Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cn ‘ Pe piel 1. 7 ‘ HISTORY. 1 _ sier and others, says, that there is abundant proof of the Chinese having been well versed in that branch of alchemy which has for its object a pana- cea, or universal medicine, long before this fancy engaged the attention of European practitioners.’ The search after this elixir of life is said to have originated with the disciples of Lao Chiun, who flourished six hundred years before the Christian era. If this statement be authentic, — p.ssined spir- there can ain scarely a doubt that it possibly the Chindlivere acquainted with dis- Chinese 72000 tilled spirit more than two thousand YS 24° years ago. With a knowledge of the process of distillation, and impelled by a motive so strong as the hope of finding an elixir, a single draught of which would confer an immunity from disease, decay, and death, the alchemists could hardly have failed early to subject to this process every: kind of be- verage which was known to exert an exhilarating: influence upon the actions of life. ‘The infatua- tions of alchemy still existed in China in times comparatively modern, for i Kings three of her kings, twO- in the' ninth Hee Oo and one in the sixteenth century, pe- rished frorh a draught of the elixir of life, prepared by the alchemists, and taken with a view to at- tain to immortality. To Arabia, however, Europe appears to have been wholly indebted for a knowledge of the art of distillation. It has been suggested, that, as the Arabians at a very early period for commercial purposes penetrated into China, even as far as to Canton, there might have been an interchange