Mackay is quick to state that all alchemists through the ages are quacks of varying degrees. Though he also mentions the very important point that in their fumbling about for the philosopher's stone and elixir of life they made several important scientific discoveries.
After a little bit more of an introduction, he then proceeds to give a brief biography of every known alchemist from the earliest record to the most recent (as of the 1850s). As of twenty pages into this section, Mackay is up to the early thirteenth century and looking at Roger Bacon.
Though, having read the play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay which is about Bacon, it seems that it could have also been about Albertus Magnus and his apprentice Thomas Aquinas. Mostly because the play's centerpiece is Bacon's animated, question-answering bronze head and Magnus and Aquinas apparently brought a bronze statue to life. A living statue that the two men set to doing menial household tasks and that was, according to Mackay's report, so chatty that Aquinas smashed it to bits. I wonder if the statue ever shrugged and sarcastically remarked "It's a living" while it was up and about?
The other thing that's grabbed my attention from the first few alchemists that Mackay's covered is that he's pulled a lot of his information from French sources. I know that Orleans in France was a center for magical practices, but even so, is there some propensity towards the wondrous unknown in France?
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