Chemistry before "Chemistry"

Every practice and study started somewhere, and the most important to us like psychology started before it had a name, and before it was actually a "study." Chemistry is one of these important studies, and before we had chemists, we had alchemists.

Alchemy started in ancient Egypt, and was used in an attempt to grasp worldly problems by combining what we now consider to be philosophy and the sciences. In Alexandria Egypt around 300 B.C. alchemist tried to improve life by combining practices like metallurgy, glass-making, and dyeing attempting to elongate life, transmute base elements, and cure diseases.

This practice is now most well-known in association to chemistry or witchcraft because of the combination between ideas that lead chemists to real discoveries and outlandish almost fantastical ideas and when they actually worked from time-to-time. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is one representation of alchemy in modern media.

Nicolas Flamel was a alchemist in the Harry Potter franchise who managed to imitate immortality by creating the philosopher's stone. Cedric from Sofia the First was a sorcerer, and you can see him practicing alchemy; creating spells and potions as if his shop was a chemist's lab within the show.

Along with fantastical ideas that spark creativity in pop culture, early alchemists studied matter, laying the groundwork for the periodic table and many laboratory discoveries. Once chemistry was officially created, the earliest chemists started by putting alchemist theories to the test, in the sixteenth century the tools, techniques, and theories from alchemy paved the way for most more reliable facts, discoveries, and scientific laws.