Note 895 — Chapter V · ANCIENT APPLIED SCIENCE AND MAGIC: VITRUVIUS, HERO, AND THE GREEK ALCHEMISTS

Berthelot (1885), pp. 68-9. For the following account of Greek alchemy I have followed Berthelot’s three works, Les Origines de l’Alchimie, 1885; Collection des anciens Alchimistes Grecs, 3 vols., 1887-1888; Introduction à l’Étude de la Chimie, 1889. Berthelot made a good many books from too few MSS; went over the same ground repeatedly; and sometimes had to correct his previous statements; but still remains the fullest account of the subject. E. O. v. Lippmann, Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie, 1919, is still based largely on Berthelot’s publications. In English see C. A. Browne, “The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastos upon the Sacred Art: A Metrical Translation with Comments upon the History of Alchemy,” in The Scientific Monthly, September, 1920, pp. 193-214.