Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment

Building upon sustained scholarly and popular interest in both alchemy and pre-modern medicine, this volume reveals how physicians practiced alchemy and alchemists produced medicaments. It shows how, besides sharing knowledge, physicians and alchemists engaged in fierce polemics, adapted one another#65533;s techniques, and united against common foes. Whether appropriating medical knowledge or defining themselves in opposition to it, alchemical practitioners engaged continually with...
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Building upon sustained scholarly and popular interest in both alchemy and pre-modern medicine, this volume reveals how physicians practiced alchemy and alchemists produced medicaments. It shows how, besides sharing knowledge, physicians and alchemists engaged in fierce polemics, adapted one another#65533;s techniques, and united against common foes. Whether appropriating medical knowledge or defining themselves in opposition to it, alchemical practitioners engaged continually with the practice, theory, and language of medicine.

Adopting a longue dur#65533;/I> approach to explore these connections, the sixteen essays in this collection each address a key topic in the history of alchemy and medicine, written by a subject specialist #65533; in many cases, the leading authority on that topic. While European traditions provide the core of the volume, contributors also discuss Greco-Roman Egypt, medieval Islam, the Ottoman Empire, and the East Indies; accommodating Greek, Arabic, Latin, and vernacular traditions. Examination of these themes and contexts furthers our understanding of issues central to the history of science and medicine: the relationship between court and city, print and manuscript, and theoretical and practical knowledge; the circulation of "secrets" literature; the role of chemical medicine in courts and universities; and the material and economic context of alchemy.