Al-Râzî's Book of Secrets - The Practical Laboratory in the Medieval Islamic World by Gail Marlow Taylor (2008).pdf - Historia - Alchemia Sagiryka - MMarkMMark

AL-RAZI'S BOOK OF SECRETS:

THE PRACTICAL LABORATORY IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

History

Gail Marlow Taylor

Approved by:

5chen Burgtorf, Ph.D., Committee Chair

Date

Department of History

Nancy Fitch, Ph.D., Member

Date

Department of History

Lynn Sargeant, Ph.D., Member

Date

Department of History

UMI Number: 1452429

Taylor, Gail Marlow

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ABSTRACT

Over a thousand years ago, the Persian physician and chemist Abu Bakr

Muhammad ibn Zakarlya al-RazT wrote a laboratory manual in Arabic, called the Kitab

al-Asrar or Book of Secrets. His systematic book describes procedures in terms of

required chemicals, equipment, and processes, without the theoretical or allegorical

digressions that characterize many alchemical manuals. In the early twentieth century,

science historians Julius Ruska and Henry Stapleton were greatly impressed by al-RazT's

scientific approach. More recent histories, however, usually treat serious laboratory texts

as a development of early modern Europe.

I have translated al-Razi's book into English from Ruska's German translation of

the Arabic text. I argue that it embodies the methodological organization of a modern

laboratory procedure manual. In this thesis, I first analyze the historical significance of

the Kitab al-Asrar and its relationship to medieval European alchemic texts. Next, I

examine its contents and show how its strategies for reproducibility share a common

pattern with modern laboratory manuals. Laboratories today analyze virtually everything

we touch from the food we eat to the clothes we wear. Yet the basis of laboratory testing,

the procedure manual defining equipment, materials, and procedures, is demonstrated in a

tenth-century alchemic handbook, the Kitab al-Asrar.

Al-Râzî's Book of Secrets - The Practical Laboratory in the Medieval Islamic World by Gail Marlow Taylor (2008).pdf

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