Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/119

 philosopher's stone. But now chemistry began to develop itself two new and different paths, opened by two distinguished men—Agricola, the father of metallurgy, and Paracelsus, the founder of Iatro-chemistry or medical chemistry. Both contributed chiefly to the development of inorganic chemistry * * * In opposition to the school of Galen and AuicennaAvicenna [sic], Paracelsus and his followers chiefly employed metallic preparations as medicines."

Udoy Chand Dutt, in the preface to his Materia Medica of the Hindus, states:—

"The oldest work, containing a detailed account of the calcination or preparation of the different metals (such as gold, silver, iron, mercury, copper, tin and lead) for internal use with formulæ for their administration, is, I believe, a concise treatise on medicinal preparations by Sārngadhara.

This is evidently a mistake. Sārngadhara is simply a compilation based upon the Charaka and the Susruta on the one hand, and the Tántric works described above on the other. It cannot be regarded as going beyond the latter part of the 14th century, and