Related Research Articles
Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, properties, behavior and the changes they undergo during reactions with other substances. Chemistry also addresses the nature of chemical bonds in chemical compounds.
Lactose, or milk sugar, is a disaccharide sugar composed of galactose and glucose subunits and has the molecular formula C12H22O11. Lactose makes up around 2–8% of milk (by mass). The name comes from lact (gen. lactis), the Latin word for milk, plus the suffix -ose used to name sugars. The compound is a white, water-soluble, non-hygroscopic solid with a mildly sweet taste. It is used in the food industry.
Pasta is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was traditionally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet, such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils. While Asian noodles are believed to have originated in China, pasta is believed to have independently originated in Italy and is a staple food of Italian cuisine, with evidence of Etruscans making pasta as early as 400 BCE in Italy.
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment, and used as a fat in baking, sauce-making, pan frying, and other cooking procedures.
Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food colouring is sometimes added in addition to stabilizers. The mixture is cooled below the freezing point of water and stirred to incorporate air spaces and prevent detectable ice crystals from forming. It can also be made by whisking a flavoured cream base and liquid nitrogen together. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures. It becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.
Manna is, according to the Bible and the Quran, an edible substance which God provided for the Israelites during their travels in the desert during the 40-year period following the Exodus and prior to the conquest of Canaan.
Paracelsus, born Theophrastus von Hohenheim, was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance.
Blue cheese is any of a wide range of cheeses made with the addition of cultures of edible molds, which create blue-green spots or veins through the cheese. Blue cheeses vary in taste from very mild to strong, and from slightly sweet to salty or sharp; in colour from pale to dark; and in consistency from liquid to hard. They may have a distinctive smell, either from the mold or from various specially cultivated bacteria such as Brevibacterium linens.
Kosher foods are foods that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut. The laws of kashrut apply to food derived from living creatures and kosher foods are restricted to certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria; the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria is forbidden by the dietary laws. Furthermore, kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita and their blood may never be consumed and must be removed from the meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. All plant-based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed.
Iatrochemistry is an archaic pre-scientific school of thought that was supplanted by modern chemistry and medicine. Having its roots in alchemy, iatrochemistry sought to provide chemical solutions to diseases and medical ailments.
During the Renaissance, great advances occurred in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, manufacturing, anatomy and engineering. The collection of ancient scientific texts began in earnest at the start of the 15th century and continued up to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of printing allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. Nevertheless, some have seen the Renaissance, at least in its initial period, as one of scientific backwardness. Historians like George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike criticized how the Renaissance affected science, arguing that progress was slowed for some amount of time. Humanists favored human-centered subjects like politics and history over study of natural philosophy or applied mathematics. More recently, however, scholars have acknowledged the positive influence of the Renaissance on mathematics and science, pointing to factors like the rediscovery of lost or obscure texts and the increased emphasis on the study of language and the correct reading of texts.
The Charaka Samhita is a Sanskrit text on Ayurveda. Along with the Sushruta Samhita, it is one of the two foundational texts of this field that have survived from ancient India. It is one of the three works that constitute the Brhat Trayi.
Medieval cuisine includes foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, which lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. During this period, diets and cooking changed less than they did in the early modern period that followed, when those changes helped lay the foundations for modern European cuisines.
Cheese is a dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk. During production, milk is usually acidified and either the enzymes of rennet or bacterial enzymes with similar activity are added to cause the casein to coagulate. The solid curds are then separated from the liquid whey and pressed into finished cheese. Some cheeses have aromatic molds on the rind, the outer layer, or throughout.
Baopuzi is a literary work written by Ge Hong, , a scholar during the turbulent Jin dynasty.
Angelo Sala was an Italian doctor and early iatrochemist. He promoted chemical remedies and, drawing on the relative merits of the conflicting chemical and Galenical systems of medicine, dismissed alchemical transmutation and 'universal medicine'; objected to tartar which had deliquesced being called an 'oil'; observed that metals reacted differently with acids; that sulphur extracted something from the air in order to burn; that silver nitrate darkened on exposure to light; surmised the existence of elementary (atomic) particles; and described newly discovered compounds and methods of preparation. Sala made the first studies on the formation of alcohol from fermenting musts and so is regarded as the founder of sugar chemistry.
Waidan, translated as 'external alchemy' or 'external elixir', is the early branch of Chinese alchemy that focuses upon compounding elixirs of immortality by heating minerals, metals, and other natural substances in a luted crucible. The later branch of esoteric neidan 'inner alchemy', which borrowed doctrines and vocabulary from exoteric waidan, is based on allegorically producing elixirs within the endocrine or hormonal system of the practitioner's body, through Daoist meditation, diet, and physiological practices. The practice of waidan external alchemy originated in the early Han dynasty, grew in popularity until the Tang (618–907), when neidan began and several emperors died from alchemical elixir poisoning, and gradually declined until the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
In Chinese alchemy, elixir poisoning refers to the toxic effects from elixirs of immortality that contained metals and minerals such as mercury and arsenic. The official Twenty-Four Histories record numerous Chinese emperors, nobles, and officials who died from taking elixirs to prolong their lifespans. The first emperor to die from elixir poisoning was likely Qin Shi Huang and the last was the Yongzheng Emperor. Despite common knowledge that immortality potions could be deadly, fangshi and Daoist alchemists continued the elixir-making practice for two millennia.
János Bánfihunyadi, better known by his Latinized name Johannes Banfi Hunyades or his pseudonym Hans Hungar, was a Hungarian alchemist, chemist and metallurgist. He emigrated to England in 1608 and built a reputation among the academic circles of England and Hungary, associating with such figures as the alchemist Arthur Dee, astrologer William Lilly, physician Jonathan Goddard and scientist Kenelm Digby.
References
- ↑ Fantoli, Annibale (2003). Galileo — for Copernicanism and the Church (3rd English ed.). Vatican Observatory Publications. ISBN 88-209-7427-4.
- ↑ Finocchiaro, Maurice A. (1989). The Galileo Affair: a Documentary History . Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06662-6.
- ↑ Drake, Stillman (1978). Galileo at Work . University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-16226-5.
- ↑ Bartoletti, Fabrizio (1633). Methodus in dyspnoeam … [Procedure for asthma … ]. Bologna ("Bononia", Italy): Nicolò Tebaldini for the heirs of Evangelista Dozza. p. 400. From page 400: "Manna seri hæc. Destilla leni balnei calore serum lactis, donec in fundo vasis butyracea fœx subsideat, cui hærebit salina quædam substantia subalbida. Hanc curiose segrega, est enim sal seri essentiale; seu nitrum, cujus causa nitrosum dicitut serum, huicque tota abstergedi vis inest. Solve in aqua propria, & coagula. Opus repete, donec seri cremorem habeas sapore omnino mannam referentem." (This is the manna of whey. [Note: "Manna" is the dried, sweet sap of the tree Fraxinus ornus .] Gently distill whey via a heat bath until the buttery scum settles to the bottom of the vessel, to which substance some whitish salt [i.e., precipitate] attaches. This curious [substance once] separated, is truly the essential salt of whey; or, on account of which nitre, is called "nitre of whey", and all [life] force is in this that will be expelled. [Note: "Nitre" is an alchemical concept. It is the power of life, which gives life to otherwise inanimate matter. (See the philosophy of Sendivogius.)] Dissolve it in [its] own water and coagulate. Repeat the operation until you have cream of whey, recalling, by [its] taste, only manna.) In 1688, the German physician Michael Ettmüller (1644–1683) reprints Bartoletti's preparation. See: Ettmüller, Michael (1688). Opera Omnia… Frankfurt am Main ("Francofurtum ad Moenum", Germany): Johann David Zunner. 2, page 163. Archived 2018-11-09 at the Wayback Machine From page 163: "Undd Bertholetus praeparat ex sero lactis remedium, quod vocat mannam S. [alchemical symbol for salt, salem] seri lactis vid. in Encyclopaed. p. 400. Praeparatio est haec: … " (Whence Bartoletti prepared a medicine from milk whey, which he called manna or salt of milk whey, see in [his] Encyclopedia [note: this is a mistake; the preparation appeared in Bartoletti's Methodus in dyspnoeam … ], p. 400. This is the preparation: … )
- ↑ BnF 12108388m