Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/120

 it will come under our notice in the second volume of the present work. In the European histories of chemistry, the credit of being the first to press chemical knowledge into the service of medicine and introduce the use of the internal administration of mercurial preparations, is given to Paracelsus (1493-1541). The Nágárjunas and the Patanjalls of India, however, had the merit of anticipating Paracelsus and his followers by several centuries. The earliest historical record of the internal use of black sulphide of mercury dates so far back as the 10th century A. D. at the latest (see ante p. 59). We have indeed, reasons to suspect that Paracelsus got his ideas from the East, and in Chapter on Arabian indebtedness to India we have pointed out the media through which Indian sciences filtered into Europe.