On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art Part 4

"2nd. _Salakya._--The treatment of external affections or diseases of the eyes, nose, ears, &c.

"3rd, _Kayao Chikitsa._--The general application of medicine to the body, or the science of medicine, as opposed to surgery under the two first heads.

"4th. _Bhutavidya_, or demonology: the act of casting out demons, which we may take to mean the treatment of insanity, such as it was.

"5th. _Kaumara bhritya_, or the treatment of the diseases of women and children.

"6th. _Agada._--The administration of antidotes.

"We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison was only too common an instrument of ambition or revenge.

"7th. _Rasayana._--Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to say alchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substances mostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine or elixir which was to give immortal life.

"8th. _Bajikarana._--Was connected with the means of promoting the increase of the human race."

One of the articles of Hindoo medicine was _Kshara_ or alkaline salts,--these are directed to be obtained by burning different substances of vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six times their measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used both internally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient applications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain.

I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been at the Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and also that the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the time of the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubt concerning this fact, as in Serapion's works we find Charak actually mentioned by name; under the head _De Mirobalanis_ we find "_Et Xarch indus dixit;_" and again, in another section "_Xarcha indus;_" there being no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight change in the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna, again, we find reference to "Scirak indum." Rhazes, again, who was previous to Avicenna, has "_Inquit Scarac india.n.u.s_," and again "_Dixit Sarac;_" in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yet been traced, "_Sindifar_," or, as it is in another place, "_Sindichar india.n.u.s._"

Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos, published in the _Oriental Magazine_, examines into the distinctive qualities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that the description given in Avicenna, in the section "De Sanguisugis," is almost identical with the Hindoo author's description of the twelve sorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of the various sorts.

That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact that Avicenna says "_Indi dixerunt_."

I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had access to the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if we carefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine as distinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that science of medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit.

It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant and highly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and the changes occurring in mixtures of various substances should have been unstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from being neglected by them.

Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate of potash, borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, common salt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinary men; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medical works, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they made by distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that they prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen pots, calling it _Gunduk Ka Attar_, or "attar of sulphur." Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined by Vauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids.

Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, dried and pounded with the above acid liquor.

a.r.s.enic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venereal diseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and in intermittent fevers.

It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at the present time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still made and sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from time immemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation in the arts of subliming, distilling, &c.

Mr. Rodwell says, "that the distillation of cinnabar with iron, described by Dioscorides, is the first crude example of distillation, which afterwards became a princ.i.p.al operation among the alchemists and chemists for separating the volatile from the fixed."

That this is an a.s.sumption which has no foundation in fact is evident, when we find in the Inst.i.tutes of Menu many enactments against the drinking of distilled spirits, and these made of various kinds and distilled from mola.s.ses (or sugar-cane juice), rice, and the madhuca flowers.

"A soldier or merchant drinking arak, mead, or rum are to be considered offenders in the highest degree," and "for drinking spirits are to be branded on the forehead with a vintner's flag," rather a summary way of treating a drunkard, and one which would indicate that the ill effects of over-indulgence in spirituous liquors had been long known, when such severe enactments were made against it.

The method of distilling described by Mr. Kerr in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 1, is so simple that it is almost certain that it was employed in very ancient times for the purpose of distilling spirits, and also attars of various sorts, which, from time immemorial, would seem to have been a special production of India.

"The body of the still is a common large unglazed earthen water jar, nearly globular, of about 25 inches diameter at the widest part of it, and 22 inches deep to the neck, which neck rises 2 inches more, and is 11 inches wide in the opening; this was filled about a half with fermented mahwah flowers, which swam about in the liquor to be distilled.

"This jar they placed in a furnace, not the most artificial, though not seemingly ill adapted to give a great heat with but very little fuel.

This they made by digging a round hole in the ground, about 20 inches wide and full 3 feet deep, cutting an opening in the front sloping down to the bottom, perpendicular at the sides, about 9 inches wide and about 15 inches long, reckoning from the edge of the circle: this is to serve to throw in the wood and to allow a pa.s.sage for the air; at the other side a small opening about 4 inches by 3 inches is made to serve as an outlet for the smoke, the bottom of the hole thus made was rounded like a cup.

"The jar was placed in this as far as it would go, and banked up with clay all round to about a fifth of its height, except at the two openings, when all was completed so far as the furnace was concerned.

"Fully one third of the still or jar was exposed to the heat when the fire was lighted; the fuel was at least 2 feet from the bottom of the jar.

"On to this jar there was now fitted what is called an adkur, this being made of two earthen pans with their bottoms turned towards each other, and a hole of about 4 inches diameter in the middle of each of them, the lower of these pans fitted the hole in the jar, and was luted with clay, the upper was luted to the lower one, and had a diameter of about 14 inches, the juncture formed a neck of about 3 inches, the upper pan was about 4 inches deep, with a rim round the central hole, this formed a gutter, and by means of a hollow bamboo luted to this, the spirit, as it condensed, ran off into the receiver.

"The arrangement was now completed by luting on a small copper pot or vessel about 5 inches deep, 8 inches wide at mouth, and about 10 inches at bottom, with its mouth downwards.

"The cooler was formed by placing on a support at the back of the furnace an earthen vessel containing a few gallons of water, from which, by means of a bamboo tube, the water was allowed to run on to the centre of the copper pot, from where it collected in the clay saucer, and ran off by a small hole and bamboo tube for use again.

"In about three hours' time from lighting the fire, they draw off fully fifteen bottles of spirits."

Comparing this simple form of apparatus with those described by Geber, we must admit that there is no doubt of the earlier date of this simple apparatus; and, as we have seen, distilled spirit is expressly mentioned in the Inst.i.tutes of Menu, we are bound to admit that distillation was in use long ere the Arabian times and that of Dioscorides.

Many such examples might be examined, but I will take one for ill.u.s.tration--that of the manufacture of common salt.

Let us take this manufacture as a typical one.

We find in Jackson's Antiquities and Chronology of the Chinese that, 2500 B.C., Shin-nong invented the method of obtaining salt from sea-water. He also gets credit for having composed books on medicine.

In George Agricola's De Re Metallica (1561) there is a curious set of woodcuts representing the manufacture of salt, and in the first, in which the whole process of evaporating sea-water by the sun's rays is shown most completely from the raising of the sluices to allow the water to flow into the various evaporating ponds, to the packing of the finished salt in barrels--it is a curious fact that the trees which are introduced are _palms_, and the figure in the distance is dressed in _Oriental costume_, while even the ship seems to partake of this character.

A more advanced state of things is shown in the third drawing of the 12th book, where a pan is shown, made of iron plates riveted together so as to form a flat sheet, which forms the bottom of the pan, of which the sides are composed of thick wood, strengthened with plates of iron at the corners.

The bottom of the pan has a series of iron eyes or loops, and these, when it is fixed over its furnace, are attached to iron rods, which are hung from a network of wooden bars, so that the whole bottom of the pan is supported securely at a considerable number of points.

The furnace is very simple, being simply a wall surrounding an oblong s.p.a.ce, a little smaller than the pan, so that the sides of the latter may rest on the walls all round, except for a small s.p.a.ce in front where the fuel is introduced, which apparently burns on the ground alone.

The method of manufacturing salt in j.a.pan is almost identical with that figured in Agricola. There is the same arrangement of salt garden or series of ponds and ditches, and the dirty salts mixed with sand are again lixiviated, and the filtered liquid is boiled down in curiously formed pans or boilers.

Of these there are two chief forms, the first being a tank or pan formed of large pieces of slate, with the joints made with clay, and surrounded with a mud wall. The whole is covered with an arch or vault and is filled with the brine, which is then evaporated by surface heat, the fire being placed at one end and the flue at the other.

The other form is very curious and interesting, and is almost identical in its principle of construction with the pan I have referred to as figured in Agricola, only in this case the materials are very different, being, instead of wood and iron, nothing more than clay or mud.

It was described officially by the j.a.panese, in their publications at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. The j.a.panese description of this apparatus is highly interesting. It is as follows:--

A low wall is built, enclosing a s.p.a.ce of about 13 feet by 9 feet, the bottom forming a kind of prismatical depression, 3 feet deep in the centre line. An ashpit, 3 feet deep, is then excavated, starting from the front wall, and extending about 4 feet into this depression at its deepest place; it communicates with the outside by a channel sloping gradually upwards, and pa.s.sing underneath the front wall. The ashpit is covered by a clay vault, with holes in its sides, so as to establish a communication between the ashpit and the hollow s.p.a.ce under the pan.

This vault is used as a fire grate, the fuel (brown coal and small wood) being inserted by the fire-door in the front wall. The air-draught necessary for burning the fuel enters partly by the fire-door, partly through the ashpit and the openings left in the vaulted grate. Through these same openings the ashes and cinders are from time to time pushed down into the ashpit, for which purpose small openings are left in the side-wall of the furnace, through which the rakes may be introduced. A pa.s.sage in the back wall supporting the pan leads off the products of combustion and the hot air into a short flue, sloping upwards, and ending in a short vertical chimney. At the lower part some iron kettles are placed in the flue for the purpose of heating the lye before it is ladled into the evaporating pan.

With reference to the pan, it is made in a way that requires a great deal of skill and practice. In the first place, beams reaching from the one side to the other are laid on the top of the furnace walls, and are covered with wooden boards, forming a temporary floor. Two or three feet above this floor a strong horizontal network of poles of wood sustains a number of straw ropes, with iron hooks hanging down, and of such a length that the hooks nearly touch the wooden floor. The floor is thereupon covered with a mixture of clay and small stones, 4 to 5 inches thick, the workman being careful to incrustate the iron hooks into this material. It is allowed to dry gradually, and when considered sufficiently hardened, the wooden beams and flooring are removed with the necessary precautions. The bottom of the pan remains suspended by means of the ropes. The open s.p.a.ces left all round between the bottom and the top of the furnace walls are then filled up, and the border of the pan, 9 inches to 10 inches high, is made of a similar mixture. It is said that this extraordinary construction lasts from 40 to 50 days when well made, and that it can be filled 16 times in 24 hours, with an average of 500 litres of concentrated lye at each filling; but the quant.i.ty depends upon the weather, and is less in winter than in summer.

During the cold season one pan yields 140 litres (of salt) each time it is filled, and in the hot season from 190 to 210 litres. The average consumpt of fuel is said to be 1500 kilos. in 24 hours.

In Persia, near Ballakhan, salt is still made, and has been made from time immemorial, in a very primitive way, which is described by Bellen, in his description of his journey in 1872 from the Indus to the Tigris, as follows:--

"For several miles our road led over a succession of salt pits and ovens, and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary salt prepared here from the soil. It was in fine white granules ma.s.sed together in the form of the earthen vessel in which the salt had been evaporated. The process of collecting the salt is very rough and simple.

A conical pit or basin, 7 or 8 feet deep and about 12 feet in diameter is dug, and around it are excavated a succession of smaller pits, each about 2 feet diameter by 1 feet deep. On one side of the large pit is a deep excavation, to which the descent from the pit is by a sloping bank. In this excavation is a domed oven with a couple of fireplaces. At a little distance off are the piles of earth sc.r.a.ped from the surface and ready for treatment. And, lastly, circling round each pit is a small water-cut led off from a larger stream running along the line of pits.

"Such is the machinery. The process is simply this:--A shovelful of earth is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a shovelful to each) circling the pit.

"The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run into the great central pit, by breaking away a channel for it with the fingers. The channel is then closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of earth washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears. It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and boiled to evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular salt. The jars are then broken, and the ma.s.s of salt (which retains its shape) is ready for conveyance to market.