Abstract
IN a reprint from Osiris (2, 220; 1936), W. J. Wilson, of the Library of Congress, Washington, deals with a treatise copied by Arnaldus de Bruxella at Naples between 1473 and 1490, arid purchased by Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, in 1881 for the price of ten dollars. It is a compendium of chemical and alchemical recipes of a type fairly well known through other manuscripts of similar date in Paris and elsewhere. Mr. Wilson gives an account of the contents of the manuscript with extracts, which are translated, and an index of names and technical terms. He shows how its contents are related to other treatises, and deals in separate sections with the origin and development of alchemical tradition, the operations of alchemy, allegorical and mystical aspects of alchemy and its relations to magic and medicine. This commentary, which is the fruit of a careful study of texts and literature on the history of alchemy, is provided with an excellent bibliography and is of very considerable value in presenting an accurate and concise statement of the position of modern research into the origins of alchemy and early chemistry. The scholarly treatment is on a much higher level than many accounts in that it takes into consideration the Chinese and Indian sources, without which no modern study can be said to have any particular significance.
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An Alchemical Manuscript. Nature 139, 22 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139022b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139022b0