structural:reformatting, information:extraction, structural:summarization
Antiquity

Being abundantly available in native form, sulfur was known in ancient times and is referred to in the Torah (Genesis). English translations of the Christian Bible commonly referred to burning sulfur as "brimstone", giving rise to the term " fire-and-brimstone " sermons, in which listeners are reminded of the fate of eternal damnation that await the unbelieving and unrepentant. It is from this part of the Bible that Hell is implied to "smell of sulfur" (likely due to its association with volcanic activity). According to the Ebers Papyrus, a sulfur ointment was used in ancient Egypt to treat granular eyelids. Sulfur was used for fumigation in preclassical Greece; this is mentioned in the Odyssey. Pliny the Elder discusses sulfur in book 35 of his Natural History, saying that its best-known source is the island of Melos. He mentions its use for fumigation, medicine, and bleaching cloth.

A natural form of sulfur known as shiliuhuang (石硫黄) was known in China since the 6th century BC and found in Hanzhong. By the 3rd century, the Chinese had discovered that sulfur could be extracted from pyrite. Chinese Daoists were interested in sulfur's flammability and its reactivity with certain metals, yet its earliest practical uses were found in traditional Chinese medicine. The Wujing Zongyao of 1044 AD described various formulas for Chinese black powder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate (KNO), charcoal, and sulfur.

Indian alchemists, practitioners of the "science of chemicals" (Sanskrit: रसशास्त्र, romanized: rasaśāstra), wrote extensively about the use of sulfur in alchemical operations with mercury, from the eighth century AD onwards. In the rasaśāstra tradition, sulfur is called "the smelly" (गन्धक, gandhaka).

Early European alchemists gave sulfur a unique alchemical symbol, a triangle atop a cross (🜍). (This is sometimes confused with the astronomical crossed-spear symbol ⚴ for 2 Pallas.) The variation known as brimstone has a symbol combining a two-barred cross atop a lemniscate (🜏). In traditional skin treatment, elemental sulfur was used (mainly in creams) to alleviate such conditions as scabies, ringworm, psoriasis, eczema, and acne. The mechanism of action is unknown—though elemental sulfur does oxidize slowly to sulfurous acid, which is (through the action of sulfite) a mild reducing and antibacterial agent.