Formal Sciences & Matter / Chemistry & Materials

Alchemy & Distillation

Arab and European alchemists develop distillation, acids and laboratory methods, the practice from which chemistry later grows.

Jabir ibn Hayyan (about 800) and his school systematized distilling, crystallizing and filtering and are credited with acids such as nitric acid and aqua regia. The goal of making gold failed; the results were lab equipment, knowledge of substances, gunpowder (China, about 900) and, with Paracelsus in the 1500s, chemical medicine.