Chemistry was alike unknown to the sages of Egypt, and to the philosophers of Greece.

It even sprung ori- ginally, from delusion, and folly; since its first and, for a long period, its only object was the production of gold and silver, and the discovery of a universal remedy" by which every disease might be cured.

3 The earliest mention of chemistry, in any book extant, is to be found in the dictionary of Suidas, a Greek writer of, it is probable, the eleventh century, under the word chemia.

He describes it to be the preparation of gold and silver.

There is some reason to believe that it was known to the Greeks, in that sense, so early as the fifth century.