Distillation
Zodiacal correspondence (Pernety, 1758): Virgo ♍
Distillation is the separation and purification of a substance by vaporizing a liquid and condensing the vapour, drawing off the 'spirit' or essence from the gross residue. It was among the most prized and technically demanding operations, requiring the alembic and, later, increasingly elaborate glassware. Pernety assigns it to Virgo. Distillation produced alcohol (aqua vitae), the mineral acids, and essential oils, and was a genuine engine of chemical discovery from antiquity through the Scientific Revolution.
See also the concept page: Distillation
Historical Development
Distillation, the vaporization of a liquid and condensation of its vapour, let practitioners separate the volatile 'spirit' of a substance from its body. The refinement of distillation apparatus, from the simple alembic to multi-stage and continuous (circulatory) setups, drove much practical chemistry and made distillation the showcase operation of the alchemical laboratory.
Pernety keys distillation to Virgo. It is one of the operations distinctive to his zodiacal list rather than to Ripley's gates, where the closely related work of subtilizing is gathered under sublimation. The prestige of distillation in early-modern Europe, fuelled by the medical and commercial value of distilled waters and spirits, helps explain its prominence in the later scheme.
Textual Tradition
Distillation is central to the Greco-Egyptian corpus, where apparatus is attributed to Maria the Jewess, to the Arabic tradition, and to the medieval Latin production of aqua vitae and the mineral acids. Vernacular printed books such as Hieronymus Brunschwig's distillation manuals (1500, 1512) carried the technique to a wide audience.
Modern Scholarship
Historians treat distillation as a paradigmatic case of cumulative chemical know-how: the isolation of alcohol and the mineral acids reshaped medicine and assaying, as Robert Multhauf and Bruce Moran document. Moran in particular uses distillation to trace the continuity between alchemy, chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution.