History
The hydrate of sodium sulfate is known as Glauber's Salt after the Dutch/Gemist and apothecary Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604–1670), who discovered it in 1625 in Austrian spring water. He named it sal mirabilis (miraculous salt), because of its medicinal properties: the crystals were used as a general purpose laxative, until more sophisticated alternatives came about in the 1900s.
In the 18th century, Glauber's salt began to be used as a raw material for the industrial production of soda ash (sodium carbonate), by reaction with potash (potassium carbonate). Demand for soda ash increased and supply of sodium sulfate had to increase in line. Therefore, in the nineteenth century, the large scale Leblanc process, producing synthetic sodium sulfate as a key intermediate, became the principal method of soda ash production.
Read more about this topic: Sodium Sulfate
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)