At the turn of the twentieth century, Victor Galippe experienced the origin of life, taking inspiration from the ancient theories of seeds of rock.
According to alchemists, life on our planet does imply an origin from the element Earth. The element in which the quintessential Seed of Metals must be turned to be fixed. Although the french physician Galippe ignored Alchemy, some reminiscence probably remained when he looked for a starting theory to solve the problem he saw in organic compounds; that’s to say, he considered them too vulnerable to be fully able to keep and transmit life.
So it seemed to Galippe a logical consequence of inseminating, following the classical bacteriological method, culture media (broth or agar) with semi-precious stones, various rocks, fossils, meteorites, and volcanic lavas. The sample was ground to a powder in a mortar of Abisch, then in the agate mortar. It was then heated to temperatures 300 ° C and even higher until red-hot (800 ° C). Sometimes it was treated with caustic soda, others with sulfuric acid or hydrochloric. One can accuse Galippe of not knowing how to work aseptically. He did not tell us whether he has observed proper precautions for the culture media and the inseminating practices.
Back in the years that were close to 900, another french scientist, Gaube de Gers, held at the medical school of Paris a course on biological mineralogy, studying the role and importance of mineral elements in living matter. The central notion of Gaube de Gers was: “The living matter is a complex of mineral gangue in an organic vein.” He observed that the constituent materials of living tissue were not albumin but albuminates of calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium; the circulating liquids were electrolytes and salt solutions of the metals. Nevertheless, the ideas of de Gaube Gers produced in the listeners only partial practical use, that’s to say, the mineralization of the body when its problems are due to demineralization.
In 1921 Dr. Victor Galippe published a booklet entitled “La Vie de la Matière”, or the life of matter. In a few pages, he supports the view of the extreme spread of vital property in the most diverse materials presented by nature. The rest of the booklet is a collection of accounts of experiences.
Most inseminations provide the species of crops where one can see a swarm of microscopic particles called “organites” by Galippe. Rapid movements drive them, but not always. The culture conditions, chemical treatment, heating, and choice of the ore vary depending on the author’s imagination. Despite this, pullulation is the rule.
He concludes that the organites were born from the ore but need a chemical, organic medium to develop and evolve. This conclusion poses a problem, that of the appearance of the organic compounds in nature without the intervention of living organisms, if, for “living”, we mean constructions based on mineral-organic compounds: this problem does not frighten modern chemistry as it would scare the chemistry of the past, for many modern constructions are now total syntheses which we know and practice both in the laboratory and in the factory.
Galippe doggedly pursued the same experience from 1887 to 1921, making a lot of variations. For example, I translated and published the most extreme series of experiments on what he defines hard rocks subjected to extreme fusion treatment: quartz, basalt, and granite. But, among them, I chose the first because its treatment reached the extreme point of fusion.
La vie de la matière: “Crystallized silicic acid (SiO2) D = 2.65. The experiences practiced on Quartz seem to present such an interest that we had to give them a particular chapter. For our first experiments, we used the technique described so far. After being thoroughly washed with distilled water and sterilized, the quartz crystals were sterilized for 48 hours in distilled water supersaturated with ether and shaken frequently. Then the crystals were placed in contact with the pure ether for more than 24 hours. After flamed with the Bunsen burner, they are pulverized in a mortar of Abisch sterilized. Then the powder was treated with a solution of caustic soda lye also at 36 ° (10 drops per 15 cc. of sterilized distilled water ).
Before this, the powder was subjected to a direct microscopic examination: This examination revealed the presence of many ovoid bacilli and sticks with lively movement.
We also notice some translucent fragments, colored yellow and filled with micrococci, piled on each other.
The day after the insemination, the culture liquid shows numerous ovoid bacilli still refracting and little chains of intensely colored numerous sticks. The presence of microorganisms in the translucent fragments is noted again, especially in those colored yellow.
The Agar contains ovoid and refracting bacilli that still stick, which have not yet set a coloring matter.
Twenty-four hours later, the culture liquid is covered with an abundant white, corrugated, easily dissociable veil made of little chains short and piled sticks. They are colorful, and those isolated put in display very quick oscillating movements.
The Agar is covered with a yellowish-light veil consisting of many short sticks and ovoid moving bacilli.
A second experience is made by keeping the same technique, the only difference being that the quartz fragments were previously left for 14 days in the pure ether.
The microscopic examination of the powder revealed that it was the seat of an intense life: one can see many ovoid corpuscles and micrococci with lively movements. That even in the crystalline fragments.
The day after the insemination, the little chains of sticks are already formed in the culture medium. One can see the sticks gathered in clusters, isolated or associated two by two, setting the coloring material and having an oscillating motion. It is noted the presence of numerous colored ovoid bacilli with oscillating movement as well.
Agar has not given anything that day.
48 hours after insemination, the culture medium is covered with a white abundant and adherent veil. It is constituted by a prodigious number of little chains of very fine sticks and forming a very tight tracery. They hardly take color. Only the contained microorganisms take color vigorously.
But it is only 5 days after insemination that Agar is covered with a white and smooth veil, consisting mainly of short and piled sticks, isolated or associated two by two. They are very colorful. We also notice many ovoid uncolored bacilli.
Quartz melted at 1800 ° C.
It is known that the industry is likely to make up of melted quartz at 1800 ° C, and different laboratory apparatuses, such as pipes, crucibles, capsules, etc.
Our experience has led to several devices, and they seem to have a considerable extent from the point of view of the ideas we defend in this work.
A piece of quartz tube was pulverized, and the obtained powder was taken for the precautionary measure at a temperature of 310 ° C.
Before heating, the quartz powder was subjected to direct microscopic examination and showed to contain numerous ovoid corpuscles with movement. The transparent particles will contain as well.
Two inseminations were carried out when the quartz powder was still warm and without prior treatment.
The next day the culture medium showed a considerable number of ovoid bacilli and micrococci. The ovoid bacilli are irregularly colorful. The micrococci are all moving very lively, as well as the rest of the ovoid bacilli.
24 hours later, tube n . 1 is covered with a thick white veil consisting of little chains of sticks that are very colorful and piled, in their turn enclosing sticks, ovoid bacilli, and micrococci. These latter are often assembled two by two and colored; together, they make some little chains, and the colored lonely sticks move very vividly.
Tube n. 2 is cloudy but not veiled. It encloses numerous colored ovoid bacilli that are moving and oscillating. One also sees numerous very colorful and animated motion micrococci. There have been only rare sticks.
48 hours later, the same tube was covered with an abundant white and thick veil consisting of clusters formed by little chains of sticks generally colored, but one can also see little chains whose elements are differently colored: some are not. The preparation’s free sticks and ovoid bacilli are generally colored, but many did not fix the coloring matter.
These experiments were repeated and gave comparable results.”
We can stop here. The booklet runs along these lines, apart from the material names: basalt, granite, obsidian, onyx, etc.
Conclusion: Galippe doesn’t provide enough data on sterilizing culture media and inseminating practices. As a researcher in Alchemy, I can only add that all this only vaguely brings to the Alchemical Seeds of Metals, which anything else is but our Mercurius ( a substance out of reiterated salts volatilizations during preliminary works), which we believe to be the First Matter, Prima Materia, Quinta Essentia, Universal Dissolvent, Alkahest. Being this Mercurius, too much volatility is then fixed in Mercurius Philosophorum; that’s to say, it turns back to the element earth, retaining all the dissolving, transforming, and vegetative power as it was volatile.
That’s our real Alchemical Seed of Rock, not Galippe’s.
Surprisingly enough, Henri la Croix-Haute dedicates an entire chapter of his “Propos sur les deux Lumières” to Galippe’s experiments and, in my opinion, goes too far in his belief that chemical reactions can be explained according to Alchemy. But, as we will see in the following article, it will be interesting to deepen his theory of light action on minerals.