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BIBLIOGRAPHY

The standard source for Greek alchemy is the Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques Grecs edited by J. Bidez, F. Cumont, J. L. Heiberg, O. Lagercrantz, et al., 8 vols. (Brussels, 1924-32). Earlier, but still useful is the Collection des anciens alchimistes Grecs by M. P. Berthelot and C. E. Rouelle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1887-88). Recent editions of Chinese alchemical texts include Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320. The Nei P'ien of Ko Hung, trans. and edited by James R. Ware (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), and Nathan Sivin, Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1968). A collection of Arabic and Syriac texts will be found in M. P. Berthelot, La chimie au moyen âge, 3 vols. (Paris, 1893). The latter work should be supplemented with the numerous studies of Julius Ruska on all aspects of Islamic alchemy and the intensive study of Paul Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1942-43). Basic collected editions of the Latin alchemical texts include the six-volume Theatrum chemicum published by Lazarus Zetzner (Strassburg 1659-61) and the two-volume Bibliotheca chemica curiosa edited by Jean Jacques Manget (Geneva, 7702). The most extensive German collection is the Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum prepared by Friedrich Roth-Scholtz, 3 vols. (Nuremberg, 1728-32). The standard French collection is the Bibliothèque des philosophes chimiques prepared by jean Mangin de Richebourg, 4 vols. (Paris, 1741-54). The most extensive collection of alchemical poetry in English is that of Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (London, 1652), reprinted with an intro. by A. G. Debus (New York, 1967). The standard edition of the works of Paracelsus is that of Karl Sudhoff and Willlelm Matthiessen, Sämtliche Werke, 15 vols. (Munich and Berlin, 1922-33), and the collected works of van Helmont went through numerous editions in several languages from 1648 to 1707.

Bibliographies of alchemical texts date from an early period, but the two standard lists are J. Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica, 2 vols. (Glasgow, 1906), and Denis I. Duveen, Bibliotheca Alchemica et Chemica (London, 1949). A survey of recent scholarship in the field will be found in Allen G. Debus, "The Significance of the History of Early Chemistry," Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale, 9 (1965), 39-58, and extensive bibliographies including recent research will be found in R. P. Multhauf's The Origins of Chemistry (London, 1966), pp. 355-89, and Mircea Eliade's The Forge and the Crucible (New York, 1962), pp. 186-204. Eliade updated the latter bibliography in his "The Forge and the Crucible: A Postscript," History of Religions, 8 (1968), 74-88. For a bibliography of Paracelsus and the later Paracelsians see Karl Sudhoff, Bibliogrophia Paracelsian (Berlin, 1894; reprint Graz, 1958), and "Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie der Paracelsisten im 16. Jahrhundert," Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 10 (1893), 316-26, 385-407. Recent research in this field is covered by the Paracelsus-Bibliographie 1932-1960 mit einem Verzeichnis neu entdeckter Paracelsus-Handschriften (1900-1960), compiled by Karl-Heinz Weimann (Wiesbaden, 1963). In these bibliographies the reader is directed particularly to the works of Ernst Darmstaedter, Allen G. Debus, Mircea Eliade, Wilhelm Ganzenmuller, Gerald J. Gruman, E. J. Holmyard, C. G. Jung, Hermann Kopp, Edmund O. von Lippmann, R. P. Multhauf, A. Leo Oppenheim, Walter Pagel, J. R. Partington, P. Ray, John Read, Julius Ruska, H. J. Sheppard, John Maxson Stillman, Frank Sherwood Taylor, and R. Campbell Thompson.