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THE CHEMICAL BEGINNER

ALCHEMY

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It is the art that teaches how to separate the pure from the impure. Or, it is the art of perfecting magisteries from the Latin magisterium; refers to a concentrated medicinal preparation or a substance purified to its highest state and separating pure essences from mixed bodies. There are two species of Alchemy: One is Pyrotechnia original: "Pyrothechnia"; the art of using fire for chemical or metallurgical purposes, or the fiery art of resolving, purifying, and transmuting metals, which I will pass over here in silence.

The other species is that which draws out the most subtle spirits from metals, gems, and plants: for the more subtle they are, the purer they are; and the purer they are, the more effective the remedies they provide. This branch purifies, separates, and perfects metals; it dissolves even the hardest gold; it processes original: "vexat," literally "disturbs" or "attacks," here referring to the chemical breakdown metals through the "weakness" of vegetable substances referring to the use of organic acids derived from plants to act as solvents on hard metals, and extracts tinctures from the subjects—