the transparent tissues figured onthe Egyptian temples. The style of building, the sciences of astronomy, music, and medicine were assiduously cultivated by both nations, andthere was direct intercourse between them, perhaps even beforehistorical time begins. 

Rameses the Great (III. ), called also Sesostris, fitted out not only warships but merchant vessels for the purpose of trading with India, inB. C. 1235, and Wilkinson in his book on the Ancient Egyptians, tells usthat in 2000 B. C. There were no less than 400 ships trading to thePersian Gulf. There is, after all, nothing surprising in this when weremember the fact, which is, however, not generally known, I am afraid, that under the reign of Pharoah Necho, a fleet of his ships safelycircumnavigated Africa, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, thisbeing in advance of the celebrated voyage of Diaz and Vasco da Gama byno less than 2100 years. 

No less than seven centuries before Thales went to study in Egypt, astronomical calculations were inscribed on the monuments at Thebes, sothat we can see how modern by comparison the Greek philosophy appears. 

In a note Wilkinson says that “The science of Medicine was one of theearliest cultivated in Egypt. Athothes, the successor of Menes of thefirst dynasty, is said to have written on the subject, and five papyrion the subject have survived. 

“They are of the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. 

“One known as the Papyrus Ebers, from its discoverer, is attributed tothe age of Kherpheres or Bikheres. 

“The second, that of Berlin, found in the reign of Usaphais of the firstdynasty, was completed by Senet or Sethenes of the second line. 

“The third, that of the British Museum, contains a receipt said to havebeen mysteriously discovered in the reign of Cheops of the fourthdynasty. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“The curatives employed were ointments, drinks, plasters, fumigationsand clysters, and the drugs employed were taken from vegetables, minerals, and animals. 

“Those for each draught were mixed together, pounded, boiled, andstrained through linen. 

“The doctors belonged to the sacred class, and were only permitted topractice their own particular branch. 

“These were oculists, dentists, those who confined their practice todiseases of the head, and those again who only attended to internaldiseases; they were paid from the public treasury, and were compelled, before being permitted to practice, to study the precepts laid down bytheir predecessors. ”

Homer, in the Odyssey, describes Egypt “as a country whose fertile soilproduces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious, whereeach physician possesses knowledge above all other men. ”

The mixing of various drugs and minerals must have produced effectswhich could not be lost on such observant men as the doctors must, fromtheir training, have been, and it would be absurd to suppose that some, at least, of the simpler chemical decompositions and combinations werenot known to them. 

The manufacture of glass would seem to have been very ancient amongstthe Egyptians, and the insufficiency of the old fable, of its discoveryby the fusing of blocks of stone in the fire is quite clear; besides, Egyptian glass has been found which contains potash, and nothing is moreprobable than that the nitrate of potash, found so plentifully in thesoil of India, was imported for this manufacture. 

Precious stones or amulets with Sanscrit inscriptions have repeatedlybeen found in tombs, which must date back to at least B. C. 1400. 

In tracing back the history of Chemistry, we constantly find referenceto Hermes, Trismegistus, who would seem to be the god Thoth, or Taaut ofthe Egyptians. The famous inscription of the Emerald table ascribes tohim the possession of three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. I have been much struck with the resemblance of this god Taaut with theMenu of the Hindoos, who also was credited with saving from destructionby the flood the three Vedas, which were supposed to contain all thatwas required for man’s direction here below. 

There would appear to have been also other Hermes, but if we look at thecondition of things which obtained in Egypt when the Pyramids of Memphisare supposed to have been erected, within 300 years of the supposed dateof the deluge, and that the Beni Hassan tombs, about 300 years later, depict the manners and customs of what we cannot help admitting, was ahighly civilized nation, we must be struck with the fact that thedistance of time between the deluge and the building of these pyramidsand tombs is so short, that it might be represented by a comparison ofour own date with those of Queen Elizabeth and Henry the Third. 

Jackson in his “Antiquities” tells us that, Sanchoniatho states that themost ancient Phœnician records show that letters were invented soonafter the dispersion of mankind, by Tsaut, the son of Mizor or Misraim, who was the first Egyptian Hermes or Thoth. He went out of Phœnicia, andfirst, with a colony of Mizrites, settled and reigned in Egypt, and, according to Cicero, gave both laws and letters to the Egyptians. 

This Hermes was born in the second generation after the flood, and wasnot only the inventor of letters and writing, but he is also said tohave delineated the sacred characters or symbols of the elements andplanets, viz. , --sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water, &c. 

These symbols are without doubt of very ancient origin, and Boerhæve inhis Theory of Chemistry explains them hieroglyphically as follows:--

 [Transcriber’s Note: The listed symbols are included in the “images” directory accompanying the html version of this 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 hasnothing acrimonious or heterogeneous adhering to it. 

☽ Denotes half gold, whose inside, if turned outward, would make itentire gold, as having nothing foreign or corrosive in it; which thealchemists observe of silver. 

☿ Denotes the inside to be pure gold, but the outer part of the colourof silver and a corrosive underneath, which, if taken away, would leaveit mere gold, and this the adepts affirm of mercury. 

♀ Denotes the chief part to be gold; whereto, however, adheres anotherlarge, crude, corrosive part, which, if removed, would leave the restpossessed with all the properties of gold, and this the adepts affirm ofcopper. 

♂ Likewise denotes gold at the bottom, but attended with a greatproportion of a sharp corrosive, sometimes amounting to a half of thewhole, whence half the character expresses acrimony; which, accordingly, both alchemists and physicians observe of iron, and hence that commonopinion of the adepts that the aurum vivum, or gold of the philosophers, is contained in iron, and that the universal medicine is rather to besought in this metal than in gold itself. 

♃ Denotes half the matter of tin to be silver, the other a crudecorrosive acid, which is accordingly confirmed by the assayers; tinproving almost as fixed as silver in the cupel, and discovering a largequantity of crude sulphur well known to the alchemists. 

♄ Denotes almost the whole to be corrosive, but retaining someresemblance with silver, which the artists very well know holds true oflead. 

♁ Denotes a chaos--world, or one thing which includes all: this is thecharacter of antimony, wherein is found gold, with plenty of anarsenical corrosive. 

The symbols, or at least some of them, may be traced even in the Chinesecharacters for gold, silver, &c. 

The connection of Egypt with India shortly after the Christian era isdistinctly indicated in the works of Apuleius. He lived in the earlypart of the second century after Christ, and was educated first atCarthage, then renowned as a school of literature. He then travelledextensively in Greece, Asia, and Egypt, and became initiated into manyreligious fraternities and an adept in their mysteries. He was admitteda priest of the order of Æsculapius, and describes the ceremony of theoffering of the first-fruits by the priests of Isis, when the navigationopened in spring. The vessel, which was to be set adrift upon the oceanfreighted with the offering, was splendidly decorated and covered withhieroglyphics, and after having been “_purified with a lighted torch, anegg, and sulphur_, ” was allowed to sail away into the unknown as asacrifice to procure the safety of the convoy of ships which would soonafter start upon their voyage. These rites were of great antiquity. 

He speaks, in his first tale, of a witch who, by means of her magiccharms, made not only her fellow-countrymen love her, but “_the Indianseven_, ” 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 veryimperfect manner, you will see that there is good reason to believe thatin the study of science and philosophy the Indian races were much inadvance of the Western nations. The age of science amongst them is verygreat; we fail utterly in trying to find its beginning, unless we acceptthe tradition which ascribes to Menu, their great lawgiver (who issupposed to have been Noah), the saving of three out of the four divinebooks or Vedas from the deluge. This would carry us back to theAntediluvian times for the beginning of our investigations; but withouttaking any such extreme view of the subject we will find traces ofscience 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, situatedfar from us to the east, near the reflux of the ocean and the rising ofthe sun, under the first beams of the stars, and at the extreme verge ofthe earth, beyond the learned Egyptians and the superstitious Jews andthe mercantile Nabathæans; and the flowing robed Aracidae, and theItyraeans, poor in crops, and the Arabians, rich in perfumes. 

“Now, I do not so much admire the heaps of ivory of the Indians, theirharvests of pepper, their bales of cinnamon, their tempered steel, theirmines of silver, and their golden streams, nor that among them, theGanges, the greatest of all rivers, ‘Rolls like a monarch on his course, and pours His 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 ofthe colour of night, nor that among them, immense dragons fight withenormous elephants, with parity of danger to their mutual destruction, for they hold them enwrapped in their slippery folds, so that theelephants cannot disengage their legs or in any way extricate themselvesfrom the scaly bonds of the tenacious dragons. They are forced to seekrevenge from the fall of their own bulk and to crush their captors bythe mass of their own bodies. 

“There are amongst them various kinds of inhabitants. I will ratherspeak of the marvellous things of men than of those of nature. 

“There is among them a race who know nothing but to tend cattle, hencethey are called neatherds; there are races clever in trafficking withmerchandise, and others stout in fight, whether with arrows, or hand tohand with swords. 

“There is also among them a pre-eminent race called Gymnosophists. 

“These I exceedingly admire, for they are men skilled not in propagatingthe vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They knownot 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. They_cultivate wisdom_, both the aged professors and the young students. Nothing do I so much admire in them as that they hate torpor of mind andsloth. ”

This does not look as if the Indians had been unknown or unappreciatedin the second century A. D. 

Apuleius is not alone in his respect for the Brahmins. Many of the Greekwriters speak of them under the names of Brahmins or Gymnosophists, butalways with great respect. 

Strabo states, on the authority of Megasthenes (who it will beremembered was Ambassador from Persia, and lived for some years atPalibothra, about 307 B. C. ), that “there were two classes ofphilosophers or priests, the Brachmanes and the Germanes, but theBrachmanes 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 theworld was produced, and is perishable, and that it is spherical; thatGod, governing it as well as framing it, pervades the whole; that theprinciples of all things are various, but water is the principle of theconstruction of the world; that besides the four elements there is afifth, nature--whence heaven and the stars; that the earth is placed inthe centre of all. 

“Such, and many other things are affirmed of reproduction and of thesoul. Like Plato, they devise fables concerning the immortality of thesoul, and the judgment in the infernal regions, and other similarnotions. These things are said of the Brachmanes. ”

Clemens Alexandrinus, after saying that philosophy flourished in ancienttimes amongst the barbarians, and afterwards was introduced amongst theGreeks, instances the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldees of theAssyrians, the Druids of the Gauls (Galatæ), the Samauæans of theBactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians, andthe Gymnosophists of the Indians. The Greek authors distinctly speak ofthe Brahmins as the chief of the castes or divisions of the Indianpeople from the time of Megasthenes, who wrote of them in the fourthcentury B. C. 

Sir William Jones, in a paper on the philosophy of the Asiatics, pointedout that “the old philosophers of Europe had some idea of centripetalforce, and a principle of universal gravitation, ” and affirms that “muchof the theology and philosophy of our immortal Newton may be found inthe Vedas. ”

“That _most subtle spirit_ which he suspected to pervade natural bodies, and lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulsion, theemission, reflection and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a _fifthelement_, endowed with these very powers; and the Vedas abound withallusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribeto the sun, thence called ‘Aditya, or the attractor, ’ a name designed bythe mythologists to mean the child of the goddess Aditi. But the mostwonderful passage on the theory of attractions occurs in the charmingallegorical poem of ’Shi’ri’n and Ferhai’d, or the Divine Spirit, and ahuman soul disinterestedly pious, ’ a work which, from the first verse tothe last, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire. 

“The whole passage appears to me so curious that I make no apology forgiving you a faithful translation of it:--

“_There is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, andattracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search thisuniverse from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water toearth (the four elements!), from all below the moon to all above thecelestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of thatnatural attractability. The very point of the first thread in thisapparently tangled skein is no other than such a principle ofattraction, and all principles beside are void of a real basis: fromsuch a propensity arises every motion perceived in heavenly or interrestrial bodies; it is a disposition to be attracted which taughthard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet; it isthe same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itselffirmly on amber; it is this quality which gives every substance innature a tendency towards another, and an inclination forcibly directedto a determinate point. _”

In Sir W. Ainslie’s Materia Medica of India the opinion of an old Hindooauthor is given as to the qualifications required in a physician. 

“He must be a person of strict veracity, and of the greatest sobrietyand decorum: he ought to be skilled in all the commentaries on the‘Ayur-Veda, ’ and be otherwise a man of sense and benevolence: his heartmust be charitable, his temper calm, and his constant study how to dogood. 

“Such a man is properly called a good physician, and such a physicianought still daily to improve his mind by an attentive perusal ofscientific books. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Should death come upon us while under the care of a person of thisdescription, it can only be considered as inevitable fate, and not theconsequence of presumptuous ignorance. ”

The knowledge of the Hindoos may be all said to be contained in theirsacred books called the Vedas, which, although perfect as a whole, areactually divided into four parts, each in itself constituting a separateVeda 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 theother three, still there are portions of it that are probably as old asany of the others. Even in the oldest epic poems of the Hindoos mentionis made of four Vedas as already in existence and as of great antiquity. Sir William Jones estimates the date of its compilation as certainly notafter B. C. 1580. 

These Vedas are considered by the Hindoos to contain the groundwork ofall their philosophy, as well as of their arts and sciences, and theycontain treatises on music, medicine, the art of war, and architecture. 

Sir William Jones, in referring to the Ayur-Veda, says that, to hisastonishment, he found in it an entire Upanishad on the internal partsof the human body, enumerating the nerves, veins, and arteries. 

The Ayur-Veda was considered by the Brahmins to be the work ofBrahma--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, andthus became the medical attendants of the gods. A legend that cannot butrecall to our mind the Greek myth of the two sons of Æsculapius andtheir descent from Apollo. 

In the case of immortal gods the practice was confined to surgery, intreating the wounds received in the conflicts which were constantlydescribed as occurring amongst the gods themselves, or between the godsand the demons. Of course they performed many miraculous cures, as wouldbe expected from their superhuman character. 

Professor Wilson published in the _Oriental Magazine_, in 1823, somenotices on early Hindoo Medicine, and he points out that the traditionis, that the above “two Aswins instructed Indra in medical and surgicalart, that Indra instructed Dahnwantari; although others make Atreya, Bharadwaja, and Charaka prior to the latter:--Charaka’s work, which goesby his name, is extant. Dahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah, or Princeof Kasi, or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, his work also exists. ”

The Ayur-Veda, as the oldest medical writings of the Hindoos arecollectively called, was divided into eight divisions. These aredescribed by Professor Wilson as follows:--

“1st. _Salya. _--The art of extracting extraneous substances, violentlyor accidentally introduced into the body, with the treatment of theinflammation and suppuration thereby induced. 

“The word _Salya_ means a dart or arrow, and points clearly to theorigin of this branch of Hindoo science. 

“2nd. _Salakya. _--The treatment of external affections or diseases ofthe eyes, nose, ears, &c. 

“3rd, _Kayao Chikitsa. _--The general application of medicine to thebody, or the science of medicine, as opposed to surgery under the twofirst heads. 

“4th. _Bhutavidya_, or demonology: the act of casting out demons, whichwe may take to mean the treatment of insanity, such as it was. 

“5th. _Kaumara bhritya_, or the treatment of the diseases of women andchildren. 

“6th. _Agada. _--The administration of antidotes. 

“We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison wasonly too common an instrument of ambition or revenge. 

“7th. _Rasayana. _--Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to sayalchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substancesmostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine orelixir which was to give immortal life. 

“8th. _Bajikarana. _--Was connected with the means of promoting theincrease of the human race. ”

One of the articles of Hindoo medicine was _Kshara_ or alkalinesalts, --these are directed to be obtained by burning differentsubstances of vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six timestheir measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used bothinternally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollientapplications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain. 

I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been atthe Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and alsothat the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the timeof the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubtconcerning this fact, as in Serapion’s works we find Charak actuallymentioned by name; under the head _De Mirobalanis_ we find “_Et Xarchindus dixit;_” and again, in another section “_Xarcha indus;_” therebeing no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight changein the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna, again, we find reference to “Scirak indum. ” Rhazes, again, who wasprevious to Avicenna, has “_Inquit Scarac indianus_, ” and again “_DixitSarac;_” in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yetbeen traced, “_Sindifar_, ” or, as it is in another place, “_Sindicharindianus. _”

Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos, published in the _Oriental Magazine_, examines into the distinctivequalities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that thedescription given in Avicenna, in the section “De Sanguisugis, ” isalmost identical with the Hindoo author’s description of the twelvesorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of thevarious sorts. 

That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact thatAvicenna says “_Indi dixerunt_. ”

I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had accessto the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if wecarefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine asdistinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that scienceof medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit. 

It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant andhighly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and thechanges occurring in mixtures of various substances should have beenunstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from beingneglected by them. 

Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate of potash, borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, commonsalt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinarymen; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medicalworks, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they madeby distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that theyprepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthenpots, calling it _Gunduk Ka Attar_, or “attar of sulphur. ” Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixingsaltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading clothsover the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, whenthey were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by theplant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined byVauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids. 

Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, driedand pounded with the above acid liquor. 

Arsenic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venerealdiseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and inintermittent fevers. 

It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at thepresent time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still madeand sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from timeimmemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation inthe 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 andchemists 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 of Menu many enactments against thedrinking of distilled spirits, and these made of various kinds anddistilled from molasses (or sugar-cane juice), rice, and the madhucaflowers. 

“A soldier or merchant drinking arak, mead, or rum are to be consideredoffenders in the highest degree, ” and “for drinking spirits are to bebranded on the forehead with a vintner’s flag, ” rather a summary way oftreating a drunkard, and one which would indicate that the ill effectsof over-indulgence in spirituous liquors had been long known, when suchsevere enactments were made against it. 

The method of distilling described by Mr. Kerr in the AsiaticResearches, vol. 1, is so simple that it is almost certain that it wasemployed in very ancient times for the purpose of distilling spirits, and also attars of various sorts, which, from time immemorial, wouldseem 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 is11 inches wide in the opening; this was filled about a half withfermented mâhwah flowers, which swam about in the liquor to bedistilled. 

“This jar they placed in a furnace, not the most artificial, though notseemingly 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 incheswide and full 3 feet deep, cutting an opening in the front sloping downto the bottom, perpendicular at the sides, about 9 inches wide and about15 inches long, reckoning from the edge of the circle: this is to serveto throw in the wood and to allow a passage for the air; at the otherside a small opening about 4 inches by 3 inches is made to serve as anoutlet for the smoke, the bottom of the hole thus made was rounded likea cup. 

“The jar was placed in this as far as it would go, and banked up withclay all round to about a fifth of its height, except at the twoopenings, when all was completed so far as the furnace was concerned. 

“Fully one third of the still or jar was exposed to the heat whenthe fire was lighted; the fuel was at least 2 feet from the bottomof the jar. 

“On to this jar there was now fitted what is called an adkur, this beingmade 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, thelower 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 14inches, the juncture formed a neck of about 3 inches, the upper pan wasabout 4 inches deep, with a rim round the central hole, this formed agutter, and by means of a hollow bamboo luted to this, the spirit, as itcondensed, ran off into the receiver. 

“The arrangement was now completed by luting on a small copper pot orvessel about 5 inches deep, 8 inches wide at mouth, and about 10 inchesat bottom, with its mouth downwards. 

“The cooler was formed by placing on a support at the back of thefurnace 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 centreof the copper pot, from where it collected in the clay saucer, and ranoff by a small hole and bamboo tube for use again. 

“In about three hours’ time from lighting the fire, they draw off fullyfifteen 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 simpleapparatus; and, as we have seen, distilled spirit is expressly mentionedin the Institutes of Menu, we are bound to admit that distillation wasin use long ere the Arabian times and that of Dioscorides. 

Many such examples might be examined, but I will take one forillustration--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, 2500 B. C. , Shin-nong invented the method of obtaining salt fromsea-water. He also gets credit for having composed books on medicine. 

In George Agricola’s De Re Metallica (1561) there is a curious set ofwoodcuts representing the manufacture of salt, and in the first, inwhich the whole process of evaporating sea-water by the sun’s rays isshown most completely from the raising of the sluices to allow the waterto flow into the various evaporating ponds, to the packing of thefinished salt in barrels--it is a curious fact that the trees which areintroduced are _palms_, and the figure in the distance is dressed in_Oriental costume_, while even the ship seems to partake of thischaracter. 

A more advanced state of things is shown in the third drawing of the12th book, where a pan is shown, made of iron plates riveted together soas to form a flat sheet, which forms the bottom of the pan, of which thesides are composed of thick wood, strengthened with plates of iron atthe 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 arehung from a network of wooden bars, so that the whole bottom of the panis supported securely at a considerable number of points. 

The furnace is very simple, being simply a wall surrounding an oblongspace, a little smaller than the pan, so that the sides of the lattermay rest on the walls all round, except for a small space in front wherethe fuel is introduced, which apparently burns on the ground alone. 

The method of manufacturing salt in Japan is almost identical with thatfigured in Agricola. There is the same arrangement of salt garden orseries of ponds and ditches, and the dirty salts mixed with sand areagain lixiviated, and the filtered liquid is boiled down in curiouslyformed pans or boilers. 

Of these there are two chief forms, the first being a tank or pan formedof large pieces of slate, with the joints made with clay, and surroundedwith a mud wall. The whole is covered with an arch or vault and isfilled with the brine, which is then evaporated by surface heat, thefire being placed at one end and the flue at the other. 

The other form is very curious and interesting, and is almost identicalin its principle of construction with the pan I have referred to asfigured 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 atthe Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. The Japanese description of thisapparatus is highly interesting. It is as follows:--

A low wall is built, enclosing a space of about 13 feet by 9 feet, thebottom forming a kind of prismatical depression, 3 feet deep in thecentre line. An ashpit, 3 feet deep, is then excavated, starting fromthe front wall, and extending about 4 feet into this depression at itsdeepest place; it communicates with the outside by a channel slopinggradually upwards, and passing underneath the front wall. The ashpit iscovered by a clay vault, with holes in its sides, so as to establish acommunication 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-draughtnecessary for burning the fuel enters partly by the fire-door, partlythrough the ashpit and the openings left in the vaulted grate. Throughthese same openings the ashes and cinders are from time to time pusheddown into the ashpit, for which purpose small openings are left in theside-wall of the furnace, through which the rakes may be introduced. Apassage in the back wall supporting the pan leads off the products ofcombustion and the hot air into a short flue, sloping upwards, andending in a short vertical chimney. At the lower part some iron kettlesare placed in the flue for the purpose of heating the lye before it isladled into the evaporating pan. 

With reference to the pan, it is made in a way that requires a greatdeal of skill and practice. In the first place, beams reaching from theone side to the other are laid on the top of the furnace walls, and arecovered with wooden boards, forming a temporary floor. Two or three feetabove this floor a strong horizontal network of poles of wood sustains anumber of straw ropes, with iron hooks hanging down, and of such alength that the hooks nearly touch the wooden floor. The floor isthereupon covered with a mixture of clay and small stones, 4 to 5 inchesthick, the workman being careful to incrustate the iron hooks into thismaterial. It is allowed to dry gradually, and when consideredsufficiently hardened, the wooden beams and flooring are removed withthe necessary precautions. The bottom of the pan remains suspended bymeans of the ropes. The open spaces left all round between the bottomand the top of the furnace walls are then filled up, and the border ofthe pan, 9 inches to 10 inches high, is made of a similar mixture. It issaid that this extraordinary construction lasts from 40 to 50 days whenwell made, and that it can be filled 16 times in 24 hours, with anaverage of 500 litres of concentrated lye at each filling; but thequantity 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 itis filled, and in the hot season from 190 to 210 litres. The averageconsumpt of fuel is said to be 1500 kilos. In 24 hours. 

In Persia, near Ballakhan, salt is still made, and has been made fromtime 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 andovens, and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary saltprepared here from the soil. It was in fine white granules massedtogether in the form of the earthen vessel in which the salt had beenevaporated. 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 diameteris dug, and around it are excavated a succession of smaller pits, eachabout 2 feet diameter by 1½ feet deep. On one side of the large pitis a deep excavation, to which the descent from the pit is by a slopingbank. In this excavation is a domed oven with a couple of fireplaces. Ata little distance off are the piles of earth scraped from the surfaceand ready for treatment. And, lastly, circling round each pit is a smallwater-cut led off from a larger stream running along the line of pits. 

“Such is the machinery. The process is simply this:--A shovelful ofearth is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a shovelful toeach) circling the pit. 

“The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run into the great centralpit, by breaking away a channel for it with the fingers. The channel isthen closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of earth washed, and theliquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is nearly full ofbrine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears. It is thenladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and boiled to evaporationsuccessively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular salt. Thejars are then broken, and the mass of salt (which retains its shape) isready for conveyance to market. 

“Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, and agood deal is taken to Kandahar. The quantity turned out here mustannually be very great. The salt pits extend over at least ten miles ofthe 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 ofopinion that we must go far beyond the time of Geber or the Arabianschool for the origin of our science. The study of the question of itsantiquity leads up to such remote times that there is little probabilityof any date being assigned to its beginning, and to some it may appearbut a waste of time to indulge in researches upon the subject; but ithas a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in addition, brings beforeour minds so many phases in the philosophical thought of the world, thatit will no doubt long continue to exercise the minds and attract theattention of chemists. 

In the course of my own study of the subject, I have felt muchdissatisfied with the derivation of the name chemistry or alchemy, as itis given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to bederived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancientname for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactoryexplanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the characterof 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 recognizedfive elementary bodies or rather types. These were Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air, and the system of Menu, of which the antiquity isenormous, 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 thefive elements previously named--viz. , Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, andAir). 

Now, these elements, with the sun and moon, composed the attributes ofthe dual deity Iswara and Isi, representing the male and female naturalpowers, and, applying this to the famous Pythagorean triangle, we findthat the upright symbol or male, which was the number or power 3, whencombined with the female prostrate symbol, which was the number or power4, gives a product in the Hypotenuse of 5, which is the number of thetypical elements of the oldest known Hindoo philosophy. It is also theproduct of the first male and female numbers, and was anciently calledthe number of the world--repeated anyhow by an odd multiple it alwaysreappears. 

If now we consider chemistry as that science which has to deal with thechanges and combinations of the five elements, and if we call it--

_The science of the five parts or elements_, should we not, when we findthat the Arabic word for five is _khams_, rather refer the name of ourscience 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 thatthe _fifth_ element or Ether of the most ancient Hindoo philosophy, wasin reality an expression for active force, or, that emanating from thecentral sun caused the natural phenomena of attraction and repulsion, the emission and refraction of light, and other sensible changes ofcondition, 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 theircombinations--than which no more descriptive title could be assigned toit, even in the present enlightened age. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Errors and Anomalies

Apollonius Tyanæus [_text reads “Appolonius”_]

Hercules and Bacchus (Dionysius) [_text reads “Dionsyius”_]

Ommiades . .. Abassides [_standard spellings for this text_]

Ibn Osaibe’s testimony [_text reads “Ibu”_]

body-physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Raschid [_spelling as in original, but elsewhere spelled “Haroun”_]

Xenophon in his Anabasis [_text reads “Zenophon”_]

Megasthenes [_text reads “Megesthenes”_]

the first of the Grecian philosophers [_text reads “philosphers”_]

the Hindoos believe in _fourteen Menus_ [_and six further occurrences of “Menu”_] [_standard spelling in this text: correct form is “Manu”_]

Libyans in war chariots with four horses [_text reads “Lybians”_]

under the reign of Pharoah Necho [_spelling as in original_]

from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean [_text reads “Mediterreanean”_]

Jackson in his “Antiquities” tells us that, [_comma in original_]

♁ Denotes a chaos [_The symbol should look like an inverted “female” or “Venus”-- a cross above a circle-- but some fonts represent it as a cross within a circle. _]

Indra instructed DahnwantariDahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah [_correct form is “Dhanwantari”_]