Re: Theophilus, Churchill's Bath and the Uses of Redheads


Peter Jason wrote:
"Paul J Gans" <gans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
news:eae52l$43j$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

"Tools are given a harder tempering in
the urine
of a small, red- headed boy than in
ordinary water."

Celia

IIRC there was an entire science of piss in
the creation of fine
objects, violins from Amati and that other
guy were soaked in a urine
compound to remove some of the undesireable
elements in the wood like
resins. Some story about using urine on a
horse hair bow.

Yup. It was regarded as just another
natural ingredient.
And it did (and does) have some interesting
properties.

Eventually gave us urea and chemistry.

Almost. Once upon a time chemistry was
divided into two
parts (being more simple than Gaul). One
was organic
chemistry, which had to do with compounds
that came from
living things or which were derived from
such compounds.

The other was inorganic chemistry, which
dealt with
all other compounds.

Curiously, it was not possible to make an
organic
compound from an inorganic one -- which
many used as
a proof that life was special and almost
certainly
imbued with some sort of emanation from the
Holy Spirit.

Urea is a organic compound discovered in
1773. But in
1828, Friedrich Wohler managed to make it
from what were
definitely inorganic compounds.

This was followed by the synthesis of many
other organic
materials, putting paid to the "vital
force" theory of
chemistry.

Today organic chemistry refers to compounds
containing
carbon as their primary constituent.
Inorganic is the
rest of it.

There will be a quiz in the morning.

---- Paul J. Gans

And from the 1950s chemistry took another
quantum leap as 'life chemistry' where
organic compounds are used to store
information and so manufacture other chemical
compounds. (DNA/mRNA/Ribosomes.)

Indeed chemistry is starting to encroach on
evolution if epigenetics proves correct; this
is the selective reading of DNA/Introns as
influenced by the stresses imposed on an
organism thorought its life. Epigenetics
may
go a long way to explain religious and racial
zealotry (to put it kindly) and even put a
stop to this. Even Darwin (a 19th cent
naturalist) proposed "gemmules" as
influencing genetics in a Lamarckian sort of
way.

Can't wait for the quiz!

I'll give the quiz a miss as chemistry is a mystery to me
but perhaps someone could get me to 12th c. standard
by answering a couple of questions.
I assume Theophilus was wrong about the hair colour
and age of the person giving the urine being important.
the metal working section of the book is the most detailed
and shows hands on knowledge yet in some respects his
methods are very different from those used today.
Theophilus doesn't pickle his gold and silver in
sulphuric acid and his soldering is usually done in a kiln,
sometimes with the elements held in place by flour
and water paste !
What Theophilus does to make this possible is to quench
and wash the work in a lye solution made from beech ash.
Two questions, does it have to be beech or would other woods
work as well ?
Would the lye produced be pottasium hydroxide rather than
sodium hydroxide, and surely it's a strong alkali rather than an
acid so would other things with a corrosive effect work ?

Celia

.

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