Alchemy: Ancient and Modern

About this book

Gold was only one of the things alchemists hoped to make. H. Stanley Redgrove follows their furnaces, recipes and theories into the early history of chemistry, where a convincing experiment could still begin with a mystical idea.

Redgrove examines the philosopher's stone, transmutation, the language of metals and the fortunes of alchemy as a serious intellectual pursuit. Along the way, he explains why religious symbolism appeared in writings that also described practical laboratory work. The appeal lies in watching science emerge from a tradition that had asked some of the right questions with very different tools.