If a person from 1700 asked you your job, would they understand your answer, and if not, how would you explain it to them?

JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 271 points –
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I'm a chemist, so I'd just tell them that I'm an alchemist.

Apothecary might be better.

To be honest you might get away with moving the term chemistry forward a couple of decades

Beginning around 1720, a rigid distinction began to be drawn for the first time between "alchemy" and "chemistry".[104][105] By the 1740s, "alchemy" was now restricted to the realm of gold making, leading to the popular belief that alchemists were charlatans, and the tradition itself nothing more than a fraud.[102][105]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy