A review by slferg
The Secrets of Alchemy by Lawrence M. Principe

5.0

Informative read on alchemy which covers not just the philosopher's stone, but also the medicines that began to be made about the same time. Also about the rise and fall of belief and trust in alchemy and the secrets supposedly hidden in it. Since there was no standardization of ingredients and what some experimenters called an ingredient was not what others called that one, it sounds rather slapdash, but was indeed carefully researched by the individual. The author himself has had some of the results described in the old alchemy books, by repeated experiment and long effort because there were no thermometers then to record the heat used. This was a problem along with the non-standardization of ingredients. The author does not claim to have made a philosopher's stone, in fact, he has barely poked a toe in that treacherous water, but he does seem to have created the first steps described by one or two of the alchemists. In fact, the results one of them describes were results from the impurity inherent in the materials used. Because of their faulty materials and primitive (by today's standards) tools, they achieved results they could not have done with pure ingredients.
The penalties and pains of this kind of work was a discouragement in itself, and chemistry - in spite of itself - is rather an offshoot of it. Much of the controversy and actors in it is discussed with the different medieval attitudes to life. Also, there are quite a few illustrations that are illuminating.
There is a chapter or two that looks at the early modern attitude to 'alchymy' where it is equated with religion - and there was a whole group that grew up that held the writing on alchemy was only intended to reveal religious secrets and had nothing to do with it's supposed purpose.