Research Items

Abstract

Chinese Alchemy.—The September number of the Scientific Monthly contains an interesting paper by Dr. Tenney L. Davis and Mr. Lu-Ch’iang Wu, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the development of alchemy in China. This contains some quotations from a paper by Ch’i-Ch’ao Liang which appeared in Chinese in 1923, dealing with the five elements, yin and yang, etc. The change in the meanings attached to these conceptions which arose under Taoist influences is (as in previous writers) supposed to have been the beginning of alchemy in China, which occurred, according to the explicit statements of the very reliable Ssu-ma Ch’ien (first century B.C.), during the reigns of Huang Ti (259–210 B.C.) and Wu Ti (156–87 B.C.). The earliest purely alchemical treatise in Chinese is considered to be that by Wei Po-Yang, who nourished about A.D. 142, extracts from which are quoted from a text recently printed. “In many respects it bears a strong resemblance to the later alchemical writings of the Europeans.” Mr. Lu-Ch’iang Wu promises an English translation of Wei Po-Yang’s work, and it is to be hoped that this will appear in due course.