Hey everyone, at the beginning I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had an amazing weekend which has brought many interesting experiences into your life! In my new post I would like to talk about alchemy and am happy if you can expand your knowledge.
As an old branch of natural philosophy, alchemy is one of the most important cornerstones for the emergence of the pharmaceutical industry and the work of the old alchemists was extremely diverse and ranged from the production of medicines to attempts to produce gold artificially. One of the most important ideologies of the alchemists was the view that nature is perfect, but not completed and their own task is to complete the work and an example are medicinal plants which must first be collected before they could be given to to the sick persons or to make medicines such as extracts or tinctures from them which were even more effective than they are in the normal plant form. The work is far more diverse and it was much about observing material reactions and this understanding was the basis for the development of chemistry and both, the understanding of the human body and the mind was of enormous importance which was characterised by various spiritual teachings and without knowing this, a practical work was not easily possible. The alchemists observed exactly what effects certain substances have on the body have and how far they can be used to cure sick people or simply expand the horizon and one of the most important things was to find it ways to fully unfold the human potential or to help others reach enlightenment and here there were thousands of attempts and approaches to achieve this goal. Alchemy was practised pretty much on all on different continents and even if there were differences everywhere, numerous parallels can be recognised and at a certain time the knowledge from different cultures has merged, which means that the work has become more accurate.
In the course of time, alchemy has separated more and more from religious ideas and became more a science that enjoyed an ever greater reputation and was promoted by numerous influential personalities who believed in the work and appreciate the enormous knowledge that was collected over the centuries. All the processes that were necessary to produce medicines became more precise and some alchemists of modern times made more and more a science out of it and broke away from the mystical aspects of alchemy and during the 17th century century, alchemy became chemistry, but still existed and focussed more on the research of occult phenomena which can also be associated with parapsychology. With the industrialisation, the production of chemical substances was also expanded and it came to the production of large quantities and it developed into an ever larger business so that during the 19th century large factories were built which produced medicines in masses. The type of medication has also changed more over the time, which can be attributed to the influence of research, but the origins remain the same and are associated with the alchemists and it can be said that a large part of the origin of the pharmaceutical industry is based on plants and the medicine has been synthesised through industrialisation. The influence of the alchemists on today's pharmaceutical industry is not to be neglected and today it's one of the largest industries that creates millions of jobs and makes up a large part of the world economy and well-known pharmaceutical companies are Hoffmann-La Roche, Novartis or Sanofi.
Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about this topic! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.