Vitriol

[1] These materials were found originally as crystals formed by evaporation of groundwater that percolated through sulfide minerals and collected in pools on the floors of old mines.

The name, abbreviated to vitriol, continued to be used for this viscous liquid long after the minerals came to be termed "sulfates".

The figurative term vitriolic in the sense of "harshly condemnatory" is derived from the corrosive nature of this substance.

Metallurgical uses for vitriolic substances were recorded in the Hellenistic alchemical works of Zosimos of Panopolis, in the treatise Phisica et Mystica, and the Leyden papyrus X.

The first vague allusions to it appear in the works of Vincent of Beauvais, in the Compositum de Compositis ascribed to Saint Albertus Magnus, and in pseudo-Geber's Summa perfectionis (all thirteenth century AD).