Abu' l-Qāsim al-'Irāqī / E.J. Holmyard.

  • Holmyard, Eric John, 1891-1959
Date:
[1926]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Abu' l-Qāsim al-'Irāqī / E.J. Holmyard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Subnectitur fragmentum iconibns pictis instructum, quo herbae quaedam in arte alcbymica usurpatae, planetisque septem attributae, describuntur : SifatuT-hasha’ish al-masuba lil-sabcati kawkaib. • • The volume seems to be a compendium of various extractswhich appealed to its writer, and is noteworthy for the remarkable figures, in gold and colours, which adorn it. The majority of these figures are allegorical and of little value from a scientific point of view, but a few contain drawings of alchemical apparatus and operations. On folios;15-17 there is a list of alchemical« Decknamen» for iron, tin,cop¬ per, lead, mercury, sal-ammoniac and^ sulphur. They are for*the most part identical with those given in the Dresden MS. 210 (Risala f1 Tim al-KImiya’), published by Wiedemann and Ruska; (2) the points in which the two lists differ I have already described in Nature. (3) The most important difference is that the present MS. contains the names for sulphur, which are missing from the Dresden MS.; they run as follows : Fol. 16 recto. — Description of Sulphur and the names given to it by the masters of the art\of Alchemy. — ‘ al-latV. (The reading is quite definite, but unfortunately I have been unable to find the word in any lexicon; it may perhaps* be a corruption or modification of 2 3 4 al-latha \ the gum or resin. I have nofmet it in any other Arabic chemical trea¬ tise).—4al-waqid\ the burning.—4 al-'aqrab ’, the scorpion.—‘ al-muh- riq.’, the inflammable. — ‘ al-nar ihe fire.— ‘ al-asfar the yellow. — * al-shanT , the wax. — 4 dhu al-janahln ’, the winged. — ‘ al-sahc the indicator (but possibly a diacritical point has been omitted andjthe true reading may thus be 4 al-sahgh ’ the dye). — 4al-‘arus’, the bride. — 4 al-samgha the gum (‘ dad ’ is written in^error for / sad'). — ‘ al-khidab’ the dye (‘ nun’ written in error for ‘ba’). — ‘ al-zuhar \ the moaner (possibly because of the crackling sound given by a crystal of sulphur when held in the hand). — * al-talq, the talc (gypsum, etc.). — ‘jal-dhahabl’, the golden. ’5— ‘al-calam’, the sign or token. — 4 al-bayraq’, the flag. — ‘al-jabal al-asfar’, the yellow mountain. — ‘al-hajar al-musaffah’, the smooth stone (no doubt an allusion to the well-known soapy feel of sulphur). — ‘jal-mubayyid ’ the whitener.— 4 al-musawwid’, the blackener. — ‘ al-mulayyin ’, the softener. — (2) Sitzungsber. d. Phi/s.-Med. Sozietat in Erlangen. Band 56 (1924), pp. 17-36, (3) January, 1926. Vol. viii-3 27