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

throughout millenia of history as depicted schematically in fig.7 which evidences the decissive role played by translations in all times bounded to militar conquer, commercial trade, cultural interpénétration and scientific exchange. As regads to western alchemy which developed along the central part of the schema depicted by fig.7, which led finally to the establishment of chemistry as an experimental science at the end of the XVIII-th century fig.8 summs up the main aspects of such alchemy consisting both of a doctrinal basis (philosophy, mythology, astrology) and an experimental praxis based on the use of a number of instruments, to carry out different operations tional western alchemy up to the middle ages