Three presidential addresses to the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow : on the study of the history of chemistry, recent inquiries into the early history of chemistry, eleven centuries of chemistry / by John Ferguson.

  • Ferguson, John, 1838-1916.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Three presidential addresses to the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow : on the study of the history of chemistry, recent inquiries into the early history of chemistry, eleven centuries of chemistry / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The only comparison that has yet been made is that of their contents, by Dr. Kopp. The number of tracts in each thus determined, is given in the above table. It is impossible for me at pi'esent to give you all the names of the authors or the titles of the ti-acts, but the following is an enumeration of some of the more important:— List of Authors. Hermes. Pej.agios. Agathodsemon. Olymfiodoros. Isis. Theophrastos. Joannes. Hierotheos. Stephanos. Archelaos. Moses. Anepigraphos. Maria. Christianos. Democritos. Plato. Synesios. Aristoteles. Zosimos. Kosmas. Kleopatra. Pappos. Komarios. Psellos. Heliodoros. Ostanes. Salmanas. Horus. Sophar. Dioscoros. Porphyrios. Epibechios. Heraclius. Claudianus. Sergius. Nicephoros Blemmydas. Isaac Monachus. Iamblichos. The following will give a notion of the kind of titles which seem to occur most frequently in these collections. Zosimos, Heliodoros, Theopbrastos, Hierotbeos, Arcbelaos, Pelagios, and Ostanes, Hierotbeos, Anepigrapbos, Olynipiodoros, Of tbe Virtue and Composition of Waters. Of tbe Divine Water. Of tbe Metbod of Confecting Gold. Of Cbemical Instruments and Furnaces. Of tbe Sacred Art of Chemists. Of tbe Sacred and Divine Art. Of tbe Sacred Art. Of tbe Stone of tbe Philosophers. Of Gold Making. Of the Divine Water ; Of Dealbation, or Whitening. Of Gold Making. Of the Making of Asemos, and Hydrarge, and Cinnabar. The inference from a comparison of these lists is, that the manuscripts contain practically the same writings by the same authors—if we dare judge from mere titles—and that the chief difference is in the number of tracts the MSS. contain, and not m the tracts themselves. The authors of the tracts obviously cannot be the writers of the MSS. ; and if they were so in the oldest MS., that is, the Venetian,