Gebiror Geber

Gebir or Geber, the earliest of modern chemists, to whom are ascribed the treatises known as Sum-ma Perfectionis, Liber Investigationis, Be Inventions Veritatis, Liber Fornacuni, and Testamentum, besides a number of Arabic and Latin MSS., not as yet critically examined, is a personage of whom little is known for certain. Some look upon him as a myth; others describe him as a Sabtean of Harran in Mesopotamia, who flourished about the 10th century; others, again, make him a Greek or a Spaniard of much later date. As he is referred to by Arab writers of the 10th century, perhaps the correct view is that which identifies him with Abu Musa Dschabir Ben Haiyan, of Tarsus or Kufa, who died in 776 A.D. He held the theory prevalent among later alchemists that the metals are all identical in composition, and that by proper treatment they can be transmuted. He is also credited with a knowledge of corrosive sublimate, aqua fortis, nitrate of silver, etc. The writings ascribed to him have the merit of remarkable clearness and simplicity. By an absurd error he is sometimes spoken of as the inventor of Algebra.