A New Light of Alchymie

Also a Chymicall Dictionary explaining hard places and words met withall in the writings of Paracelsus, and other obscure Authors.

The medieval protoscientific practice of alchemy is broadly defined as a chemical philosophy whose chief aims were the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discoveries of a universal cure for disease (the panacea), and the discovery of a means to prolong life indefinitely (the elixir). The highest aspiration for alchemy’s practitioners was the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance or chemical preparation believed to have the power of transmutation. By the eighteenth century, alchemical research waned in Europe, but it seems to have been pursued longer in New England, possibly because New England colleges introduced modern chemical instruction later than European institutions.

The Boston Athenæum’s records from early 1812 register the gift of more than two dozen publications on alchemical topics, most of which are comprised in what is known as the Danforth Collection. The collection was built not by its principal donors, the brothers Dr. Samuel Danforth (1740-1827) and Thomas Danforth (1742-1825), but by their father, the Hon. Samuel Danforth (1696-1777). The elder Danforth was a Massachusetts judge and “an earnest seeker of the philosopher’s stone.” He was widely enough known for his alchemical pursuits to be ridiculed for it by skeptical political foes in a 1754 pamphlet that referred to him as “Madam CHEMIA.” In spite of his critics, Danforth apparently persevered in his experiments, writing of his discovery of the stone to Benjamin Franklin years later.

Danforth is believed to have begun building his alchemical library as early as 1721. Twentieth-century scholarship asserts that, although Danforth’s is not the most significant collection of its sort, he “could hardly have selected a more representative collection of writers for his study of alchemy.” The collection today contains twenty titles, most of which date from the seventeenth century. Many of the books are compilations of tracts and treatises by more than one author, such as the two-volume Bibliotheca chemica curiosa (Geneva, 1702), the six-volume Theatrum chemicum(Strasbourg, 1613-1661), and Artis avriferae (Basel, 1610), “one of the chief collections of standard alchemical authors.” Many also contain symbolic illustrations and instructive foldout tables, including The Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine (London, 1670), with several woodcuts, and the Theatrum chemicum britannicum (London, 1672), edited by Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), founder of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, with engravings by Robert Vaughan. Some volumes contain chemical recipes that seem fantastical to the modern reader, musings on religion and science, and even addresses to non-believers.

A New Light of Alchymie (London, 1650) is an English translation of works by the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius. It includes writings by Paracelsus (1493 or 1494-1541), the influential Swiss doctor and chemist Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus Von Hohenheim. The translator, “J. F.,” is believed to be John French (1616-1657), an English army surgeon, author, and editor of several alchemical works. (“French” has been lightly penciled in beside the initial “F” on the title-page.) The primary author, Sendivogius, greatly admired by his contemporaries and by future alchemists, made his mark on modern science with his treatise De lapide philosophorum,