Though he is one Whose passions, like a potent alkahest, Dissolve his better nature, he is not That despicable thing, a hypocrite; He doth not cloak his vices, nor deny them.
"The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
He had never thought much of his money until it began to acquire the virtue of an alkahest in his mind, an universal solvent that would transmute all the baser metals in Nancy's life and the lives of the people in whom Nancy was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and ease.
"Outside Inn"
Ethel M. Kelley
Now, this here elixir, sold for no more than sixpence a phial, contains the essence of the alkahest, the archaeus, the catholicon, the menstruum, the sun, the moon, and, to sum up all in one word, is the true, genuine, unadulterated, unchangeable, immaculate, and specific chruseon pepuromenon ek puros.
"The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves"
Tobias Smollett