Albany College of Pharmacy - Alembic Yearbook (Albany, NY)

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$lp Almlttr Back in the middle ages, when many things were at the stage of begin- ning lived and thrived the alchemist. His was considered a learned, but mysterious profession. Tbe scientists of the day, of which he was one, thought the baser metals could be changed in composition, that iron and lead could be made by some strange manner into gold and silver. That all things in the universe had a common beginning and that they had only to find the touchstone, the link which would enable them to create the elements at will. The alchemist sent to distant countries for samples of strange earth, ore, stones and minerals. Discovrers of new countries selected sam- ples to bring him for his forges. So when Virginia was discovered a yellow substance, called fool’s gold, was taken at once bfcane to Europe. Even then, working and toiling at the trade of his ancestors, these untiring laborers of science kept on with their work of discovery. Even with the sight of the mysterious touchstone before them, making discoveries of untold value to us, but never succeeding in their object. In the first part of the 16th century a Greek gave alchemy a new direc- tion. He declared that its true object was not the making of gold, but the preparation of medicines. Here was founded a new school whose adherents investigated the action of different substances on the human body, and chemistry profited by the fact that it passed into the hands of the greatest scientists of the day. From the principal apparatus of all alchemists, the ingenous still-like kettle of our profession's early adherents we name, this our class book, 41 The Alembic.” An alembic consisted of three distinct parts, the base, a pot-like crucible. This part was made of some metal such as copper or iron. It must needs be very durable, for here the beat was applied. Fitting tightly over the opening at the top, or neck, of this metal base was a condenser of the same material, or sometimes of the less durable material, glass, the advantage being that one could see the vapors as they arose and were condensed. This condenser was fitted with a long neck, or roughly, a spout, through which the vapors and gases still uncondensed passed into a receiving flask, or liquids already condensed into their proper containers, here to be tested at will. In all alchemists’ shops there were many of these of different sizes, 25

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 PH ARM ACY LABORATORY

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and we who have anxiously watched the result of the mixture of several com- pounds can well imagine the thrills through which the fathers of our pro- fession passed as they leaned over their forge and watched vapors of fantastic and new colors pass into the condenser, there to cool into substances so common to us, only because some untiring and faithful alchemist discovered them for our use. This is the age of chemistry. The world of manufacture and progress would stand still without sulphuric acid alone. This substance, known as oil of vitriol, had its beginning in the discovery by an alchemist in the 15th century, and back in the 8th century aqua regia, a very useful acid, was dis- covered. It is well if we sometimes think when perplexed in our laboratories of the untiring struggle of the men who gave us the knowledge which we apply in our profession. Geo. N. Hoffman Ty 26