Let us set the scene: we are in Europe, at one of the continent’s most refined courts, more than three centuries ago. Before the king, the queen, and their entourage, a curious vial is paraded. All gaze in astonishment: its contents shine in the dark. It’s not magic, but science. The unusual glow comes from phosphorus, which had been obtained by accident from 1,500 gallons (about 5,700 liters) of human urine. Its discoverer, a seventeenth-century German alchemist, ruined two wives to fund his obsession. He sought gold, but found light.
It is one of the many stories of science that journalist Kit Chapman collects in his book The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry (Profile Books, 2026). The work, a finalist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, shows the hidden side of scientific research. Before chemistry existed, alchemy existed: a mosaic of trial and error, secrecy and faith. It was practiced by kings, monks, slaves and visionaries. From that chaos would emerge, centuries later, the method that today underpins science in the twenty-first century.
Antes de que existiera la química, existió la alquimia: un mosaico de ensayo y error, secretismo y fe, que fue practicado por reyes, monjes y visionarios.
The Man Who Sought Gold in His Own Urine
Hennig Brand was, as Chapman puts it, “an alchemist in the purest sense of the word.” This scholar, who lived in seventeenth-century Germany, was convinced that human urine—golden as the metal he so coveted—carried the key to transmutation. To test his hunch, Brand hoarded thousands of liters of the liquid and subjected it to distillations and experiments for months.
Although he did not obtain gold, his efforts were not in vain: he discovered a white substance that emitted its own light in the dark. He had isolated phosphorus. Brand is, in fact, the first person on record to have discovered a chemical element. Yet, he had no idea what he had made, or why it glowed.
True to the alchemical logic, he kept his secret until he decided to sell it to a colleague. The strange material then set off on a tour of European courts as a salon curiosity. It would take the chemist and philosopher Robert Boyle (1627-1691) to unravel, decades later, the true nature of the phenomenon. Brand’s story illustrates a pattern that often repeats in the history of alchemy: empirical practice and results preceded explanation. Genuine discoveries were made, but without a theoretical framework to explain them.
In seeking to transmute urine into gold, Hennig Brand became the first person to discover a chemical element for which we have a record.
Secrets and Codes: The True Price of Knowledge
The discoveries that arose within the heart of alchemy fostered a fixation with concealing their secrets. The first known alchemical tract, Physika Kai Mystika, translates literally as “Natural and Secret Matters.” Since its authors often depended on keeping recipes and experiments to themselves to survive, they frequently
turned to encrypted language to shield their techniques from the curious eyes of rivals.
That impulse to cloak knowledge carried devastating consequences. In 300 C.E., the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of the alchemical texts of Alexandria. He feared that the promise of turning urine into gold would devalue the imperial coin and foment conspiracies against his throne. The fear was understandable, for twenty-five of his predecessors had died murdered or in violent circumstances. The result, in any case, was an irreparable loss of accumulated knowledge.
In 300 C.E., the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of the alchemical texts of Alexandria, fearing that the promise of gold-making would devalue the imperial coin.
From Paracelsus to Lavoisier: The Birth of Modern Chemistry
The decisive turn came when thinkers began demanding evidence rather than dogma. Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician and alchemist as erratic as he was brilliant, came to believe in the real existence of mermaids. Even so, he dared to question the medicine of his time, grounded in the theory of the four bodily humors. He insisted that one must examine and experiment with patients, rather than diagnosing from afar as medical custom dictated. That insistence on maintaining direct contact with evidence laid the foundations of modern medicine.
The definitive end of the alchemical era arrived with Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), a French chemist executed during the French Revolution. He formulated the law of the conservation of matter. He also produced one of the first systematic lists of chemical elements, replacing mystic speculation with rigorous measurement. Chapman equates him with Isaac Newton: when all magic fades, chemistry is born as we know it today.
The Chinese scientist Tu Youyou isolated artemisinin, the most effective antimalarial compound discovered to date, from a nearly 1,700-year-old herbal remedy manual.
A Science Born from Natural Mysteries
That legacy that connects alchemy with chemistry remains alive well into the twenty-first century. The Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, for example, received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine for isolating artemisinin, the most effective antimalarial compound discovered to date. She derived it from a nearly 1,700-year-old manual of herbal remedies. The connection between the protocientific past and today’s laboratories, far from being merely anecdotal, is capable of producing life-saving drugs.
Understanding alchemy helps recognize the fertile, chaotic, and deeply human ground from which the scientific method emerged. Each failed distillation, every encrypted recipe, and every accidental discovery formed part of a collective process of knowledge. Behind every chemical advance, therefore, beats the same stubborn curiosity that led a man to boil liters and liters of urine in search of gold.
