As cryptic manuscripts and centuries-old labware yield their secrets, scholars are coming to realize that medieval "chymists" were real scientists after all.by Sara Reardon
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If I recall correctly, true alchemists were as much philosophers as chemists, and their journey to turn base metal into gold was also metaphor for their own spirits--to literally turn their "base metal" spirit into a higher "gold."
And I dislike the "witches" reference. Many witches of the time period, if they called themselves that, were herbalists and healers. Mountebanks, on the other hand...yeah.
An early work was Boyle's Sceptical Chymist, which sought to winnow the wheat from the chaff, dividing alchemy from chemistry, the puffers from the chymists. So the term itself is not new, though it's odd that modern scholars want to use chymists to be equivalent to alchemists, when Boyle was quite clear in separating the deceitful alchemists from the protoscientific chymists.
I like the ideas behind the article, and it's probably important to realize what actually was going on in medieval labs, but Principe's whole philosophy of "we have to un-taint medieval things of icky non-science" kind of irks me
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Still, it's great that scientists are now giving alchemists more credit than they used to!
(the Fullmetal Alchemist fan in me is ecstatic! :D )
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And I dislike the "witches" reference. Many witches of the time period, if they called themselves that, were herbalists and healers. Mountebanks, on the other hand...yeah.
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