The Alchemist Who Tried to Transmute Urine Into Gold

But accidentally stumbled upon a more valuable substance

Alchemist Hennig Brand looks focused, if maybe a bit drained, in this 1795 painting by Joseph Wright. The painting depicts Brand’s discovery of the chemical element phosphorus. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Alchemy is a primitive form of chemistry that also involved a lot of spirituality and other religious beliefs. This sort of science combined religion as alchemists did not yet acquire the necessary knowledge to define how some elements work and fusion together, therefore they referred to such events as miracles.

Although alchemy is said to originate from China as the first historical records point at a date of 73 BC, this practice had been mentioned numerous times around the world in other records and it seems that culture and religion played an important role within how alchemy was performed. Some alchemists actually believed that finding the right balance between two or more substances can lead to the creation of another, although some took this ideology too far.

Creating Rarity

Throughout history gold was one of the most valuable metals, and therefore the most sought after, especially by royalty. That is why alchemist Henning Brand tried to find a way to produce gold using the most common resource in the world, urine.

All alchemists were mostly focusing on finding “the philosopher’s stone” of alchemy which was a substance that could turn any metal…