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Johann Rudolph Glauber: the royals’ alchemist and his secret recipes

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Abstract

Compelling evidence is presented that Glauber worked as a laborator (laboratory assistant) for Landgrave Georg of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1632/33 till he was appointed apothecary in Giessen in 1635. During this time, he was also used as laborator by the landgrave’s personal physician, Helwig Dieterich. Glauber became a famous chemist, whose alchemical secrets were keenly solicited by King Frederik III of Denmark, Queen Christina of Sweden, and, according to the 1662 diary of Ole Borch, King Charles II of England. A 1689 letter to Queen Christina contains detailed descriptions of Glauber’s alkahest, his decomposition and redintegration of saltpeter, and his ‘most secret sal armoniacum’, which is interpreted here for the first time.

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Data Availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the author upon request.

Notes

  1. I use the term ‘chemist’ following Walden (1929), Koning (1950), Gugel (1955), Link (1993), and others. Moreover, Glauber called himself Chymici (genitive masculine of Chymicus, chemist): see portrait, Fig. 1.

  2. Entries in square brackets [] mean that these names and formulas were not known to Glauber. They are used for this author’s interpretation of Glauber’s experiments.

  3. It was widely believed that lead and tin contain mercury.

  4. Aurum potabile or drinkable gold is usually prepared from aurum fulminans (fulminating gold, tetramminegold(III) chloride), itself obtained by dissolving gold in aqua regis and precipitating with ammonia (Wentrup 2019). Distillation with ethanol affords colloidal gold in an ethanolic solution of beautiful, blood-red gold(III) chloride, AuCl3 (Au2Cl6). Glauber prepared aurum fulminans this way as described in Spagyrical Pharmacopoea, Part II, 169 (1689b), but he reported several other procedures as well, e.g., as described Ibid. p. 167.

  5. This process is described in Glauber 1660 and Glauber 1704, Part 3, pp. 164–165.

  6. This process is described using florens instead of ducats in Glauber 1689c.

  7. This process is described in Glauber 1704, Part 3, pp. 361–374 and 769.

  8. Boyle claimed to have done the work “long before the Publication of Glauber’s Treatises” (Boyle 1661, p. 135; cf. Hunter 2010, pp. 104–143).

  9. Ex quorum corporibus mortuis existit Grypho. And donec mutua cæde interfecti fuerint (Glauber 1659).

  10. The transformation K2CO3 + 2 HNO3 → 2 KNO3 + H2O + CO2 will result in a weight increase to 19 ounces, which will be decreased by the escaped CO2. Glauber would have used an excess of nitric acid to reach the 20–22 ounces.

  11. Cf. van Helmont 1652.

  12. Cf. Becker 1993, and Weidenfels 1768.

  13. The reaction KNO3 + EtOH + H+ → EtONO2 + H2O + K+ would yield ca. 30 ounces. The stated weight of 40 ounces would obtain with an excess of ca. 10 ounces of ethanol.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Riksarkivet, Stockholm, the Royal Library, Copenhagen, and the University of Queensland Library for assistance providing access to documents and literature.

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  1. School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia

    Curt Wentrup

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Wentrup, C. Johann Rudolph Glauber: the royals’ alchemist and his secret recipes. Found Chem (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-023-09493-8

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