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Distillation and the Isolation of Alcohol

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The Quest for Aqua Vitae

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((BRIESFHISTCHEM))

Abstract

As discussed in the previous chapters, the production of alcoholic beverages via fermentation is thought to date back to sometime before 6000 BCE [1–4], yet the separation, isolation, and application of alcohol as a distinct chemical species did not occur until the 12th century CE [4–12]. This of course begs the question: Why did it take so long? The principle factor in the long delay between these events was the fact that the most common method for this separation, distillation, was not really developed until the 1st century CE [13–20]. Even so, it still took essentially another thousand years for the successful isolation of ethanol.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Also sometimes given as Mary or Miriam, Maria the Jewess was an alchemist of the first century CE who wrote on practical chemical aspects and described various types of early laboratory apparatus [8, 13, 14, 16]. In addition to the still, she is commonly credited with the invention of the water-bath and the kerotakis apparatus [8, 13, 16, 17, 19]. For this reason, the water bath was referred in Latin to as the ‘balneum Mariae’ and later in French as the ‘bain Marie’ [8, 16, 17, 19]. Maria is alleged by some to be Miriam, the sister of Moses [17, 19, 20].

  2. 2.

    Sometimes given as bronze rather than copper [13, 17, 19].

  3. 3.

    From the Latin cucurbita meaning “gourd” [19]. The cucurbit is sometimes called a bikos as well. Alternate terms also include lopas and botarion [16].

  4. 4.

    Alternate forms included alembik, alembyk, alembike, alembyke, alimbeck, alembeke, alimbecke, alimbeck, and limbick [12].

  5. 5.

    Usually referred to with the title of Magister or Master, Salernus (d. 1167) was a physician of the School of Salerno and lived at Salerno between 1130 and 1160. His writings included a summary of pathology and therapeutics [8, 9, 11, 17].

  6. 6.

    Taddeo Alderotti (also known as Taddeo degli Alderotti, Taddeo de Firenze, and Thaddeus Florentinus [9, 37–39]) was born in Florence [17, 38], although the date of his birth is unknown [41]. His earliest biography states that he died in his 80s and thus it is thought that he was born between 1206 and 1215 [38]. It is said that he was brought up in poverty and thus his education could not begin until relatively late [40]. It has been proposed that his early studies were fostered by the Franciscans sometime between the mid-1230s and the early 1260s [38], after which he started teaching medicine and logic at the University of Bologna as early as 1260–1264 [38, 40, 41], where he was among the very first teachers of the newly founded university. He was an author on anatomy and medicine [9, 38, 40, 41] and advocated the close association of medicine with Aristotelian natural philosophy and defended the validity of medicine as a science [41]. He discusses the distilling of alcohol and its medicinal value in his De virtutibus aquae vitae [9], the final section of his Consilia medicinalia written about 1280 [38, 39]. He died in Bologna in 1295 [17, 38, 41], although dates of 1292 and 1303 have been reported by some authors [9, 38, 40, 42].

  7. 7.

    Other than the fact that he was a physician in Prague around the period of 1420, and is believed to have originally come from Altenburg in Germany, very little is known about Johann Wenod [37, 44]. The only known documentation is a brief medical treatise on the treatment of urinary stone disease and related drug preparations, which was included in a manuscript written in 1417–1418 [44]. This treatise was discovered by Karl Sudhoff in the Leipzig University Library (Ms. 1775), the details of which he published in 1914 [37, 44]. From Wenod’s choice of wording in his writing, Sudhoff felt Wenod to be German, but states uncertainty about the correct surname of the author. While he favored either ‘Venod’ or ‘Wenod’, he states that these could also be a Latinized form of ‘Wende’ [43]. Although Sudhoff gives his first name as Johann [37, 44], which would be consistent with a German heritage, references by most authors use the English equivalent ‘John’ [12, 15, 43].

  8. 8.

    Hieronymus Brunschwig (also given as Brunschwyck, Braunschweig, or Brunschwijg) was a German surgeon and a native of Strassburg [45, 51, 52]. He is believed to have been born ca. 1450 [45, 52], although others have given earlier dates of 1430 [51] or 1440 [52]. He was descended from the Sauler (or Saler [51]) family of Strassburg and studied medicine at Bologna, Padua and Paris [45]. He is most well-known for his works on the art of distillation, most importantly Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus (1500, commonly known as the Small Book of Distillation) and Liber de arte distillandi de Compositis (1512, commonly known as the Large Book of Distillation) [45, 51, 52]. He died at the end of 1512 or the beginning of 1513, at the age of 60 [45, 51, 52]. Others, however, have given his death as 1533 or 1534 [51, 52].

  9. 9.

    Conrad Gesner, also referred to as Evonymus Philiater, was born in Zurich on March 26, 1516 [51, 53]. He was destitute at an early age due to his father's death, which forced him to take an assistant's position in Strassburg. In 1535, he took a teacher's post at Zurich and studied medicine, before becoming a professor of Greek philology at Geneva in 1537 [53]. He finally finished his medical study at Basel in 1541 [53] and then returned to Zurich as a private physician and professor of physics and natural history [51]. He was a voluminous writer and died on December 13, 1565 [51, 53].

  10. 10.

    The exact date is unknown and various dates have been reported, including ~1100 CE [4, 10, 12], ~1130 CE [7], and ~1150 CE [6]. The timespan of 1150–1170 CE, however, has the strongest support from available evidence [6, 11].

  11. 11.

    Also given as Ramón Lull or Raymond Lully [60]. Considerable obscurity surrounds the life of Raymond Lull, whose name became famous in the 13th century [56, 60]. Many of the works attributed to him are now believed have been written by others. Lull is said to have been descended from a noble Spanish family and was born in Majorca about 1235 [60] (ca. 1232–1236 [56, 61]). He first devoted himself to the study of science, but was converted in 1263 [61] at which point he became a monk and eventually a missionary [56, 60, 61]. According to tradition, he took up the study of alchemy from the desire to cure a girl who was suffering from cancer. Afterward he wandered through Europe to acquire further knowledge of the art. He is said to have made alcohol by distillation and to have known how to dehydrate it by the aid of potassium carbonate. In his later years, he again devoted himself to missionary work and left to preach in Africa. It is there in Algeria that he is said to have died in 1315 (at age 77 [60]), a martyr to his faith [56, 61].

  12. 12.

    Arnald of Villanova (also given as Arnau de Vilanova [62], Arnaldus de Vill Nova [60, 61], or Villanovanus [61]) was born near Valencia about 1240 (c. 1234–1250) [8, 9, 61]. Others have given his birthplace as Villeneuve-Loubet, near Avignon [60, 62, 63]. He studied medicine at Naples [8, 9, 60] and Paris, where he took the degree of Master of Arts, and completed his studies at Montpellier [60, 63]. He was a Catalan physician and self-styled prophet [61, 62, 64], and was a professor at Montpellier at least up to 1309 [8, 9]. He translated medical works from Arabic into Latin and had some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He realized the value of natural science and suggested that it should be given more importance in education [61]. He was a famous medical practitioner, who was consulted by kings and popes [8, 9, 60–62], and is considered by some to be one of the most extraordinary personalities of medieval times. He also had difficulties with the French Inquisition, first in 1299 and again in 1304 [9, 60, 63]. He had a large number of writings ascribed to him [61, 64], most of them dealing with medical subjects and he was one of the first Latin writers to insist upon the virtues of alcohol. Other works dealt with chemistry, astrology, magic and theology [61]. He died at sea towards the end of 1311 [9, 61, 62, 64] (or 1313 [60, 63]) while on the way from Naples to Genoa, where he was buried [60, 61, 63].

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  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

    Seth C. Rasmussen

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Rasmussen, S.C. (2014). Distillation and the Isolation of Alcohol. In: The Quest for Aqua Vitae. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06302-7_6

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