ABSTRACT
Alchemy is a discipline roughly comparable to chemistry, which, in its millennium-and-a-half of existence, encompassed such broadly diverse topics as the transmutation of metals, the making of chemical pharmaceuticals, the refining and assaying of metals and ores, and the production of chemical products, including dyes, pigments, inks, artificial gems, and alloys. While alchemy is often artificially separated from chemistry, the two words were used interchangeably until the eighteenth century and referred to the same topics.
