In alchemy, the universal principle or secret substance sought to transmute base metals into gold, or in chemistry, a rare synonym for mercury.
From Arabic 'al-zā'iq' (quicksilver/mercury), via medieval alchemical texts; the term represents the alchemist's mystical 'essence of essence' that supposedly contained transformative power.
Azoth is where chemistry's humble beginning meets human greed—alchemists convinced themselves that mercury was the philosophical key to turning lead into gold, so they spent centuries obsessed with this one toxic element.
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