The Earliest Stages in the Evolution of the Still

IT HAS BEEN clearly demonstrated from Greek alchemical texts that distillation apparatus was well known in the early centuries of the Christian Era.1 Not only are there a number of diagrams of distillatories in the Greek manuscripts but these show a high technical order of development.2 In fact, the stills used then are not too different from those in use in chemical laboratories today. As to the evolution of the still, this has largely been a matter of conjecture. The main reason for this has been a complete lack of evidence for the existence of the still prior to Alexandrian times. As a result, F. Sherwood Taylor, from the facts at hand in 1945, described the possible course of evolution of the still head with the body of the still remaining almost the same from the very beginning.