Table Of ContentT H E A L C H E M Y O F A L - R A Z I
A Translation of the “Book of Secrets”
Gail Marlow Taylor
Copyright © 2014 by Gail Marlow Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gail Marlow Taylor began her graduate studies in history
following a 25-year career in laboratory medicine. She completed
her master’s degree in 2008 with a thesis entitled: “Al-Razi's Book
of Secrets: The Practical Laboratory in the Medieval Islamic
World.” This analysis, which included her English translation of
the Book of Secrets, won the 2009 Outstanding Thesis Award at
California State University, Fullerton.
In June, 2014, she was awarded a doctorate in history at
University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation analyzed the
reception of New World medicinal plants in sixteenth-century
Germany, and included a year of research in Wolfenbüttel on a
Fulbright Scholarship. She lives in Rancho Santa Margarita,
California, where she enjoys spending time with her children and
grandchildren and writing her blog, “History’s Edge.”
ABOUT THE COVER
PHOTOGRAPH
Because complicated alchemical procedures required written
instructions, books have become an iconic part of alchemy in
artistic representations. In this seventeenth-century painting, the
alchemist stirs the crucible with book in hand, while assistants
prepare ingredients and monitor the critical level of heat. Detail
from The Bald-Headed Alchemist, after David Teniers II, Fisher
Collection. (Courtesy of the Chemical Heritage Foundation
Collections. Photo by Will Brown. 00.01.258.)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Heartfelt thanks are due to two people who helped me
see this project as living history: Father Jose Luis de Valle Merino
at the Real Biblioteca Monasterio del Escorial, who let me hold the
Escorial manuscript of the Kitāb al-Asrār in my hands and scanned
in a digital copy for me to take home, and Thomas Ruska in Berlin,
who graciously gave me permission to use Julius Ruska’s
translation of al-Rāzī’s work and invited me to contribute a printed
copy of my translation to the archive of his great grandfather’s
distinguished works.
The book itself owes its existence to the many readers who
read about my thesis and translation in my blog and asked me
where they could find a copy. Hearing from people in ten different
countries and from a variety of backgrounds served as both an
inspiration and a testament to the enduring interest in al-Razi and
his contributions to chemistry. I am more than grateful for the
encouragement and support of my thesis advisor at California State
University, Fullerton, Dr. Jochen Burgtorf, and my thesis
committee members Dr. Nancy Fitch and Dr. Lynn Sargeant, who
received my prospectus with such contagious enthusiasm. A big
measure of thanks goes to my doctoral advisors at University of
California, Irvine, Dr. Ulrike Strasser and Dr. Laura Mitchell, who
urged me to follow through and publish this work.
My friends and colleagues throughout my hospital career not
only unwittingly shaped my laboratory persona, but even read parts
of this book, making it almost a laboratory result in itself. Of
course, any failures to meet quality control standards are purely my
own.
As for the unfailing love of my father, my children, my
grandchildren, and especially my husband, a tireless and expert
proofreader, words cannot express my gratitude for your patience
with the hours I have spent in al-Rāzī’s laboratory.
“Alchemy was never at any time anything different
from chemistry. It is utterly unjust to confound it, as is
generally done, with the gold-making of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. . . . Alchemy was a science,
and included all those processes in which chemistry
was technically applied.”
—JUSTUS VON LIEBIG
FAMILIAR LETTERS ON CHEMISTRY
LONDON, 1859, 54.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Author
About the cover photograph
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
The Laboratory and the Book
Sources and Structure
Alchemy and Chemistry
The Kitāb al-Asrār IN HISTORY
The Durability of the Practical Laboratory Manual
Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī: Also Known as Rhazes
The Kitāb al-Asrār: The Secret is Out
INSIDE the Kitāb al-Asrār
The Laboratory’s Role in Transition
Sine Qua Non: The Hidden Assumptions
Physical Requirements: Chemicals and Equipment
Operational Requirements: Clear, Realistic, and Safe Procedures
Verification Requirements: The Key to Reproducibility
Time and Temperature
Weights and Measures
End Points
CONCLUSION
The translation of the Kitāb al-Asrār
KITĀB AL-ASRĀR: Outline
THE BOOK SECRET OF SECRETS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
PREFACE
Over a thousand years ago, the Persian physician and
alchemist Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi presented his
students with a book of alchemy instructions called the Kitab al-
Asrar or Book of Secrets. For over seven hundred years this
systematic text on managing chemicals, equipment, and procedures
was translated and imitated throughout Europe. Using historian
Julius Ruska’s authoritative 1937 German translation, I have
translated al-Razi’s Book of Secrets into English for the first time
and analyzed it from the practical hands-on perspective of my own
laboratory experience.
With its promises of gold and prolonging life, alchemy
has long attracted scholars, kings, and charlatans while over the
centuries the practice of material transformation undertaken in this
quest laid a foundation for the chemistry, metallurgy, and medical
laboratory techniques of our times. From the tenth century, the
Kitab al-Asrar or Book of Secrets of al-Razi speaks to us of the
instruments, measurements, and reproducibility that are the essence
of laboratory practice today. As a laboratory technologist, I
recognized the structure and procedures Book of Secrets to be those
of a laboratory manual, much as we see in any chemistry laboratory
class. I based the argument of my master’s thesis on this similarity,
calling it: Al-Razi’s Book of Secrets: The Practical Laboratory in
the Medieval Islamic World.
This thesis, which includes my English translation of the
