Arsenic in Alchemy

Hey dear Hive Community, first of all I would like to wish you all a pleasant day and hope you are all doing well! In my new post, I would like to talk about alchemy and hope you can expand your knowledge.

To see his here pictures of Arsenopyrite which has high proportions of Arsenic and specifically I would like to go into the use in alchemy. The first production already succeeded in 13th Century by Albertus Magnus and he heated the Auripigment together with soap and this resulted in arsenic and this is probably one of the pioneers for many alchemical attempts. Even if arsenic has toxic properties that were already known in ancient times, it was of great interest in alchemy and was mentioned in many old writings and the well-known doctor and alchemist and Paracelsus also wrote about arsenic. Paracelsus was the first to use arsenic for therapeutic purposes and he is generally known to have used toxic elements for healing purposes and often described that the dose would make up the poison. Anyone who should handle arsenic must always pay attention to the correct handling due to the toxic properties and arsenic-containing minerals should always be kept closed! In the Middle Ages, the alchemists did a lot of research with arsenic and found out that it can be useful to dye other metals white and therefore it was interesting to artificially produce silver, which is often known as a small work of the alchemists. Arsenic occurs in many old recipes for alchemical processes and it was often associated with a swan and in the alchemical alphabet it has its own symbol and despite the toxic properties it was often associated with enlightenment and the higher self in the spiritual side of alchemy. The connection to the swan can be traced back to the fact that it has been linked to transformation and despite the toxicity, it was previously used to trigger trance-like states and the toxicity has already been researched in the past and arsenic appears in numerous old legends and it was of great importance for the old alchemists and often full of mysticism.

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!