Francis Gooding · When Thieves Retire: Pirate Enlightenment · LRB ... - London Review of Books
L ike many other important scientific inventions, the first true recipes for gunpowder were devised in China. The classic cocktail of sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal was known from at least the ninth century CE , though Taoist alchemists, searching for both gold and immortality, had by then been aware of similar preparations for hundreds of years. A very early reference appears in the Zhenyuan Miaodao Yaolue ( Classified Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of the True Origin of Things ), a text attributed in part to the third-century alchemist Zheng Yin. He warns against the mixing of sulphur, realgar, honey and saltpetre, a dangerously deflagrable combination: alchemists experimenting with the ingredients had burned down buildings and singed their beards. Zheng's list of procedures to be avoided also included the imbibing of elixirs made of lead, silver, mercury and cinnabar (outcome – death); taking cinnabar derived from mercury and sulphur (causes boils and sores); and drinking ...