Alchemy is commonly viewed as the quintessential pseudo-science. Historians of science have derided it as mystical science, a pathology of thought and the greatest hindrance to the development of chemistry. Its practitioners have been viewed as cranks and charlatans obsessed with finding the Philosopher’s Stone – that magic “something” that would transmute base metals into gold. However, since the 1970s scholars of the history of science have come to re-assess alchemy. ...