365bet娱乐

129
after Ge Hong and is observed in Sun Si-miao's writings
(i.e., the seventh century AD).
Needham writes,
47 Chinese alchemy seems in a way to have reached
its peak of development between the time of Ge Hong
early in the +4th century and that of Mei Biao
at the beginning of the +9th. This can be seen
in the lucid style of many of the alchemical
writings of this period (a great departure from
the abstruse language used by Wei Bo-yang), in
the adventurous experimentation with ever greater
number of inorganic substances for elixir recipes
and in the development of alchemical theory. The
majority of the most important proto-chemical
writings we now possess belong to this period.
From the +9th century onwards there was a tendency
to revert to the gnomic and theoretical style, a
marked decrease in the number of substances used
in elixirs, and a growing interest in substances
of plant and animal origin.
In this way, the comparison of the chemistry of
Bogar karpam with early medieval Chinese methods reveals
similarities between the two. The chief reaction in a
second century Chinese alchemist's text (Wei Bo-yang's
can-tong-qi) is repeatedly described by Bogar for making
an elixir. Again the elixir-formulae of Bogar are very
similar to those given by Ge Hong, a fourth century
Chinese alchemist. Moreover, the recipe given by the
author of Bogar karpam for China silver parallels the one
which was known to the Europeans in later centuries.
Hence it is apparent that the ideas of making silvery
47.
'Needham, Joseph, Vol. 5, Pt. III, p. 182; also
see FN. 34 in the chapter on Alchemy in China.