M. Berthelot gives the following from the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecas, which he says could not be earlier than 1300, as the first definite indication of a method of producing what was called aqua ardens. “Take a black wine, thick and old. To ¼ lb. of this add 2 scruples of sulphur vivum in very fine powder, and 2 scruples of common salt in coarse fragments, and 1 or 2 lbs. of tartar extracted from a good white wine. Place all in a copper alembic and distil off the aqua ardens.” The addition of the salt and sulphur, M. Berthelot explains, was to counteract the supposed humidity.
Albucasis, a Spanish Arab of the eleventh century, is supposed from some obscure expressions in his writings to have known how to make a spirit from wine; but Arnold of Villa Nova, who wrote in the latter part of the thirteenth century, is the first explicitly to refer to it. He does not intimate that he had discovered it himself, but he appears to treat it as something comparatively new. Aqua vini is what he calls it, but some name it, he says, aqua vitæ, or water which preserves itself always, and golden water. It is well called water of life, he says, because it strengthens the body and prolongs life. He distilled herbs with it such as rosemary and sage, and highly commended the medicinal virtue of these tinctures.
It is worth remarking that when Henry II invaded and conquered Ireland in the twelfth century the inhabitants were making and drinking a product which they termed uisge-beatha, now abbreviated into whisky, the exact meaning of the name being water of life.
Raymond Lully, who acquired much of his chemical lore from Arnold of Villa Nova, was even more enthusiastic in praise of the aqua vitæ than his teacher. “The taste of it exceedeth all other tastes, and the smell all other smells,” he wrote. Elsewhere he describes it as “of marveylous use and commoditie a little before the joyning of battle to styre and encourage the soldiers’ minds.” He believed it to be the panacea so long sought, and regarded its discovery as evidence that the end of the world was near. The process for making the aqua vitæ as described by Lully was to digest limpid and well-flavoured red or white wine for twenty days in a closed vessel in fermenting horse-dung. It was then to be distilled drop by drop from a gentle fire in a sand-bath.
The chemical constitution of alcohol was speculated upon rather wildly by the chemists who experimented on it before Lavoisier. It was held to be a combination of phlogiston with water, but the phlogiston-philosophers disagreed on the question whether it contained an oil. Stahl, however, later supported by Macquer, found that an oil was actually separated from it if mixed with water and allowed to evaporate slowly in the open air, after treating it with an acid. Lavoisier, in 1781, carefully analysed spirit of wine and found that 1 lb. yielded 4 oz. 4 drms. 37½ grains of carbon, 1 oz. 2 drms. 5½ grains of inflammable gas (hydrogen), and 10 oz. 1 drm. 29 grains of water. It was de Saussure who later, following Lavoisier’s methods of investigation, but with an absolute alcohol which had been recently produced by Lowitz, a Russian chemist, showed that oxygen was a constituent of alcohol. Berthelot succeeded in making alcohol synthetically in 1854. His process was to shake olefiant gas (C2H4) vigorously with sulphuric acid, dilute the mixture with eight to ten parts of water, and distil. Meldola, however (“The Chemical Synthesis of Vital Products,” 1904), insists that an English chemist, Henry Hennell, anticipated Berthelot in this discovery.
Alum.
Alum is a substance which considerably mystified the ancient chemists, who knew the salt but did not understand its composition. Ancient writers like Pliny and Dioscorides were acquainted with a product which the former called alumen and which is evidently the same as had been described by Dioscorides under the name of Stypteria. Pliny says there were several varieties of this mineral used in dyeing, and it is clear from his account that his alumen was sometimes sulphate of iron and sometimes a mixture of sulphate of iron with an aluminous earth. It is the fact that where the various vitriols are found they are generally associated with aluminous earth.
Alum as we know it was first prepared in the East and used for dyeing purposes. Alum works were in existence some time subsequent to the twelfth century at a place named Rocca in Syria, which may have been a town of that name on the Euphrates, or more probably was Edessa, which was originally known as Roccha. It has been supposed that it was the manufacture of alum at this place which bequeathed to us the name of Rock or Rocha alum, but the Historical English Dictionary says this derivation is “evidently unfounded.”
The alchemists were familiar with alum and knew it to be a combination of sulphuric acid with an unknown earth. Van Helmont was the first to employ alum as a styptic in uterine hæmorrhage, and Helvetius made a great reputation for a styptic he recommended for similar cases. His pills were composed of alum 10 parts, dragon’s blood 3 parts, honey of roses q.s., made into 4 grain pills, of which six were to be taken daily. Alum and nutmeg equal parts were given in agues. Paris says the addition of nutmeg to alum corrects its tendency to disturb the bowels. It has also been advocated in cancer and typhoid, but these internal uses have been generally abandoned. Spirit of Alum is occasionally met with in alchemical writings. It was water charged with sulphuric acid obtained by the distillation of alum over a naked fire.