The full reference
Maria the Jewesh,inventor of double -boiler (bain-marie)
Maria, referred to sometimes as Mary or Miriam, lived at the time of Alexandria's highest renown for scientific research.
Her work as an alchemist, aiming to transmute base metals into gold, drew on elements of Gnostic science as well as practical experimentation.
The science was strongly, connected with women, holding the goddess Isis as its founder, and Maria, according to current practice, wrote under the title of a prophetess as 'Miriam, sister of Moses'.
Her Theory was based on the premise that metals were living beings, male and female, and that the chemical process was one of sexual linking and reproduction.
Her writings survive only in fragments, but it is for her practical contribution that she is best remembered.
She designed apparatus which remained in use for centuries, such as the three-part still, the kerotakis process for the condensation and reflux of vapours (originally for sulphur, mercury and arsenic vapours to treat metal alloy), and the water-bath, or double boiler, to maintain substances at a constant temperature - which is still called a 'bain-marie'.
These and other significant inventions gave her a lasting reputation as one of the founders of chemistry.
