Alembic (Wikipedia)

The Wikipedia article on the alembic is a community edited encyclopedic account of the distillation apparatus with roots in Hellenistic Egyptian alchemy, later refined and transmitted through medieval Islamic alchemical science before reaching medieval Europe, tracing its etymology, construction and its long association with alchemical practice aimed at transformation and purification. Its strength is that a well developed Wikipedia article on a device with this documented multi-civilizational transmission history draws together the history of science scholarship on Hellenistic, Islamic and European alchemy into one accessible summary. Its limit is that Wikipedia is a continuously and anonymously editable reference rather than a peer reviewed source, so it is a reasonable starting point for the alembic's basic history and use, but a claim resting on the specific alchemical or symbolic meaning a particular tradition attached to the device needs the history of science or history of religion scholarship the article itself would need to cite directly.