The History of Chemistry - Thomas Thomson

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      Copper was introduced into medicine at rather an early period of society, and various medicinal preparations of it are described by Dioscorides and Pliny. It remains for us to notice the most remarkable of these. Pliny mentions an institution, to which he gives the name of Seplasia; the object of which was, to prepare medicines for the use of medical men. It seems, therefore, to have been similar to our apothecaries’ shops of the present day. Pliny reprobates the conduct of the persons who had the charge of these Seplasiæ in his time. They were in the habit of adulterating medicines to such a degree, that nothing good or genuine could be procured from them.43

      Both the oxides of copper were known to the ancients, though they were not very accurately distinguished from each other: they were known by the names flos æris and scoria æris, or squama æris. They were obtained by heating bars of copper red-hot and letting them cool, exposed to the air. What fell off during the cooling was the flos, what was driven off by blows of a hammer was the squama or scoria æris. It is obvious, that all these substances were nearly of the same nature, and that they were in reality mixtures of the black and red oxides of copper.

      Stomoma seems also to have been an oxide of copper, which was gradually formed upon the surface of the metal, when it was kept in a state of fusion.

      These oxides of copper were used as external applications in cases of polypi of the nose, diseases of the anus, ear, mouth, &c., seemingly as escharotics.

      Ærugo, verdigris, was a subacetate of copper, doubtless often mixed with subacetate of zinc, as not only copper but brass also was used for preparing it. The mode of preparing this substance was similar to the process still followed. Whether verdigris was employed as a paint by the ancients does not appear; for Pliny takes no notice of any such use of it.

      Chalcantum, called also atramentum sutorium, was probably a mixture of sulphate of copper and sulphate of iron. Pliny’s account of the mode of procuring it is too imperfect to enable us to form precise ideas concerning it; but it was crystallized on strings, which were extended for the purpose in the solution: its colour was blue, and it was transparent like glass. This description might apply to sulphate of copper; but as the substance was used for blackening leather, and on that account was called atramentum sutorium, it is obvious that it must have contained also sulphate of iron.

      Chalcitis was the name for an ore of copper. The account given of it by Pliny agrees best with copper pyrites, which is now known to be a sulphur salt, composed of one atom of sulphide of copper (the acid) united to one atom of sulphide of iron (the base). Pliny informs us, that it is a mixture of copper, misy, and sory: its colour is that of honey. By age, he says, it changes into sory. I think it most probable that native sory, of which Pliny speaks, was sulphuret of copper, and artificial sory sulphate of copper. The native sory is said to constitute black veins in chalcitis. Pliny’s description of misy (μισυ) best agrees with copper pyrites. Dioscorides describes it as hard, as having the colour of gold, and as shining like a star.44 All this agrees pretty well with copper pyrites.

      Scoleca (so called because it assumed the shape of a worm) was formed by triturating alumen, carbonate of soda, and white vinegar, till the matter became green. It was probably a mixture of sulphate of soda, acetate of soda, acetate of alumina, and acetate of copper, probably with more or less oxide of copper, &c., depending upon the proportions of the respective constituents employed.

      Such are the preparations of copper, employed by the ancients. They were only used as external applications, partly as escharotics, and partly to induce ulcers to put on a healthy appearance. It does not appear that copper was ever used by the ancients as an internal remedy.

      4. Though zinc in the metallic state was unknown to the ancients, yet as they knew some of its ores, and employed preparations of it in medicine, and were in the habit of alloying copper with it, and converting it into brass, it will be proper to state here what was known to them concerning it.

      Pliny nowhere makes us acquainted with the process by which copper was converted into brass, nor does he seem to have been acquainted with it; but from several facts incidentally mentioned by him, it is obvious that their process was similar to that which is followed at present by modern brass-makers. The copper in grains is mixed with a certain quantity of calamine (cadmia) and charcoal, and exposed for some time to a moderate heat in a covered crucible. The calamine is reduced to the metallic state, and imbibed by the copper grains. When the copper is thus converted into brass, the temperature is raised sufficiently high to melt the whole: it is then poured out and cast into a slab or ingot.

      The cadmia employed by the ancients in medicine was not calamine, but oxide of zinc, which sublimed during the fusion of brass in an open vessel. It was distinguished by a variety of names, according to the state in which it was obtained: the lighter portion was called capnitis. Botryitis was the name of the portion in the interior of the chimney: the name was derived from some resemblance which it was supposed to have to a bunch of grapes. It had two colours, ash and red. The red variety was reckoned best. This red colour it might derive from some copper mixed with it, but more probably from iron; for a small quantity of oxide of iron is sufficient to give oxide of zinc a rather beautiful red colour. The portion collected on the sides of the furnace was called placitis: it constituted a crust, and was distinguished by different names, according to its colour; onychitis when it was blue externally, but spotted internally: ostracitis, when it was black and dirty-looking. This last variety was considered as an excellent application to wounds. The best cadmia in Pliny’s time was furnished by the furnaces of the Isle of Cyprus: it was used as an external application in ulcers, inflammations, eruptions, &c., so that its use in medicine was pretty much the same as at present. Sulphate and acetate of zinc were unknown to the ancients. No attempt seems to have been made by them to introduce any preparations of zinc as internal medicines.

      Pompholyx was the name given to oxide of zinc, sublimed by the combustion of the zinc which exists in brass. Spodos seems to have been a mixture of oxides of zinc and copper. There were different varieties of it distinguished by various names.45

      5. Iron exists very rarely in the earth in a metallic state, but most commonly in the state of an oxide; and the processes necessary to extract metallic iron from these ores are much more complicated, and require much greater skill, than the reduction of gold, silver, or copper from their respective ores. This would lead us to expect that iron would have been much longer in being discovered than the three metals whose names have been just given. But we learn from the Book of Genesis that iron, like copper and gold, was known before the flood, Tubal-cain being represented as an artificer in copper and iron.46 The Hebrew word for iron, לזרב (barzel), is said to be derived from רב (bar), bright, לזנ (nazal), to melt; and would lead one to the suspicion, that it referred to cast iron rather than malleable iron. It is possible that in these early times native iron may have existed as well as native gold, silver, and copper; and in this way Tubal-cain may have become acquainted with the existence and properties of this metal. In the time of Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, iron must have been in common use in Egypt: for he mentions furnaces for working iron;47 ores from which it was extracted;48 and tells us that swords,49 knives,50 axes,51 and tools for cutting stones,52 were then made of that metal. Now iron in its pure metallic state is too soft to be applied to these uses: it is obvious, therefore, that in Moses’s time, not only iron but steel also must have been in common use in Egypt. From this we see how much further advanced the Egyptians were than the Greeks in the knowledge of the manufacture of this most important metal: for during the Trojan war, which was several centuries after the time of Moses, Homer represents his heroes as armed with swords of copper, hardened by tin, and as never using any weapons of iron whatever. Nay, in such estimation was it held, that Achilles, when he celebrated games in honour of Patrocles, proposes a ball of iron as one of his most valuable prizes.53

      “Then hurl’d the hero, thundering on the ground,

       A mass of iron (an enormous round),

       Whose weight and size the circling Greeks admire,

       Rude from

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