The litmus test was first mentioned in English by Richard Arnold who travelled to and traded with Flanders. Chronicle a potpourri of information on London and matters relating to commerce was published in Antwerp in 1503 mentioned litmus for the first time. This blue substance was extracted about this time from lichens, primarily in the Netherlands. Which is where Richard Arnold first saw it.
Anyone who had chemistry lessons will remember that its blue colour is turned red by acids, and the blue colour is restored by alkalis.
Davy was very networked. He was a friend of Southey (writer who gave English voodoo and autobiography) and was discovered by Banks who had accompanied Cook on his voyages (subsequently finding fame quickly with his diaries and gave English the word nostalgia). Davy gave the first lectures in England on Galvanism, discovered potassium and calcium and introduced the litmus paper and litmus test, which he did in 1803 at the age of 25. The following year he was elected a member of the Royal Society as a result of a wealth of achievements.
The litmus test itself gives a clear unequivocal result. This definitive solution resulted in the phase being used figuratively as a make or break question, the decider. This happened at the end of the 1950s. Maybe this is summarised in Dwight Schrute in The Office whose litmus test is “Before I do anything, I ask myself, “Would an idiot do that?” If the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.”
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