Technikatörténeti szemle 22. (1996)

Papers from the Second International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Eger, Hungary, 16–19 August, 1995) - Pérez-Bustamente, A. Juan: The Holistic Concept of Alchemy

universal principles "Yin" and "Yang", from which the arabian sulphur-mercury theory may alternatively derive in connection with the particular protagonism palyed by cinnabar in Chinese Alchemy. The sulphur-mercury theory of metals can be probably traced to secular metallurgical empiricism from the observation that many minerals and ores (sulphides) when submitted to roasting and reduction in furnaces were shown to deliver gaseous sulphur dioxide (thereby associated with combustibility) and liquid metals (associated with liquid mercury and its properties of fusibility, liquidity and metallicity). A lot of attention was given to the characterization of the nobility of metals based on qualitative criteria in connection with the specific properties associated to the two principles entering into the sulphur-mercury theory of metals as summed up in fig. 15. Amalgamability, combustibility, oxidability, density and fusibility (qualitative) criteria were used commonly to establish the baseness or the nobility of the investigated metals. Accurate tabulated values of melting points and specific gravity have been included in fig.15 in connection with the considered metals for illustrative purposes. increasing sulphur eontentfcocAustibilïty) (" ' 1MWU1H Watt iaaUnt |"I«pn>«i<y" byT>r« trc.Wtl Fig. 15. Qualitative criteria for the interpretation of the constitution of metals on the basis of the mercury-sulphur theory As a matter of fact the sulphur-mercury theory of metals which arose from aristotelic or alternatively Chinese philosophies lasted for 7-8 centuries being perfectly compatible with the hylemorphic theory of matter and the stoic pneumatic thought. Metal transmutatory Alchemy has always played a most prominent role in