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Article: Alchemy
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ALCHEMY
ALCHEMY.
In the early modern period the term "alchemy" did not refer solely to the transmutation of metals. A variety of laboratory procedures, including the separation of metals, sublimations, and distillations, were generally described in alchemical terms, and alchemy had already for a long time been associated with making medicines. In this regard the medieval tradition of separating from substances a fifth essence, or
quinta essentia,
underscored later attempts among Hermeticists and Paracelsians to extract a celestial, life-giving force from plants, animals, and metals that, in turn, could perfect specific bodies. The sulfur-mercury theory, based in Aristotelian natural ...