Much like contemporary AI, potable gold was a highly contested preparation in the early modern period. It was by no means a single, clearly defined product but rather a marketing label applied to a wide range of medicinal preparations, whose chemical compositions could differ substantially.
Building on my research on Michael Maier and his relationship with Francis Anthony (Lang, 2021), I have since investigated potable gold (aurum potabile) in greater depth, examining the competing health claims and forms of medical authority that were negotiated through this controversy in the early seventeenth century.
In future work, potable gold will serve as one of the first case studies for in silico chemical replication. A selection of potable gold recipes will be analysed by simulating their underlying chemistry using computational (quantum) chemistry methods. This project will provide an initial proof of concept for a broader research programme that seeks to investigate historical chemical knowledge through computational simulation and will be the first of a series of planned case studies.
Image credit: “Pure gold precipitate produced by the aqua regia chemical refining” process (Wikimedia Commons).
References
2021
Assessing Michael Maier’s Contributions to Francis Anthony’s Apologia (1616) Using Stylometry
Sarah Lang
In Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Humanities Research 2021, 2021
This article attempts to shed new light on the collaboration between the chymical authors Michael Maier (1568–1622) and Francis Anthony (1550–1632) using stylometric authorship attribution. Maier and Anthony were friends and we know that they worked together on the English and Latin versions of Anthony’s Apologie or Apologia (1616) respectively. The question remains whether Maier was more than just a mere translator, as it has been claimed in the past – notably by Maier himself. Using R-Stylo, stylometric analyses are conducted. It is discussed what conclusions can be drawn from them given that we already know Maier and Anthony were working together and that Maier was the translator responsible for the Latin Apologia (1616) ascribed to Anthony. In the end, stylometry doesn’t offer enough evidence for us to make any definite claims regarding the authorship situation under discussion. It can, however, offer certain insights into the stylometric proximity between Maier and Anthony.
@inproceedings{Lang2021chrStylo,author={Lang, Sarah},title={Assessing Michael Maier's Contributions to Francis Anthony's Apologia (1616) Using Stylometry},year={2021},editor={Ehrmann, Maud and Karsdorp, Folgert and Wevers, Melvin and Andrews, Tara and Burghardt, Manuel and Kestemont, Mike and Manjavacas, Enrique and Piotrowski, Michael and van Zundert, Joris},booktitle={Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Humanities Research 2021},pages={346--358},url={http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2989/short_paper44.pdf},}