The history of chemistry is filled with interesting tales and fascinating characters.
Chemistry is something that humanity has practiced since before there was a written record. Our earliest experiments included the making of wine and beer, the synthesis of cheese, and the extraction of metals from ores.
Glassblowing, fertilization, and making ceramics were all things that were practiced in ancient times with only scant evidence of who and how so it is a little hard to say exactly when chemistry began.
But begin it did.
Certainly by the dark ages, there was a thriving business in chemistry. Not so much in Europe but in the Middle East, where the practice developed into a fine art. It was imported to Europe as "alchemy" but out of this somewhat mystical explanation for the way that science works grew the modern science.
One of the practitioners of the ancient art of alchemy was Hennig Brandt. A rather pompous man who insisted on being called "Herr Doktor" despite never having gone to University nor obtained degrees, he spent his life in search of the philosopher's stone. (Yes, it is more than just a book about Harry Potter.)
To the ancient alchemists, the philosopher's stone would reveal the true nature of matter and allow it to be manipulated. They believed that by touching the stone to a base metal, like lead, it could be transformed into gold or, for that matter, anything that they desired.
Ironically, we can now do this transformation but it requires much more than a simple stone. Atom smashing cyclotrons can transform elements but at huge costs due to power consumption. To produce gold this way costs many thousands of times the value of the gold itself.
In the days of Hennig Brandt - in the year 1669 - alchemists still believed in finding the one pure substance that could unlock the essence of the universe. Where did Brandt look? Well, while not trying to be too indelicate about the subject, his search took him to urine - after all, it is typically gold in colour.
He took several gallons of the stuff - 42 hog's heads to be precise - and boiled off the water content until he had little more than a sticky residue. He was then trying to render this as a solid, stoking his small furnace with charcoal until his retort flask was glowing red hot, when a strange thing happened.
Glowing fumes filled the vessel and from the end of the retort dripped a shining liquid that burst into flames as soon as it came in contact with air. Here might be the essence of life, thought Brandt.
Mystical and magical stuff rendered from human excrement, he caught some in a flask which he stoppered. It cooled to give a solid that was pale white but still glowing with an eerie green light. You can imagine his surprise and joy at having rendered this substance which so clearly was unlike anything seen before.
We now know that what Brandt had discovered was neither the essence of life nor the philosopher's stone. It was phosphorus. The 15th element in the periodic table, it was the 13th element discovered and isolated.
If you believe that numbers control our lives, then maybe there was something prophetic about being the thirteenth element because ever since its discovery, phosphorus has had a checkered history.
Its name comes from its eerie glow. "Phosphorus" literally means "light bearer". And for years, this was its chief function. It served as a novelty item to delight kings, princes, and other royalty.
Brandt made a decent living moving from court to court demonstrating the mystical glowing properties of this new substance. A little phosphorus water was sufficient to set hands glowing and you can imagine the fun that it generated at parties. In his day, Brandt provided the equivalent of the modern chemiluminescent glow sticks found at clubs and raves.
Of course, alchemists were not interested in sharing their secrets. Their writings are filled with all sorts of arcane symbols designed to hide their methods and findings.
Brandt's method of manufacture was something that he kept secret for as long as he could. He eventually sold it to other alchemists when he ran out of money but it was never common knowledge.
This, by the way, is one of the true distinctions that marks modern science from alchemy and its precursors - publishing in peer reviewed journals is the only way to disseminate your work and the only way to receive credit. Still, the word did get out and eventually the manufacturing of phosphorus became a major industry.
