Chapter II: Part 2

Sir William Jones, in a paper on the philosophy of the Asiatics, pointed out that "the old philosophers of Europe had some idea of centripetal force, and a principle of universal gravitation," and affirms that "much of the theology and philosophy of our immortal Newton may be found in the Vedas."

"That _most subtle spirit_ which he suspected to pervade natural bodies, and lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulsion, the emission, reflection and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a _fifth element_, endowed with these very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the sun, thence called 'Aditya, or the attractor,' a name designed by the mythologists to mean the child of the goddess Aditi. But the most wonderful passage on the theory of attractions occurs in the charming allegorical poem of 'Shi'ri'n and Ferhai'd, or the Divine Spirit, and a human soul disinterestedly pious,' a work which, from the first verse to the last, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire.

"The whole passage appears to me so curious that I make no apology for giving you a faithful translation of it:--

"_There is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to earth (the four elements!), from all below the moon to all above the celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of that natural attractability. The very point of the first thread in this apparently tangled skein is no other than such a principle of attraction, and all principles beside are void of a real basis: from such a propensity arises every motion perceived in heavenly or in terrestrial bodies; it is a disposition to be attracted which taught hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet; it is the same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itself firmly on amber; it is this quality which gives every substance in nature a tendency towards another, and an inclination forcibly directed to a determinate point._"

In Sir W. Ainslie's Materia Medica of India the opinion of an old Hindoo author is given as to the qualifications required in a physician.

"He must be a person of strict veracity, and of the greatest sobriety and decorum: he ought to be skilled in all the commentaries on the 'Ayur-Veda,' and be otherwise a man of sense and benevolence: his heart must be charitable, his temper calm, and his constant study how to do good.

"Such a man is properly called a good physician, and such a physician ought still daily to improve his mind by an attentive perusal of scientific books.

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"Should death come upon us while under the care of a person of this description, it can only be considered as inevitable fate, and not the consequence of presumptuous ignorance."

The knowledge of the Hindoos may be all said to be contained in their sacred books called the Vedas, which, although perfect as a whole, are actually divided into four parts, each in itself constituting a separate Veda under a special title. These are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda (white and black), the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, or Ayur-Veda. Although the last is admitted to be as a whole not so ancient as the other three, still there are portions of it that are probably as old as any of the others. Even in the oldest epic poems of the Hindoos mention is made of four Vedas as already in existence and as of great antiquity. Sir William Jones estimates the date of its compilation as certainly not after B.C. 1580.

These Vedas are considered by the Hindoos to contain the groundwork of all their philosophy, as well as of their arts and sciences, and they contain treatises on music, medicine, the art of war, and architecture.

Sir William Jones, in referring to the Ayur-Veda, says that, to his astonishment, he found in it an entire Upanishad on the internal parts of the human body, enumerating the nerves, veins, and arteries.

The Ayur-Veda was considered by the Brahmins to be the work of Brahma--by him it was communicated to Dacsha, the Prajapati, and by him, the two Aswins, or sons of Surya--the sun--were instructed in it, and thus became the medical attendants of the gods. A legend that cannot but recall to our mind the Greek myth of the two sons of AEsculapius and their descent from Apollo.

In the case of immortal gods the practice was confined to surgery, in treating the wounds received in the conflicts which were constantly described as occurring amongst the gods themselves, or between the gods and the demons. Of course they performed many miraculous cures, as would be expected from their superhuman character.

Professor Wilson published in the _Oriental Magazine_, in 1823, some notices on early Hindoo Medicine, and he points out that the tradition is, that the above "two Aswins instructed Indra in medical and surgical art, that Indra instructed Dahnwantari; although others make Atreya, Bharadwaja, and Charaka prior to the latter:--Charaka's work, which goes by his name, is extant. Dahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah, or Prince of Kasi, or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, his work also exists."

The Ayur-Veda, as the oldest medical writings of the Hindoos are collectively called, was divided into eight divisions. These are described by Professor Wilson as follows:--

"1st. _Salya._--The art of extracting extraneous substances, violently or accidentally introduced into the body, with the treatment of the inflammation and suppuration thereby induced.

"The word _Salya_ means a dart or arrow, and points clearly to the origin of this branch of Hindoo science.

"2nd. _Salakya._--The treatment of external affections or diseases of the eyes, nose, ears, &c.

"3rd, _Kayao Chikitsa._--The general application of medicine to the body, or the science of medicine, as opposed to surgery under the two first heads.

"4th. _Bhutavidya_, or demonology: the act of casting out demons, which we may take to mean the treatment of insanity, such as it was.

"5th. _Kaumara bhritya_, or the treatment of the diseases of women and children.

"6th. _Agada._--The administration of antidotes.

"We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison was only too common an instrument of ambition or revenge.

"7th. _Rasayana._--Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to say alchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substances mostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine or elixir which was to give immortal life.

"8th. _Bajikarana._--Was connected with the means of promoting the increase of the human race."

One of the articles of Hindoo medicine was _Kshara_ or alkaline salts,--these are directed to be obtained by burning different substances of vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six times their measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used both internally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient applications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain.

I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been at the Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and also that the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the time of the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubt concerning this fact, as in Serapion's works we find Charak actually mentioned by name; under the head _De Mirobalanis_ we find "_Et Xarch indus dixit;_" and again, in another section "_Xarcha indus;_" there being no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight change in the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna, again, we find reference to "Scirak indum." Rhazes, again, who was previous to Avicenna, has "_Inquit Scarac indianus_," and again "_Dixit Sarac;_" in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yet been traced, "_Sindifar_," or, as it is in another place, "_Sindichar indianus._"

Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos, published in the _Oriental Magazine_, examines into the distinctive qualities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that the description given in Avicenna, in the section "De Sanguisugis," is almost identical with the Hindoo author's description of the twelve sorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of the various sorts.

That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact that Avicenna says "_Indi dixerunt_."

I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had access to the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if we carefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine as distinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that science of medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit.

It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant and highly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and the changes occurring in mixtures of various substances should have been unstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from being neglected by them.

Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate of potash, borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, common salt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinary men; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medical works, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they made by distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that they prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen pots, calling it _Gunduk Ka Attar_, or "attar of sulphur." Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined by Vauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids.

Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, dried and pounded with the above acid liquor.

Arsenic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venereal diseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and in intermittent fevers.

It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at the present time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still made and sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from time immemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation in the arts of subliming, distilling, &c.

Mr. Rodwell says, "that the distillation of cinnabar with iron, described by Dioscorides, is the first crude example of distillation, which afterwards became a principal operation among the alchemists and chemists for separating the volatile from the fixed."

That this is an assumption which has no foundation in fact is evident, when we find in the Institutes of Menu many enactments against the drinking of distilled spirits, and these made of various kinds and distilled from molasses (or sugar-cane juice), rice, and the madhuca flowers.

"A soldier or merchant drinking arak, mead, or rum are to be considered offenders in the highest degree," and "for drinking spirits are to be branded on the forehead with a vintner's flag," rather a summary way of treating a drunkard, and one which would indicate that the ill effects of over-indulgence in spirituous liquors had been long known, when such severe enactments were made against it.

The method of distilling described by Mr. Kerr in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 1, is so simple that it is almost certain that it was employed in very ancient times for the purpose of distilling spirits, and also attars of various sorts, which, from time immemorial, would seem to have been a special production of India.

"The body of the still is a common large unglazed earthen water jar, nearly globular, of about 25 inches diameter at the widest part of it, and 22 inches deep to the neck, which neck rises 2 inches more, and is 11 inches wide in the opening; this was filled about a half with fermented mahwah flowers, which swam about in the liquor to be distilled.

"This jar they placed in a furnace, not the most artificial, though not seemingly ill adapted to give a great heat with but very little fuel. This they made by digging a round hole in the ground, about 20 inches wide and full 3 feet deep, cutting an opening in the front sloping down to the bottom, perpendicular at the sides, about 9 inches wide and about 15 inches long, reckoning from the edge of the circle: this is to serve to throw in the wood and to allow a passage for the air; at the other side a small opening about 4 inches by 3 inches is made to serve as an outlet for the smoke, the bottom of the hole thus made was rounded like a cup.

"The jar was placed in this as far as it would go, and banked up with clay all round to about a fifth of its height, except at the two openings, when all was completed so far as the furnace was concerned.

"Fully one third of the still or jar was exposed to the heat when the fire was lighted; the fuel was at least 2 feet from the bottom of the jar.

"On to this jar there was now fitted what is called an adkur, this being made of two earthen pans with their bottoms turned towards each other, and a hole of about 4 inches diameter in the middle of each of them, the lower of these pans fitted the hole in the jar, and was luted with clay, the upper was luted to the lower one, and had a diameter of about 14 inches, the juncture formed a neck of about 3 inches, the upper pan was about 4 inches deep, with a rim round the central hole, this formed a gutter, and by means of a hollow bamboo luted to this, the spirit, as it condensed, ran off into the receiver.

"The arrangement was now completed by luting on a small copper pot or vessel about 5 inches deep, 8 inches wide at mouth, and about 10 inches at bottom, with its mouth downwards.

"The cooler was formed by placing on a support at the back of the furnace an earthen vessel containing a few gallons of water, from which, by means of a bamboo tube, the water was allowed to run on to the centre of the copper pot, from where it collected in the clay saucer, and ran off by a small hole and bamboo tube for use again.

"In about three hours' time from lighting the fire, they draw off fully fifteen bottles of spirits."

Comparing this simple form of apparatus with those described by Geber, we must admit that there is no doubt of the earlier date of this simple apparatus; and, as we have seen, distilled spirit is expressly mentioned in the Institutes of Menu, we are bound to admit that distillation was in use long ere the Arabian times and that of Dioscorides.

Many such examples might be examined, but I will take one for illustration--that of the manufacture of common salt.

Let us take this manufacture as a typical one.

We find in Jackson's Antiquities and Chronology of the Chinese that, 2500 B.C., Shin-nong invented the method of obtaining salt from sea-water. He also gets credit for having composed books on medicine.

In George Agricola's De Re Metallica (1561) there is a curious set of woodcuts representing the manufacture of salt, and in the first, in which the whole process of evaporating sea-water by the sun's rays is shown most completely from the raising of the sluices to allow the water to flow into the various evaporating ponds, to the packing of the finished salt in barrels--it is a curious fact that the trees which are introduced are _palms_, and the figure in the distance is dressed in _Oriental costume_, while even the ship seems to partake of this character.

A more advanced state of things is shown in the third drawing of the 12th book, where a pan is shown, made of iron plates riveted together so as to form a flat sheet, which forms the bottom of the pan, of which the sides are composed of thick wood, strengthened with plates of iron at the corners.

The bottom of the pan has a series of iron eyes or loops, and these, when it is fixed over its furnace, are attached to iron rods, which are hung from a network of wooden bars, so that the whole bottom of the pan is supported securely at a considerable number of points.

The furnace is very simple, being simply a wall surrounding an oblong space, a little smaller than the pan, so that the sides of the latter may rest on the walls all round, except for a small space in front where the fuel is introduced, which apparently burns on the ground alone.

The method of manufacturing salt in Japan is almost identical with that figured in Agricola. There is the same arrangement of salt garden or series of ponds and ditches, and the dirty salts mixed with sand are again lixiviated, and the filtered liquid is boiled down in curiously formed pans or boilers.

Of these there are two chief forms, the first being a tank or pan formed of large pieces of slate, with the joints made with clay, and surrounded with a mud wall. The whole is covered with an arch or vault and is filled with the brine, which is then evaporated by surface heat, the fire being placed at one end and the flue at the other.

The other form is very curious and interesting, and is almost identical in its principle of construction with the pan I have referred to as figured in Agricola, only in this case the materials are very different, being, instead of wood and iron, nothing more than clay or mud.

It was described officially by the Japanese, in their publications at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. The Japanese description of this apparatus is highly interesting. It is as follows:--

A low wall is built, enclosing a space of about 13 feet by 9 feet, the bottom forming a kind of prismatical depression, 3 feet deep in the centre line. An ashpit, 3 feet deep, is then excavated, starting from the front wall, and extending about 4 feet into this depression at its deepest place; it communicates with the outside by a channel sloping gradually upwards, and passing underneath the front wall. The ashpit is covered by a clay vault, with holes in its sides, so as to establish a communication between the ashpit and the hollow space under the pan. This vault is used as a fire grate, the fuel (brown coal and small wood) being inserted by the fire-door in the front wall. The air-draught necessary for burning the fuel enters partly by the fire-door, partly through the ashpit and the openings left in the vaulted grate. Through these same openings the ashes and cinders are from time to time pushed down into the ashpit, for which purpose small openings are left in the side-wall of the furnace, through which the rakes may be introduced. A passage in the back wall supporting the pan leads off the products of combustion and the hot air into a short flue, sloping upwards, and ending in a short vertical chimney. At the lower part some iron kettles are placed in the flue for the purpose of heating the lye before it is ladled into the evaporating pan.

With reference to the pan, it is made in a way that requires a great deal of skill and practice. In the first place, beams reaching from the one side to the other are laid on the top of the furnace walls, and are covered with wooden boards, forming a temporary floor. Two or three feet above this floor a strong horizontal network of poles of wood sustains a number of straw ropes, with iron hooks hanging down, and of such a length that the hooks nearly touch the wooden floor. The floor is thereupon covered with a mixture of clay and small stones, 4 to 5 inches thick, the workman being careful to incrustate the iron hooks into this material. It is allowed to dry gradually, and when considered sufficiently hardened, the wooden beams and flooring are removed with the necessary precautions. The bottom of the pan remains suspended by means of the ropes. The open spaces left all round between the bottom and the top of the furnace walls are then filled up, and the border of the pan, 9 inches to 10 inches high, is made of a similar mixture. It is said that this extraordinary construction lasts from 40 to 50 days when well made, and that it can be filled 16 times in 24 hours, with an average of 500 litres of concentrated lye at each filling; but the quantity depends upon the weather, and is less in winter than in summer. During the cold season one pan yields 140 litres (of salt) each time it is filled, and in the hot season from 190 to 210 litres. The average consumpt of fuel is said to be 1500 kilos. in 24 hours.

In Persia, near Ballakhan, salt is still made, and has been made from time immemorial, in a very primitive way, which is described by Bellen, in his description of his journey in 1872 from the Indus to the Tigris, as follows:--

"For several miles our road led over a succession of salt pits and ovens, and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary salt prepared here from the soil. It was in fine white granules massed together in the form of the earthen vessel in which the salt had been evaporated. The process of collecting the salt is very rough and simple. A conical pit or basin, 7 or 8 feet deep and about 12 feet in diameter is dug, and around it are excavated a succession of smaller pits, each about 2 feet diameter by 11/2 feet deep. On one side of the large pit is a deep excavation, to which the descent from the pit is by a sloping bank. In this excavation is a domed oven with a couple of fireplaces. At a little distance off are the piles of earth scraped from the surface and ready for treatment. And, lastly, circling round each pit is a small water-cut led off from a larger stream running along the line of pits.

"Such is the machinery. The process is simply this:--A shovelful of earth is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a shovelful to each) circling the pit.

"The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run into the great central pit, by breaking away a channel for it with the fingers. The channel is then closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of earth washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears. It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and boiled to evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular salt. The jars are then broken, and the mass of salt (which retains its shape) is ready for conveyance to market.

"Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, and a good deal is taken to Kandahar. The quantity turned out here must annually be very great. The salt pits extend over at least ten miles of the country we traversed, and we certainly saw some thousands of pits."

From what I have laid before you, it will be seen that I am strongly of opinion that we must go far beyond the time of Geber or the Arabian school for the origin of our science. The study of the question of its antiquity leads up to such remote times that there is little probability of any date being assigned to its beginning, and to some it may appear but a waste of time to indulge in researches upon the subject; but it has a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in addition, brings before our minds so many phases in the philosophical thought of the world, that it will no doubt long continue to exercise the minds and attract the attention of chemists.

In the course of my own study of the subject, I have felt much dissatisfied with the derivation of the name chemistry or alchemy, as it is given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to be derived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancient name for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the character of the science, I think I have found it in quite a different direction.

It is well known that in the old Hindoo philosophy there were recognized five elementary bodies or rather types. These were Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air, and the system of Menu, of which the antiquity is enormous, recognizes as the greatest conception of the universe--

1st, God.
2nd, Mind.
3rd, Consciousness.
4th, Matras.
5th, Elements.

(matras being the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose the five elements previously named--viz., Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air).

Now, these elements, with the sun and moon, composed the attributes of the dual deity Iswara and Isi, representing the male and female natural powers, and, applying this to the famous Pythagorean triangle, we find that the upright symbol or male, which was the number or power 3, when combined with the female prostrate symbol, which was the number or power 4, gives a product in the Hypotenuse of 5, which is the number of the typical elements of the oldest known Hindoo philosophy. It is also the product of the first male and female numbers, and was anciently called the number of the world--repeated anyhow by an odd multiple it always reappears.

If now we consider chemistry as that science which has to deal with the changes and combinations of the five elements, and if we call it--

_The science of the five parts or elements_, should we not, when we find that the Arabic word for five is _khams_, rather refer the name of our science to this word khams, and read it as

_Al-Khams_,
The five-part science?

I am inclined, however, to go yet a step further, and remembering that the _fifth_ element or Ether of the most ancient Hindoo philosophy, was in reality an expression for active force, or, that emanating from the central sun caused the natural phenomena of attraction and repulsion, the emission and refraction of light, and other sensible changes of condition, would read the compound word

_Al-Khamis_
(The fifth),

as the grand and simple title of our ancient science, meaning

_The force_--

that which causes the changes in the elementary types and their combinations--than which no more descriptive title could be assigned to it, even in the present enlightened age.

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Errors and Anomalies

Apollonius Tyanaeus [_text reads "Appolonius"_]

Hercules and Bacchus (Dionysius) [_text reads "Dionsyius"_]

Ommiades ... Abassides [_standard spellings for this text_]

Ibn Osaibe's testimony [_text reads "Ibu"_]

body-physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Raschid
[_spelling as in original, but elsewhere spelled "Haroun"_]

Xenophon in his Anabasis [_text reads "Zenophon"_]

Megasthenes [_text reads "Megesthenes"_]

the first of the Grecian philosophers [_text reads "philosphers"_]

the Hindoos believe in _fourteen Menus_
[_and six further occurrences of "Menu"_]
[_standard spelling in this text: correct form is "Manu"_]

Libyans in war chariots with four horses [_text reads "Lybians"_]

under the reign of Pharoah Necho [_spelling as in original_]

from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean [_text reads "Mediterreanean"_]

Jackson in his "Antiquities" tells us that, [_comma in original_]

Indra instructed Dahnwantari; Dahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah [_correct form is "Dhanwantari"_]