What Did Alchemists Actually Do?

The popular image of the alchemist is a bearded hermit hunched over a glowing furnace, muttering Latin charms and seeking the philosopher’s stone. The historical reality is more varied, and the reality is more interesting. The alchemists were court physicians and monastic copyists, university professors and itinerant charlatans, apothecary shopkeepers and skilled metallurgists. They worked in courts, monasteries, universities, workshops, pharmacies, and private laboratories. They were men and (occasionally) women, professionals and amateurs, the well-funded and the destitute. The alchemical laboratory was a real workplace, and the work that happened in it was real work (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013, pp. 18-22, 100-180; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004; Smith, The Business of Alchemy, 1994). The alchemists were serious laboratory practitioners, and the modern chemical laboratory is the direct descendant of their work.

The variety of practitioners

The first thing to recognize is that the alchemists were a diverse group, and the popular image of the solitary hermit is one type of alchemist, not the only type. The historical alchemists included:

Court alchemists, employed by kings, princes, and emperors to produce gold, prepare medicines, and advise on matters of state. The court alchemist of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance was a respected member of the court, often well-paid, and often involved in the broader political life of the time. The court of Rudolf II in Prague at the turn of the seventeenth century is the famous example.
Monastic alchemists, working in the scriptoria and laboratories of the great monasteries. The monastic alchemists were often the preservers and transmitters of the alchemical texts, and they played an important role in the development of the Latin alchemical tradition.
University alchemists, working in the medical and philosophical faculties of the universities. The university alchemists were often physicians as well, and they integrated the alchemical tradition with the broader academic curriculum. The universities of Basel, Marburg, and Montpellier in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the major cases.
Apothecary alchemists, working in the pharmacies and shops that prepared and sold medicines. The apothecary alchemists were often the most practical of the alchemists, and they developed a sophisticated pharmacology based on the alchemical tradition.
Metallurgist alchemists, working in the mines, foundries, and workshops of the metalworkers. The metallurgist alchemists were often the most technically skilled of the alchemists, and they developed a sophisticated understanding of the behavior of metals under heat. The mining districts of Saxony and Bohemia in the late Middle Ages are the classic case.
Itinerant alchemists, traveling from court to court and from city to city, offering their services as physicians, alchemists, and astrologers. The itinerant alchemists were often the most colorful of the alchemists, and they were a major source of the popular image of the alchemist as a wandering sage or charlatan.

The variety is one of the most striking features of the alchemical tradition, and the variety is one of the reasons the tradition lasted so long. The alchemists were not a sect. They were a profession (or several professions) operating within a shared theoretical framework.

The laboratory

The alchemical laboratory was a working laboratory, and the alchemists spent much of their time in the practical work of the laboratory. The laboratory was typically a dedicated space, often in a separate building or in a separate wing of a larger building. The laboratory was equipped with:

Furnaces of various kinds: the athanor (the self-feeding furnace that could maintain a constant temperature for extended periods), the reverberatory furnace, the cupellation furnace, the distillation furnace. The furnaces were the heart of the alchemical laboratory.
Apparatus for the manipulation of substances: mortars and pestles for grinding, crucibles for melting, tongs and ladles for handling hot materials, sieves for separating fine from coarse particles.
Apparatus for the distillation and sublimation of substances: alembics, retorts, cucurbits, pelicans, receivers. The distillation apparatus was the most sophisticated of the alchemical equipment, and the alembic, with its distinctive dome-and-beak shape, was the most recognizable single piece.
Apparatus for the digestion and putrefaction of substances: sealed vessels, water baths (the balneum Mariae, named for Maria the Jewess), sand baths, digestion chambers.
Storage vessels of various kinds: glass bottles, ceramic jars, leather bags, wooden boxes. The storage of the alchemical materials was a major part of the work, and the alchemist was responsible for the proper labeling, dating, and storage of all the materials in the laboratory.

The alchemical laboratory was a substantial investment, and the well-equipped laboratory of a successful alchemist represented a significant capital outlay. The alchemists were careful to document their equipment, and the surviving laboratory inventories of the period give a good picture of the materials and the apparatus of the alchemical work (Smith, 1994; Principe, 2013, pp. 120-130).

The materials

The alchemists worked with a wide range of materials, drawn from the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. The most important:

Metals: gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, mercury, antimony, bismuth, zinc. The metals were the foundation of the alchemical work, and the alchemist who worked with a metal was working with the corresponding planetary principle.
Acids: sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, aqua regia. The acids were the most important of the alchemical reagents, and the development of the mineral acids is one of the major achievements of the Arabic and Latin alchemical tradition.
Salts: common salt, saltpeter, sal ammoniac, and a long list of other mineral salts.
Mineral substances: sulfur, alum, vitriol, and a long list of other minerals.
Plant substances: a wide range of herbs, roots, and other plant materials. The plant substances were used in the spagyric preparation of medicines, and the planetary herbs formed the basis of the spagyric pharmacopoeia.
Animal substances: blood, urine, hair, and other animal materials. The animal substances were used in some alchemical procedures, and the use of “less respectable” animal materials was one of the things the Galenist physicians mocked about the Paracelsians.

The alchemists were careful to document the sources and the properties of the materials they used, and the surviving laboratory notebooks of the period — Newton’s alchemical notebooks are the most famous example — give a good picture of the materials of the alchemical work (Principe, 2013, pp. 130-150).

The daily work

The daily work of the alchemist was varied and demanding. The alchemist typically began the day with a period of meditation, prayer, or ritual, depending on the tradition. The alchemist then turned to the practical work of the laboratory, which might include:

Preparation of materials: the grinding, washing, drying, and weighing of the substances to be used in the day’s work.
Heating of substances: the calcination of metals, the distillation of liquids, the digestion of mixtures. The heating was the most time-consuming part of the laboratory work, and the heating was also the part that required the most care.
Observation and recording: the careful observation of the color, odor, and consistency of the materials, and the recording of the observations in the laboratory notebook.
Reading and study: the study of the alchemical texts, the commentary on the texts, the integration of the readings with the laboratory work. The alchemist was expected to be a serious reader as well as a serious practitioner.

The daily work of the alchemist was demanding, and the successful alchemist was a careful, patient, and disciplined practitioner. The popular image of the alchemist as a deluded seeker of impossible goals is unfair to the historical alchemists, who were serious laboratory practitioners who developed a sophisticated understanding of the behavior of matter (Principe, 2013, pp. 150-160). The work was not glamorous. The work was skilled, repetitive, often disappointing, and occasionally rewarding in ways the alchemist did not always understand.

The popular image versus the reality

The popular image of the alchemist and the historical reality differ in several important ways, and the differences are worth being clear about.

First, the popular image of the alchemist as a solitary hermit is misleading. Many alchemists worked in collaborative settings — courts, monasteries, universities, workshops — and the alchemical tradition was a communal tradition. The alchemists were members of a community of practitioners who shared texts, techniques, and materials, and the community is one of the reasons the tradition lasted as long as it did.

Second, the popular image of the alchemist as a deluded seeker of impossible goals is misleading. The alchemists were serious laboratory practitioners who developed a sophisticated understanding of the behavior of matter. The alchemists were wrong about the possibility of transmutation, and they were right about many of the practical and theoretical features of the natural world, and both halves of that sentence are part of the honest picture.

Third, the popular image of the alchemist as a mystic is misleading. The alchemists were religious thinkers, and they were also natural philosophers and laboratory practitioners, and the alchemists integrated the religious, philosophical, and practical dimensions of their work in ways that the modern reader can find difficult to understand. The integration was a real and serious feature of the alchemical tradition, and the integration is part of what made the tradition coherent.

Fourth, the popular image of the alchemist as a charlatan is misleading. Some alchemists were charlatans, of course, and some of the most famous cases (the case of Anna Maria Zieglerin, the case of the alchemical impostor at the court of Empress Elisabeth of Russia) are documented. Most alchemists, however, were serious practitioners who believed in the truth of their tradition. The alchemists who claimed to have produced the philosopher’s stone were not necessarily liars. They were people who worked within a sophisticated tradition and who reported their experiences within the framework of that tradition. The honest reading is that the tradition was wrong about the stone. The honest reading is also that the practitioners were not all frauds.

The legacy

The legacy of the alchemists’ actual work is substantial, and the legacy is mostly invisible because it has been absorbed into the modern scientific tradition. The alchemists developed a sophisticated laboratory practice, a sophisticated pharmacology, and a sophisticated theory of matter, and the modern chemical and pharmaceutical traditions are the direct descendants of their work (Newman & Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 2002; Principe, 2013, pp. 160-180). The alchemists’ laboratory apparatus, the alchemists’ laboratory techniques, and the alchemists’ empirical observations are all part of the modern scientific inheritance, and the inheritance is one of the most important things the modern chemical tradition has. The legacy of the alchemists’ actual work is also visible in the modern spagyric revival, which has recovered some of the alchemists’ practical methods and has integrated them with modern herbal and pharmaceutical practice. The integration is the most interesting thing about the modern revival, and the integration is also the most likely direction for the revival’s future development.