Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Temperance prize essays / By Drs. Mussey and Lindsly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/210 (page 86)
    it will send over only the water with which it was moistened—then the liquor to be distilled.’* It is obvious from this extract, and’ from other remains of the writings of Geber, that the process of distillation had attained no inconsiderable degree of perfection even at that early period, and that the mode of conducting pharmaceutical pre- parations was also much advanced. We may also infer that distillation must have been known before the time of Geber, as he does not speak of the invention of any process, but merely describes theemodé then in use. At the period in which he flourished, a love of science and literature had been extensively dif- fused, and continued to keep pace with the con- from the gulf of Persia and the borders of Tar- tary to the mediterranean and Indian seas, and from the isthmus of Suez to the Atlantic Ocean. The collection of books and curiosities at Bag- dad alone was such as would dohonor to the proud- est and most literary capitol of modern Europe, even in the present age of scientific taste and research. ‘The fondness for extensive libraries was: carried to such a pitch, that we read of a physi- cian who declined the invitation of the Sultan of Bochara to reside at his court because the carriage of his books alone would require four hundred camels. Cairo in Egypt contained a library of 100,000 volumes handsomely copied and bound; and these rich and abundant treasures of know- * The figures in the print will give a good idea of _— of the apparatus employed by Geber.