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,.
DRir^KS.
%
plan
would
be
to
start
a
distillery
;
so
he
hurried
off
at
once
to
Nordhausen,
where
his
manufacture
of
Brandy
(his
own
invention)
became
so
famous
that
people
from
all
parts
came
to
him
to
learn
the
new
art,
and
to
become
distillers.
From
that
time
his
Satanic
Majesty
has
never
had
to
complain
of
paucity
of
subjects.
It
seems
fairly
established
that
the
famous
chemist
Geber,
who
lived
in
the
7th
or
8th
century,
was
acquainted
with
distillation,
and
we
know
that
it
was
practised
by
the
Arabian
and
Saracenic
alchemists,
but
have
no
knowledge
whether
they
made
any
prac-
tical
use
of
the
alcohol
they
produced.
They,
at
all
events,
gave
us
the
word
by
which
we
now
know
the
spirit,
or
ethereal
part,
of wine.
Alcohol,
distilled
from
wine,
is
first
reliably
men-
tioned
by
a
celebrated
French
alchemist
and
physician,
Arnaud
de
Villeneuve,
who
died
in
131
3,
who
gave
it
the
name
of
aqua
vitce,
or
water
of
life,^
and
regarded
it
as
a
valuable
adjunct
in
physic,
and
as
a
boon
to
humanity.
Raymond
LuUy,
the
famous
alchemist,
who
is
said
to
have
been
his
pupil,
declared
it
to
be
"
an
emanation
from
the
Deity,"
and
on
its
introduc-
tion
it
was
supposed
to
be
the
elixir
of
life,
capable
of
rejuvenating
those
who
partook
of
it,
and,
as
such,
was
only
purchasable
at
an
extremely
high
price.
We
may
see,
by
a
book
^
written
200
years
after
the
death
of
Arnaud
de
Villeneuve,
the
esteem
in
which
Aqua
Vitse
was
held
even
after
so
great a
lapse
of
time.
1
The
French
name,
Eau
de
Vie,
having
the
same
meaning.