The birth of medical chemistry

Abstract

Up to nearly the middle of the sixteenth century men studied chemistry for personal gain, striving with patience, perseverance and zeal, first after the discovery of a substance that would change all metals into gold, the "philosopher's stone", and later after the discovery of a medicine that would cure all diseases, the "elixir vitae". From the thirteenth century to the time of Paracelsus, who died in 1511, the aim of the alchemist, or the chemist of that period, was the transmutation of the common metals into gold and the preparation of a universal elixir. Disappointment and failure could not damp his ardour, nor could poverty force him from the pursuit of his illusory objects.