Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

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The debauched world of Ozzy Osbourne - biting bats to Sharon finding him in bed with the nanny - Daily Mail

In addition to its effects on the immune system and quality of life, reishi mushroom has been studied for its potential to improve other aspects of health.

One 12-week study of 26 people showed that reishi mushroom may increase good HDL cholesterol and decrease triglycerides (26).

However, other research in healthy adults showed no improvement in these heart disease risk factors (10).

Moreover, a large analysis demonstrated no beneficial effects for heart health after examining five different studies containing around 400 people. The researchers found that consuming reishi mushroom for up to 16 weeks did not improve cholesterol (27).

Overall, more research is needed in regard to reishi mushrooms and heart health.

Several studies have indicated that molecules found in the reishi mushroom can decrease blood sugar in animals (28, 29).

Some preliminary research in humans reported similar findings (30).

However, the majority of research has not supported this benefit. After evaluating hundreds of participants, researchers found no benefits for fasting blood sugar (27).

Mixed results were seen for blood sugar after meals. In some cases, reishi mushroom lowered blood sugar, but in other cases, it was worse than a placebo.

Again, more research is needed here as well.

Antioxidants are molecules that can help prevent damage to your cells (31).

Because of this important function, there is substantial interest in foods and supplements that can enhance antioxidant status in the body.

Many claim that reishi mushroom is effective for this purpose.

However, several studies have found no change in the levels of two important antioxidant enzymes in the blood after consuming the fungus for 4 to 12 weeks (10, 26).

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6 Benefits of Reishi Mushroom (Plus Side Effects and Dosage) - Healthline

Branch of ancient protoscientific natural philosophy

Alchemy (from Arabic: al-kmiy; from Ancient Greek: , khumea)[1] is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe.[2] In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.[3]

Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials.[2][4][5][n 1] Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold);[2] the creation of an elixir of immortality;[2] and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease.[6] The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical magnum opus ("Great Work").[2] The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these projects.

Islamic and European alchemists developed a basic set of laboratory techniques, theories, and terms, some of which are still in use today. They did not abandon the Ancient Greek philosophical idea that everything is composed of four elements, and they tended to guard their work in secrecy, often making use of cyphers and cryptic symbolism. In Europe, the 12th-century translations of medieval Islamic works on science and the rediscovery of Aristotelian philosophy gave birth to a flourishing tradition of Latin alchemy.[2] This late medieval tradition of alchemy would go on to play a significant role in the development of early modern science (particularly chemistry and medicine).[7]

Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric spiritual aspects, despite criticisms by scholars such as Eric J. Holmyard and Marie-Louise von Franz that they should be understood as complementary.[8][9] The former is pursued by historians of the physical sciences, who examine the subject in terms of early chemistry, medicine, and charlatanism, and the philosophical and religious contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of esotericism, psychologists, and some philosophers and spiritualists. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts.

The word alchemy comes from old French alquemie, alkimie, used in Medieval Latin as alchymia. This name was itself adopted from the Arabic word al-kmiy (). The Arabic al-kmiy in turn was a borrowing of the Late Greek term khmea (), also spelled khumeia () and khma (), with al- being the Arabic definite article 'the'.[10] Together this association can be interpreted as 'the process of transmutation by which to fuse or reunite with the divine or original form'. Several etymologies have been proposed for the Greek term. The first was proposed by Zosimos of Panopolis (3rd4th centuries), who derived it from the name of a book, the Khemeu.[11][12] Hermanm Diels argued in 1914 that it rather derived from ,[13] used to describe metallic objects formed by casting.[14]

Others trace its roots to the Egyptian name kme (hieroglyphic khmi ), meaning 'black earth', which refers to the fertile and auriferous soil of the Nile valley, as opposed to red desert sand.[10] According to the Egyptologist Wallis Budge, the Arabic word al-kmiya actually means "the Egyptian [science]", borrowing from the Coptic word for "Egypt", kme (or its equivalent in the Mediaeval Bohairic dialect of Coptic, khme). This Coptic word derives from Demotic km, itself from ancient Egyptian kmt. The ancient Egyptian word referred to both the country and the colour "black" (Egypt was the "black Land", by contrast with the "red Land", the surrounding desert); so this etymology could also explain the nickname "Egyptian black arts".

Alchemy encompasses several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents. These traditions' general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and "genetic" relationships. One can distinguish at least three major strands, which appear to be mostly independent, at least in their earlier stages: Chinese alchemy, centered in China; Indian alchemy, centered on the Indian subcontinent; and Western alchemy, which occurred around the Mediterranean and whose center shifted over the millennia from Greco-Roman Egypt to the Islamic world, and finally medieval Europe. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Dharmic faiths. In contrast, Western alchemy developed its philosophical system mostly independent of but influenced by various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.

The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre-eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods.[15] Following the work of Andr-Jean Festugire, modern scholars see alchemical practice in the Roman Empire as originating from the Egyptian goldsmith's art, Greek philosophy and different religious traditions.[16] Tracing the origins of the alchemical art in Egypt is complicated by the pseudepigraphic nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of Zosimos of Panopolis, the earliest historically attested author (fl. c. 300 CE),[17] can help in situating the other authors. Zosimus based his work on that of older alchemical authors, such as Mary the Jewess,[18] Pseudo-Democritus,[19] and Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus, were probably written in the first century AD.[19]

Recent scholarship tends to emphasize the testimony of Zosimus, who traced the alchemical arts back to Egyptian metallurgical and ceremonial practices.[20][21][22] It has also been argued that early alchemical writers borrowed the vocabulary of Greek philosophical schools but did not implement any of its doctrines in a systematic way.[23] Zosimos of Panopolis wrote in the Final Abstinence (also known as the "Final Count").[24] Zosimos explains that the ancient practice of "tinctures" (the technical Greek name for the alchemical arts) had been taken over by certain "demons" who taught the art only to those who offered them sacrifices. Since Zosimos also called the demons "the guardians of places" ( , hoi kat tpon phoroi) and those who offered them sacrifices "priests" (, hiera), it is fairly clear that he was referring to the gods of Egypt and their priests. While critical of the kind of alchemy he associated with the Egyptian priests and their followers, Zosimos nonetheless saw the tradition's recent past as rooted in the rites of the Egyptian temples.[25]

Mythology Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion.[26] Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation.[27] These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others.

The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes.[28] Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge.[29] The Hermetica of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era.

Technology The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, extending back to 3500BC.[30] Many writings were lost when the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books[31] after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria (AD292). Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the Stockholm papyrus and the Leyden papyrus X. Dating from AD250300, they contained recipes for dyeing and making artificial gemstones, cleaning and fabricating pearls, and manufacturing of imitation gold and silver.[citation needed] These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of Bolus of Mendes (or Pseudo-Democritus), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements.[32] Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art.[33]

Philosophy Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemy's character.[32] An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed.[34] The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modern elements are; "...True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form."[35] Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.

Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging Christianity. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. StAugustine later affirmed this in the 4th & 5th centuries, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry.[36] Examples of Pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period.

Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses, Isis, Cleopatra, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, we only know through fragments of text. After AD400, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors.[37] By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline.[38] It was at that time that Khalid Ibn Yazid sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.[39]

Greek alchemy is preserved in medieval Greek (Byzantine) manuscripts, and yet historians have only relatively recently begun to pay attention to the study and development of Greek alchemy in the Byzantine period.[40]

The 2nd millennium BC text Vedas describe a connection between eternal life and gold.[41] A considerable knowledge of metallurgy has been exhibited in a third-century CE[42] text called Arthashastra which provides ingredients of explosives (Agniyoga) and salts extracted from fertile soils and plant remains (Yavakshara) such as saltpetre/nitre, perfume making (different qualities of perfumes are mentioned), granulated (refined) Sugar.[43][44][45] Buddhist texts from the 2nd to 5th centuries mention the transmutation of base metals to gold. According to some scholars Greek alchemy may have influenced Indian alchemy but there are no hard evidences to back this claim.[41]

The 11th-century Persian chemist and physician Ab Rayhn Brn, who visited Gujarat as part of the court of Mahmud of Ghazni, reported that they

have a science similar to alchemy which is quite peculiar to them, which in Sanskrit is called Rasyana and in Persian Rasavtam. It means the art of obtaining/manipulating Rasa: nectar, mercury, and juice. This art was restricted to certain operations, metals, drugs, compounds, and medicines, many of which have mercury as their core element. Its principles restored the health of those who were ill beyond hope and gave back youth to fading old age.

The goals of alchemy in India included the creation of a divine body (Sanskrit divya-deham) and immortality while still embodied (Sanskrit jvan-mukti). Sanskrit alchemical texts include much material on the manipulation of mercury and sulphur, that are homologized with the semen of the god iva and the menstrual blood of the goddess Dev.

Some early alchemical writings seem to have their origins in the Kaula tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of Matsyendranath. Other early writings are found in the Jaina medical treatise Kalyakrakam of Ugrditya, written in South India in the early 9th century.[46]

Two famous early Indian alchemical authors were Ngrjuna Siddha and Nityantha Siddha. Ngrjuna Siddha was a Buddhist monk. His book, Rasendramangalam, is an example of Indian alchemy and medicine. Nityantha Siddha wrote Rasaratnkara, also a highly influential work. In Sanskrit, rasa translates to "mercury", and Ngrjuna Siddha was said to have developed a method of converting mercury into gold.[47]

Scholarship on Indian alchemy is in the publication of The Alchemical Body by David Gordon White.[48] A modern bibliography on Indian alchemical studies has been written by White.[49]

The contents of 39 Sanskrit alchemical treatises have been analysed in detail in G. Jan Meulenbeld's History of Indian Medical Literature.[50][n 2] The discussion of these works in HIML gives a summary of the contents of each work, their special features, and where possible the evidence concerning their dating. Chapter 13 of HIML, Various works on rasastra and ratnastra (or Various works on alchemy and gems) gives brief details of a further 655 (six hundred and fifty-five) treatises. In some cases Meulenbeld gives notes on the contents and authorship of these works; in other cases references are made only to the unpublished manuscripts of these titles.

A great deal remains to be discovered about Indian alchemical literature. The content of the Sanskrit alchemical corpus has not yet (2014) been adequately integrated into the wider general history of alchemy.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about Islamic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations.[51] The word alchemy itself was derived from the Arabic word al-kmiy (). The early Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. Platonic and Aristotelian thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries through Syriac translations and scholarship.

In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to Jbir ibn Hayyn (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. Paul Kraus, who wrote the standard reference work on Jabir, put it as follows:

To form an idea of the historical place of Jabir's alchemy and to tackle the problem of its sources, it is advisable to compare it with what remains to us of the alchemical literature in the Greek language. One knows in which miserable state this literature reached us. Collected by Byzantine scientists from the tenth century, the corpus of the Greek alchemists is a cluster of incoherent fragments, going back to all the times since the third century until the end of the Middle Ages.

The efforts of Berthelot and Ruelle to put a little order in this mass of literature led only to poor results, and the later researchers, among them in particular Mrs. Hammer-Jensen, Tannery, Lagercrantz, von Lippmann, Reitzenstein, Ruska, Bidez, Festugire and others, could make clear only few points of detail ....

The study of the Greek alchemists is not very encouraging. An even surface examination of the Greek texts shows that a very small part only was organized according to true experiments of laboratory: even the supposedly technical writings, in the state where we find them today, are unintelligible nonsense which refuses any interpretation.

It is different with Jabir's alchemy. The relatively clear description of the processes and the alchemical apparati, the methodical classification of the substances, mark an experimental spirit which is extremely far away from the weird and odd esotericism of the Greek texts. The theory on which Jabir supports his operations is one of clearness and of an impressive unity. More than with the other Arab authors, one notes with him a balance between theoretical teaching and practical teaching, between the 'ilm and the amal. In vain one would seek in the Greek texts a work as systematic as that which is presented, for example, in the Book of Seventy.[52]

Islamic philosophers also made great contributions to alchemical hermeticism. The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir. Jabir's ultimate goal was Takwin, the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory, up to, and including, human life. He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness.[53] According to Jabir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result.[53] By this reasoning, the search for the philosopher's stone was introduced to Western alchemy. Jabir developed an elaborate numerology whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.

The elemental system used in medieval alchemy also originated with Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five classical elements (aether, air, earth, fire, and water) in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: sulphur, "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties.[dubious discuss][citation needed] Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and salt giving solidity.[54][verification needed][bettersourceneeded][dubious discuss] The atomic theory of corpuscularianism, where all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles, also has its origins in the work of Jabir.[55]

From the 9th to 14th centuries, alchemical theories faced criticism from a variety of practical Muslim chemists, including Alkindus,[56] Ab al-Rayhn al-Brn,[57] Avicenna[58] and Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the transmutation of metals.

From the 14th century onwards, many materials and practices originally belonging to Indian alchemy (Rasayana) were assimilated in the Persian texts written by Muslim scholars.[59]

Researchers have found evidence that Chinese alchemists and philosophers discovered complex mathematical phenomena that were shared with Arab alchemists during the medieval period. Discovered in BC China, the "magic square of three" was an propagated to followers of Ab Ms Jbir ibn ayyn at some point over the proceeding several hundred years.[60] Other commonalities shared between the two alchemical schools of thought include discrete naming for ingredients and heavy influence from the natural elements. The silk road provided a clear path for the exchange of goods, ideas, ingredients, religion, and many other aspects of life with which alchemy is intertwined.[61]

Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine.[62] The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. In the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected, and the philosopher's stone was often equated with the universal panacea; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than initially appears.

As early as 317 AD, Ge Hong documented the use of metals, minerals, and elixirs in early Chinese medicine. Hong identified three ancient Chinese documents, titled Scripture of Great Clarity, Scripture of the Nine Elixirs, and Scripture of the Golden Liquor, as texts containing fundamental alchemical information.[63] He also described alchemy, along with meditation, as the sole spiritual practices that could allow one to gain immortality or to transcend.[64] In his work Inner Chapters of the Book of the Master Who Embraces Spontaneous Nature (317 AD), Hong argued that alchemical solutions such as elixirs were preferable to traditional medicinal treatment due to the spiritual protection they could provide.[65] In the centuries following Ge Hong's death, the emphasis placed on alchemy as a spiritual practice among Chinese Daoists was reduced.[66] In 499 AD, Tao Hongjing refuted Hong's statement that alchemy is as important a spiritual practice as Shangqing meditation.[66] While Hongjing did not deny the power of alchemical elixirs to grant immortality or provide divine protection, he ultimately the found the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs to be ambiguous and spiritually unfulfilling, aiming to implement more accessible practicing techniques.[67]

In the early 700s, Neidan (also known as internal alchemy) was adopted by Daoists as a new form of alchemy. Neidan emphasized appeasing the inner gods that inhabit the human body via by practicing alchemy with compounds found in the body, rather than the mixing of natural resources that was emphasized in early Dao alchemy.[68] For example, saliva was often considered nourishment for the inner gods and didn't require any conscious alchemical reaction to produce. The inner gods were not thought of as physical presences occupying each person, but rather a collection of deities that are each said to represent and protect a specific body part or region.[68] Although those who practiced Neidan prioritized meditation over external alchemical strategies, many of the same elixirs and constituents from previous Daoist alchemical schools of thought continued to be utilized in tandem with meditation. Eternal life remained a consideration for Neidan alchemists, as it was believed that one would become immortal if an inner god were to be immortalized within them through spiritual fulfillment.[68]

Black powder may have been an important invention of Chinese alchemists. It is said that the Chinese invented gunpowder while trying to find a potion for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts[citation needed] and used in fireworks in China by the 10th century,[citation needed] it was used in cannons by 1290.[citation needed] From China, the use of gunpowder spread to Japan, the Mongols, the Muslim world, and Europe. Gunpowder was used by the Mongols against the Hungarians in 1241, and in Europe by the 14th century.

Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoist forms of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion.[62] In the early Song dynasty, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest mercuric sulfide, which, though tolerable in low levels, led many to suicide.[citation needed] Thinking that this consequential death would lead to freedom and access to the Taoist heavens, the ensuing deaths encouraged people to eschew this method of alchemy in favor of external sources[citation needed] (the aforementioned Tai Chi Chuan,[citation needed] mastering of the qi,[citation needed] etc.) Chinese alchemy was introduced to the West by Obed Simon Johnson.[62]

The introduction of alchemy to Latin Europe may be dated to 11 February 1144, with the completion of Robert of Chester's translation of the Arabic Book of the Composition of Alchemy. Although European craftsmen and technicians pre-existed, Robert notes in his preface that alchemy (though here still referring to the elixir rather than to the art itself)[69] was unknown in Latin Europe at the time of his writing. The translation of Arabic texts concerning numerous disciplines including alchemy flourished in 12th-century Toledo, Spain, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath.[70] Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum, and the works of Avicenna and Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi. These brought with them many new words to the European vocabulary for which there was no previous Latin equivalent. Alcohol, carboy, elixir, and athanor are examples.[71]

Meanwhile, theologian contemporaries of the translators made strides towards the reconciliation of faith and experimental rationalism, thereby priming Europe for the influx of alchemical thought. The 11th-century StAnselm put forth the opinion that faith and rationalism were compatible and encouraged rationalism in a Christian context. In the early 12th century, Peter Abelard followed Anselm's work, laying down the foundation for acceptance of Aristotelian thought before the first works of Aristotle had reached the West. In the early 13th century, Robert Grosseteste used Abelard's methods of analysis and added the use of observation, experimentation, and conclusions when conducting scientific investigations. Grosseteste also did much work to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian thinking.[72]

Through much of the 12th and 13th centuries, alchemical knowledge in Europe remained centered on translations, and new Latin contributions were not made. The efforts of the translators were succeeded by that of the encyclopaedists. In the 13th century, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon were the most notable of these, their work summarizing and explaining the newly imported alchemical knowledge in Aristotelian terms.[73] Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar, is known to have written works such as the Book of Minerals where he observed and commented on the operations and theories of alchemical authorities like Hermes and Democritus and unnamed alchemists of his time. Albertus critically compared these to the writings of Aristotle and Avicenna, where they concerned the transmutation of metals. From the time shortly after his death through to the 15th century, more than 28 alchemical tracts were misattributed to him, a common practice giving rise to his reputation as an accomplished alchemist.[74] Likewise, alchemical texts have been attributed to Albert's student Thomas Aquinas.

Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar who wrote on a wide variety of topics including optics, comparative linguistics, and medicine, composed his Great Work (Latin: Opus Majus) for Pope Clement IV as part of a project towards rebuilding the medieval university curriculum to include the new learning of his time. While alchemy was not more important to him than other sciences and he did not produce allegorical works on the topic, he did consider it and astrology to be important parts of both natural philosophy and theology and his contributions advanced alchemy's connections to soteriology and Christian theology. Bacon's writings integrated morality, salvation, alchemy, and the prolongation of life. His correspondence with Clement highlighted this, noting the importance of alchemy to the papacy.[75] Like the Greeks before him, Bacon acknowledged the division of alchemy into practical and theoretical spheres. He noted that the theoretical lay outside the scope of Aristotle, the natural philosophers, and all Latin writers of his time. The practical confirmed the theoretical, and Bacon advocated its uses in natural science and medicine.[76] In later European legend, he became an archmage. In particular, along with Albertus Magnus, he was credited with the forging of a brazen head capable of answering its owner's questions.

Soon after Bacon, the influential work of Pseudo-Geber (sometimes identified as Paul of Taranto) appeared. His Summa Perfectionis remained a staple summary of alchemical practice and theory through the medieval and renaissance periods. It was notable for its inclusion of practical chemical operations alongside sulphur-mercury theory, and the unusual clarity with which they were described.[77] By the end of the 13th century, alchemy had developed into a fairly structured system of belief. Adepts believed in the macrocosm-microcosm theories of Hermes, that is to say, they believed that processes that affect minerals and other substances could have an effect on the human body (for example, if one could learn the secret of purifying gold, one could use the technique to purify the human soul). They believed in the four elements and the four qualities as described above, and they had a strong tradition of cloaking their written ideas in a labyrinth of coded jargon set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theories about how the universe operated. Their entire philosophy revolved around their belief that man's soul was divided within himself after the fall of Adam. By purifying the two parts of man's soul, man could be reunited with God.[78]

In the 14th century, alchemy became more accessible to Europeans outside the confines of Latin speaking churchmen and scholars. Alchemical discourse shifted from scholarly philosophical debate to an exposed social commentary on the alchemists themselves.[79] Dante, Piers Plowman, and Chaucer all painted unflattering pictures of alchemists as thieves and liars. Pope John XXII's 1317 edict, Spondent quas non-exhibent forbade the false promises of transmutation made by pseudo-alchemists.[80] Roman Catholic Inquisitor General Nicholas Eymerich's Directorium Inquisitorum, written in 1376, associated alchemy with the performance of demonic rituals, which Eymerich differentiated from magic performed in accordance with scripture.[81] This did not, however, lead to any change in the Inquisition's monitoring or prosecution of alchemists.[81] In 1403, Henry IV of England banned the practice of multiplying metals (although it was possible to buy a licence to attempt to make gold alchemically, and a number were granted by Henry VI and Edward IV[82]). These critiques and regulations centered more around pseudo-alchemical charlatanism than the actual study of alchemy, which continued with an increasingly Christian tone. The 14th century saw the Christian imagery of death and resurrection employed in the alchemical texts of Petrus Bonus, John of Rupescissa, and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova.[83]

Nicolas Flamel is a well-known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy, the practice of giving your works the name of someone else, usually more famous. Although the historical Flamel existed, the writings and legends assigned to him only appeared in 1612.[84][85] Flamel was not a religious scholar as were many of his predecessors, and his entire interest in the subject revolved around the pursuit of the philosopher's stone. His work spends a great deal of time describing the processes and reactions, but never actually gives the formula for carrying out the transmutations. Most of 'his' work was aimed at gathering alchemical knowledge that had existed before him, especially as regarded the philosopher's stone.[86] Through the 14th and 15th centuries, alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley made similar contributions. Their cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art.

During the Renaissance, Hermetic and Platonic foundations were restored to European alchemy. The dawn of medical, pharmaceutical, occult, and entrepreneurial branches of alchemy followed.

In the late 15th century, Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato into Latin. These were previously unavailable to Europeans who for the first time had a full picture of the alchemical theory that Bacon had declared absent. Renaissance Humanism and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics to refocus on mankind as the alchemical vessel.

Esoteric systems developed that blended alchemy into a broader occult Hermeticism, fusing it with magic, astrology, and Christian cabala.[87][88] A key figure in this development was German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (14861535), who received his Hermetic education in Italy in the schools of the humanists. In his De Occulta Philosophia, he attempted to merge Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and alchemy. He was instrumental in spreading this new blend of Hermeticism outside the borders of Italy.[89][90]

Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 14931541) cast alchemy into a new form, rejecting some of Agrippa's occultism and moving away from chrysopoeia. Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine and wrote, "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines."[91]

His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them.[92] Iatrochemistry refers to the pharmaceutical applications of alchemy championed by Paracelsus.

John Dee (13 July 1527 December, 1608) followed Agrippa's occult tradition. Although better known for angel summoning, divination, and his role as astrologer, cryptographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, Dee's alchemical[93] Monas Hieroglyphica, written in 1564 was his most popular and influential work. His writing portrayed alchemy as a sort of terrestrial astronomy in line with the Hermetic axiom As above so below.[94] During the 17th century, a short-lived "supernatural" interpretation of alchemy became popular, including support by fellows of the Royal Society: Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole. Proponents of the supernatural interpretation of alchemy believed that the philosopher's stone might be used to summon and communicate with angels.[95]

Entrepreneurial opportunities were common for the alchemists of Renaissance Europe. Alchemists were contracted by the elite for practical purposes related to mining, medical services, and the production of chemicals, medicines, metals, and gemstones.[96] Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley. King James IV of Scotland,[97] Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lneburg, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lneburg, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel all contracted alchemists.[98] John's son Arthur Dee worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia and Charles I of England but also compiled the alchemical book Fasciculus Chemicus.

Although most of these appointments were legitimate, the trend of pseudo-alchemical fraud continued through the Renaissance. Betrger would use sleight of hand, or claims of secret knowledge to make money or secure patronage. Legitimate mystical and medical alchemists such as Michael Maier and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artists.[99] False alchemists were sometimes prosecuted for fraud.

The terms "chemia" and "alchemia" were used as synonyms in the early modern period, and the differences between alchemy, chemistry and small-scale assaying and metallurgy were not as neat as in the present day. There were important overlaps between practitioners, and trying to classify them into alchemists, chemists and craftsmen is anachronistic. For example, Tycho Brahe (15461601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical and astrological investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg observatory/research institute. Michael Sendivogius (Micha Sdziwj, 15661636), a Polish alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Their Hermeticism complemented rather than precluded their practical achievements in medicine and science.

The decline of European alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its peak in the 18th century. As late as 1781 James Price claimed to have produced a powder that could transmute mercury into silver or gold. Early modern European alchemy continued to exhibit a diversity of theories, practices, and purposes: "Scholastic and anti-Aristotelian, Paracelsian and anti-Paracelsian, Hermetic, Neoplatonic, mechanistic, vitalistic, and moreplus virtually every combination and compromise thereof."[100]

Robert Boyle (16271691) pioneered the scientific method in chemical investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled every piece of relevant data. Boyle would note the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind characteristics, the position of the Sun and Moon, and the barometer reading, all just in case they proved to be relevant.[101] This approach eventually led to the founding of modern chemistry in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries and ideas of Lavoisier and John Dalton.

Beginning around 1720, a rigid distinction began to be drawn for the first time between "alchemy" and "chemistry".[102][103] By the 1740s, "alchemy" was now restricted to the realm of gold making, leading to the popular belief that alchemists were charlatans, and the tradition itself nothing more than a fraud.[100][103] In order to protect the developing science of modern chemistry from the negative censure to which alchemy was being subjected, academic writers during the 18th-century scientific Enlightenment attempted, for the sake of survival, to divorce and separate the "new" chemistry from the "old" practices of alchemy. This move was mostly successful, and the consequences of this continued into the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.[104]

During the occult revival of the early 19th century, alchemy received new attention as an occult science.[105][106] The esoteric or occultist school, which arose during the 19th century, held (and continues to hold) the view that the substances and operations mentioned in alchemical literature are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, and it downplays the role of the alchemy as a practical tradition or protoscience.[102][107][108] This interpretation further forwarded the view that alchemy is an art primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment or illumination, as opposed to the physical manipulation of apparatus and chemicals, and claims that the obscure language of the alchemical texts were an allegorical guise for spiritual, moral or mystical processes.[108]

In the 19th-century revival of alchemy, the two most seminal figures were Mary Anne Atwood and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who independently published similar works regarding spiritual alchemy. Both forwarded a completely esoteric view of alchemy, as Atwood claimed: "No modern art or chemistry, notwithstanding all its surreptitious claims, has any thing in common with Alchemy."[109][110] Atwood's work influenced subsequent authors of the occult revival including Eliphas Levi, Arthur Edward Waite, and Rudolf Steiner. Hitchcock, in his Remarks Upon Alchymists (1855) attempted to make a case for his spiritual interpretation with his claim that the alchemists wrote about a spiritual discipline under a materialistic guise in order to avoid accusations of blasphemy from the church and state. In 1845, Baron Carl Reichenbach, published his studies on Odic force, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.[111]

In 1946, Louis Cattiaux published the Message Retrouv, a work that was at once philosophical, mystical and highly influenced by alchemy. In his lineage, many researchers, including Emmanuel and Charles d'Hooghvorst, are updating alchemical studies in France and Belgium.[112]

Several women appear in the earliest history of alchemy. Michael Maier names four women who were able to make the philosophers' stone: Mary the Jewess, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Medera, and Taphnutia.[113] Zosimos' sister Theosebia (later known as Euthica the Arab) and Isis the Prophetess also played roles in early alchemical texts.

The first alchemist whose name we know was Mary the Jewess (c.200 A.D.).[114] Early sources claim that Mary (or Maria) devised a number of improvements to alchemical equipment and tools as well as novel techniques in chemistry.[114] Her best known advances were in heating and distillation processes. The laboratory water-bath, known eponymously (especially in France) as the bain-marie, is said to have been invented or at least improved by her.[115] Essentially a double-boiler, it was (and is) used in chemistry for processes that required gentle heating. The tribikos (a modified distillation apparatus) and the kerotakis (a more intricate apparatus used especially for sublimations) are two other advancements in the process of distillation that are credited to her.[116] Although we have no writing from Mary herself, she is known from the early-fourth-century writings of Zosimos of Panopolis.[117] After the Greco-Roman period, women's names appear less frequently in alchemical literature.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Renaissance, due to the emergence of print, women were able to access the alchemical knowledge from texts of the preceding centuries.[118] Caterina Sforza, the Countess of Forl and Lady of Imola, is one of the few confirmed female alchemists after Mary the Jewess. As she owned an apothecary, she would practice science and conduct experiments in her botanic gardens and laboratories.[119] Being knowledgable in alchemy and pharmacology, she recorded all of her alchemical ventures in a manuscript named Experimenti ('Experiments').[119] The manuscript contained more than four hundred recipes covering alchemy as well as cosmetics and medicine.[118] One of these recipes was for the water of talc.[118] Talc, which makes up talcum powder, is a mineral which, when combined with water and distilled, was said to produce a solution which yielded many benefits.[118] These supposed benefits included turning silver to gold and rejuvenation.[120] When combined with white wine, its powder form could be ingested to counteract poision.[120] Furthermore, if that powder was mixed and drunk with white wine, it was said to be a source of protection from any poison, sickness, or plague.[120] Other recipes were for making hair dyes, lotions, lip colors.[118] There was also information on how to treat a variety of ailments from fevers and coughs to epilepsy and cancer.[3] In addition, there were instructions on producing the quintessence (or aether), an elixir which was believed to be able to heal all sicknesses, defend against diseases, and perpetuate youthfulness.[3] She also wrote about creating the illustrious philosophers' stone.[3]

Due to the proliferation in alchemical literature of pseudepigrapha and anonymous works, it is difficult to know which of the alchemists were actually women. As the sixteenth century went on, scientific culture flourished and people began collecting "secrets". During this period "secrets" referred to experiments, and the most coveted ones were not those which were bizarre, but the ones which had been proven to yield the desired outcome.[118] Some women known for their interest in alchemy were Catherine de' Medici, the Queen of France, and Marie de' Medici, the following Queen of France, who carried out experiments in her personal laboratory.[118] Also, Isabella d'Este, the Marchioness of Mantua, made perfumes herself to serve as gifts.[118] In this period, the only book of secrets ascribed to a woman was I secreti della signora Isabella Cortese ('The Secrets of Signora Isabella Cortese').[118] This book contained information on how to turn base metals into gold, medicine, and cosmetics.[118] However, it is rumored that a man, Girolamo Ruscelli, was the real author and only used a female voice to attract female readers.[121] This contributed to a bigger problem in which male authors would credit prominent noblewomen for beauty products with the purpose of appealing to a female audience. For example, in Ricettario galante ("Gallant Recipe-Book"), the distillation of lemons and roses was attributed to Elisabetta Gonzaga, the duchess of Urbino.[118] In the same book, Isabella d'Aragona, the daughter of Alfonso II of Naples, is accredited for recipes involving alum and mercury.[118] Ippolita Maria Sforza is even referred to in an anonymous manuscript about a hand lotion created with rose powder and crushed bones.[118]

Mary Anne Atwood's A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) marks the return of women during the nineteenth-century occult revival.

The history of alchemy has become a significant and recognized subject of academic study.[122] As the language of the alchemists is analyzed, historians are becoming more aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the evolution of science and philosophy, the sociology and psychology of the intellectual communities, kabbalism, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements.[123] Institutions involved in this research include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project at Indiana University, the University of Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO), the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), and the University of Amsterdam's Sub-department for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. A large collection of books on alchemy is kept in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. A recipe found in a mid-19th-century kabbalah based book features step by step instructions on turning copper into gold. The author attributed this recipe to an ancient manuscript he located.[124]

Journals which publish regularly on the topic of Alchemy include 'Ambix', published by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, and 'Isis', published by The History of Science Society.

Western alchemical theory corresponds to the worldview of late antiquity in which it was born. Concepts were imported from Neoplatonism and earlier Greek cosmology. As such, the classical elements appear in alchemical writings, as do the seven classical planets and the corresponding seven metals of antiquity. Similarly, the gods of the Roman pantheon who are associated with these luminaries are discussed in alchemical literature. The concepts of prima materia and anima mundi are central to the theory of the philosopher's stone.

The Great Work of Alchemy is often described as a series of four stages represented by colors.

Due to the complexity and obscurity of alchemical literature, and the 18th-century disappearance of remaining alchemical practitioners into the area of chemistry, the general understanding of alchemy has been strongly influenced by several distinct and radically different interpretations.[126] Those focusing on the exoteric, such as historians of science Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, have interpreted the 'decknamen' (or code words) of alchemy as physical substances. These scholars have reconstructed physicochemical experiments that they say are described in medieval and early modern texts.[127] At the opposite end of the spectrum, focusing on the esoteric, scholars, such as Florin George Clian[128] and Anna Marie Roos,[129] who question the reading of Principe and Newman, interpret these same decknamen as spiritual, religious, or psychological concepts.

New interpretations of alchemy are still perpetuated, sometimes merging in concepts from New Age or radical environmentalism movements.[130] Groups like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism. Since the Victorian revival of alchemy, "occultists reinterpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice, involving the self-transformation of the practitioner and only incidentally or not at all the transformation of laboratory substances",[100] which has contributed to a merger of magic and alchemy in popular thought.

In the eyes of a variety of modern esoteric and Neo-Hermeticist practitioners, alchemy is fundamentally spiritual. In this interpretation, transmutation of lead into gold is presented as an analogy for personal transmutation, purification, and perfection.[131]

According to this view, early alchemists such as Zosimos of Panopolis (c.300 AD) highlighted the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul.[132] This approach is held to have continued in the Middle Ages, as metaphysical aspects, substances, physical states, and material processes are supposed to have been used as metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states, and, ultimately, transformation. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were like a veil, hiding their true spiritual philosophy. In the Neo-Hermeticist interpretation, both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea are held to symbolize evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible, and ephemeral state toward a perfect, healthy, incorruptible, and everlasting state, so the philosopher's stone then represented a mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist, the twin goal symbolized their evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented a hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are held to have been written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbols, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works are supposed to contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; which must be laboriously decoded to discover their true meaning.

In his 1766 Alchemical Catechism, Thodore Henri de Tschudi denotes that the usage of the metals was merely symbolic:

Q. When the Philosophers speak of gold and silver, from which they extract their matter, are we to suppose that they refer to the vulgar gold and silver?A. By no means; vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers are full of life.[133]

Alchemical symbolism has been important in analytical psychology and was revived and popularized from near extinction by the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Jung was initially confounded and at odds with alchemy and its images but after being given a copy of The Secret of the Golden Flower, a Chinese alchemical text translated by his friend Richard Wilhelm, he discovered a direct correlation or parallel between the symbolic images in the alchemical drawings and the inner, symbolic images coming up in his patients' dreams, visions, or fantasies. He observed these alchemical images occurring during the psychic process of transformation, a process that Jung called "individuation." Specifically, he regarded the conjuring up of images of gold or Lapis as symbolic expressions of the origin and goal of this "process of individuation."[134][135] Together with his alchemical mystica soror (mystical sister) Jungian Swiss analyst Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung began collecting old alchemical texts, compiled a lexicon of key phrases with cross-references,[136] and pored over them. The volumes of work he wrote shed new light onto understanding the art of transubstantiation and renewed alchemy's popularity as a symbolic process of coming into wholeness as a human being where opposites are brought into contact and inner and outer, spirit and matter are reunited in the hieros gamos, or divine marriage. His writings are influential in general psychology, but especially to those who have an interest in understanding the importance of dreams, symbols, and the unconscious archetypal forces (archetypes) that comprise all psychic life.[135][137][138]

Both von Franz and Jung have contributed significantly to the subject and work of alchemy and its continued presence in psychology as well as contemporary culture. Among the volumes Jung wrote on alchemy, his magnum opus is Volume 14 of his Collected Works, Mysterium Coniunctionis.

Alchemy has had a long-standing relationship with art, seen both in alchemical texts and in mainstream entertainment. Literary alchemy appears throughout the history of English literature from Shakespeare[139] to J. K. Rowling, and also the popular Japanese manga Fullmetal Alchemist. Here, characters or plot structure follow an alchemical magnum opus. In the 14th century, Chaucer began a trend of alchemical satire that can still be seen in recent fantasy works like those of the late Sir Terry Pratchett.

Visual artists had a similar relationship with alchemy. While some of them used alchemy as a source of satire, others worked with the alchemists themselves or integrated alchemical thought or symbols in their work. Music was also present in the works of alchemists and continues to influence popular performers. In the last hundred years, alchemists have been portrayed in a magical and spagyric role in fantasy fiction, film, television, novels, comics and video games.

One goal of alchemy, the transmutation of base substances into gold, is now known to be impossible by chemical means but possible by physical means. Although not financially worthwhile, Gold was synthesized in particle accelerators as early as 1941.[140]

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Alchemy - Wikipedia

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet. Unrecognized in her own time, Dickinson is known posthumously for her innovative use of form and syntax.

Emily Dickinson left school as a teenager, eventually living a reclusive life on the family homestead. There, she secretly created bundles of poetry and wrote hundreds of letters. Due to a discovery by sister Lavinia, Dickinson's remarkable work was published after her death on May 15, 1886, in Amherst and she is now considered one of the towering figures of American literature.

Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her family had deep roots in New England. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, was well known as the founder of Amherst College. Her father worked at Amherst and served as a state legislator. He married Emily Norcross in 1828 and the couple had three children: William Austin, Emily and Lavinia Norcross.

An excellent student,Dickinson was educated at Amherst Academy (now Amherst College) for seven years and then attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year. Though the precise reasons for Dickinson's final departure from the academy in 1848 are unknown; theories offered say that her fragile emotional state may have played a role and/or that her father decided to pull her from the school. Dickinson ultimately never joined a particular church or denomination, steadfastly going against the religious norms of the time.

Dickinson began writing as a teenager. Her early influences include Leonard Humphrey, principal of Amherst Academy, and a family friend named Benjamin Franklin Newton, who sent Dickinson a book of poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1855, Dickinson ventured outside of Amherst, as far as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, she befriended a minister named Charles Wadsworth, who would also become a cherished correspondent.

Among her peers, Dickinson's closest friend and adviser was a woman named Susan Gilbert, who may have been an amorous interest of Dickinson's as well. In 1856, Gilbert married Dickinson's brother, William. The Dickinson family lived on a large home known as the Homestead in Amherst. After their marriage, William and Susan settled in a property next to the Homestead known as the Evergreens. Emily and sister Lavinia served as chief caregivers for their ailing mother until she passed away in 1882. Neither Emily nor her sister ever married and lived together at the Homestead until their respective deaths.

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Dickinson's seclusion during her later years has been the object of much speculation. Scholars have thought that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety, or may have been sequestereddue to her responsibilities as guardian of her sick mother. Dickinson was also treated for a painful ailment of her eyes. After the mid-1860s, she rarely left the confines of the Homestead. It was also around this time, from the late 1850s to mid-'60s, that Dickinson was most productive as a poet, creating small bundles of verse known as fascicles without any awareness on the part of her family members.

In her spare time, Dickinson studied botany and produced a vast herbarium. She also maintained correspondence with a variety of contacts. One of her friendships, with Judge Otis Phillips Lord, seems to have developed into a romance before Lord's death in 1884.

Dickinson died of heart failure in Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1886, at the age of 55.She was laid to rest in her family plot at West Cemetery.The Homestead, where Dickinson was born, is now a museum.

Little of Dickinson's work was published at the time of her death, and the few works that were published were edited and altered to adhere to conventional standards of the time. Unfortunately, much of the power of Dickinson's unusual use of syntax and form was lost in the alteration. After her sister's death, Lavinia discovered hundreds of poems that Dickinson had crafted over the years. The first volume of these works was published in 1890. A full compilation, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, wasn't published until 1955, though previous iterations had been released.

Dickinson's stature as a writer soared from the first publication of her poems in their intended form. She is known for her poignant and compressed verse, which profoundly influenced the direction of 20th-century poetry. The strength of her literary voice, as well as her reclusive and eccentric life, contributes to the sense of Dickinson as an indelible American character who continues to be discussed today.

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Emily Dickinson - Poems, Quotes & Death - Biography

French surgeon and biologist (18731944)

Alexis Carrel (French:[alksi kal]; 28 June 1873 5 November 1944) was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. His positive description of a miraculous healing he witnessed during a pilgrimage earned him scorn of some of his colleagues. This prompted him to relocate to the United States, where he lived most of his life.[1] He had a leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France.[1][4]

A Nobel Prize laureate in 1912, Alexis Carrel was also elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.[5][6]

Born in Sainte-Foy-ls-Lyon, Rhne, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits, though he had become an agnostic by the time he became a university student.[citation needed] He was a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. Alexis Carrel was also a member of learned societies in the U.S., Spain, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vatican City, Germany, Italy and Greece and received honorary doctorates from Queen's University of Belfast, Princeton University, California, New York, Brown University and Columbia University.

In 1902, he was claimed to have witnessed the miraculous cure of Marie Bailly at Lourdes, made famous in part because she named Carrel as a witness of her cure.[7] After the notoriety surrounding the event, Carrel could not obtain a hospital appointment because of the pervasive anticlericalism in the French university system at the time. In 1903, he emigrated to Montreal, Canada, but soon relocated to Chicago, Illinois, to work for Hull Laboratory. While there he collaborated with American physician Charles Claude Guthrie in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the head, and Carrel was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these efforts.[8]

In 1906, he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career.[9] There he did significant work on tissue cultures with pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows. In the 1930s, Carrel and Charles Lindbergh became close friends not only because of the years they worked together but also because they shared personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh initially sought out Carrel to see if his sister-in-law's heart, damaged by rheumatic fever, could be repaired. When Lindbergh saw the crudeness of Carrel's machinery, he offered to build new equipment for the scientist. Eventually they built the first perfusion pump, an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open heart surgery. Lindbergh considered Carrel his closest friend, and said he would preserve and promote Carrel's ideals after his death.[9]

Due to his close proximity with Jacques Doriot's fascist Parti Populaire Franais (PPF) during the 1930s and his role in implementing eugenics policies during Vichy France, he was accused after the Liberation of collaboration, but died before the trial.

In his later life he returned to his Catholic roots. In 1939, he met with Trappist monk Alexis Presse on a recommendation. Although Carrel was skeptical about meeting with a priest,[10] Presse ended up having a profound influence on the rest of Carrel's life.[9] In 1942, he said "I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and in all the Catholic Church teaches." He summoned Presse to administer the Catholic Sacraments on his death bed in November 1944.[10]

For much of his life, Carrel and his wife spent their summers on the le Saint-Gildas[fr], which they owned. After he and Lindbergh became close friends, Carrel persuaded him to also buy a neighboring island, the Ile Illiec, where the Lindberghs often resided in the late 1930s.

Carrel was a young surgeon in 1894, when the French president Sadi Carnot was assassinated with a knife. Carnot bled to death due to severing of his portal vein, and surgeons who treated the president felt that the vein could not be successfully reconnected.[12] This left a deep impression on Carrel, and he set about developing new techniques for suturing blood vessels. The technique of "triangulation", using three stay-sutures as traction points in order to minimize damage to the vascular wall during suturing, was inspired by sewing lessons he took from an embroideress and is still used today. Julius Comroe wrote: "Between 1901 and 1910, Alexis Carrel, using experimental animals, performed every feat and developed every technique known to vascular surgery today." He had great success in reconnecting arteries and veins, and performing surgical grafts, and this led to his Nobel Prize in 1912.

During World War I (19141918), Carrel and the English chemist Henry Drysdale Dakin developed the CarrelDakin method of treating wounds based on chlorine (Dakin's solution) which, preceding the development of antibiotics, was a major medical advance in the care of traumatic wounds. For this, Carrel was awarded the Lgion d'honneur. Carrel also advocated the use of wound debridement (cutting away necrotic or otherwise damaged tissue) and irrigation of wounds. His method of wound irrigation involved flushing the tissues with a high volume of antiseptic fluid so that dirt and other contaminants would be washed away (this is known today as "mechanical irrigation.") The World War I era Rockefeller War Demonstration Hospital (United States Army Auxiliary Hospital No. 1) was created, in part, to promote the CarrelDakin method:[14]

"The war demonstration hospital of the Rockefeller Institute was planned as a school in which to teach military surgeons the principles of and art of applying the Carrel-Dakin treatment."

[14]

Carrel co-authored a book with pilot Charles A. Lindbergh, The Culture of Organs, and worked with Lindbergh in the mid-1930s to create the "perfusion pump," which allowed living organs to exist outside the body during surgery. The advance is said to have been a crucial step in the development of open-heart surgery and organ transplants, and to have laid the groundwork for the artificial heart, which became a reality decades later.[15] Some critics of Lindbergh claimed that Carrel overstated Lindbergh's role to gain media attention, but other sources say Lindbergh played an important role in developing the device.[17][18] Both Lindbergh and Carrel appeared on the cover of Time magazine on 13 June 1938.

Carrel was also interested in the phenomenon of senescence, or aging. He claimed that all cells continued to grow indefinitely, and this became a dominant view in the early 20th century.[19] Carrel started an experiment on 17 January 1912, where he placed tissue cultured from an embryonic chicken heart in a stoppered Pyrex flask of his own design.[20] He maintained the living culture for over 20 years with regular supplies of nutrient. This was longer than a chicken's normal lifespan. The experiment, which was conducted at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, attracted considerable popular and scientific attention.[21]

Carrel's experiment was never successfully replicated, and in the 1960s Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead proposed that differentiated cells can undergo only a limited number of divisions before dying. This is known as the Hayflick limit, and is now a pillar of biology.[19]

It is not certain how Carrel obtained his anomalous results. Leonard Hayflick suggests that the daily feeding of nutrient was continually introducing new living cells to the alleged immortal culture.[22] J. A. Witkowski has argued that,[23] while "immortal" strains of visibly mutated cells have been obtained by other experimenters, a more likely explanation is deliberate introduction of new cells into the culture, possibly without Carrel's knowledge.[a]

In 1972, the Swedish Post Office honored Carrel with a stamp that was part of its Nobel stamp series.[24] In 1979, the lunar crater Carrel was named after him as a tribute to his scientific breakthroughs.

In February 2002, as part of celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's birth, the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston established the Lindbergh-Carrel Prize, given to major contributors to "development of perfusion and bioreactor technologies for organ preservation and growth".[25] Michael DeBakey and nine other scientists received the prize, a bronze statuette[26] created for the event by the Italian artist C. Zoli and named "Elisabeth"[27] after Elisabeth Morrow, sister of Lindbergh's wife Anne Morrow, who died from heart disease. It was in fact Lindbergh's disappointment that contemporary medical technology could not provide an artificial heart pump which would allow for heart surgery on her that led to Lindbergh's first contact with Carrel.

In 1902, Alexis B went from being a skeptic of the visions and miracles reported at Lourdes to being a believer in spiritual cures after experiencing a healing of Marie Bailly that he could not explain.[10] The Catholic journal Le nouvelliste reported that she named him as the prime witness of her cure. Alexis Carrel refused to discount a supernatural explanation and steadfastly reiterated his beliefs, even writing the book The Voyage to Lourdes describing his experience,[28] although it was not published until four years after his death. This was a detriment to his career and reputation among his fellow doctors, and feeling he had no future in academic medicine in France, he emigrated to Canada with the intention of farming and raising cattle. After a brief period, he accepted an appointment at the University of Chicago and, two years later, at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.

In 1935, Carrel published a book titled L'Homme, cet inconnu (Man, the Unknown),[pageneeded] which became a best-seller. In the book, he attempted to outline a comprehensive account of what is known and more importantly unknown of the human body and human life "in light of discoveries in biology, physics, and medicine", to elucidate problems of the modern world, and to provide possible routes to a better life for human beings.

For Carrel, the fundamental problem was that:

[M]en cannot follow modern civilization along its present course, because they are degenerating. They have been fascinated by the beauty of the sciences of inert matter. They have not understood that their body and consciousness are subjected to natural laws, more obscure than, but as inexorable as, the laws of the sidereal world. Neither have they understood that they cannot transgress these laws without being punished. They must, therefore, learn the necessary relations of the cosmic universe, of their fellow men, and of their inner selves, and also those of their tissues and their mind. Indeed, man stands above all things. Should he degenerate, the beauty of civilization, and even the grandeur of the physical universe, would vanish. ... Humanity's attention must turn from the machines of the world of inanimate matter to the body and the soul of man, to the organic and mental processes which have created the machines and the universe of Newton and Einstein.[pageneeded][30]

Carrel advocated, in part, that mankind could better itself by following the guidance of an elite group of intellectuals, and by incorporating eugenics into the social framework. He argued for an aristocracy springing from individuals of potential, writing:

We must single out the children who are endowed with high potentialities, and develop them as completely as possible. And in this manner give to the nation a non-hereditary aristocracy. Such children may be found in all classes of society, although distinguished men appear more frequently in distinguished families than in others. The descendants of the founders of American civilization may still possess the ancestral qualities. These qualities are generally hidden under the cloak of degeneration. But this degeneration is often superficial. It comes chiefly from education, idleness, lack of responsibility and moral discipline. The sons of very rich men, like those of criminals, should be removed while still infants from their natural surroundings. Thus separated from their family, they could manifest their hereditary strength. In the aristocratic families of Europe there are also individuals of great vitality. The issue of the Crusaders is by no means extinct. The laws of genetics indicate the probability that the legendary audacity and love of adventure can appear again in the lineage of the feudal lords. It is possible also that the offspring of the great criminals who had imagination, courage, and judgment, of the heroes of the French or Russian Revolutions, of the high-handed business men who live among us, might be excellent building stones for an enterprising minority. As we know, criminality is not hereditary if not united with feeble-mindedness or other mental or cerebral defects. High potentialities are rarely encountered in the sons of honest, intelligent, hard-working men who have had ill luck in their careers, who have failed in business or have muddled along all their lives in inferior positions. Or among peasants living on the same spot for centuries. However, from such people sometimes spring artists, poets, adventurers, saints. A brilliantly gifted and well-known New York family came from peasants who cultivated their farm in the south of France from the time of Charlemagne to that of Napoleon.[pageneeded]

Carrel advocated for euthanasia for criminals, and the criminally insane, specifically endorsing the use of gassing:

(t)he conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.[pageneeded]

Otherwise he endorsed voluntary positive eugenics. He wrote:

We have mentioned that natural selection has not played its part for a long while. That many inferior individuals have been conserved through the efforts of hygiene and medicine. But we cannot prevent the reproduction of the weak when they are neither insane nor criminal. Or destroy sickly or defective children as we do the weaklings in a litter of puppies. The only way to obviate the disastrous predominance of the weak is to develop the strong. Our efforts to render normal the unfit are evidently useless. We should, then, turn our attention toward promoting the optimum growth of the fit. By making the strong still stronger, we could effectively help the weak; For the herd always profits by the ideas and inventions of the elite. Instead of leveling organic and mental inequalities, we should amplify them and construct greater men.[pageneeded]

He continued:

The progress of the strong depends on the conditions of their development and the possibility left to parents of transmitting to their offspring the qualities which they have acquired in the course of their existence. Modern society must, therefore, allow to all a certain stability of life, a home, a garden, some friends. Children must be reared in contact with things which are the expression of the mind of their parents. It is imperative to stop the transformation of the farmer, the artisan, the artist, the professor, and the man of science into manual or intellectual proletarians, possessing nothing but their hands or their brains. The development of this proletariat will be the everlasting shame of industrial civilization. It has contributed to the disappearance of the family as a social unit, and to the weakening of intelligence and moral sense. It is destroying the remains of culture. All forms of the proletariat must be suppressed. Each individual should have the security and the stability required for the foundation of a family. Marriage must cease being only a temporary union. The union of man and woman, like that of the higher anthropoids, ought to last at least until the young have no further need of protection. The laws relating to education, and especially to that of girls, to marriage, and divorce should, above all, take into account the interest of children. Women should receive a higher education, not in order to become doctors, lawyers, or professors, but to rear their offspring to be valuable human beings.The free practice of eugenics could lead not only to the development of stronger individuals, but also of strains endowed with more endurance, intelligence, and courage. These strains should constitute an aristocracy, from which great men would probably appear. Modern society must promote, by all possible means, the formation of better human stock. No financial or moral rewards should be too great for those who, through the wisdom of their marriage, would engender geniuses. The complexity of our civilization is immense. No one can master all its mechanisms. However, these mechanisms have to be mastered. There is need today of men of larger mental and moral size, capable of accomplishing such a task. The establishment of a hereditary biological aristocracy through voluntary eugenics would be an important step toward the solution of our present problems.[pageneeded]

Carrel's endorsement of euthanasia of the criminal and insane was published in the mid-1930s, prior to the implementation of death camps and gas chambers in Nazi Germany. In the 1936 German introduction of his book, at the publisher's request, he added the following praise of the Nazi regime which did not appear in the editions in other languages:

(t)he German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.[31]

In 1937, Carrel joined Jean Coutrot's Centre d'Etudes des Problmes Humains - Coutrot's aim was to develop what he called an "economic humanism" through "collective thinking." In 1941, through connections to the cabinet of Vichy France president Philippe Ptain (specifically, French industrial physicians Andr Gros and Jacques Mntrier) he went on to advocate for the creation of the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems (Fondation Franaise pour l'Etude des Problmes Humains which was created by decree of the Vichy regime in 1941, and where he served as "regent".[4]

The foundation was at the origin of the 11 October 1946, law, enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), which institutionalized the field of occupational medicine. It worked on demographics (Robert Gessain, Paul Vincent, Jean Bourgeois-Pichat), on economics, (Franois Perroux), on nutrition (Jean Sutter), on habitation (Jean Merlet) and on the first opinion polls (Jean Stoetzel). "The foundation was chartered as a public institution under the joint supervision of the ministries of finance and public health. It was given financial autonomy and a budget of forty million francsroughly one franc per inhabitanta true luxury considering the burdens imposed by the German Occupation on the nation's resources. By way of comparison, the whole Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was given a budget of fifty million francs."[This quote needs a citation]

The Foundation made many positive accomplishments during its time.[9] It promoted the 16 December 1942 Act which established the prenuptial certificate, which was required before marriage, and was aimed at insuring the good health of the spouses, in particular in regard to sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and "life hygiene". The institute also established the livret scolaire[fr],[b] which could be used to record students' grades in the French secondary schools, and thus classify and select them according to scholastic performance.

According to Gwen Terrenoire, writing in Eugenics in France (19131941): a review of research findings, "The foundation was a pluridisciplinary centre that employed around 300 researchers (mainly statisticians, psychologists, physicians) from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autumn of 1944. After the liberation of Paris, Carrel was suspended by the Minister of Health; he died in November 1944, but the Foundation itself was "purged", only to reappear in a short time as the Institut national d'tudes dmographiques (INED) that is still active."[33] Although Carrel himself was dead most members of his team did move to the INED, which was led by demographist Alfred Sauvy, who coined the expression "Third World". Others joined Robert Debr's "Institut national d'hygine" (National Hygiene Institute), which later became the INSERM.

Read more here:
Alexis Carrel - Wikipedia

A week in the life of a medical student A week in the life of a Three Counties Medical School student - Phase One

At the start of each week you will need to read the Study Guide which sets out the learning outcomes and learning opportunities for the week. On Monday the first formal session is in a lecture format and is called Map Reading because the tutor will go through the journey planned for the week - where you will go, what you will see and what you will bring back home.

The next session is Problem Based Learning (PBL). Here you will be in a group of about eight students with a facilitator who is a doctor. The facilitator is not there to teach; indeed, he or she will spend most of the time listening.

You will be discussing two or three Presentations, realistic patient scenarios that a doctor might encounter.

The aim is to identify what you know and what you do not know in order to understand the problem or problems (there are usually several) that the patient presents. The facilitator will keep you on track. The Presentations are carefully constructed to point to the learning required in the week. You will end up with a number of learning outcomes, things you dont know or understand.

The next session is learning about the consultation, the key interaction between doctor and patient. This will be either talking to a simulated patient (usually an actor) or performing a physical examination. This will be examining each other but we have guidelines on how this is done to avoid embarrassment.

Most of the rest of the week is about finding out the answers to the questions posed in the PBL groups. Some of this is in the form of a carousel where you will learn about normal and abnormal structure and function. This might include anatomical models or images. Another is called applied physiology and procedural skills where you will learn skills and procedures such as venepuncture. These are all linked to the learning outcomes for the week and the PBL presentations.

One week in three you will be on a placement in primary care where you are likely to meet patients with similar problems to those in the PBL group and discuss your progress with the Year Long Case Studies.

At the end of the week there is a wrap up session where we all go back to the Map and see what we have learned. Then its another PBL session where you discuss what you have learned; do we all now understand the Presentations, is there anything else we dont know? We then have another session on the consultation.

Every week will be as varied as the patients but here are some of the experiences you can expect. Not all will happen each week!

Continue reading here:
Medicine MBChB - University Of Worcester

Religious sexual practices

Taoist sexual practices (traditional Chinese: ; simplified Chinese: ; pinyin: fngzhngsh; lit. 'arts of the bedchamber') are the ways Taoists may practice sexual activity. These practices are also known as "joining energy" or "the joining of the essences". Practitioners believe that by performing these sexual arts, one can stay in good health, and attain longevity or spiritual advancement.[1][2][3]

Some Taoist sects during the Han dynasty performed sexual intercourse as a spiritual practice, called hq (, lit. "joining energy").[citation needed] The first sexual texts that survive today are those found at Mawangdui[citation needed]. While Taoism had not yet fully evolved as a philosophy at this time, these texts shared some remarkable similarities with later Tang dynasty texts, such as the Ishinp (). The sexual arts arguably reached their climax between the end of the Han dynasty and the end of the Tang dynasty[citation needed].

After AD 1000, Confucian restraining attitudes towards sexuality became stronger, so that by the beginning of the Qing dynasty in 1644, sex was a taboo topic in public life[citation needed]. These Confucians alleged that the separation of genders in most social activities existed 2,000 years ago and suppressed the sexual arts. Because of the taboo surrounding sex, there was much censoring done during the Qing in literature, and the sexual arts disappeared in public life[citation needed]. As a result, some of the texts survived only in Japan, and most scholars had no idea that such a different concept of sex existed in early China.[4]

The basis of all Taoist thinking is that qi () is part of everything in existence.[5] Qi is related to another energetic substance contained in the human body known as jing (), and once all this has been expended the body dies. Jing can be lost in many ways, but most notably through the loss of body fluids. Taoists may use practices to stimulate/increase and conserve their bodily fluids to great extents. The fluid believed to contain the most jing is semen. Therefore, Taoists believe in decreasing the frequency of, or totally avoiding, ejaculation in order to conserve life essence.[6]

Many Taoist practitioners link the loss of ejaculatory fluids to the loss of vital life force: where excessive fluid loss results in premature aging, disease, and general fatigue. While some Taoists contend that one should never ejaculate, others provide a specific formula to determine the maximum number of regular ejaculations in order to maintain health.[7][8]

The general idea is to limit the loss of fluids as much as possible to the level of your desired practice. As these sexual practices were passed down over the centuries, some practitioners have given less importance to the limiting of ejaculation. This variety has been described as "...while some declare non-ejaculation injurious, others condemn ejaculating too fast in too much haste."[8] Nevertheless, the "retention of the semen" is one of the foundational tenets of Taoist sexual practice.[9]

There are different methods to control ejaculation prescribed by the Taoists. In order to avoid ejaculation, the man could do one of several things. He could pull out immediately before orgasm, a method also more recently termed as "coitus conservatus."[10] A second method involved the man applying pressure on the perineum, thus retaining the sperm. While if done incorrectly this can cause retrograde ejaculation, the Taoists believed that the jing traveled up into the head and "nourished the brain."[11] Cunnilingus was believed to be ideal by preventing the loss of semen and vaginal liquids.

Another important concept of "the joining of the essences" was that the union of a man and a woman would result in the creation of jing, a type of sexual energy. When in the act of lovemaking, jing would form, and the man could transform some of this jing into qi, and replenish his lifeforce. By having as much sex as possible, men had the opportunity to transform more and more jing, and as a result would see many health benefits.[6]

The concept of yin and yang is important in Taoism and consequently also holds special importance in sex. Yang usually referred to the male sex, whereas yin could refer to the female sex. Man and woman were the equivalent of heaven and earth, but became disconnected. Therefore, while heaven and earth are eternal, man and woman suffer a premature death.[12] Every interaction between yin and yang had significance. Because of this significance, every position and action in lovemaking had importance. Taoist texts described a large number of special sexual positions that served to cure or prevent illness, similar to the Kama Sutra.[13]

There was the notion that men released yang during orgasm, while women shed yin during theirs. Every orgasm from the user would nourish the partner's energy.[14]

For Taoists, sex was not just about pleasing a man.[15] The woman also had to be stimulated and pleased in order to benefit from the act of sex. Sun (), female advisor to the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), noted ten important indications of female satisfaction.[16] If sex were performed in this manner, the woman would create more jing, and the man could more easily absorb the jing to increase his own qi.[17]

According to Jolan Chang, in early Chinese history, women played a significant role in the Tao () of loving, and that the degeneration into subordinate roles came much later in Chinese history.[18] Women were also given a prominent place in the Ishinp, with the tutor being a woman. One of the reasons women had a great deal of strength in the act of sex was that they walked away undiminished from the act. The woman had the power to bring forth life, and did not have to worry about ejaculation or refractory period. To quote Laozi from the Tao Te Ching: "The Spirit of the Valley is inexhaustible... Draw on it as you will, it never runs dry."[19]

Women also helped men extend their lives. Many of the ancient texts were dedicated explanations of how a man could use sex to extend his own life but, his life was extended only through the absorption of the woman's vital energies (jing and qi). Some Taoists came to call the act of sex "the battle of stealing and strengthening".[20] These sexual methods could be correlated with Taoist military methods. Instead of storming the gates, the battle was a series of feints and maneuvers that would sap the enemy's resistance.[21] Fang described this battle as "the ideal was for a man to 'defeat' the 'enemy' in the sexual 'battle' by keeping himself under complete control so as not to emit semen, while at the same time exciting the woman until she reached orgasm and shed her Yin essence, which was then absorbed by the man."[22]

Jolan Chang points out that it was after the Tang dynasty (AD 618906) that "the Tao of Loving" was "steadily corrupted", and that it was these later corruptions that reflected battle imagery and elements of a "vampire" mindset.[23] Other research into early Taoism found more harmonious attitudes of yin-yang communion.[24]

This practice was not limited to male on female, however, as it was possible to women to do the same in turn with the male yang. The deity known as the Queen Mother of the West was described to have no husband, instead having intercourse with young virgin males to nourish her female element.[25]

Some Ming dynasty Taoist sects believed that one way for men to achieve longevity or 'towards immortality' is by having intercourse with virgins, particularly young virgins. Taoist sexual books by Liangpi[26] and Sanfeng[27] call the female partner ding () and recommend sex with premenarche virgins.

Liangpi concludes that the ideal ding is a pre-menarche virgin just under 14 years of age and women older than 18 should be avoided.[28] Sanfeng went further and divided ding partners into three ranks of descending importance: premenarche virgins aged 14-16, menstruating virgins aged 16-20 and women aged 21-25.[29][30]

According to Ge Hong, a 4th-century Taoist alchemist, "those seeking 'immortality' must perfect the absolute essentials. These consist of treasuring the jing, circulating the qi, and consuming the great medicine."[31] The sexual arts concerned the first precept, treasuring the jing. This is partially because treasuring the jing involved sending it up into the brain. In order to send the jing into the brain, the male had to refrain from ejaculation during sex. According to some Taoists, if this was done, the jing would travel up the spine and nourish the brain instead of leaving the body. Ge Hong also states, however, that it is folly to believe that performing the sexual arts only can achieve immortality and some of the ancient myths on sexual arts had been misinterpreted and exaggerated. Indeed, the sexual arts had to be practiced alongside alchemy to attain longevity. Ge Hong also warned it could be dangerous if practiced incorrectly.[31]

More here:
Taoist sexual practices - Wikipedia

City-state on the Apennine Peninsula between 1115 and 1569

The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic (Italian: Repubblica Fiorentina, pronounced[repubblika fjorentina], or Repubblica di Firenze), was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany.[1] The republic originated in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in her successors' place.[3] The republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The signoria was chosen by the gonfaloniere (titular ruler of the city), who was elected every two months by Florentine guild members.

During the Republic's history, Florence was an important cultural, economic, political and artistic force in Europe. Its coin, the florin, became a world monetary standard.[4] During the Republican period, Florence was also the birthplace of the Renaissance, which is considered a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic rebirth.[5]

The republic had a checkered history of coups and countercoups against various factions. The Medici faction gained governance of the city in 1434 under Cosimo de' Medici. The Medici kept control of Florence until 1494. Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X) reconquered the republic in 1512.

Florence repudiated Medici authority for a second time in 1527, during the War of the League of Cognac. The Medici reassumed their rule in 1531 after an 11-month siege of the city, aided by Emperor CharlesV. Pope ClementVII, himself a Medici, appointed his relative Alessandro de' Medici as the first "Duke of the Florentine Republic", thereby transforming the Republic into a hereditary monarchy.

The second Duke, CosimoI, established a strong Florentine navy and expanded his territory, conquering Siena. In 1569, the pope declared Cosimo the first grand duke of Tuscany. The Medici ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until 1737.

The city of Florence was established in 59 BC by Julius Caesar. Since 846 AD, the city had been part of the Marquisate of Tuscany. After the female ruler of the marquisate, Matilda of Tuscany, died in 1115, the city did not submit readily to her successor Rabodo (r. 11161119), who was killed in a dispute with the city.

It is not known precisely when Florence formed its own republican/oligarchical government independent of the marquisate, although the death of Rabodo in 1119 should be a turning point. The first official mention of the Florentine republic was in 1138, when several cities around Tuscany formed a league against Henry X of Bavaria. The country was nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire.[3]

According to a study carried out by Enrico Faini of the University of Florence,[8] there were about fifteen old aristocratic families who moved to Florence between 1000 and 1100: Amidei; Ardinghi; Brunelleschi; Buondelmonti; Caponsacchi; Donati; Fifanti; Gherardini of Montagliari; Guidi; Nerli; Porcelli; Sacchetti; Scolari; Uberti; and Visdomini.

The newly independent Florence prospered in the 12th century through extensive trade with foreign countries. This, in turn, provided a platform for the demographic growth of the city, which mirrored the rate of construction of churches and palazzi. This prosperity was shattered when Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa invaded the Italian peninsula in 1185. As a result, the margraves of Tuscany re-acquired Florence and its townlands. The Florentines re-asserted their independence when Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI died in 1197.[3]

Florence's population continued to grow into the 13th century, reaching a level of 30,000 inhabitants. As has been said, the extra inhabitants supported the city's trade and vice versa. Several new bridges and churches were built, most prominently the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, begun in 1294. The buildings from this era serve as Florence's best examples of Gothic Architecture. Politically, Florence was barely able to maintain peace between its competing factions. The precarious peace that existed at the beginning of the century was destroyed in 1216 when two factions, known as the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, began to war. The Ghibellines were supporters of the noble rulers of Florence, whereas the Guelphs were populists.

The Ghibellines, who had ruled the city under Frederick of Antioch since 1244, were deposed in 1250 by the Guelphs. The Guelphs led Florence to prosper further. Their primarily mercantile orientation soon became evident in one of their earliest achievements: the introduction of a new coin, the florin, in 1252. It was widely used beyond Florence's borders due to its reliable, fixed gold content and soon became one of the common currencies of Europe and the Near East. The same year saw the creation of the Palazzo del Popolo.[9] The Guelphs lost the reins of power after Florence suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Montaperti against Siena in 1260. The Ghibellines resumed power and undid many of the advances of the Guelphs, for example the demolition of hundreds of towers, homes, and palaces. The fragility of their rule caused the Ghibellines to seek out an arbitrator in the form of Pope Clement IV, who openly favoured the Guelphs, and restored them to power.

The Florentine economy reached a zenith in the latter half of the 13th century, and its success was reflected by the building of the famed Palazzo della Signoria, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio. The Florentine townlands were divided into administrative districts in 1292. In 1293, the Ordinances of Justice were enacted, which effectively became the constitution of the republic of Florence throughout the Italian Renaissance.[10] The city's numerous luxurious palazzi were becoming surrounded by townhouses built by the ever prospering merchant class.[3] In 1298, the Bonsignori family of Siena, one of the leading banking families of Europe, went bankrupt, and the city of Siena lost its status as the most prominent banking center of Europe to Florence.

In 1304, the war between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs led to a great fire that destroyed much of the city. Napier gives the following account:

Battles first began between the Cerchi and Giugni at their houses in the Via del Garbo; they fought day and night, and with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Antellesi the former subdued all that quarter: a thousand rural adherents strengthened their bands, and that day might have seen the Neri's destruction if an unforeseen disaster had not turned the scale. A certain dissolute priest, called Neri Abati, prior of San Piero Scheraggio, false to his family and in concert with the Black chiefs, consented to set fire to the dwellings of his own kinsmen in Orto-san-Michele; the flames, assisted by faction, spread rapidly over the richest and most crowded part of Florence: shops, warehouses, towers, private dwellings and palaces, from the old to the new market-place, from Vacchereccia to Porta Santa Maria and the Ponte Vecchio, all was one broad sheet of fire: more than nineteen hundred houses were consumed; plunder and devastation revelled unchecked amongst the flames, whole races were reduced in one moment to beggary, and vast magazines of the richest merchandise were destroyed. The Cavalcanti, one of the most opulent families in Florence, beheld their whole property consumed, and lost all courage; they made no attempt to save it, and, after almost gaining possession of the city, were finally overcome by the opposite faction.

The golden florin of the Republic of Florence was the first European gold coin struck in sufficient quantities to play a significant commercial role since the 7th century. As many Florentine banks were international companies with branches across Europe, the florin quickly became the dominant trade coin of Western Europe for large scale transactions, replacing silver bars in multiples of the mark (a weight unit equal to eight ounces).

In fact, with the collapse of the Bonsignori family[it], several new banking families sprang up in Florence: the Bardis, Peruzzis and the Acciaioli. The friction between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines did not cease, authority still passed between the two frequently.

Florence's reign as the foremost banking city of Europe did not last long; the aforesaid families were bankrupt in 1340, not because of Edward III of England's refusal to pay his debts, as is often stated (the debt was just 13,000) but because of a Europe-wide economic recession. While the banks perished, Florentine literature flourished, and Florence was home to some of the greatest writers in Italian history: Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. They were Europe's first vernacular writers, choosing the Tuscan dialect of Italian (which, as a result, evolved into the standard Italian language) over Latin.

Florence was hit hard by the Black Death. Having originated in the Orient, the plague arrived in Messina in 1347. The plague devastated Europe, robbing it of an estimated 1/3 of its population. This, combined with the economic downturn, took its toll on the city-state. The ensuing collapse of the feudal system changed the social composition of Europe forever; it was one of the first steps out of the Middle Ages.

The war with Avignon papacy strained the regime. In 1378 discontented wool workers revolted. The Ciompi revolt, as it is known, established a revolutionary commune. In 1382 the wealthier classes crushed the seeds of rebellion.

The famous Medici bank was established by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici in October 1397. The bank continued to exist (albeit in an extremely diminished form) until the time of Ferdinando II de'Medici in the 17th century. But, for now, Giovanni's bank flourished.

Beginning in 1389, Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan expanded his dominion into the Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia and Tuscany. During this period Florence, under the leadership of Maso degli Albizzi and Niccol da Uzzano was involved in three wars with Milan (139092, 139798, 140002). The Florentine army, commanded by John Hawkwood, contained the Milanese during the first war.[17] The second war started in March 1397. Milanese troops devastated the Florentine contado, but were checked in August of that year.

The war expenses exceeded one million florins and necessitated tax raises and forced loans. A peace agreement in May 1398 was brokered by Venice, but left the struggle unresolved. Over the next two years Florentine control of Tuscany and Umbria collapsed. Pisa and Siena as well as a number of smaller cities submitted to Gian Galeazzo, while Lucca withdrew from the anti-Visconti league, with Bologna remaining the only major ally. In November 1400 a conspiracy involving both exiles and internal opponents was uncovered. Two Ricci were implicated as leaders of a plot to eliminate the regime's inner circle and open the gates to the Milanese. Confessions indicated that the plan had wide support among the elites, including a Medici and several of the Alberti.

The republic bankrolled the emperor-elect Rupert. However, he was defeated by the Milanese in the fall of 1401. Visconti then turned to Bologna. On June 26, 1402, combined Bolognese-Florentine forces were routed atCasalecchio, near Bologna, which was taken on the 30th. The road to Tuscany was open. However, Florence was saved after an outbreak of plague had spread from Tuscany to Emilia and Lombardy: Gian Galeazzo died from it on 3 September 1402.[17]

The Visconti domains were divided between three heirs. Gabriele Maria Visconti sold Pisa to the Republic of Florence for 200,000 florins. Since the Pisans did not intend to voluntarily submit to their long-time rivals, the army under Maso degli Albizzi took Pisa on 9 October 1406 after a long siege, that was accompanied by numerous atrocities.[17]

The state authorities had been approached by the Duchy of Milan in 1422, with a treaty, that prohibited Florence's interference with Milan's impending war with the Republic of Genoa.Florence obliged, but Milan disregarded its own treaty and occupied a Florentine border town. The conservative government wanted war, while the people bemoaned such a stance as they would be subject to enormous tax increases. The republic went to war with Milan, and won, upon the Republic of Venice's entry on their side. The war was concluded in 1427, and the Visconti of Milan were forced to sign an unfavourable treaty.

The debt incurred during the war was gargantuan, approximately 4,200,000 florins. To pay, the state had to change the tax system. The current estimo system was replaced with the catasto. The catasto was based on a citizen's entire wealth, while the estimo was simply a form of income tax. Apart from war, Filippo Brunelleschi created the renowned dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, which astounded contemporaries and modern observers alike.

The son of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, Cosimo de' Medici succeeded his father as the head of the Medici Bank. He played a prominent role in the government of Florence until his exile in 1433, after a disastrous war with Tuscany's neighbour, the Republic of Lucca. Cosimo's exile in Venice lasted for less than a year, when the people of Florence overturned Cosimo's exile in a democratic vote. Cosimo returned to the acclaim of his people and the banishment of the Albizzi family, who had exiled him.

The Renaissance began during Cosimo's de facto rule of Florence, the seeds of which had arguably been laid before the Black Death tore through Europe. Niccol Niccoli was the leading Florence humanist scholar of the time. He appointed the first Professor of Greek, Manuel Chrysoloras (the founder of Hellenic studies in Italy), at the University of Florence in 1397. Niccoli was a keen collector of ancient manuscripts, which he bequeathed to Cosimo upon his death in 1437. Poggio Bracciolini succeeded Niccoli as the principal humanist of Florence. Bracciolini was born Arezzo in 1380. He toured Europe, searching for more ancient Greco-Roman manuscripts for Niccoli. Unlike his employer, Bracciolini also authored his own works. He was made the Chancellor of Florence shortly before his death, by Cosimo, who was his best friend.

Florence hosted the Great Ecumenical Council in 1439; this council was launched in an attempt to reconcile the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church with Roman Catholicism. Pope Eugenius IV convened it in reply to a cry for assistance from the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire) John VIII Palaiologos. John VIII's empire was slowly being devoured by the Ottoman Turks.The council was a huge boost to Florence's international prestige. The council deliberated until July 1439. Both parties had reached a compromise, and the Pope agreed to militarily aid the Byzantine Emperor. However, upon John VIII's homecoming to Constantinople, the Greeks rejected the compromise, leading to riots throughout what remained of the Byzantine Empire. John VIII was forced to repudiate the agreement with the Roman church to appease the rioters. As a result, no Western aid was forthcoming and the Byzantine Empire's fate was sealed. Fourteen years later in 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans.

Cosimo's fervent patronage transformed Florence into the epitome of a Renaissance city. He employed Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Michelozzo. All these artistic commissions cost Cosimo over 600,000 florins.

Foreign relations, both as a backdrop to Cosimo's rise to power and during first twenty years of his rule, were dominated by the Wars in Lombardy. This series of conflicts between the Venetian Republic and the Duchy of Milan for hegemony in Northern Italy lasted from 1423 to 1454 and involved a number of Italian states, that occasionally switched sides according to their changing interests. Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan invaded Florence twice in the 1430s, and again in 1440, but his army was finally defeated in the battle of Anghiari. The Milanese invasions were largely instigated by the exiled Albizzi family. Death of Filippo Maria in 1447 led to a major change in the alliances. In 1450 Cosimo's current ally Francesco Sforza established himself as the Duke of Milan. Florentine trade interests made her support Sforza's Milan in the war against Venice, while the fall of Constantinople in 1453 dealt a blow to Venetian finances. Eventually, the Peace of Lodi recognized Venetian and Florentine territorial gains and the legitimacy of the Sforza rule in Milan.[28] The Milan-Florence alliance played a major role in stabilizing the peninsula for the next 40 years.

The political crisis of 1458 was the first serious challenge to the Medici rule. The cost of wars had been borne by the great families of Florence, and disproportionately so by Medici's opponents. A number of them (Serragli, Baroncelli, Mancini, Vespucci, Gianni) were practically ruined and had to sell their properties, and those were acquired by Medici's partisans at bargain prices. The opposition used partial relaxation of Medici control of the republic institutions to demand political reforms, freedom of speech in the councils and a greater share in the decision-making. Medici's party response was to use threats of force from private armies and Milanese troops and arranging a popular assembly dominated by Cosimo's supporters. It exiled the opponents of the regime and introduced the open vote in councils, "in order to unmask the anti-Medician rebels".[28]

From 1458 Cosimo withdrew from any official public role, but his control of Florence was greater than ever. In the spring of 1459 he entertained the new pope Pius II, who stopped in Florence on his way to the Council of Mantua to declare a crusade against the Ottomans, and Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Francesco's son, who was to escort the pope from Florence to Mantua. In his memoirs, Pius said that Cosimo "was considered the arbiter of war and peace, the regulator of law; less a citizen than master of his city. Political councils were held in his home; the magistrates he chose were elected; he was king in all but name and legal status. Some asserted that his tyranny was intolerable."

Piero the Gouty was the eldest son of Cosimo. Piero, as his sobriquet the gouty implies, suffered from gout and did not enjoy good health. Lorenzo the Magnificent was Piero's eldest son by his wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni. Piero's reign furthered the always fractious political divisions of Florence when he had called up huge debts owed to the Medici Bank. These debts were owed primarily by a Florentine nobleman, Luca Pitti. Lucca called for an armed insurrection against Piero, but a co-conspirator rebutted this. Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan died in 1466, and his son Galeazzo Maria Sforza became the new Milanese duke. With the death of Francesco Sforza, Florence lost a valuable ally among the other Italian states.

In August 1466, the conspirators acted. They received support from the Duke of Ferrara, who marched troops into the Florentine countryside with the intent of deposing Piero. The coup failed. The Florentines were not willing to support it, and soon after their arrival, Ferrara's troops left the city. The conspirators were exiled for life. While the internal problems were fixed, Venice took the opportunity to invade Florentine territory in 1467. Piero appointed Federigo da Montefeltro, Lord of Urbino, to command his mercenaries. An inconclusive battle ensued, with the Venetians forces retreating. In the winter of 1469 Piero died.

Lorenzo succeeded his father, Piero. Lorenzo, as heir, was accordingly groomed by his father to rule over Florence.

Lorenzo was the greatest artistic patron of the Renaissance. He patronised Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli, among others. During Lorenzo's reign, the Renaissance truly descended on Florence. Lorenzo commissioned a multitude of amazing pieces of art and also enjoyed collecting fine gems. Lorenzo had many children with his wife Clarice Orsini, including the future Pope Leo X and his eventual successor in Florence, Piero the Unfortunate.

Lorenzo's brother Giuliano was killed before his own eyes in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478. This plot was instigated by the Pazzi family. The coup was unsuccessful, and the conspirators were executed in a very violent manner. The scheme was supported by the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, who was also executed in his ceremonial robes. News of this sacrilege reached Pope Sixtus IV (who had also supported the conspiracy against the Medicis). Sixtus IV was "outraged" and excommunicated everyone in Florence. Sixtus sent a papal delegation to Florence to arrest Lorenzo. The people of Florence were obviously enraged by the Pope's actions, and the local clergy too. The populace refused to resign Lorenzo to the papal delegation. A war followed, which lasted for two years until Lorenzo tactfully went about diplomatically securing a peace. Lorenzo died in 1492 and was succeeded by his son Piero.

Piero ruled Florence for a mere two years. Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in September 1494. He demanded passage through Florence to Naples, where he intended to secure the throne for himself. Piero met Charles at the fringes of Florence to try and negotiate. Piero capitulated to all Charles' demands, and upon arriving back in the city in November, he was branded as a traitor. He was forced to flee the republic with his family.

After the fall of the Medici, Girolamo Savonarola ruled the state. Savonarola was a priest from Ferrara. He came to Florence in the 1480s. By proclaiming predictions and through vigorous preaching, he won the people to his cause. Savonarola's new government ushered in democratic reforms. It allowed many exiles back into Florence, who were banished by the Medici. Savonarola's ulterior goal, however, was to transform Florence into a "city of god". Florentines stopped wearing garish colours, and many women took oaths to become nuns. Savonarola became most famous for his "Bonfire of the Vanities", where he ordered all "vanities" to be gathered and burned. These included wigs, perfume, paintings, and ancient pagan manuscripts.[45]Savonarola's rule collapsed a year later. He was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI in late 1497. In the same year, Florence embarked on a war with Pisa, which had been de facto independent since Charles VIII's invasion three years before. The endeavour failed miserably, and this led to food shortages. That, in turn, led to a few isolated cases of the plague. The people blamed Savonarola for their woes, and he was tortured and executed in the Piazza della Signoria by being burned at the stake by Florentine authorities, in May 1498.

In 1502, the Florentines chose Piero Soderini as their first ruler for life. Soderini succeeded where Savonarola had failed, when the Secretary of War, Niccol Machiavelli, recaptured Pisa. It was at this time that Machiavelli introduced a standing army in Florence, replacing the traditional use of hired mercenaries.

Soderini was repudiated in September 1512, when Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici captured Florence with Papal troops during the War of the League of Cambrai. The Medici rule of Florence was thus restored.

Soon after retaking Florence, Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici was recalled to Rome. Pope Julius II had just died, and he needed to be present for the ensuing Papal conclave. Giovanni was elected Pope, taking the name Leo X. This effectively brought the Papal States and Florence into a political union. Leo X ruled Florence by proxy, first appointing his brother Giuliano de' Medici to rule in his stead, and then in 1513, replacing Giuliano with his cousin, Lorenzo II de' Medici.[50]

Lorenzo II's government proved unpopular in Florence.[50] According to U.S. President and historian John Adams, "at this time the citizens of the state of Florence were in secret very discontented, because the Duke Lorenzo, desiring to reduce the government to the form of a principality, appeared to disdain to consult any longer with the magistrates and his fellow-citizens as he used to do, and gave audiences very seldom, and with much impatience; he attended less to the business of the city, and caused all public affairs to be managed by Messer Goro da Pistoia, his secretary."[50] In 1519, Lorenzo died from syphilis, shortly before his wife gave birth to Catherine de' Medici, the future Queen of France.[51]

Following the death of Lorenzo II, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici governed Florence until 1523, when he was elected Pope Clement VII. U.S. President John Adams later characterized his administration of Florence as "very successful and frugal."[50] Adams chronicles Cardinal Giulio as having "reduced the business of the magistrates, elections, customs of office, and the mode of expenditure of public money, in such a manner that it produced a great and universal joy among the citizens."[50]

On the death of Pope Leo X in 1521, Adams writes there was a "ready inclination in all of the principal citizens [of Florence], and a universal desire among the people, to maintain the state in the hands of the Cardinal de' Medici; and all this felicity arose from his good government, which since the death of the Duke Lorenzo, had been universally agreeable."[50]

When Cardinal Giulio was elected Pope Clement VII, he appointed Ippolito de' Medici and Alessandro de' Medici to rule Florence, under the guardianship of Cardinal Passerini. Ippolito was the son of Giuliano de' Medici, while Alessandro was allegedly the son of Clement VII. Cardinal Passerini's regency government proved highly unpopular.[53]

In May 1527, Rome was sacked by the Holy Roman Empire. The city was destroyed, and Pope Clement VII was imprisoned. During the tumult, a faction of Republicans drove out the Medici from Florence. A new wave of Puritanism swept through the city. Many new restricting fundamentalist laws were passed.

In 1529, Clement VII signed the Treaty of Barcelona with Charles V, under which Charles would, in exchange for the Pope's blessing, invade Florence and restore the Medici. They were restored after a protracted siege.

Following the Republic's surrender in the Siege of Florence, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor issued a proclamation explicitly stating that he and he alone could determine the government of Florence. On 12 August 1530, the Emperor created the Medici hereditary rulers (capo) of the Republic of Florence. The title "Duke of the Florentine Republic" was chosen because it would bolster Medici power in the region.

Pope Clement VII intended his relative Alessandro de' Medici[a] to be the ruler of Florence, but also wanted to give the impression that the Florentines had democratically chosen Alessandro as their ruler. Even after Alessandro's accession in 1530 (he reigned as Duke of the Florentine Republic from 1532 on), Imperial troops remained stationed in Florence. In 1535, several prominent Florentine families, including the Pazzi (who attempted to kill Lorenzo de' Medici in the Pazzi Conspiracy) dispatched a delegation under Ippolito de' Medici, asking Charles V to depose Alessandro. Much to their dismay, the Emperor rejected their appeal. Charles had no intention of deposing Alessandro, who was married to Charles' daughter Margaret of Parma.

Alessandro continued to rule Florence for another two years until he was murdered on January 1, 1537 by his distant relative Lorenzino de' Medici.

As Alessandro left no legitimate issue, the question of succession was open. Florentine authorities selected Cosimo I in 1537. At the news of this, the exiled Strozzi family invaded and tried to depose Cosimo, but were defeated at Montemurlo.[60] Cosimo completely overhauled the bureaucracy and administration of Florence. In 1542, the Imperial troops stationed in Florence by Charles V were withdrawn.

In 1548, Cosimo was given a part of the Island of Elba by Charles V, and based his new developing navy there. Cosimo founded the port city of Livorno and allowed the city's inhabitants to enjoy freedom of religion. In alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, Cosimo defeated the Republic of Siena, which was allied with France, in the Battle of Marciano on August 2, 1554. On April 17, 1555, Florence and Spain occupied the territory of Siena, which, in July 1557 Philip II of Spain bestowed on Cosimo as a hereditary fiefdom. The ducal family moved into the Palazzo Pitti in 1560. Cosimo commissioned the architect Vasari to build the Uffizi, as offices for the Medici bank, continuing the Medici tradition of patronage of the arts.

In 1569, Cosimo was elevated to the rank of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569 by Pope Pius V. This marks the end of the Florence Republic, and the beginning of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Medici rule continued into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until the family became extinct in 1737.

Florence was governed by a council called the signoria, which consisted of nine men. The head of the signoria was the gonfaloniere, who was chosen every two months in a lottery, as was his signoria. To be eligible, one had to have sound finances, no arrears or bankruptcies, he had to be older than thirty, had to be a member of Florence's seven main guilds (merchant traders, bankers, two clothe guilds, and judges). The lottery was often pre-determined, and the results were usually favourable to influential families. The roster of names in the lottery were replaced every five years.

The main organs of government were known as the tre maggiori. They were: the twelve good men, the standard bearers of the gonfaloniere, and the signoria. The first two debated and ratified proposed legislation, but could not introduce it. The gonfaloniere's initial two month-term in office was expanded upon the fall of Savonarola in 1498, to life, much like that of the Venetian doge. The signoria held meetings each day in the Palazzo della Signoria. Various committees controlled particular aspects of government, e.g. the Committee of War. For administrative purposes, Florence was divided into four districts, which were divided into four sub-districts. The main purpose of these counties was to ease the gathering of local militias.

To hold an elective office, one had to be of a family that had previously held office. The Medici family effectively ruled Florence on a hereditary basis, from 1434 to 1494, and 15121527.

After Alessandro de' Medici was installed as the "Duke of the Florentine Republic" in 1530, in April 1532, Pope Clement VII convinced the Bala, Florence's ruling commission, to draw up a new constitution, which formally created a hereditary monarchy. It abolished the age-old signoria (elective government) and the office of gonfaloniere (titular head-of-state elected for a two-month term) and replaced it with three institutions:

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Study and use of supposed medicinal properties of plants

Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine.[1] There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage.[1][2] The scope of herbal medicine commonly includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy.[3]

Paraherbalism describes alternative and pseudoscientific practices of using unrefined plant or animal extracts as unproven medicines or health-promoting agents.[1][2][4][5] Paraherbalism relies on the belief that preserving various substances from a given source with less processing is safer or more effective than manufactured products, a concept for which there is no evidence.[4]

Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of medicinal plants dates back to the Paleolithic age, approximately 60,000 years ago. Written evidence of herbal remedies dates back over 5,000 years to the Sumerians, who compiled lists of plants. Some ancient cultures wrote about plants and their medical uses in books called herbals. In ancient Egypt, herbs are mentioned in Egyptian medical papyri, depicted in tomb illustrations, or on rare occasions found in medical jars containing trace amounts of herbs.[6] In ancient Egypt, the Ebers papyrus dates from about 1550 BC, and covers more than 700 compounds, mainly of plant origin.[7] The earliest known Greek herbals came from Theophrastus of Eresos who, in the 4th century BC, wrote in Greek Historia Plantarum, from Diocles of Carystus who wrote during the 3rd century BC, and from Krateuas who wrote in the 1st century BC. Only a few fragments of these works have survived intact, but from what remains, scholars noted overlap with the Egyptian herbals.[8] Seeds likely used for herbalism were found in archaeological sites of Bronze Age China dating from the Shang dynasty[9] (c. 16001046 BC). Over a hundred of the 224 compounds mentioned in the Huangdi Neijing, an early Chinese medical text, are herbs.[10] Herbs were also commonly used in the traditional medicine of ancient India, where the principal treatment for diseases was diet.[11] De Materia Medica, originally written in Greek by Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 4090 AD) of Anazarbus, Cilicia, a physician and botanist, is one example of herbal writing used over centuries until the 1600s.[12]

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the population of some Asian and African countries presently use herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care.[13]

Some prescription drugs have a basis as herbal remedies, including artemisinin,[14] digitalis, quinine and taxanes.

In 2015, the Australian Government's Department of Health published the results of a review of alternative therapies that sought to determine if any were suitable for being covered by health insurance; herbalism was one of 17 topics evaluated for which no clear evidence of effectiveness was found.[15] Establishing guidelines to assess safety and efficacy of herbal products, the European Medicines Agency provided criteria in 2017 for evaluating and grading the quality of clinical research in preparing monographs about herbal products.[16] In the United States, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health funds clinical trials on herbal compounds, provides fact sheets evaluating the safety, potential effectiveness and side effects of many plant sources,[17] and maintains a registry of clinical research conducted on herbal products.[18]

According to Cancer Research UK as of 2015, "there is currently no strong evidence from studies in people that herbal remedies can treat, prevent or cure cancer".[3]

The use of herbal remedies is more prevalent in people with chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, and end-stage kidney disease.[19][20][21] Multiple factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, education and social class are also shown to have association with prevalence of herbal remedies use.[22]

There are many forms in which herbs can be administered, the most common of which is a liquid consumed as a herbal tea or a (possibly diluted) plant extract.[23]

Herbal teas, or tisanes, are the resultant liquid of extracting herbs into water, though they are made in a few different ways. Infusions are hot water extracts of herbs, such as chamomile or mint, through steeping. Decoctions are the long-term boiled extracts, usually of harder substances like roots or bark. Maceration is the cold infusion of plants with high mucilage-content, such as sage or thyme. To make macerates, plants are chopped and added to cold water. They are then left to stand for 7 to 12 hours (depending on herb used). For most macerates, 10 hours is used.[24]

Tinctures are alcoholic extracts of herbs, which are generally stronger than herbal teas.[25] Tinctures are usually obtained by combining pure ethanol (or a mixture of pure ethanol with water) with the herb. A completed tincture has an ethanol percentage of at least 25% (sometimes up to 90%).[24] Non-alcoholic tinctures can be made with glycerin but it is believed to be less absorbed by the body than alcohol based tinctures and has a shorter shelf life.[26] Herbal wine and elixirs are alcoholic extract of herbs, usually with an ethanol percentage of 1238%.[24] Extracts include liquid extracts, dry extracts, and nebulisates. Liquid extracts are liquids with a lower ethanol percentage than tinctures. They are usually made by vacuum distilling tinctures. Dry extracts are extracts of plant material that are evaporated into a dry mass. They can then be further refined to a capsule or tablet.[24]

The exact composition of an herbal product is influenced by the method of extraction. A tea will be rich in polar components because water is a polar solvent. Oil on the other hand is a non-polar solvent and it will absorb non-polar compounds. Alcohol lies somewhere in between.[23]

Many herbs are applied topically to the skin in a variety of forms. Essential oil extracts can be applied to the skin, usually diluted in a carrier oil. Many essential oils can burn the skin or are simply too high dose used straight; diluting them in olive oil or another food grade oil such as almond oil can allow these to be used safely as a topical. Salves, oils, balms, creams, and lotions are other forms of topical delivery mechanisms. Most topical applications are oil extractions of herbs. Taking a food grade oil and soaking herbs in it for anywhere from weeks to months allows certain phytochemicals to be extracted into the oil. This oil can then be made into salves, creams, lotions, or simply used as an oil for topical application. Many massage oils, antibacterial salves, and wound healing compounds are made this way.[27]

Inhalation, as in aromatherapy, can be used as a treatment.[28][29][30]

Consumption of herbs may cause adverse effects.[32] Furthermore, "adulteration, inappropriate formulation, or lack of understanding of plant and drug interactions have led to adverse reactions that are sometimes life threatening or lethal."[33] Proper double-blind clinical trials are needed to determine the safety and efficacy of each plant before medical use.[34]

Although many consumers believe that herbal medicines are safe because they are natural, herbal medicines and synthetic drugs may interact, causing toxicity to the consumer. Herbal remedies can also be dangerously contaminated, and herbal medicines without established efficacy, may unknowingly be used to replace prescription medicines.[35]

Standardization of purity and dosage is not mandated in the United States, but even products made to the same specification may differ as a result of biochemical variations within a species of plant.[36] Plants have chemical defense mechanisms against predators that can have adverse or lethal effects on humans. Examples of highly toxic herbs include poison hemlock and nightshade.[37] They are not marketed to the public as herbs, because the risks are well known, partly due to a long and colorful history in Europe, associated with "sorcery", "magic" and intrigue.[38] Although not frequent, adverse reactions have been reported for herbs in widespread use.[39] On occasion serious untoward outcomes have been linked to herb consumption. A case of major potassium depletion has been attributed to chronic licorice ingestion,[40] and consequently professional herbalists avoid the use of licorice where they recognize that this may be a risk. Black cohosh has been implicated in a case of liver failure.[41]Few studies are available on the safety of herbs for pregnant women,[42] and one study found that use of complementary and alternative medicines are associated with a 30% lower ongoing pregnancy and live birth rate during fertility treatment.[43]

Examples of herbal treatments with likely cause-effect relationships with adverse events include aconite (which is often a legally restricted herb), Ayurvedic remedies, broom, chaparral, Chinese herb mixtures, comfrey, herbs containing certain flavonoids, germander, guar gum, liquorice root, and pennyroyal.[44] Examples of herbs that may have long-term adverse effects include ginseng, the endangered herb goldenseal, milk thistle, senna (against which herbalists generally advise and rarely use), aloe vera juice, buckthorn bark and berry, cascara sagrada bark, saw palmetto, valerian, kava (which is banned in the European Union), St. John's wort, khat, betel nut, the restricted herb ephedra, and guarana.[33]

There is also concern with respect to the numerous well-established interactions of herbs and drugs.[33][45] In consultation with a physician, usage of herbal remedies should be clarified, as some herbal remedies have the potential to cause adverse drug interactions when used in combination with various prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, just as a customer should inform a herbalist of their consumption of actual prescription and other medication.[46][47]

For example, dangerously low blood pressure may result from the combination of an herbal remedy that lowers blood pressure together with prescription medicine that has the same effect. Some herbs may amplify the effects of anticoagulants.[48]Certain herbs as well as common fruit interfere with cytochrome P450, an enzyme critical to much drug metabolism.[49]

In a 2018 study, FDA identified active pharmaceutical additives in over 700 of analyzed dietary supplements sold as "herbal", "natural" or "traditional".[50] The undisclosed additives included "unapproved antidepressants and designer steroids", as well as prescription drugs, such as sildenafil or sibutramine.

A 2013 study found that one-third of herbal supplements sampled contained no trace of the herb listed on the label.[36] The study found products adulterated with contaminants or fillers not listed on the label, including potential allergens such as soy, wheat, or black walnut. One bottle labeled as St. John's wort was found to actually contain Alexandrian senna, a laxative.[36][51]

Researchers at the University of Adelaide found in 2014 that almost 20 percent of herbal remedies surveyed were not registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration, despite this being a condition for their sale.[52] They also found that nearly 60 percent of products surveyed had ingredients that did not match what was on the label. Out of 121 products, only 15 had ingredients that matched their TGA listing and packaging.[52]

In 2015, the New York Attorney General issued cease and desist letters to four major U.S. retailers (GNC, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart) who were accused of selling herbal supplements that were mislabeled and potentially dangerous.[53][54] Twenty-four products were tested by DNA barcoding as part of the investigation, with all but five containing DNA that did not match the product labels.

In some countries, formalized training and minimum education standards exist for herbalists, although these are not necessarily uniform within or between countries. In Australia, for example, the self-regulated status of the profession (as of 2009) resulted in variable standards of training, and numerous loosely formed associations setting different educational standards.[55] One 2009 review concluded that regulation of herbalists in Australia was needed to reduce the risk of interaction of herbal medicines with prescription drugs, to implement clinical guidelines and prescription of herbal products, and to assure self-regulation for protection of public health and safety.[55] In the United Kingdom, the training of herbalists is done by state-funded universities offering Bachelor of Science degrees in herbal medicine.[56] In the United States, according to the American Herbalist Guild, "there is currently no licensing or certification for herbalists in any state that precludes the rights of anyone to use, dispense, or recommend herbs."[57] However, there are U.S. federal restrictions for marketing herbs as cures for medical conditions, or essentially practicing as an unlicensed physician.

Over the years 201721, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to numerous herbalism companies for illegally marketing products under "conditions that cause them to be drugs under section 201(g)(1) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(g)(1)], because they are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease and/or intended to affect the structure or any function of the body" when no such evidence existed.[58][59][60] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA and U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued warnings to several hundred American companies for promoting false claims that herbal products could prevent or treat COVID-19 disease.[60][61]

The World Health Organization (WHO), the specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that is concerned with international public health, published Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials in 1998 to support WHO Member States in establishing quality standards and specifications for herbal materials, within the overall context of quality assurance and control of herbal medicines.[62]

In the European Union (EU), herbal medicines are regulated under the Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products.[63]

In the United States, herbal remedies are regulated dietary supplements by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) policy for dietary supplements.[64] Manufacturers of products falling into this category are not required to prove the safety or efficacy of their product so long as they do not make 'medical' claims or imply uses other than as a 'dietary supplement', though the FDA may withdraw a product from sale should it prove harmful.[65][66]

Canadian regulations are described by the Natural and Non-prescription Health Products Directorate which requires an eight-digit Natural Product Number or Homeopathic Medicine Number on the label of licensed herbal medicines or dietary supplements.[67]

Some herbs, such as cannabis and coca, are outright banned in most countries though coca is legal in most of the South American countries where it is grown. The Cannabis plant is used as an herbal medicine, and as such is legal in some parts of the world. Since 2004, the sales of ephedra as a dietary supplement is prohibited in the United States by the FDA,[68] and subject to Schedule III restrictions in the United Kingdom.

Herbalism has been criticized as a potential "minefield" of unreliable product quality, safety hazards, and potential for misleading health advice.[1][5] Globally, there are no standards across various herbal products to authenticate their contents, safety or efficacy,[36] and there is generally an absence of high-quality scientific research on product composition or effectiveness for anti-disease activity.[5][69] Presumed claims of therapeutic benefit from herbal products, without rigorous evidence of efficacy and safety, receive skeptical views by scientists.[1]

Unethical practices by some herbalists and manufacturers, which may include false advertising about health benefits on product labels or literature,[5] and contamination or use of fillers during product preparation,[36][70] may erode consumer confidence about services and products.[71][72]

Paraherbalism is the pseudoscientific use of extracts of plant or animal origin as supposed medicines or health-promoting agents.[1][4][5] Phytotherapy differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate and standardize the compounds from a given plant believed to be biologically active. It relies on the false belief that preserving the complexity of substances from a given plant with less processing is safer and potentially more effective, for which there is no evidence either condition applies.[4]

Phytochemical researcher Varro Eugene Tyler described paraherbalism as "faulty or inferior herbalism based on pseudoscience", using scientific terminology but lacking scientific evidence for safety and efficacy. Tyler listed ten fallacies that distinguished herbalism from paraherbalism, including claims that there is a conspiracy to suppress safe and effective herbs, herbs can not cause harm, that whole herbs are more effective than molecules isolated from the plants, herbs are superior to drugs, the doctrine of signatures (the belief that the shape of the plant indicates its function) is valid, dilution of substances increases their potency (a doctrine of the pseudoscience of homeopathy), astrological alignments are significant, animal testing is not appropriate to indicate human effects, anecdotal evidence is an effective means of proving a substance works and herbs were created by God to cure disease. Tyler suggests that none of these beliefs have any basis in fact.[73][74]

Up to 80% of the population in Africa uses traditional medicine as primary health care.[75]

Native Americans used about 2,500 of the approximately 20,000 plant species that are native to North America.[76]

In Andean healing practices, the use of Entheogens, in particular the San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi) is still a vital component, and has been around for millennia.[77]

Some researchers trained in both Western and traditional Chinese medicine have attempted to deconstruct ancient medical texts in the light of modern science. In 1972, Tu Youyou, a pharmaceutical chemist, extracted the anti-malarial drug artemisinin from sweet wormwood, a traditional Chinese treatment for intermittent fevers.[78]

In India, Ayurvedic medicine has quite complex formulas with 30 or more ingredients, including a sizable number of ingredients that have undergone "alchemical processing", chosen to balance dosha.[79] In Ladakh, Lahul-Spiti, and Tibet, the Tibetan Medical System is prevalent, also called the "Amichi Medical System". Over 337 species of medicinal plants have been documented by C.P. Kala. Those are used by Amchis, the practitioners of this medical system.[80][81] The Indian book, Vedas, mentions treatment of diseases with plants.[82]

In Indonesia, especially among the Javanese, the jamu traditional herbal medicine may have originated in the Mataram Kingdom era, some 1300 years ago.[83] The bas-reliefs on Borobudur depict the image of people grinding herbs with stone mortar and pestle, a drink seller, an herbalist, and masseuse treating people.[84] The Madhawapura inscription from Majapahit period mentioned a specific profession of herbs mixer and combiner (herbalist), called Acaraki.[84] The book from Mataram dated from circa 1700 contains 3,000 entries of jamu herbal recipes, while Javanese classical literature Serat Centhini (1814) describes some jamu herbal concoction recipes.[84]

Though possibly influenced by Indian Ayurveda systems, the Indonesia archipelago holds numerous indigenous plants not found in India, including plants similar to those in Australia beyond the Wallace Line.[85] Jamu practices may vary from region to region, and are often not recorded, especially in remote areas of the country.[86] Although primarily herbal, some Jamu materials are acquired from animals, such as honey, royal jelly, milk, and Ayam Kampung eggs.

Herbalists tend to use extracts from parts of plants, such as the roots or leaves,[87] believing that plants are subject to environmental pressures and therefore develop resistance to threats such as radiation, reactive oxygen species and microbial attack to survive, providing defensive phytochemicals of use in herbalism.[87][88]

Indigenous healers often claim to have learned by observing that sick animals change their food preferences to nibble at bitter herbs they would normally reject.[89] Field biologists have provided corroborating evidence based on observation of diverse species, such as chickens, sheep, butterflies, and chimpanzees. The habit of changing diet has been shown to be a physical means of purging intestinal parasites. Sick animals tend to forage plants rich in secondary metabolites, such as tannins and alkaloids.[90]

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English author and biogerontologist

Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (; born 20 April 1963)[4][5] is an English author and biomedical gerontologist.[6][7][8][9] He is the author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today not to die from age-related causes.[10] As an amateur mathematician, he has contributed to the study of the HadwigerNelson problem in geometric graph theory, making the first progress on the problem in over 60 years.[11]

De Grey is an international adjunct professor of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology,[12] a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America,[13] the American Aging Association, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.[14] He has been interviewed in recent years in a number of news sources, including CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC, The Guardian, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, TED, Popular Science,Playboy, The Colbert Report, Time, the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and The Joe Rogan Experience. He was the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation, but was fired in August 2021 after allegedly interfering in a probe investigating sexual harassment allegations against him.[15]

De Grey was born and brought up in London, England.[16] He told The Observer that he never knew his father, and that his mother Cordelia, an artist, encouraged him in the areas in which she herself was weakest: science and mathematics.[17] De Grey was educated at Sussex House School[18] and Harrow School. He attended university at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in computer science in 1985.[19]

After graduation in 1985, de Grey joined Sinclair Research as an artificial intelligence researcher and software engineer. In 1986, he cofounded Man-Made Minions Ltd to pursue the development of an automated formal program verifier. At a graduate party in Cambridge, de Grey met fruit fly geneticist Adelaide Carpenter whom he would later marry. Through her he was introduced to the intersection of biology and programming when her boss needed someone who knew about computers and biology to take over the running of a database on fruit flies.[20] He educated himself in biology by reading journals and textbooks, attending conferences, and being tutored by Professor Carpenter.[21][22] From 1992 to 2006, he was in charge of software development at the university's Genetics Department for the FlyBase genetic database.[23]

Cambridge awarded de Grey an honorary Ph.D. by publication in biology on 9 December 2000.[19][24] The degree was based on his 1999 book The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging, in which de Grey wrote that obviating damage to mitochondrial DNA might by itself extend lifespan significantly, though he said it was more likely that cumulative damage to mitochondria is a significant cause of senescence, but not the single dominant cause.

In 2005, de Grey argued that most of the fundamental knowledge needed to develop effective anti-aging medicine already existed, and that the science is ahead of the funding. He described his work as identifying and promoting specific technological approaches to the reversal of various aspects of aging, or, as de Grey put it, "... the set of accumulated side effects from Metabolism that eventually kills us."[25]

As of 2005[update], de Grey's work centered on a detailed plan called strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS), which is aimed at preventing age-related physical and cognitive decline. In March 2009, he cofounded the SENS Research Foundation (named SENS Foundation until early 2013), a non-profit organisation based in California, United States, where he served until 2021 as Chief Science Officer. The foundation "works to develop, promote and ensure widespread access to regenerative medicine solutions to the disabilities and diseases of aging,"[26] focusing on the strategies for engineered negligible senescence. Before March 2009, the SENS research program was mainly pursued by the Methuselah Foundation, cofounded by de Grey.

A major activity of the Methuselah Foundation is the Methuselah Mouse Prize,[27] a prize designed to incentivize research into effective life extension interventions by awarding monetary prizes to researchers who stretch the lifespan of mice to unprecedented lengths. De Grey stated in March 2005 "if we are to bring about real regenerative therapies that will benefit not just future generations, but those of us who are alive today, we must encourage scientists to work on the problem of aging." The prize reached 4.2 USD million in February 2007.

In 2007, de Grey wrote the book Ending Aging with the assistance of Michael Rae.[28]

In a 2008 broadcast on Franco-German TV network Arte, de Grey claimed that the first human to live 1,000 years was probably already alive, and might even be between 50 and 60 years old already.[29]

In 2012, de Grey inherited a considerable fortune of more than US$16 million, US$13 million of which he donated to the SENS Research Foundation.[30]

De Grey is a cryonicist, having signed up with Alcor.[31]

On 8 April 2018, de Grey posted a paper to arXiv explicitly constructing a unit-distance graph in the plane that cannot be colored with fewer than five colors, increasing the previously known lower bound by one. The previous lower bound of four was due to the problem's original proposal in 1950 by Hugo Hadwiger and Edward Nelson.[32] De Grey's graph has 1581 vertices, but it has since been reduced to 510 vertices by independent researchers.[33][34][35]

De Grey was formerly Vice President of New Technology Discovery at AgeX Therapeutics, a startup in the longevity space helmed by Michael D. West, PhD. De Grey was appointed to the position within the company in July 2017.[36][37][38]

In 2005, MIT Technology Review, in cooperation with the Methuselah Foundation, announced a $20,000 prize for any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that SENS was "so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate." The judges of the challenge were Rodney Brooks, Anita Goel, Vikram Sheel Kumar, Nathan Myhrvold, and Craig Venter. Five submissions were made, of which three met the terms of the challenge. De Grey wrote a rebuttal to each submission, and the challengers wrote responses to each rebuttal. The judges concluded that none of the challengers had disproved SENS, but the magazine opined that one of the submissions had been particularly eloquent and well written, and awarded the contestant $10,000. The judges also noted "the proponents of SENS have not made a compelling case for SENS", and wrote that many of its proposals could not be verified with the current level of scientific knowledge and technology, concluding that "SENS does not compel the assent of many knowledgeable scientists; but neither is it demonstrably wrong."[39] The critics single out three proposed therapies for criticism: somatic telomerase deletion, somatic mitochondrial genome engineering, and the use of transgenic microbial hydrolase.[40]

Later in 2005, he was the subject of an associated critical editorial article in the MIT Technology Review, which viewed his theories as oversimplifying anti-aging as a scientific goal, and expressed concern at a lack of ethical and moral considerations towards anti-aging research.[41]

A 2005 article about SENS published in the viewpoint section of EMBO Reports by 28 scientists concluded that none of de Grey's hypotheses "has ever been shown to extend the lifespan of any organism, let alone humans".[42] The SENS Research Foundation, of which de Grey was a cofounder, acknowledged this, stating, "If you want to reverse the damage of aging right now I'm afraid the simple answer is, you can't."[43] Moreover, de Grey argues that this reveals a serious gap in understanding between basic scientists and technologists and between biologists studying aging and those studying regenerative medicine.[44]

The 31-member Research Advisory Board of de Grey's SENS Research Foundation have signed an endorsement of the plausibility of the SENS approach.[45] In 2021, the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), showcased a SENS research project and provided a grant for the research.[46][47]

In August 2021, following allegations of sexual harassment by two women, de Grey was put on administrative leave by SENS.[48]

Both women describe situations in which de Grey, {...} explicitly spoke with them about sex. According to Haliouas account, he even told her that it was her responsibility to sleep with SENS donors to encourage financial contributions. Deming was only 17 when, she alleges, de Grey told her he wanted to speak with her about his adventurous love life. Deming says that when she recently became aware that this was not a one-off incident, she was angry to realize that Aubrey inappropriately propositioned more than one woman over whom he was in a position of power, many in the community knew about it, and no one did anything, she writes.[49]

Days later, the SENS board of directors decided to remove de Grey from his position as chief science officer, severing all ties with him following the report that he had allegedly attempted to interfere with the sexual harassment investigation.[50]

The independent investigator determined that de Grey made sexually inappropriate remarks to both Deming and Halioua. The investigator also decided de Grey's attempt to communicate with Halioua via a third party constituted interference, although de Grey stated he believed that phase of the investigation had concluded. The investigator found that various other allegations against de Grey were not substantiated.[51][52]

In March 2022, the SENS Research Foundation released a statement regarding de Grey's employment affirming that while his actions "did substantiate instances of poor judgment and boundary-crossing behaviors, Dr. de Grey is not a sexual predator."[53]

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