Alchemical symbol

Alchemical symbols before Lavoisier

Alchemical symbols were used to denote chemical elements and compounds, as well as alchemical apparatus and processes, until the 18th century. Although notation was partly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists. Lüdy-Tenger[1] published an inventory of 3,695 symbols and variants, and that was not exhaustive, omitting for example many of the symbols used by Isaac Newton. This page therefore lists only the most common symbols.

  1. ^ Fritz Lüdy-Tenger (1928) Alchemistische und chemische Zeichen. Wolfgang Schneider (1962) Lexicon alchemistisch-pharmazeutischer Symbole covers many of the same symbols with a cross-index and indicates synonyms.
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