finds admittance into the World may give incouragement to publish more And here I might take the liberty to assure the World that nothing doth give a man a fairer prospect into the inward recesses and secret retirements of Nature nor doth offer a better view into Natures Land-skips nor doth more open the Cabbinet of her choicest rarities then that most admirable Mistress of Arts and Sciences the noble Chymia that clavigera arcanorum naturae which gives admittance into the surprizing Arcana of Nature whose entertaining Phoenomena in her genuine encheiresis are such as may strike admiration not to say amazement in the Artist I mean not here that spurious brood of swarming Chymists those fumivenduli who fill the World full of Smoak and Noise who are but indeed the blemishes of that noble Mistress the spots in that solar Beauty the soils that set off the Lustre of the legitimate Sons of Art who will shine with an oriental Lustre amidst such empty Clouds He indeed that would be a diligent searcher of Nature thereby to become useful in his generation must not disdain the soiling his Fingers with Coals nor think it below him to converse with the meanest of mechanicks but may take time to wipe his Fingers while he is refining his notions and rectifying his contemplations by remarking the obvious Phoenomena of his or others works If this Essay hold good as its probable in the main it may it will in great likelyhood be as an introduction to further and more clearer discoveries in the knowledge of the hidden mechanical agents imploy'd by the divine hand in the fabrick of all bodies and gives great probability of being an in-lett into a better understanding of the causes and efficients of Diseases and their Cures then at the first can easily be apprehended and in general may be as a foundation towards further improvements in all manner of Physiology or Natural Philosophy We would not presume to say that all other Hypotheses ought to truckle far be it but shall leave the Peripateticks quadriga of Elements with their first and second qualities their matter and form c. The Epicurcan or Corpuscularian Doctrine founded upon Matter Figure and Motion the Figures depending upon those of round quadrate acute cylindrical striate c. of Atoms making a pleasant Methematical Scheme adorn'd by the curious notions of Cartesius and others The quinary of the late Spagyrists The ternary of the Chymists although that in a genuine acceptation is the most plausible The Binary of the Tachenians c. But shall I say leave each of the foresaid to the judicious to compare with this and to judge of according to their worth and intrinsick value And onely shall refer to the computation of the unbyass'd Reader whether an ingenious person may not be inabled to take a further prospect into the nature of things and be capable of making better inspections into the insides thereof and of taking larger measures towards a further and future improvement then from any other yet extant where although I should be found wandering yet would not Candid Reader despair of thy favourable aspect and that upon the very foresaid reasons viz. both of the uncothness and untractedness of the path having neither guid nor leader yea scarce any Land-marks but what was set up by the industrious labours of the Spagyrical Science whose ne plus ultra Pillars are beyond our hopes of ever reaching I would here once for all say that I onely propound my Hypothesis as a modest Essay towards the further improvement of that noble Doctrine of Fermentation For not being satisfied with any thing I have yet seen extant upon that Subject has given me occasion to search further into the nature and causes thereof not being content with a bare ipse dixit or to sit down under the dogmatical placets of Authors at the foot of such Gamaliels gave my self scope to trace nature if I could in her more hidden paths and secret tracts And indeed the onely right way of establishing any sort of Hypothesis is first to procure a sett of paralel experiments and to be furnished with a competent stock of mechanical Trials which are so well to be contriv'd as to accord amongst themselves in their most remarkable appearances and this is to be observ'd in the erecting any Hypothesis whether Physicks Medicks or any material branch of either as the true basis to build upon consulting in the one the experiments in the other the observations of ingenious persons in order to the raising such a structure as will not easily fall and of confirming such a Theory as will abide the test of after ages Now how ours of Fermentation square herewith I must appeal to the judicious Reader For after we had laid a great many of experiments together and had found where in their most observable Phoenomena they hit and concentred by an induction I say of which particular experiments conspiring in the reasons and causes of their main solutions we began to propose to our selves an Hypothesis which might best suit therewith and most genuinely result therefrom and found from its congenialness to the principles of Nature not onely to hold good in those which at first fell under our consideration but also in others which afterwards occurr'd to our thoughts and that from the consonancy and consistency of Nature to her self in all her actions both in the genesis and analysis of bodies And now kind Reader that I may conclude thou hast viewed the front and pass'd the Portal if thou has taken any pleasure therein and art at leisure my advice is that thou forthwith enter and I would lead thee by the hand into the building it self consider the materials look at the foundation pry though not too narrowly into the cement pass through every Room observe the proportion and symmetry of the parts and if thou canst not otherwise come to a resolve in thy judgment yet at least guess at the design from the contrivance of the plot if thou say it wants finishing work we confess it by acknowledging it to be the first and therefore more rude draught if thou say our Lights are too much shaded we say so too owning our weakness in that Art if that our Fires which should warm dry and do other offices to the Natives are too much clouded with fumes we will not contend onely beg of thee by putting things into a just ballance to weigh them well before thou pass thy severest judgment and thou wilt oblige him to concern himself further in the like matters who remains Thine W. S. BIBLIOPOLA-LECTORI Gentle Reader THe Authors more earnest occasions not permitting him time to wait upon the Press hath occasioned some literal mistakes and although small ones yet will not the exact curiosity of the Author pass them by but that I must lay them open to thy view and crave thy Correction But more especially I beg yours and the Authors excuse for a
more considerable mistake by me committed in returning to the Printer a wrong Paragraph in page 11. an attonement for which I have endeavoured to make by giving you the corrected one which you will find Printed at the end of this discourse VALE PAge 17. l. 13. minglable p. 30. l. 2. viride aeris l. 7. incorporated p. 37. l. 21. hewing p. 42. l. 10. cork'd p. 44. l. 28. patent p. 51. l. 7. bilious p. 36. l. 17. are pleurisies l. 28. before gentle add seasonable p. 61. l. 27. maternal p. 62. l. 1. invigorating l 25. turns p. 63. l. 3. cuellings l. 5. vitali l. 17. leffas p 69. l. 24. temper'd p. 71. l. 13. of r. upon l. 23. barm p. 72. l. 17. Bye l. 22. your r. yea p. 73. l. 20. their r. the p. 74. l. 29. fat r. fall and florid r soft p. 76. l. 20. maturations l. 24. neutral p. 77. l. 1. there r. thereof p. 79. l. 15. wood r. woad p. 80. l. 2. Urinous p. 85. l. 21. with r-which p. 87. l. 17. Tabes p. 88. l. 4. dele world l. 28. closing p. 98. l. 4. after closing add with p. 105. l. 6. intence'd dele d. p. 113. l. 7. spring r. syringe p. 118. l. 5. intromission p. 121. l. 12. breath'd p. 123. l. 18. globuli p. 139. l. 24. dyscrasie p. 142. l. 6. tinge Sulphur-Bath p. 25. l. 11. solvent A Philosophical Discourse OF FERMENTATION CHAP. I. WE shall not here ravel into the opinion of others concerning this great doctrine of Fermentation which whether we look upon in a more large sence as the very Basis of Natures workings in the formations and transformations of Bodies or in a more strict limiting it as some Authors do to the bare confinements of some animal and vegitable juices If the former it might come in competition with all other sorts of Principles laid down in the various kinds of Hypotheses by divers Physiologists whether Peripateticks Epicureans Cartesians which is but the latter polisht Paracelsians Helmontions Willesians Tachenians c. and so might require a larger discourse then here we intend If the latter we stint and straiten Nature in her more ample work of generations making her square to our strait-lac'd and byassed notions We shall in neither sence I say take an occasion to examine the Opinions and Judgments of others referring that task to another place But shall without any unnecessary Prologue fall to our intended work Only we would premise that whereas the Corpuscularians who are now the most recent Physiologists suppose matter under the consideration of motion and figure to be the competent Elements and Principles of Bodies we shall anon shew that by the power of Fermentation one part of matter mechanically indivisible may for ought we know be splitt and sub-divided by a subtile comminution into 1000. perhaps 10000 parts now whatsoever figure these not almost but altogether unimaginable minute parts have or may be supposed to have yet can signifie nothing in the fabrick of Bodies till they jump together again or coincide into a stricter compage So that such parcels of matter as come nearest to a mechanical division or at least come nearest to be perceptable to the acutest Organs of our Sense fortified by artificial contrivances are such as we ought chiefly to look after and to consider as principles in order to the genesis and analysis of Bodies Nor are we to look at the Elements of Bodies as confin'd to such narrow limits that thence of necessity they should be pent and thrust up into indivisible figur'd points So that matter under the notion of figure as of round square cubes c. in Physically indivisible points cannot truly and in a genuine Physiological sence be reputed the Elements of bodies For the reason suppose of extension of matter in the concretion of Bodies consists we conjecture chiefly if not solely in a coagulating texture of plyable parts of matter wrought up before while in Succo Soluto by Fermentation and not only extension but divisibility of matter previous to extension in the production of concretes we ascribe to the same cause so that whatever the Corpuscularians attribute to motion divisibility and figure or size of particles of matter in order to make up the Elements of Bodies we see no other cause but to ascribe to matter viz. water or watery particles set into a Fermentative motion which without any more ado performs the whole business as we shall in the sequel of this discourse illustrate this being premis'd The Method we intend to insist upon and to trace in order to the right understanding and towards prosecuting the due improvements of the doctrine of Fermentation according to our Hypothesis will be first to explain what we mean by Fermentation giving as concise a definition as the nature thereof will admit next to signifie of what large extent it is in the whole round of Natures workings which will be elucidated by an induction of particulars viz. how the Phoenomena of hot Baths the production of Minerals the origin of some Acidulae or Spaw waters the grand apparances of Heat Fire and Light throughout all Concretes whether in the familie of Minerals Animals or Vegitables also how many other sorts of Phoenomena obvious in the large field of Nature may without straining be solv'd from the true principles thereof consonant to Nature in all her workings In the handling of the first we may take leave to say That Fermentation in the true genuine sence thereof is nothing else but an intestine Collision or mutual wrestling betwixt Acidum and Sulphur put together by Nature or by Art in imitation of Nature and set in a combating motion in order to the production of some Concrete or to some other equivalent end whereby if not interrupted in liquid juices heterogenities are separated whose first on-sets are sometimes especially in the Embrio-state of some things slow and indecernable motions whilst in other Stades they pass through they arrive at more brisk frettings and yet heightened may sometimes arise to actual flagration as we shall shew afterward And that nature as we shall anon shew useth these two as the grand mechanical principles in the productions of all concretes whether mineral animal or vegitable and that too not onely in their concretions but reductions in their genesis but analysis evolutions and revolutions weavings and unweavings windings on and off in all Bodies Only First with this difference in the threefold Kingdom of Nature that tho the acids of vegitables be different from those of animals and both from those of minerals retaining a specifical difference amongst themselves whereby they constantly keep up the bad e of their distinction in their several Classes yet all are in a true and not metaphorical sence acids the like may be said of their Sulphurs which are truly and not analogically Sulphurs And Secondly with this difference amongst the same Acids and Sulphurs as they are considered under
Snow Hail Meteors and other apparances common to and peculiarly obvious in the Atmosphere So here I would take an occasion from the nature of the foresaid Fermentation to insist a little upon the two grand Phoenomena's of heat and light found in concrete bodies from the same principles CHAP. VI. I Shall not here by climing so high insist upon the causes of heat and light in that great and inexhaustible Fountain thereof the Sun whether its perpetual Spring and incessant emanation may not consist in a peculiar Fermentation of its own set a work by the divine Fiat and kept a foot by a continual circulation of aethereal matter concerning which we may elsewhere modestly propound our thoughts nor shall I descend so low as to treat any further of the causes of heat in those known subterraneal Vulcano's But shall at present make it my task in short to shew First That Fermentation is made from the mutual struglings and intestine combatings of Acid and Sulphur in all juices and concrete bodies where it is evident And how heat is produced from Fermentation in all such bodies where it is found Secondly To shew how from the same principles and after what manner light is made That Fermentation and Ebullition in mineral juices whether naturally or artificially prepared proceed not from the contrariety of Salts as many worthy persons urge is evident because there is no such Ebullition amongst Salts but what are from the contrariety and struglings of Acids and Alcalies whereas no man ever yet could make it appear that those minerals either in succo or in actual concretion contain'd any sort of Alcalies either fixed or volatile But on the contrary its most certain from irresragrable experiments that Sulphurs and Acids are separable from them all And as before we have shewed the Fermentation of minerals to consist in the collision and intestine wrestlings of their Acid and Sulphur as the causes of hot Baths c. So the Fermentation in animals is no less observable to proceed from the like inward struglings of their imbred Acid and Sulphur continually till they dye kept on foot in the body of animals and that will appear if we consider their implanted acid juices the very foundation of all Ferments and the daily occurrence of such sort of Food in whose texture both Acid and Sulphur chiefly Sulphur doth reside in order to the keeping those Ferments at work for the nourishing and upholding the fabrick of those bodies The first wheel as I may say of these Ferments or the primordial Stamina of acids in animal bodies after their formation are placed in the Stomack where the Fermentation begins from the native acidum acting upon the acquired Sulphur of nutritive food and is carryed on into the second digestion into the intestines where a fresh gentle acidum from the pancreatick juice and a Sulphur from the Gaule sent thither by the ductus biliaris promote and assist a further Fermentation and thence carryed into the blood where the same principles of Fermentation together with a volatile Salt complicated with the Sulphur and Acidum are still at work and undergo new separations and depurations as also acquire new helps of volatization from the continually inspired Air into the Lungs through which the blood passeth which still promotes the begun Fermentation in order to the circulation thereof and nourishment of the whole So that the native acid juice of the Stomack is not in a strict sense a Ferment till such times as it finds some Sulphurous food upon which as its proper subject it begins to work and then upon its action collision and mutual strugling with the Sulphur in the assum'd aliment begins the Fermentation which being vital we suppose to be the very first spring of heat in the animal body after it hath passed its Embrio-state Yea all the rest of the Fermentations in the body are but the continuations of this Fermentation begun in the Stomack for the blood is made up of that Chyle which by Fermentation is wrought in the Stomack retaining so much of its first principles of Acid and Sulphur mixed in a just temperature assisted with the pancreatick and bilous juices as may be sufficient to keep that Liquor still in a Fermentative motion such as may help to supply with a new off-spring of animal Spirits the very product of that Fermentation as also to fill up the interstices of that matter or those parts which are continually upon the wheel winding off through the perspirable Portals of the body as we may elsewhere God willing take an occasion further to discourse How powerful a menstruum this Stomachial acid the first efficient of heat is doth appear both by the great force of working upon and dissolving all alimentary things which are all of them such as wherein Sulphur whether vegitable or animal is more or less complicated and cujus intuitu viz. for the sake of which all the rest wrapt up in the same concrete are also dissolved as likewise doth appear from those strong vellications of the Nerves and Tunicles of the Stomack upon hunger being a nothing else but that aforesaid acid menstruum preying upon the next adjacent parts through the want of some Sulphurous subject to work upon That Sulphurous concretes whether animal or vegital are the proper Subjects for the native acidum of the Stomack to work upon in order to Fermentation is clear because neither Stone Clay Earth Marle Wood nor such like wherein are no Sulphurous parts or at least such as are not congenial to the foresaid acidum can become capable of being food inasmuch as no genuine Fermentation essentially necessary to the upholding the fabrick of an animal body can thence be made Not now further to shew how Fermentation begun in the Stomack and carryed on in the blood and other humours is not onely the efficient cause and effectual source of heat but also of all animal Spirits carryed thence by the conduit-pipes of the Nerves into the habit of the body in order to the performing those peculiar functions of sense and motion both viz. heat and animal Spirits being the immediate products of animal Fermentations We say that in the circle of natures operations throughout her triplicity of bodies there is no such thing as Spirits separable but what are the immediate results of Fermentation For however among some Physiologists they are reputed inter principia corporum yet according to our Hypothesis they are no principles but the posterior products of Fermentation and appear in bodies according to the slow or quick low or high degrees of Fermentation from whence proceed their threefold order in the productions of concretes For either these Fermentations are to be considered in their primordials or first workings in bodies in order to the fabrick thereof and so the Spirits which thence result are in a low depressed state deeply immers'd in corporeal bulk as appears in vegitables c. in their state of Infancy and Crudity
Or Secondly These Fermentations are to be considered in the further progress and closer interweavings of the principles whereby they become to be more quick and high the Sulphur gradually softening and sweetning their connate acids and thence the bodies wherein those Fermentations happen becomes more pregnant with Spirits being now more plentifully ingendred and more easily set at liberty by the power of Fermentation then before And this is evident in all things brought on to maturity and becomes sensibly apparent chiefly in all odorous Plants and Fruits Or Lastly They are to be considered in the more sensible brisk conflicts of the principles even after the bodies they work in are brought to maturity one dulcifying the other by the concurring causes of solar heat c. the principles I say being yet kept on in motion in all fermentable juices and grains do produce the greatest plenty of Spirits which being set at liberty are all those we call vinous Spirits in animals those we call animal Spirits the genuine product of vital and animal Fermentations and in minerals their Spirits in some places after heating transient waters for hot Baths appear in volatiz'd Sulphurs otherwhere in subtile acids as the causes of some aciduloe and elsewhere in apporrhea steams c. as elsewhere we have shewed Thus in all fruits brought on to maturity and all grains ripened for the harvest the principles in their mutual Collisions are so pregnant as that by being put nearer together which happens by their being juiced or malted they are thereby set a work into a sensible Fermentation as appears in all fermentable juices and malted grains the immediate result of both which are vinous Spirits Thus in all natural animal Fermentations of their juices requisite for circulation of the blood nourishment of the body and for the performing other functions peculiar thereto the animal principles are so pregnant as in their continual wrestlings and inward collisions incessantly to produce such a stock of Spirits a being rightly disposed and carryed in their proper Conduits the Nerves are sufficient to thâ— absolving the functions of sense and motion And the like in their kind may be said of minerals concerning which viz. the origin of animal Spirits from the foresaid Fermentation we may elsewhere largely discourse We shall only say at present that as the natural Fermentations in animal bodies are produced from the intestine collisions and inward struglings betwixt the native acid of the Stomack fortified perhaps by some connatural acidum in the aliment and the acquired Sulphur of nutritive concretes separating Hetrogenities and graduating themselves by successive depurations till they in their proper juices perform those circulations requisite to the peculiar funcitons of the body So likewise from the Catastrophe of the natural and superinduction of other not congenial acids may be made such mortifications precipitations and depravations of the genuine ferments and such new complications betwixt the recent acid and the Sulphur in the otherwise natural fermenting juices as to lay a foundation of new spurious Fermentations the causes of Feavers of all sorts Not to say here how most yea for ought I know all sorts of Feavers are nothing else but spurious Fermentations of the blood and other juices of the body distinguishable or if I may say specificated by variety of acids not congeneal but wholly disagreeable gradually heightening the natural and otherwise slow pac'd genuine Fermentations whose various degrees of Feavers are most what differenced or specificated from the low or high slower or quicker degrees of spurious Fermentation or to speak in a more plain dialect how Feavers are various sorts or different degrees of inflamations of the blood and other juices For an inflamation according to our Hypothesis is nothing else but a heightening of Fermentation from a more strong collision of the principles whereby from their mutual wrestlings they arrive to the height of causticks which as we shew elsewhere differ from corrosives onely from the difference of their acids such I mean as in a lower degree pleurising from an inflamatory transposition of the fiery particles of the blood upon the pleura and in a higher degree as are the plague and pestilential Feavers which are Feavers in their highest inflamatory and siery degree witness the Anthrases Carbuncles and other pestilential badges which shew perfect Eschars upon the skin as if perform'd by cauteries Lixivial or fiery which are with due caution to be cured by such ways and methods as allay that furious fiery Ebullition by Phlebotomy and gentle breathing Sweats but here we must cut short intending as this finds acceptance a fuller and more free discourse of the nature of Feavers how essentially specificated and what methods accordingly they best yield too concerning which we may Deo dante treat in another place Onely this by the by we would observe that amongst animal juices those from vegitables made by animal Ferments suppose Milk by the various actions of the innate or adventitious acids upon their inbred Sulphurs happen different products First therefore as to the coagulations and alterations to be made from the inbred acidum thereof Thus Milk while in an equal temperature of its constituent ingredients undergoes no separation of parts remaining in an uniform Liquor but being expos'd to the Air after a while the innate acidum of the Milk being acuated by that of the Air makes a spontaneous separation of a cremor from the more thin part which Cream having some acidum in it as we elsewhere prove that all Cremors Oyles Fatts Axungia's c. are but different disguises of animal Sulphurs have their implanted acids by keeping grows more sour this by concussion of the parts in that motion we call Churming undergoes a Fermentation of its kind from whence happens another sort of separation viz. into Butter which is Sulphur in another form then before and a more serous part call'd Butter-milk And as Milk after the separation of Cream by longer standing comes to a thick and almost gellyed consistence by Countrey people call'd Loppard and by a little heat splits into Curd and Whey so Butter-milk if kept long will come to the like consistence but if heated the acidum presently coagulates the Curdy part if that coagulation be made in heat after the mixture of New-Milk the acidum in the Butter-milk coagulates both the Curdy parts of its own as also Butirous and Curdy parts of the New-milk into that sort of sour coagulum call'd hatted Milk which is more or less sour according to the prevalency of the acidum or more or less affusion of New-Milk And Lastly As the foresaid alterations are made from the various coagulations of Milk from its implanted acid So likewise other sorts of coagulations thereof are produced from additional acids Thus any Fermentative potable Liquor as Wine Ale Beer Syder c. mixed with Milk the acidum in such Liquors coagulates the Sulphurous parts into a Curd separable from the serus Liquor the like will
the implanted principles of Acid and Sulphur being by percussion allision or attrition put into a speedy Fermentation For the better understanding whereof we are to consider both the nature and temperament of those bodies as also the manner of the production of Heat or Fire therefrom as to the first they are all of them such in whose texture our principles of Fermentation viz. Acid and Sulphur lye scattered and interspers'd what are Flints and other Pyrites but stony concretions who have a Sulphurous principle for their cement which lyeth close shut up in their bodies especially in some of them the flagrable Sulphur is so fast locked up as that it appears not by any usual manner of way unless either by attrition of other bodies wherein an Acid and Sulphur hang more loosely viz. Iron or Steel or by the solution of some powerful menstruum such as the grand solvent the Alchahest whilst others of them have their Sulphur more easily extricated of which last sort it is G. Fabricius speaks when he saith that out of any the Pyrites equo excutitur ignis excoquitur etiam Sulphur What is Iron or Steel the latter being but the former hardened but a metal wherein eminently above the rest of metals doth appear an Acidum witness it s easie mouldering into Rust being a natural calcination thereof by the bare acid moisture of the Air For what Fire by its Acidum doth to Iron loosening the innate acidum thereof by actual calcination the same in a longer tract of time doth the connate acidum of the Air to the inbred acid of Iron which then working upon the native Sulphur doth unhinge it and so together taketh in pieces the whole body into a crocus And although Copper hath also an implanted acidum the chief cause of its contracting an erugo in the Air yet it is not so easily extravertable by the acidum in the Air and therefore defends it self the better from the injuries thereof Lastly not now to name any more what is Wood whether in a sappy Branch or dry but firm stick but the more strong concretions of vegetable juices wherein the foresaid principles of Acid and Sulphur are in the one freshly acting in the work of vegetation and in the other lye dormant under the bonds of coagulation So that if the same principles be actuated and accelerated in their motions as they are by sudden collisions and attrisions they may thereby be put into stronger Fermentations and at length be invigorated to that height as actually to take Fire which according to our Hypothesis is the very reason why a Green Branch or Stick by strong and frequent attritions one part upon another will Fire also why the Axis Staves or Wheels of Coaches Wagons and Mills will from strong and violent motions and attritions take Fire and burn The like may be said concerning all the other foregoing Subjects as to the causes or manner of their striking Fire which now we shall insist no longer upon only this by the by I would take notice of before I have done with this matter that frications which are sleight attritions of the parts of the body which by the Ancients were much in use towards the assisting the cure of many Diseases whose peccant matter lay much in the habit of the body were grounded upon this very reason viz. that they thereby help'd the Fermentation of the blood and other dormant juices which lay coagulated in the outward parts of the body benumbing the Nerves Muscles and other outward parts and that if Physicians would now more frequent the use thereof might probably find an advantage thereby in order to the Cure of Diseases by invigorating those dorming Ferments putting them into action whereby the offending matter might the better be discuss'd and evaporated CHAP. XI THus having as compendiously as we could run through the causes of Heat and Fire as the result from all sorts of Fermentations in the triplicity of natures Empire and shewed Heat to be Fire in a remiss and Fire Heat in an intenc'd degree or if you will a slow or more quick motion of the principles I mean Fermentations solves both and shewed also these Fermentations to proceed from a wrestling of Acidum and Sulphur excepting those made from an intestine strugling of Acidum and a fixt Alcali or Acidum and Vrinous Spirits Now come we to the last thing we propounded and that is how from our deposited Doctrine of Fermentation to solve that other grand Phoenomena viz. Light Not now to treat of Light as it is communicable to us from the great Fountain thereof the Sun which as we suppose consists in an illumination of Air by a perpetual emanation or eradiation of solar beams springing from an incessant but peculiar Fermentation in the body of the Sun and fostered by an unwearied circulation of Aethereal matter Light and Heat as proceeding from the great scuree thereof we conceive to differ only in this viz. That Light is the bare illumination of the medium the Air by a direct progressive motion of Aethereal matter from the foresaid Fermentation as the proper object of the Eye and by which all other things are seen while heat is the reflection or reverberatory motion of the same luminous beams proceeding from the said Fermentation from the Earth or other solid bodies affecting by that Fermentative motion our Organs of feeling concerning which we may elsewhere modestly propose our opinion Our design at present is onely to discourse of the nature and manner of such sort of Lights which we find amongst bodies we usually converse with upon the Earth and within the verge of our Atmosphere which are as followeth viz. the Light of culinary Fire I mean of most usual combustable concretes the Light of all Sulphurous matters whether in the form of mineral Sulphurs Gumms Rosins Turpentine Axungia's c. or in liquids of Bitumen Oyles vinous Spirits c. The Light of rotten Wood long dry'd Fish as Codds c. who have an incipient putrefaction The Light of Glow-worms Cats-Eyes Light from attrition of Wood green or dry which have thereby taken Fire from the attrition or percussion of Steel and Flint or any Pyrites from the frication or pectation of animals such as are Light from the Combing a Womans head as sometimes hath been known Light struck in the currying of a Horse and that Light I have seen from a sudden frication upon a Catts-Back of some Liquors the Light of subterraneal Lamps the perpetual Light preparable by the exuberate Mercury of the Philosophers graduated by circulation and cohobation according to our English Anonymus who had seen it done The Light of some precious Stones as Carbuncles some sort of Diamonds magnetical of Light as the Bononian-stone prepared by an artificial calcination Lastly The Light of meteors amongst which may be reckoned Lightening flashes of Fire or Light seen in Storms upon the Sea also those luminous meteors which in great Storms at Sea
previous frication to the exciting their Light and Lustre of which are some peculiar sorts of Diamonds Or lastly Such as are magnetical by a preparatory calcination of which sort is the Bononian stone As to the first viz. That of Carbuncles the cause of whose luminous rayes we can no otherwise attribute then to the irradiation of a glaurious incombustible Sulphur disseminated through its whole body imbibed in and fixed to a most defecate matter imbib'd I say whilst that exquisitely pure petrifick matter was yet in its pristine juice through which that highly graduated tincture or Philosophick Sulphur is incessantly vibrated concerning which we have discours'd more at large in our Lithologia Physica The same we may say of some sorts of Diamonds onely with this difference that these to shew their Lustre require a gentle excitation by a previous frication whereby the foresaid luminous incombustible Sulphur gets more at liberty and darts forth the better Now that some particular sort of these do by a gentle frication shew their lustre in the dark I have from the autopsie of my worthy Friend Mr. Shippen Yea that some sorts of Diamonds are not onely luminous but also electrical of a Needle after a previous excitation by frication I am assur'd by the honourable Boyle who acquainted me he has had one of that sort As also that the King as he told me has one that will do the same very remarkably As to the cause of Light in those which by a foregoing calcinatory preparation become magnetical of Light of which sort is the Bonian stone and perhaps others might be found out that by the like artifice would perform the same It depends I say on and proceeds chiefly from the peculiar texture of such sort of Stones so wrought upon and altered by the Fire as not onely to imbibe as it were the rayes of the Sun but also for a time to fix them suffering them leisurely to go off again and so become by fresh impregnation capable of performing the like emissions of Light ad Lubitum concerning which Light issuing from the three foresaid noble petrifick bodies we insist more largely in our Lithologia Physica to which when extant we refer the Reader And as to the Light of subterraneal Lamps although those be generally reputed and that too by very learned and intelligent persons amongst Chymera's suppos'd to be merely fictitious yet I am not altogether of their opinion but do think there is a possibility in nature for them to have been really performed Now the reason why it is generally concluded in the negative is taken from the defect of Air in those close caverns inasmuch as all sorts of vulgarly known Fire need the access of Air to the keeping up that rapid motion in combustable bodies which being secluded those Fires thence depending of necessity must dye But we suppose and in part know that there is lodged in most especially in some particular bodies an incombustible Sulphur known chiefly to the Adepti to whose invigorating actions and enlivening operations the outward Air of our Atmosphere doth not at all contribute yea during some particular seasons of working ought wholly to be excluded To confirm the possibility in nature of such kind of Fire that may be maintained and perpetuated without Air I might add that I have with my own Eyes seen a Flame or Fire in the cavity of a Glass which as soon as the Stopple was taken forth became contrary to the Genius of all vulgar Fires immediately extinguished So why might not those sorts of Lamps recorded in History to have been performed by the Ancients viz. amongst the Romans who might probably have the Art from the Grecians and those from the Aegyptians have been Fed with such kind of Fire even in the greatest seclusions of Air and upon their being expos'd thereto when found might as easily and speedily extinguish concerning which we may probably elsewhere further inlarge Lastly as to the perpetual Light preparable by the Philosophers exuberate Mercury graduated by circulation and cohobation as also a luminous Liquor demonstrable by Art upon which we shall not now insist both because we do not pretend to be a Master of any such thing as also because we have touched thereon in our Lithologia Physica CHAP. XV. THus having compendiously run through the great varieties of Fermentations in the threefold Kingdom of Nature and shewed the various Phoenomena of Light in different bodies in that part of the Scene of visibles we converse with solvable by our principles from different causes put into various motions Now it remains to conclude this Doctrine of Fermentation first by elucidating our principles from collateral authority Next by shewing how from the great vdriety of Acids acting upon Sulphurs may divers other Phoenomena be naturally solv'd As to the first viz. to confirm and illustrate our principles to be in all concretes throughout the triplicity of natures Empire besides what we have in brief said and reserve also for a further discourse we might here bring in the Authority of the great Hypocrates and some others of the Ancients to shew how this concordia discors the principles I mean of Acidum and Sulphur contracted into Seedlings are interspers'd in the seminals of all things whence by such kind of Fermentation as aforesaid all things vegetate come to their acme and decline yea from which the whole Scene of visible concretions are by a certain sâ—â—â—gling from their central Fires brought into action lively pourtray'd upon the Stage of the World But because we take an occasion in our Epistle to touch thereon we shall forbear and at present onely add the authority of the intelligent learned and worthy Borichius who in his late piece de Hermetis Aegyptiorum Chymicorum sapientia a tract highly valuable and worthy the perusal by all ingenuous persons in one place as if measuring forth our principles saith to this purpose viz. Nullum animal ostendi potest p. 413. ex quo oleum hoc est animalium Sulphur educi nequeat nullum ex quo nihil aciduli possit seperari nulla planta quae non vel oleum vehat vel spiritum admoto igne flammantem nulla quae non pressu succum profundat si sibi permittatur in acidum quiddam sponte abiturum Metallica ut robustioris temperamenti Sulphure Mercurio non carent equidem hoc primum illis cum animalibus plantis commune est quod rara minera illa sit quae Sulphur verum flammaturum solicite inquirentibus non offerat nulla quae ingeniose in alkohol tenuata aeri si opus est tantillum exposita distillatione non spiritum acidulum expromat Not here to insist on what the learned Dr. Willis saith in this matter in his Doctrine of Fermentation who as he urgeth ob salis fluorem how rightly let others judge so we De Ferm p. 10. ob acidi predominium vinum lac sanguis
in vapors or steams insensibly till arrested by some particular bodies it settles and sticks thereto Thus the foresaid Author observed That walking about one day in the lower Bath at Baden and leaning over the Ballisters perceived that his Buttons and what else he wore that was Silver were all turned yellow of a fair Gold colour although he was at some distance from the Water whereupon he tryed this Experiment viz. of hanging money over the Bath at a foot distance or at a greater and found it coloured in a minutes time and that which was nearer in half a minute Next we are to consider how these Thermae or hot Baths differ amongst themselves which as we conceive chiefly proceeds from the difference and great variety of Sulphurs or Mineral Bodies wherein are wrapt up a diversity of Sulphurs through which they pass and with which they are impregnated together with some other mineral parts which they take in either at the place of Fermentation or afterwards in their passage For Sulphurs which we suppose to be chiefly concerned in all mineral Fermentations differ much amongst themselves common Brimstone being different from that of Antimony and that from the Sulphur of Vitriol Pyrites and other mineral Marcasites all which are yet different from Arsenical Sulphurs and from bituminous matters one sort or other of which are most what the predominant ingredient and mineral principle of these hot Baths Hence it is that some of these Sulphurous waters may with good success in order to the cure of some diseases be taken inwardly others not Those that may not are generally such whose Sulphurs are Antimonial Arsenical or Bituminous or at least border upon such minerals as are allyed thereto of which are the generality of hot Baths and in particular those of our own Nation of which the Sommerset-shire being the hottest are found altogether unfit for inward uses are not safely to be drunk inasmuch as they are impregnated as I conceive with antimonial or perhaps bituminous Sulphur or the Sulphur of some Pyrites or other Marcasite a kin to Antimony or Bitumen which lodgeth in the bowels of those great Mountains at the Foot or Center of which those hot Baths break forth for the acid which concurs necessarily as we shall shew afterwards to those Fermentations as an indispensible principle opens the body of those Sulphurs or detains them whilst in fieri in their crude nature and thereby renders them wholly noxious for inward use as we could further illustrate but that we hast Nor is Buxton Bath in Darby-shire from the same cause although in a remiss degree fit for taking inwardly inasmuch as that according to all probability partakes of a bituminous Sulphur and that I gather from the plenty of a bituminous or oylie substance got out of the very Clefts of the Stones in the Peake yea this bituminous or oylie matter is found in the very Pores Clefts and Cavites of the Stones themselves as was communicated to me from the judicious and my worthy Friend Mr. Jossop whose Father as he acquainted me got two Spoonfuls out of one crevice in a Stone which bituminous matter is lodg'd not only in those stones but also in a sort of light lithanthrax which rub'd being a smooth polite body is Electrical as I have found by trial which distilled yields an oyle and acid Spirit almost like that of Amber as the ingenious Mr. Fisher inform'd me he found by trial yea the same bitumen is imbib'd into a fungus matter which Dr. Lister supposeth and that very likely to be rotten wood long buried in the earth into which this oylie matter or bitumen hath sunk which keeps as I have found continually moist tho kept in a dry place I say it s very probable that the Sulphurous principle of Buxton Bath hath its determination from this sort of bitumen And as to those Sulphurous waters which may safely be taken inwardly are chiefly the Sulphur-well at Knarsbrough of which we shall further discourse in a Chapter by it self afterwards And as to the different degrees of heat in Baths may proceed either from the more remiss or intense Fermentation of mineral juices or from the different place of Fermentation as it may be deep within the bowels of the Earth or near the place of its Exit thus if the Fermentation happen to be far within the Earth and so remote from the place of Erruption that the Sulphur therice become much what precipitated or left in the colander or filter of Sand through which it passeth and the acidum thereby so dinted as to become very languid if at all perceptable in the Water and yet by reason of its closeness from the air may retain somewhat of its first conceived warmth of which sort are those Sulphur Baths near Villock in Carinthia which are gently warm as the learned Dr. Browne notes in his book of Travels as also as I suppose Buxton Bath in Darby-shire whilst in other parts of the earth the foresaid Fermentation may be strong both from the plenty of the two combating principles as also from their nearness to the place of breaking forth of which sort are those at Glass-Hitten Eisenbacke both not far from Schemnitz in Hungary where are silver mines also those of Stubn near Newsol in the same Countrey those at Baden in Austria and especially ours at the Bath in Sommerset-shire We say also that Fermentation of mineral juices is most necessarily requisite to the producing of all hot Baths and consequently all hot Baths depend thereon because hereby is made a comminution of Sulphurous or other bituminous juices which thence become communicable to and dissolvable in ordinary spring-water for hereby the Sulphur is sever'd into volatile parts easily permeating the body of water The paralel of what is produced by Fermentation in vegitables to what is performed by the same amongst mineral juices in order to the making hot Baths is not inconsiderable whether we look at the agents or at Fermentation its self or lastly at the effects as to the agents which here are requisite to perform mineral Fermentations we shall demonstrate afterwards to be no other then mineral acids and mineral Sulphurs intoris mineralibus That also Acids and Sulphurs to wit of their own kind are the true agents in the performing all vegitable Fermentations we may elsewhere ex instituto discourse as to Fermentation it self which whether in minerals or vegitables is nothing else but an intestine motion of the essential constituent principles of Acidum and Sulphur which is in a more remiss or intense degree and the heat consequently more or less according to the slower or more brisk on-sets and inward struglings of those combitant principles Lastly the paralel will hold good in the effects of Fermentation Thus as the effects of the sensible Fermentation in all vegitable Fermentative Liquors is the comminution and volatization of their Sulphurs as that what before such sensible Fermentation was separable in the form of an
true efficients of Fermentation in mineral juices for if he had the question had been beyond dispute for though Sulphur or common Brimstone in its concrete substance is not the Sulphurous principle nature useth in the producing of Fermentation in the primary disseminate juices where such things are in Embrio or in solutis principijs yet even that very concrete body whether in the form of Brimstone or complicated within the texture of other minerals Pyrites c. is by the supervening of a powerful acidum capable of Fermentation and thence of imparting its more subtile apporrhea or steame by the comminution of the foresaid Fermentation and susceptable of the virtues thereof So that it appears that Sulphur may be one of the efficients of heat in Baths and yet its flagration not requisite at all the same we may safely say of Bitumen Now as we have endeavoured to prove Sulphur whether in succo soluto in the very primordial shapings or generations of minerals or the same reduced from mineral concretions by the superinduction of congenial acids to be one of the two ingredients or mechanical Organs nature useth in mineral Fermentations This therefore leads me to our second position viz. CHAP. III. THat there is no Fermentation amongst mineral juices wherein an acid is not concern'd Or thus That an acid is necessarily requisite in all mineral Fermentations By acidum here I mean one of these two sorts viz. are such as are imbred in the same mineral concretion whilst in succo soluto c. in the beginings of its generation Or Secondly a superinduc'd acidum which is powerful in the reductions of minerals already concrete so that if we have our eye upon Fermentation from mineral concrete bodies which have already past their Embrio-state and are come to the solidity of compleat bodies then by acidum we do not mean such a one as is intrinsick connatural to and implanted in all Brimstones and mineral Sulphurs more or less for no Sulphur nor Sulphurous body as such can alone be the cause of Fermentation or heat in the Earth but an extrinsick supervening acid which must by reduction set those minerals by a kinship or consanguinity of parts into Fermentation de novo Now therefore it remains to prove that there are acid juices in the bowells of the Earth and that these are either embryonative to the same mineral where the Sulphur is or else peculiar to some other bodies by which the transient waters become acuated which if the former then the Acidum and Sulphur being natives of the same mineral do more easily by their mutual contact and intestine struglings cause a Fermentation even whilst the minerals are in solutis principijs which being constant those waters which pass through them must as certainly and constantly be heated So that from the unerring rules of nature from perpetuating the cause the effect must be no less The acid which causeth the latter sort of Fermentation we shall shortly touch upon First then the acids of the former classis will be apparent to us if we consider that there are no minerals produced in their peculiar beds in the intrails of the Earth without a previous Fermentation from their congenial principles of Acidum and Sulphur For our Hypothesis concerning the generation of minerals is grounded upon Acid and Sulphur from which foundation we say that these two being actually put into motion by the mineral seed in Embrio distinguished according to the lubet of the divine fiat in the great wheel-work of generation do by their mutual innate wrestlings cause a Fermentation and this to be one yea the chief cause of heat in natural Baths These in-dwelling acids I say are manifest and easily discoverable to us a posteriori from their not difficult separations out of the bodies of most known minerals thus we see plenty of an acidum separable from common Brimstone by bare flagration and the sleight artifice of condensing those fumes witness the Oyle of Sulphur per Campanam which is acid Thus also we have separated an acidum from Saturn Ore and know how to do the same from Antimony both which are perform'd two manner of ways viz. First By separating their Sulphurs which I have done both from the Ore of Saturn as also from the minera of Antimony which by flagration like common Brimstone yield an acid Secondly By distilling the foresaid minerals I mean Lead Ore and Antimony per se in close Vessels by a peculiar way may be drawn an acid Thus likewise out of both Vitriol and Alom as also from common fossil which is all one marine Salt and Nitre by bare distillation in close Vessels are frequently acids drawn which are singly or joyntly thence preparable witness Spirit or Oyle of Vitriol Aqua fortis Spirit of Salt Spirit of Nitre c. all of them sufficiently acid Thus out of all the Pyrites may an acid be separated yea further out of bitumens amber jet which is kennel coal and other sorts of Lythanthrax may by distillation an acid Spirit or Liquor be easily separated Thus my ingenious Friend Mr. Fisher hath separated an acidum out of a concrete bitumen got out of Lead-mines in the Peake in Derby-shire not far from Buxton hot Bath which is an Electrical Concrete as also hath done the like from the rest of the last recited mineral bodies And the like acidum hath been drawn from a bituminous fungus found in those parts Now come we to treat of our second sort of acidum which is one of the chief ingredients or principles of our latter sort of Fermentation to be numbred amongst the causes of some hot Baths and that is a superinduc'd acidum viz. the current of a living Spring as such are called in its subterraneal passages meeting with some Salts in Embrio or Bed of Earth impregnated with acid juices of which sort are all or most of the mineral Salts whilst in fieri before they by a further maturity reach the state of concretion I say passing through these Beds becomes by reason of its facile imbibition of such juices acuated therewith and then falling into a bed of Brimstone or other minerals or pyrites c. impregnated with Sulphur begins a solution thereof so raiseth a Fermentation betwixt the Sulphur and the supervening acid which gives heat to the water and becomes more or less hot according to the more or less powerfulness of the Acid and Sulphur as it passeth As also according to the nearness or remoteness of the waters exit from the source of Fermentation which acid dividing subtilizing and volatizing the Sulphur doth brake it into such small parts as that it becomes I mean as to the purest part thereof dissolvable in water according as we have more largely explain'd above and thence it is I mean from the Fermentation made from Acid and Sulphur whether perform'd the former or latter way that all hot Baths have somewhat of Sulphur in them more or less This last sort
a few drops of any acid juice do whether vegitable or mineral as of Vinegar Vitriol Sulphur Salt c. yea the runnet which is made up of Milk coagulated by the Stomichal acid of an animal which by keeping sours yet more and is made up with Salt to preserve it from decaying by the addition I say of the foresaid acid ferment or animal Runnet to Milk especially in heat is made that coagulation of the Sulphurous and Curdy parts out of which our Cheese is usually made So that from the different actions of the acid whether native or additional upon the Sulphur are produc'd those usual coneretions or rather coagulations of Butter and Curds separable from the more liquid serum which Butter has also its connate acid which is the cause of its liquidity in heat and coagulation in cold as we could sufficiently demonstrate the liquidity and coagulation of such the succulency and concretion the softness and hardness of other sort of bodies chiefly to depend upon the various modes of acids either considered in Fermentation or Concretion and as assisted by other concurring causes chiefly of the Air which we now with difficulty and chiefly for brevity sake refer to another place We might if willing to inlarge take an occasion here amongst animal Ferments to insist upon the causes and reasons of those strangely surprizing effects resulting from the invigorated Ferments of some venemous animals and shew that all their poysonous properties consist chiefly and solely in the Ferments of their juices which may be invigorated to that height as to become poysonous Fires which by a bite or the like getting admission into the blood of a humane body will according to the degrees of their exasperation make their transits in the bearing down and mortifying our animal Spirits Hence those fiery Serpents we read of were probably such whose Fermental principles was by exasperation wrought to that height as to become a venemous Fire by whose least entrance into the blood by their sting or the like did presently mortifie the Spirits of those who were bitten whereby they were suddenly killed And to shew that as the strength of our bodies depends upon the energie of the animal Spirits the product of vital Fermentation according to whose remiss or intense degrees of depuration sublimation and eradiation in their proper Channels the Nerves the weakness or vigour yea the whole crasis of the body subsists Diseases generally prevailing upon us from their various assaults which are made upon these in their original source of production I mean in the fermentable juices of the body so likewise the Spirits of venemous animals the product also of the Fermentation peculiar to their juices being by exasperation so subtiliz'd as that they are highly in vigorated and beyond imagination Spiritualiz'd do by their sudden fiery vibrating motion if admitted make their transits quasi ictu oculi through our Fermenting juices presently arrest our Spirits and by coagulations and other manner of mortifications suspends their generation and motion which being precipitated and born down and the future vibrations of the vital Acidum and Sulphur mortified must needs bring on death which is nothing else but a period put to the mutual collisions of the vital principles Where we might shew that the deleterious properties of venemous Animals as Vipers Adders Snakes Scorpions c. reside not at all in their flesh because they may and are frequently eaten not onely without harm but also in some cases with good success but in their peculiar Ferments consisting according to our supposition of Acidum and Sulphur of their kinds which being capable of exasperations and heightenings are also as lyable to have their Spirits invigorated insomuch as the more those animals are angred as I may say the stronger the Fermentation and the more subtile the Spirits are yea the more mortal their fire which bearing the character of their material principles have the foresaid sudden mortifying influence upon our vital juices and the Spirits thereof We might also shew how those sorts of Ferments in their strong inveterating motions do sometimes fix themselves upon some peculiar matter or coagulated juice in their bodies where the Ferments lurk as in a seminary and this is the reason why that matter vomited by some sort of venemous Scorpions If I mistake not called Gecco upon their being whipt and hung up thereby having their Ferments exasperated is used by the Indians as a speedy death to their malefactors by pricking the skin under one Nayle of the hand and applying a little quantity thereof to it which immediately thereby getting entrance into the blood presently suspends the Fermentation thereof mortifies the Spirits killing them presently yea at Macassar a Town in the Island Celebes belonging to the Molucco Islands there is a sort of poyson whether made by the foresaid artifice from inraged venemous animals I know not which the King of that place uses for expeditious killing those he would dispatch out of the way by applying it to any breach of the skin it immediately from its Fermental corrosive poyson not only kills but burns the whole body into a corruptive putrilage concerning which and many other things of the like nature we now for brevity sake willingly desist to inlarge CHAP. VII HAving in brief thus signified the causes of the Fermentations in animals to consist in a brief but suitable intestine dwellings betwixt the two principles Acid and Sulphur which coincide in puncto vitalo according to our Hypothesis and that their heat is immediately thence produced In the next place let us consider whether the same Hypothesis may not hold good in the due explicating the Phoenomena in that other kingdom of nature I mean the vegitable where besides what we have already said vegitation in our account is no other then a gentle vibration and slender collision of the Vegitable Acid Sulphur from which two principles put into a wrestling motion in every seed after the loosening its body or husk in the lessas terrae is begun the vegitable Fermentation which ceaseth not till the body shap'd according to the form of those minute Types wrapt up in the seedlings and in some obvious to the eye assisted by good microscopes is brought in all its pourtrayings upon the visible Stage of the World And from this Fermentation set afoot in the very primordials seedlings and first hewings of vegitable forms are deducable all the observable Phoenomena of vegitables for not onely vegitation it self consists in a slow-pac'd motion of the foresaid principles set into a slender easie Fermentation but also their colours sapours odours also other medicinal qualifications and their propagation by Seeds and their future Fermentations as of Corn Grapes and Fruits c. in order to our Bread and Drink are referrable to the various intestine wrestlings of the inbred Acid and Sulphur First As to Vegitation it self we have already hinted how it s performed by a secret Fermentation from
Bread or other such Food CHAP. VIII NOw that there is some gentle warmth in all vegetable Fermentations undiscernable to our senses is apparent because the same principles of Fermentation being invigorated in their brisk intestine duellings may become sensibly hot witness the heat of steep'd Barley laid on a heap in order to Maltin which if neglected for want of turning and ventilation by Air will become so hot as one cannot induce his hand long in it Yea and from the same principles yet heightned in their inward Collisions may an actual burning Fire be produced Witness Corn wet laid in heaps in Chambers if neglected will take Fire Also Mows of Corn laid up too moist and close have been Fired So likewise a Rick of Hay is sometimes burnt to Ashes from the violent and furious Fermentations of its principles and that from its moistness and closeness setting its principles of Acids and Sulphur into a violent motion so as to break forth into aciual Flame Not to say here how Acids are sweetened by Sulphurs and sometimes coagulate into a neutral body For although all Fermentation is certainly at least according to our Hypothesis caus d from the Collisions and inward combatings of Acids and Sulphurs in the production of things yet as Acids amongst bodies as I have before and may more largely hereafter shew differ amongst themselves so they make different assaults and are variously reacted by Sulphurs whence both by their mutual actions undergo various changes and different modifications amongst bodies in their transformations And as some Acids ferment with their Sulphurs in an inward wrestling the Sulphurs afterwards as they predominate upon the wheel of operation softening sweetening and ripening their Acids making gentle coagulations in their naturations both amongst animals vegitables yea and Minerals too although more obvious in the two former so likewise some Sulphurs ferment with some Acids while with others they combine in a natural texture to confirm which we shall onely because in hast give this single mechanical example which shall be in Mercury or Quick-silver to which if a Spirit of Nitre or Aqua fortis be added the mixture presently ferments from the collision of the Sulphur in the Mercury and the Acids in the Menstruum whereby the compage there is broken from the intimate commixture of the Sulphur with its Mercurial parts whence a solution of the whole But if in lieu of that corrosive Menstruum the dry Salts of which that Menstruum by a colliquating fluor with their inbred Sulphurs by Fire is made be mixed and sublimed together there happens no Fermentation but arise in a corrosive sublimate to which if such a due proportion of fresh Mercury be added and re-sublim'd they coagulate and sweeten each other into a solid concretion of a neutral texture which is that trite preparation we call Mercurius dulcis in which the acid Salts of Vitriol and common Salt is so dulcified by their interweavings with the Sulphur of the Quick-silver as that it will not coagulate Milk and so becomes being well prepared a very harmless and innocent Medicine whilst the same sublimate thus sweetened by the Sulphur of its Mercury freshly added if therewith Antimony in lieu of Quick-silver be mixed the same acid Salts meeting with a different Sulphur in Antimony then in Mercury falls into a colliquation and fretting Fermentation causing a great heat and becomes a strong corrosive And as from the difference of Acids amongst themselves and their various assaults upon their Sulphurs cause various changes in the geuesis and transformations of Bodies both in the texture of Liquors and the concretions of Bodies So from various modes of aggression of our principles justleing differently according to various applications are produc'd varieties of effects which are discoverable from the difference of Spirits thence separable which in some at least upon rectification smite our Organs of sense with great variety as will appear these following ways Thus First If the principles are set awork in the seminals of things in a generative way as suppose in Vegetation here the principles by an evolution expand themselves in a slow but genuine Fermentation whose effects I mean their Spirits most what guise themselves in the minute effiuvia of odours especially in odorous Plants and that chiefly in the opening of the Flower though in many through the whole plant when the Sulphur is by circulation as I may say so subliliz'd by its connate acid as to pass off in a subtile Steam for hereby the acid not onely strikes the colour according to the varieties of Acids acting upon their proper Sulphur but also causeth an expansion and emanation of subtile parts Secondly If this Fermentative Vegetation be carryed on to the maturation of Fruits and in their Juices the foresaid principles be again set awork they then make different assaults combining in other manner of collisions then before as is evident from the vinous Spirits thence easily separable which partake much of the volatiz'd Sulphur Thirdly Thus if during Fermentation any quantity of a plant suppose Wormwood Mugwort Tansey c. should be gathered and laid together in heaps Here the principles make new and different collisions then before making retrograde motions which tend to a putredness of the Plants the product of which Fermentation is a volatile Vrinous Spirit as appears by Distillation thereof which is so strong in some Plants as that it doth very discernable ferire nares as I have felt in the Glastum or Wood prepared by that artifice of putrefactive Fermentation yea the workers thereof told me that when after a previous preparation by Grinding and exposing to the Air in Cakes they are laid in heaps the Fermentation is so very strong as the Vrinous Spirits thence issuing are searce tolerable to those that are near it which last named Spirits are as much a product of that sort of Fermentation as the two former are of theirs and therefore as we are not to guess at the quantity of vinous Spirts separable by that Fermentation peculiar to those Fermental juices as if pre-existent nor of Odours in Plants as aforehand in their minute seedlings before the openings of those powers by their own vegitative Fermentation so neither indeed ought we to esteem those vinous Spirits pre-existent in the Plants before putrefaction And as the different modes of the principles aggressions and collisions cause various sorts of Fermentations and different kinds of Spirits thence separable in the Vegital so likewise with some variation they do the like in the animal Family I mean that according to the viâ—ious methods of the principles mutual 〈◊〉 different sorts of Spirits thence result thus from the intestine struglings betwixt the native Acidum of the Stomack and the Sulphur in the Food begun in the Stomack carried on by the intermediate Ferments and compieated in the blood are produced those sorts of Spirits we call animal Thus from the same principles acting upon each other in a
wrought up into those bodies in their natural generation are continually by a constant wheeling off after a little rotation in the Air in the great capitellum of the Amosphere turn'd into water again or into watery vapours which are but water rarified and how that watery vapour is as one spring in the Air for the setting all other Fermentations awork not onely useful towards the actual flagration of combustable matter maintaining thereby the great round and circulation of generations and reductions of all bodies But also from the same moisture in the Air carried thither in the great circulation and fed by incessant subterraneal steams arising especially from Springy and other watery places which whether in the form of Dews helps to feed Corn and Grass kept back by long droughts or whether wrapt up more invisibly in the Air doth yet reach some of the tender veins of other vegetables or uniteth with the slender fibers of their roots plac'd in Sandy Gritty or other barren Ground and thereby either way by a sort of filtration is communicated to their Juices whence such Plants which otherwise could scarce be thought to receive any sufficient supply from such barren Soils admit of a competent stock of moisture able to carry on their vegetative Fermentation whereby they grow and thrive well And hence it is that Câ—pin and several other Plants onely set in Sand and sometimes sprinkled with water doth from the foresaid moisture in the Air vegetate and like well Nor here to shew how Air after a double manner contributes towards the Fermentation both of animals and vegetables yea towards the producing the highest of Fermentation Fire nor shall we take time here to insist upon water as the true material principle indispensibly necessary for the production of all bodies the want of which in the grand circulation of nature bring on a consuming drought in all bodies whereby those concretes whose natives the principles are wither and dye because their principles of Acidum and Sulphur having not whereon to work and model bodies with desert them taking wing into their own aether leaving their former receptacles to pine away in a continual marasme and unavoidable tabers Nor to shew how water is indeed as essentially requisite materiae gratia for natural as Stone and Wood are for artificial fabricks whilst the active principles of of Acidum and Sulphur are the inward artificers the implanted fabers yea the hidden limners who by the manuduction of Seeds hews out forms shapes and draws forth the lineaments and portraitures of all things answering ad vivum from the unerring rules of nature their beautiful antitypes invisibly coucht in the initials of all bodies But now studying brevity shall leave them to a further discourse From what is premised concerning this our Doctrine of Fermentation how it is performed in all vegetation as being the lowest orb in the whole round world of nature it moves in and yet is the true beginings of all fire in bodies and that the most violent of fires is no other then this Fermentation in the most rapid manner the principles furiously driving upon each other will be evident and very obvious from this following mechanical experiment Take the subtile aethereal Spirit of Venice Turpentine four Ounces which is nothing else but the Sulphur of that vegetable resinous gumm comminuted and subtiliz'd by gentle distillation and intimately marryed to a defaecate implanted acid as also Aqua fortis six Ounces both recently drawn mix them together in a Glass-Viol and they will presently fall into a furious Fermentation which will arise to that height as actually amongst the thick clouds of fumes to burn and blaze out of and above the Orifice of the Glass in a visible flame Now what is observable in this Fire thus by the foresaid mechanick produced and whence the causes the same may truly we think be said of all other fires in combustable concretes for here the Acidum in the Aqua fortis lately made is very strong closeth with the Acid in the Spirit of Turpentine immediately sets upon the Sulphur in the same vegetable Oylie Liquor which Sulphur being congenial as Sulphurs usually are to each other to that in the Aqua fortis increaseth in its vigour whereby both the Acid and the Sulphur even in both Liquors become fortified and forthwith fall into an intestine Collision whence the Fermentation begins which being by the purity and sincerity of the principles more and more heightened and invigorated having no heterogeneous matter to interrupt their inward duellings at length arise to that degree as to colliquate into an actual fluid flame which is the very same cause we elsewhere assign to to the production of all usual Fire in combustable concretes only with this difference that in such stagrations conceived from the immediate conflicts of the principles there are not as I said those heterogenities interwoven as in other combustable concretes set into that rapid motion by kindling or firing Thus I say these actual flagrations whether from the furious assaults of fiery acido-Sulphurous Liquors as is apparent from the foresaid mechanical experiment or from Acids and Sulphurs set into intestine conflicts in combustable concretes as is evident in all usual Fire is no other then our foresaid Fermentation in a most violent hurry the principles acting furiously upon each other while other slower Fires are maintain'd by sleighter and more gentle touches of the same principles Hence methinks when I behold the varieties of Vegetables I cannot but esteem them as so many igniculi little Fires shewing their various lustre in their peculiar colours Yea to me the whole appearance of nature in the concretions of most bodies throughout the triplicity of her dominions some Petrificks and such like anomolous productions excepted is nothing else but so many Lamps burning in water each of them distinguishing a parcel thereof into this or the other visible figuration which we commonly call bodies or concretes so that the Philosophers ignis aqua I mean both their Mercury and the grand Solvent the Alchahest in which the ignis Sophorum is artificially implanted in the mercurial or watery juices is but an Epitome of what nature in the great volume of the World sets down in Folio yea is no otherwise preparable by art then what to a Philosophick eye nature is constantly performing in its great orb of productions And as each Body carries its central Fire shut up in its Bosom expanded or blown up by the evolution of its seminals depending upon the implanted active principles of Fermentation so likewise that adventitious heat which helps to foster Fermentation in such juices or concretions where the active principles seem to be immur'd in the weighty bulk of terrestrial strial parts ought in its degree to be gentle soft and symbolical to the Fermentative principles which if it exceed in lieu of chenishing dissipates the nimble agents and spoils the act of Fermentation and this is evident not onely
in the concretions and maturations of Fruits but in the Fermentations of potable Liquors Thus as to the First Fruits while upon the Trees by the help of the Sun have their vegetative Fermentations compleated by the Sulphurs sweetening and maturating their Acids the like is done though nothing nigh so well in Fruits taken off the Trees before they be ripe and laid by in Straw Hay or the like whereby the warmth of the Air there formerly begun Fermentation is in some measure carryed on to maturation whereas if exposed to a more warmth or a greater degree of heat if done in Water they are Codled if before the Fire they are Roasted In both which although somewhat sweetened from what they were yet are far short of the pleasant gust and delicate colour they arrive at by their more natural and gentle maturating heat Thus if any Grain suppose Barley c. be steeped and afterwards laid in heaps till it contract a spontaneous heat this very heat transcending that which is peculiar to its own vegetative Fermentation suspends or rather indeed perverts the intention of nature whereby it will never so vegetate afterwards as to go on to a propagation by Seed but onely if permitted by neglect of turning will shoot forth a spurious branch call'd vulgarly an Acrespire Thus as to the last Fermentative Liquors if they have any other heat but what results from the collisions of their own active principles or at least in degree is congenial thereto then the intention of nature is perverted by the dissipations of the principles of Fermentation or at least by the graduations of the Acid above the Sulphur as appears in heating the Fermentative Liquor too much or in putting it up too warm in the Vessels the like happens I mean a dissipation of the Fermentative agents or an exorbitancy of the Acidum in hot seasons or with the percussions of the Air by the noise of Guns or Thunder or from insolation or the like In all which the crasis of Fermentable Liquors are perverted and the Acidum by overpowering the Sulphur grows exorbitant subverting the temperature of the whole CHAP. IX HAving thus sleightly for brevities sake run through the reasons and causes of Fermentation from the lowest to the highest degree thereof in all natural productions throughout the threefold kingdom of Nature and shewed those from the genuine causes and natural principles to be the fountain of Heat in and amongst bodies Now come we to consider of some other sorts of Heat that seem to arise either from other manner of Fermentations or from other causes of which are all Fermentations or Ebullitions made betwixt Acids and all kinds of Alcalies whether lixivial or alcalizate fixed or volatile the Fermentation and Heat obvious in quicklime made by the affusion of water heat also caus'd from the collision and attrition of solid bodies For indeed from a due examination I find there is no Heat produc'd amongst bodies I mean from their own intestine principles what sort soever it be but what is referable of one of these two viz. either Acids and Sulphurs or to Acids and Alcalies The first is the natural cause of Heat as thence springing from its genuine source which admits of degrees even to actual flagration The other is artificial and never arrives to the height of the former I found therefore upon due consideration that the foresaid Fermentations and Heat reckoned amongst those which arise betwixt Acids and some sorts of Alcalies might be soly'd from one of these two causes viz. either from our deposited principles of Acid and Sulphur or from a mutual fretting betwixt Acids and urinous Spirits Thus we suppose and elsewhere in our Lithologio Physica illustrate in all Petrifick concretions somewhat of a Sulphurous principle lockt up in the strickt texture of the petrifying native Alcaly which when an acid menstruum comes to terebrate finding the Sulphur its proper object closeth therewith and from their mutual struglings happens the solution of the body thence proceeds the Ebullition and consequently in some where it is strong Warmth For we suppose a Sulphur or Sulphurous principle to be as a cement to bind up the petrifick Alcali in all or most of stony concretions Thus also we suppose in all fixt lixivial Alcalies or fixt Salts as they are vulgarly called a Sulphurous principle to be close shut up in the texture thereof and that every fixt lixivial Alcali is a new compage of the same prae-existent principles produc'd and bound up by the Acidum of Fire where the Acidum and Sulphur are so interwoven with a volatile urinous Spirit or Salt as that by force of Fire they do colliquescere melt down into a body dissolvable per deliquium which is generally esteemed a simple Salt but having discourst largely thereof in our Halologia shall now wave it and onely say that these fixt Alcalies vulgarly reputed solitary Salts being new textures of the intrinsick principles do by that neutrality of Essence they are wrought into by the Fire from new complications I say do make different assaults upon Acids then before Hence it is that upon a double account as I said that Acids mixed with these Alcalies may cause an effervescence viz. either as meeting with the Sulphur close bound up with the Acid and urinous Spirit or Salt in the compage of the Alcali and so to cause an Ebullition and Heat according to our foresaid principles or as meeting with the volatile urinous Salt close rivetted with the Sulphur and Acid may either way cause an effervescence Onely this difference which is considerable is to be noted betwixt these Fermentations made between Acids and Sulphurs as they happen in petrifick concretions and fixt lixivial Alcalies from those which happen in the general course of nature inasmuch as Fermentations which are set awork amongst animals vegetables yea and many minerals do produce a quite different effect from those lately cited as appears in animal Fermentations their effects are the production of animal Spirits c. In vegetable Fermentations their effects are either such which immediately result from the slow pac'd motion of the principles viz. Vegetation Volatization of their Sulphurs Odours c. or are the effects of the more sensible Fermentations in all vegetable juices in order to potable Liquors which are vinous Spirits or the effects of mineral Fermentations which if done in the bowels of the Earth where no current of water happens are the productions of mineral concretes c. If where waters have their Channels in their great circulation their effects are hot Baths c. Or Lastly if the Fermentation be from mineral bodies and corrosive menstrua the effects are stifling fumes c. All which in their different classes happen from the looseness of the compage of their Sulphurs and from their facile inclination to volatization But in the late cited effervescences betwixt Acids and Alcalies whether in Petrifick or lixivial Salts their Sulphurs being naturally
are seen to cleave to the tops of Maine Masts and at the Sterns of Ships by the Ancients call'd Castor and Pollux by our English-men corpus-Ants and very probably is the same with that meteor we call ignis fatuus of which as also concerning the Light seen upon the impressions of footings in the Sand upon Sea-shores we shall shortly speak more All which give Light in the Dark viz. in the Air not illuminated by any Light from the Sun so that we may say of things that occur to our sight that they carry Fire and Light in their Bellies and that by an excitation of their intrinsick Ferments their inside tapores are set above board It remains therefore that we try these Lights and examine whether all or most of them may not according to our Hypothesis be solv'd from various degrees of Fermentation grounded upon our principles of Acidum and Sulphur from various causes differently excited We shall begin with that which is most obvious viz. culinary Fire and examine how Light is produced therefrom no sooner are the inbred Acidum and Sulphur of any combustable concrete set into a violent Fermentation kindled by the Fire or symbolical Fermentation already in actual motion put to it but forthwith by the help of the Air the principles are set into a rapid intestine motion which yet more and more being sharpened by the Air ariseth by degrees to that pitch as to fall into an actual ignition and from thence being yet more thin'd by the interweavings of the Air breaks forth into flagration or ignition with Flame Fire and Flame seem to differ only in this that in the struglings of the principles and thereby in the rejecting the heterogenites the Air is more complicated in making Flame then in bare ignition Flame being but Fire rarified by the intertexture of Air which by such rarifaction of a dark cloudy smoke or fume makes a diaphanous Flame Air is necessary for ignition and flagration upon a double account First from its moisture brought into it from the grand Fermentation and Circulation of other Bodies whereby the principles of Firing become more liquid and thence fall into a more intensly furious and colliquating Fermentation according to that of Silenus the Epicurean brought in by Virgil semina terrarum c. Et liquidi simul ignis next by its own peculiarly plyable penetrative and circulating nature whereby it insinuates into every of the principles actings keeping them in a constant agitation thereby maintaining their wheel of motion as long as any combustable matter remains and is well put together So that by the first qualification Air by its spongy nature imbibes moisture wheeling off from other bodies in their incessant Fermentation and thereby becomes qualified for keeping other Fermentations afoot and then by its other qualification of penetration and being as a Fan to blow off the loose Corns as I may say or heterogenious matter ingendred by the foresaid rapid Fermentation And by both it becomes truly capable of assisting the principles of Acidum and Sulphur in their furious combating as thereby to turn vast bulkie bodies of combustable matter first into Fire and Flame and at last by winding off into water leaving some few Ashes wherein remain some Salt and in some vegetable concretes the seedling of the former body For all combustable bodies are by this agitation of the innate Acidum and Sulphur with the co-operation of the Air in that double foresaid respect reduced after a little rotation into the Air to water again And although Fire moistens no bodies put thereto yet doth it really go off not onely in a liquid but humid form witness the condenc'd steams of mineral Sulphur or Brimstone burning under a Glass campane is sav'd in an acid Liquor also Spirit of Wine fired and condensed by such an artifice appears in an infipid water yea for ought I know the like might happen with some small variation to most combustable bodies if their fumes were condenced by such a contrivance however the Air at the long run condenceth all those steams Fire wheeleth off in into water This being premis'd we say that the highest degree of Fermentation whereby the principles are put into a rapid motion maketh Fire and that is done by the help of Air as aforesaid which Fire of ignition gives Light by a continual winding off in luminous rayes springing from the foresaid Fermentation and that by the further complications of Air interwoven in the texture of Fire whereby the otherwise gross fumes gains a more Aethereal liquidity is that we call Flame which is yet more luminous then bare ignition Not here to insist whether Light either of the Sun or other luminous bodies be made any other way then by refraction for although the rayes of the Sun make their exit in right lines from the source of their Fermentative motion yet being to wade through a fluid medium I mean our Atmosphere where ever and anon hitting upon liquid particles of rarified water born up by a Columne of the same extended perhaps as far as the surface of the Earth and may be further must needs have their Lines broke their Files disordered and their Rayes much altered being put into oblique motions amongst such a Sea of watery atoms Notwithstanding which refraction a luminous body may not undergo any sensible variation as to locality and that because our Eye is plac'd in the same medium with the luminous body if such as represented to us here below And as to the Sun perhaps that may be the very reason of the difference betwixt the apparent and real place thereof whereas an object so scituate as to have the reflecting luminous rayes to pass through two mediums of different textures must need sustain a greater difference as to the locality thereof witness an oar part immerst in water part out or a piece of Silver in a Bason of water But a luminous body becoming such by having its principles of Acid and Sulphur heightened by a furious Fermentation and being plac'd in the same medium with our Eye the luminous rayes continually winding off in that rapid motion of the combating principles although I say they make their Exit in right Lines from the Source of their motion viz. the body they issue from yet must they be continually hitting upon watery Atoms they meet with in the Air which are many times back'd with strong Cylinders of the same whence they are distorted from their right Lines and become refracted from each of the adjacent watery bulla's whereby for ought we know the rayes of such bodies in their illuminating motion may become the more intended then if they should have reach'd the Eye in right Lines directly from the object For hereby those watery particles may become as so many minute apake Specula's by which each of these luminous rayes being once broke from its direct line becomes by various reflections and refractions multiplyed first hitting upon one then slanting off another
and so ad infinitum yet retaining their first impulse from the Fermentation or transmission from the luminous bodies whereby those rayes of Light are infinitely increased in their illuminating property easily communicating a diaphaneity to the adjacent and ambient Air to confirm which we may observe how notably a stream of watery particles cast from a Spring through a Cylinder of Sun-beams the eye being placed in the shade cutting it at Angles intends the Light thereof make by reflections and refractions new appearances of Light CHAP. XII THus much concerning Light as proceeding from culinary Fire or from ordinary combustable concretes put into that rapid furious Fermentation we call Fire The same we may say of the causes of Light in all Sulphurous matters whether in the dry form of mineral Sulphurs resinous Gumms Turpentine c. or in Liquids as Bitumen Oyles Vinous Spirits c. All of them in their flagration or flammability requiring Air and that in the double acceptation thereof as aforesaid We shall therefore in short take leave to say that these have their intrinsick principles of Acid and Sulphur set awork into an actual flagration by being kindled by some congenial fiery Fermentation and that by the assistance of the Air both as a Sponge and as a Fan especially the last which thereby not onely promotes the incipient Fermentation but also is necessarily required for the perpetuation thereof as long as any of the principles remain yet unwound off by flagration That there is an acid principle in all these we may elsewhere prove by demonstrable and undenyable arguments c. That there is also a Sulphurous principle no eye will doubt it upon beholding their flagration inasmuch as according to the vulgar acceptation Sulphur must be in all combustable matters onely we may observe this difference there is betwixt common culinary combustable matters and those last named viz. That the first are complicated with more heterogenious matter wrapt up in the texture of those concretes the latter are more simple come nearer to the nature of the principles themselves and therefore are the more readily and easily flagrable and consequently sooner give their exuberant Light to which the Air hath more easie admission towards the keeping the principles at work and to the facile boying them up in a constant luminous aereal flame burning without glowing or any considerable residence of a Caput mort ' especially in some Oyles and in all rectified vinous Spirits The same may be said of Light arising from attrition of Wood green or dry which having its inward principles of Acid and Sulphur rouz'd up by so quick a motion as attrition produceth gives the same appearances of Fire and Light and that from the same causes as that which is done by actual flagration from other external Fire added thereto So likewise the same may be urg'd in the solving the Phoenomenon of Light arising from attrition or percussion of Steel and Flints or any Grit-stone or Pyrites for as by that sudden motion of attrition or percussion the acidum of the Steel and the Sulphur in the Flints or Pyrites are set into a rapid Fermentation whence as we have shewed before ariseth Fire So Light being the immediate product and result of Fire must needs appear Wherefore the causes of Fire and Light arising hence are the same with those produc'd from others more obvious onely are differently put into action yea the Air is as much interested in the excitation of the one as the other And that according to the qualifications and manner aforesaid Nor need we go much further for solving the reasons of Light which appeareth from frication or pectation of some animals such as are Light from the Combing of a Womans head as hath been known that struck in the currying some Horses and that from a sudden frication of a Cats back if we consider the two first as depending upon the peculiar texture and singular disposition of the Fermentative juiees For it is not all individuals of either of the species from which that appearance of Light is obvious but onely those in whose constitution the principles arise or are graduated to a peculiar efflorescence in the very formation or genuine production of animal Spirits carryed by the nervous juices as their proper vehicle into the habit of the body which being excited by that sudden motion of pectation c. readily by the help of the Air give those quick flashes of Light And as to the last viz. the striking Flame or Light from a Cats back by frication in the dark as I have sometime taken pleasure to see done that I cannot otherwise impute then also to proceed from the peculiar graduation of the principles Acid and Sulphur in the texture of that animal and what is done by that sleight artifice in exciting the efflorescence of the principles in a luminous flame may for ought we know be done naturally by a brisk but slender woven Fermentation perform'd either in the texture of their eyes or rather in the very fabrick of their animal Spirits being a brisk floridues of those juices proceeding from a most depurate and heightly volatiz'd Sulphur carryed away to the Eyes by the optick Nerves from whence we suppose it is that their Eyes shine and give Light in the dark Which last I am induc'd to believe viz. That this luminous efflorescence peculiarly resides in the animal Spirits even in all the foresaid instances carryed by the nervous juices into the habit of the body because in the last instance the frication being made along the Spina running down the vertebre of the back excites that volatile and highly depurated Sulphur into a luminous flame whence its very probable that many other animals especially those which are highly fed and whose animal Spirits are of a fine spun texture having their Sulphur highly volatiz'd would I say upon trial be found from the foresaid causes excited by attrition pectation or the like to give the same luminous flame In the next place we come to give the reasons of Light in rotten Wood and dry'd Fish c. where we are to observe that as in the causes of Light aforesaid from the principles of Acid and Sulphur variously put into motion being excited into a Fermentation divers ways So amongst the rest this by putrefaction is not the least for Wood shines not tift its principles of Acid and Sulphur by a retrograde motion fall into a new sort of Fermentation whereby it winds off what the principles in their generative Fermentation wound on viz. unravels its own Clew taking in pieces what the other built up in which putrifick analysis the foresaid principles make different assaults upon each other by the intermission of moisture in the Air fortified perhaps with an acidity repugnant to that of the concrete And as moisture in the Air is necessary towards the promoting Fermentation in a generative way so likewise as necessary to the helping forward the destructive
or retrogressive Fermentation in taking bodies in pieces For putrefaction always begins where the principles terminate their actions in generative motions viz. upon the external superficies or outward rims of all Bodies where the ambient Air touch them and thence begin their retrograde motion in the natural analysis of Bodies which is evident from this observation viz. That I know by an artificial exclusion of Air how to preserve most perhaps all sorts of Fruits newly taken off the Trees as suppose Gooseberries Apricots Damsens Cherries c. so that in January I have had Tarts made of them to entertain Strangers with as we elsewhere in our Lithologia Physica further shew So that it is from a peculiar sort of Fermentation betwixt the Acidum and Sulphur in the unhingeing the compage of the concrete whence proceeds the flaming brightness of rotten Wood For the principles are not all wound off but onely are a going off in a luminous brightness whence also proceeds its facile susception of Fire from any Spark thereof insomuch as the last Threds of natures unraveling in the reduction of bodies by putrefaction especially in some is of the finest sort the volatile Sulphur winding it self off by slender vibrations from the connate acid in a subtile but luminous rotation The like account may be given of Light from some sorts of Fish hung up till they undergo an incipient putrefaction For while their principles of Acid and Sulphur do by the moisture in the Air undergo a putefactive Fermentation the Sulphur by those retrograde motions becomes more volatiz'd and by gentle touches from its inbred Acid winds off in a luminous flame In which supposition we are the more confirm'd inasmuch as they shine not till a sleight putrefaction of their juices be already begun To which may be added that in their putrefactive reductions a mucilage is made to appear which is the receptacle and as it were sperme wherein the two principles do the better shew themselves in their vibrations and luminous productions which mucilage the Fish imbib'd and incorporated into its self according to all probability from the estuations of the Sea upon Storms and Tempests of which we shall speak further below As to the Light from Glo-worms its probable that sort of insect takes its original from the putrid juice or excrements of some animal or other insect wherein the principles are winding off in a slender texture of an eradiating brightness which juice that insect yet retains For I look upon the slender woven flame inherent in Glo-worms and other foresaid putrid juices to proceed from a mutual but gentle vibration of the principles in their retrograde motion which although without any sensible heat that it has none we dare not say yet ceteris paribus to be in some measure answerable as to the ground of the causes to that flame made from the principles in their generative motion heightened by frication attrition or the like into a burning luminous flame CHAP. XIII NOw come we to treat of the production of luminous Meteors and to enquire into the causes of their Light such I mean as happen within the compass of the Atmosphere For the better understanding whereof we are first to conceive of the Earth as a body in whose intrails various Fermentations especially such as relate to minerals are continually at work to the compleating the generation of Minerals and Metals to the making Hot-Baths the producing the fontes acidi and to the perpetuating other grand Phoenomena of Nature Next that these Fermentations of subterraneal juices I mean as to the effects thereof terminate not always upon the external cortex of the Earth but are continually breath forth whose subtiliz'd and volatiz'd particles especially the Sulphureous are incessantly passing off in the slenderest of textures viz. in a subtile apporrhea or invisible steame into the Atmosphere filling it with plenty of agil nimble parts floating in the Air as in their proper Sea and dissolv'd therein as in their peculiar fluid menstruum Also we are to conceive that the Atmosphere doth not onely lodge plenty of the foresaid effiuvia arising from mineral but likewise from animal and vegetable Fermentations wheeling off in tenuious combinations and slender woven nexures undiscernable to our Eyes although fortified by the best microscopes whereby the Air becomes the common receptacle of innumerous multitudes and swarms as I may say of volatiz'd Acid and Sulphurous particles not onely issuing through the pores of the Earth but also from other bodies upon the surface thereof continually spending themselves in insensible effuvia kept a foot by their unwearyed Fermentations In which consideration we are to apprehend of the Earth not onely as the common matrix impregnated with those intestine Fermentations from mineral juices but also as from whose exuberant lap plenty of other more simple and sometimes sensible I mean watery steams are especially from springie places continually issuing forth insomuch as those last are discernable to a curious eye intently looking upon the surface of the Earth a little after Sun-rise the eye being somewhat elevated above the Level of the ground and directed towards the Sun by which curious observation Springs themselves are sometimes found out And as the Earth in the consideration aforesaid so also every particular concrete has its Atmosphere more or less extending its orb of activity according to the quick or slow pac'd inward Fermentations I mean according to the more brisk or flat onsets and encounters of their principles Acid and Sulphur And further that many of those slender woven combinations are by reason of their tenuity so indissipable as to retain the specimen of their first original even after long at least succedaneous rotations in the Atmosphere whereby they become capable of performing other effects to which they are naturally propence from the occurrance of other co-working causes as is evident in many unusual effects in or from the Air whose causes lying so remote from our sences we do not easily apprehend concerning which we have not time now to reckon These considerations being premis'd it will not be difficult hence to solve the Phoenomena of those short liv'd luminous textures Meteors where we shall not need to our help to call in either the exhalations of the Peripateticks because grounded upon improbable causes amongst which that of the supposition of extrinsical heat as the efficient is not the least Or the Cartesian Globeloy Or Gassendus his Glomeres being supposed complications of Nitro-vitriolick-Sulphurous-steams Or Nitro-aereal particles common to the Air and Nitre according to the Hypothesis of a late Author Nor lastly shall we call in any other Hypothesis to contribute to our assistance But shall study to trace the sootings of our own principles although making their way through as yet hidden and unknown paths making our free inquest whether Meteors may not from our foresaid principle be genuinely and satisfactorily solv'd We say therefore that amongst the Mineral and
cerevisia edulia prius grata dulcia quando corrumpi incipiunt ingrate acescunt To which we shall add the suffrage of the industrious Tachenius a consideration highly worth his own due and well-weighing inspection Lac saith he sponte acessit Hip. Chym. p. 90 91. sicut reliqui succi tum vegitabilium quam animalium cum in putrifactionem tendunt imo nil putrere neque generari potest novi nisi praecedat aciditas As to the last thing propounded in order to the concluding this discourse we might say that Acids in order to the concretions and reductions coagulations and liquifications condensations and rarifactions solidity and fluidity and other various modifications of bodies differently denominated according to the different impressions they make upon our sensual Organs I say Acids in the solving the foresaid appearances of bodies in the main fall under a double consideration viz. either as active and fluid or passive and consistent Under the first viz. while its active and so its succulent liquid or fluid after which manner it appears in all actual Fermentations whence immediately result those grand distinctions of concrete bodies known to us under the notion of animals vegetables and minerals which Fermentation is previous to all manner of concretions in the triplicity of natures workings as we have in the foregoing discourse briefly illustrated For while vegetation amongst Plants animation in the composure of juices and thence of the structure of animal bodies and mineralization in order to Hot-Baths are perform'd the Acids concern'd must I say of necessity be fluid and actually succulent otherwise a stop or lett would immediately be impos'd upon the workings of nature in the formations and transformations of bodies and consequently would cease to propagate themselves For no growth or accretion of parts in the genesis of natural bodies is perform'd without a succulent Fermentation where an Acid is in an actual yea fluid motion From which succulency of Acids together with intermediate coagulations and hardenings perform'd at due seasons all concrete bodies in the threefold Kingdom of nature are produc'd and from these two viz. Acids in succis solutis working upon their inbred Sulphurs by a natural Fermentation and from the concretions of these juices by the help of the ambient Air always in the genoration of bodies conspiring to such effects I say from the motion of liquid acid juices and their weavings by concretion seasonably perform'd it is that from very minute seedlings Plants are brought on to great bigness Thus from Oak-Seedlings call'd Acorns whose seminal part lyeth in a very small and inconsiderable compass may be produced too and is daily growing to be great bulkie Oaks So that when we see a vast spreading Oak and look at a small seedling whence such in process of time is produc'd if we consider what has been done and which way nature has so busied her self as to bring forth so disproportionable a bulk to the little plant Embrio compriz'd in the seedling we cannot I say chuse but view the inward agents set at work in the epitomiz'd Oak in a fluid state which by the expansive motions of their juices in their natural Fermentative vegetation as they come to the Air become thereby woven into Stems and Leaves and by further hardenings are condenced and incrustated in part into Wood and Bark So that by the concretions of the Sap wherein the principles are in a liquid state or Fermentation carryed up betwixt the Bole and Bark are made considerable increase in Bulk till at length it swell to that huge stature we see many of them grow too As to the bulk it self of an Oak Ash c. it oweth its original as well as all other concretions do materially to water But that water should be form'd coagulated and put on the shape of an Oak Ash c. that is wholly ascribable to the intrinsick agents or intestine principles of Acid and Sulphur set in the seedling into a Fermentative motion displayed into that figure by the manuduction and evolution of the contracted and shut up Seed carryed up and conveyed by their proper Vessels whether by the names of veins arteries c. with their accompanyed Air Vessels according to the ingenuous Malpigius and our Countrey-man Dr. Grew What we have said of an Oak is compatible suo modo to all other vegetables Then as to the other consideration Acids fall under in order to the fabrick of bodies whether in the form of natural or artificial concretions viz. as it is passive or becomes consistent so it stands in opposition to fluidity or rather is the complement thereof determining it into solid bodies For we see no other cause to which natural concretions coagulations incrustations consolidations congelations c. comprized under the notion of binders up of bodies can or ought to be more genuinely refer'd then to Acids under this consideration what I pray are Stalks Leaves Husks Grains c. of Plants or lesser vegetables but the Acidum woven and condenc'd with some Sulphurous parts into those forms by the access of Air what are the bole bark and branches of Trees or larger siz'd vegetables but the concretions and hardenings of the native Acid juices together with the inclosure of some Sulphurous parts by the co-operation of external Air what the Fruits of Trees but the coagulations of Acids sweetened by their Sulphurs thereby brought on to maturity and thence made fit for other Fermentations in order to potable Liquors What amongst animals is flesh and musculous parts but the coagulation of the blood and other humours to whose constitution a genuine Acidum in a due proportion is essentially requisite What the Bones but parts consolidated from implanted Acids in whose coagulation or condensation some Sulphurous parts are also taken in And as in the natural constitution of the body and eucrasie of the humours Acids are chiefly concern'd in the concretions coagulations and consolidations of the parts so likewise in the dycrasie of animal juices and preternatural concretions and indurations c. of the body Acids are primarily concern'd Thus what are Fistula's but callosity and obdurate hardness of the inward parts viz. the veins arteries c. being hardened by a spurious Acidum lodg'd in those particular parts What are the podagrical Tophi and Nodi but the Synovia of the Joints hardened and congealed by a gouty Acidum fixing it self by coagulation upon those parts What are hard tumours but swellings from Scorbutick Acids or from Acids of some badly cured Disease lurking in its Acid seminary for a time till other concurring causes sets the spurious Ferment more a work and by the predominant Acidum the general faber of pains and dolours the Vessels are obstructed and the humours of some particular parts coagulated into those obdurate swellings Lastly What is the Stone in the Gaul Bladder or other parts of a humane or other animal body but chiefly an Acidum fixed upon a petrifick Earth and urinous
Spirit of Nitre with Oyle Olive whereby the vegetable Oyle is coagulated and made consistent being congealed thereby into a white Fat or Butter as Dr. Grew observeth And as nature produceth Rosins and Gums in Plants and Trees congealing the juices of wounded Stems Boles Stalks Heads c. by the acidum of the Air according to the disposition and genius of the Plants whence Rosins as of Turpentine Scamony c. Gums as Camphire Opium c. so in like manner Art in imitation of Nature and from the same principles can produce somewhat equivalent thereto Thus if the acid Oyle of Vitriol be mixed with the Oyle of Anise-seeds the vegetable Oyle is immediately by the acidum in the mineral distill'd Liquor congeal'd into a perfect Rosin Yea and by the addition of Acids to some vegetable Oyles may be resembled the production of Turpentines Thus Oyle of Vitriol added to the distill'd Oyles of Turpentine Nutmegs Juniper c. after Fermentation become of a consistence altogether emulating usual Turpentine without the least appearance of Oyle swiming on them nay although Spirit of Wine be afterwards added yet will it cause no separation of any of the Oyle But the contrary happens if you add Spirit of Wine to an essential Oyle before mixture with the Oyle of Vitriol for then the Spirit of Wine and Oyle of Vitriol unite and reject the essential Oyle to the superficies So that the reason why distill'd Oyles by the foresaid artifice subside in the form of a liquid Turpentine is because that upon Fermentation from the foresaid mixture the Oyles receive such an alteration by suffering their volatile parts to go off as that what remains combining with the Acidum of the Vitriol becomes thence more a Turpentine then an Oyle and consequently as heavier must subside although Spirit of Wine be put thereto which otherwise would swim above it So that from the premisses it will naturally follow that Turpentines are indeed but liquid Rosins and Rosins no other then concrete Turpentines and further that Turpentines are Oyles incrassated or condenced by addition of Acids yea all but several disguises of Sulphur altered according to different degrees of Acids and their various assaults upon Sulphurs It s worth by the by our observation that even from the mixture of some Acids and Sulphurs sanguification I mean as to its tincture may as well be imitated and shadowed forth unto us as from those of volatile Alcalies and Sulphurs Thus the acid Oyle of Vitriol mixed with the essential Oyles either of Turpentine Juniper Nutmegs or Amber Strikes besides the Fermentation and intense heat they cause a deep blood red colour as I have tryed And I do not know yet but that even Alcalies whether fixt or volatile may from the same reason of their hidden and shut up Acids intend the colours of Sulphurous vegetables concerning which Acids we elsewhere touch yea and from the same operation of the genuine Acids upon their proper Sulphurs in the great work of vegetative Fermentation are struck those various and no less admirable colours in the great field of vegetables as we have hinted before And to conclude as we have shewed water to be the material principle of all concretions so the distinction and specification thereof depends upon Fires or Ferments lodg'd and hid in the inwards of Seeds which Fires or Ferments are differenced from the great variety chiefly of Acids not onely in Fermentation but Concretion in Fluidity but Solidity and consistency of bodies For what 's the tapestrey of vegetables in their peculiar verdure spangled with an amicable lustre but so many central Fires or Ferments at first hid in their seminals and afterwards by the co-operation of other conspiring causes displayed into almost infinitely variety of Plants branching themselves in their different delicate and beautiful colours And what are animals but vital Lamps burning in bodies and yet those bodies no otherwise consum'd but by the glowing dwindling and at last extinguishing of those vital tapers whereby not onely animals but also vegetables are apt besides their common putrilage from plenty of moisture to spend themselves by the declining of the foresaid Ferments in hecticks and wearing marasmes which vital Ferments are more noble then the vegetable because working in greater varieties of Vessels and therefore the more highly by circulation sublim'd and graduated into animal Spirits the ultimate product of vital Ferments yea in humane bodies is the very vinculum of the rational Soul that Heaven born Creature to the body being its vehicle here a large Field is open where I could freely let my thoughts and pen run but shall at present set up my staft and content my self although unwilling in drawing the Curtaine over the rest and indeed at length after many conclusions make an End FINIS This following Paragraph is to be inserted instead of that in page 11. line 29. HEnce it is that some of those Sulphuroushot-waters may with good success in order to the Cure of some Diseases be taken inwardly others not Those that may are generally such whose Sulphurs are either from Common Brimstone Vitriol or Antimony or from Marcasites and Pyrites bordering thereon of which sort among the rest are those of the Bath in Somerset-shire which take their original from such kind of Minerals or Mineral juices lodg'd in the bowels of those great Mountains at the foot or centre whereof those Baths break forth which although of late are found to be successful in the Cure of ome Diseases yet it s very suspicious they injure other persons who without good advice drink those waters so that as to a universally medicinal water they come far short of the Sulphur-water at Knarsbrough in York-shire And indeed these hot-Sulphur-Bath-waters ought to be drunk with a great deal of caution and but by some persons and that too in extraordinary cases yea in no wise to be drunk as a general healing water Those Sulphurous hot-waters which are altogether improper for inward use are such as are impregnate with the Sulphurs of Bitumen Arsneck Risogalla c. or with the Minera's thereof or at least with such Marcasites as participate therewith they are such as we elsewhere name Now the acidum which necessarily concurs to those Fermentations as an indispensible Sulphur opens the bodies of those Sulphurs and thereby either detains them while in fieri in succis solutis or from concretions reduce them to such by either way renders some wholsome and healing others noxious for inward use according to the difference of the foresaid Sulphurs An Advertisement to the Reader THere is now published a Second Part of the Catalogue of Chymical Books in English to be added to the First Part formerly Printed with the Philosophical Epitaph together with a Third Part of the Chymical Catalogue or a Collection of such things published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society as belong any way to Chymistry or the study of Nature by Art in the Animal
natures works I saw that she perform'd the fa e solutions of mineral Sulphurs in some parts of the bowels of the Earth by her own menstrua of Acids prepared by her dextrous Art of Chymistry the very foundation and exemplar of all we call Artificial as she did in other actions reputed amongst most Authors Heteroclites and was the same in the latter as the former and from hence I saw that reputed causticks I mean fixt lixivial Alcalies were no other then Acids viz. of the Fire fixt upon bodies so that I found nature symbolical in all her actions and always consonant to her own principles And that I might improve this notion the better not taken notice of by any other Author I know I began to make a strict scrutiny into the nature of fixt Alcalies I considered First That the more Fire they endured and the higher they were calcin'd and the sooner us'd after calcination the stronger and more fiery Causticks they were 2. That they would never calcine to a strong Salt unless perform'd in open Vessels or Crucibles where the Fire might more immediately touch upon them and concentre its own acidum 3. That if after they were cold and kept from the Air and then Spirit of Wine or Water was put thereto thence a heat was presently produc'd which as I conceive was from no other cause then this viz. That either of those Liquors sets the acidum contracted from the Fire and the Sulphur or volatile Alcaly in the Salt into a sudden Fermentation dissolving and so putting them into an intestine collision 4. And fourthly I considered That the longer these Salts were expos'd to the Air even to a solution per deliquium the more mild and soft in operation they become loosing thereby gradually their Acids imbibed from the Fire insomuch as by often solution per deliquium the compage of that Salt from the vinculum of the fiery Acid is taken off as that the whole may thence be reduc'd into an insipid Water and Earth and no Arcauum neither Lastly That although these fixt lixivial Salts do make strong Ebullitions with Acids put to them yet that happens either betwixt the additional acid and the Sulphur in the Salt or betwixt it and the volatile alcaly bound up in the artificial concretion That there are Sulphurs in those Salts or new textures of Plants appears from their lixivial or saponary property and that there are also volatile alcalies is evident from their precipitating faculty and from their intestine strugling with acids To which may be added this observation that after fixt alcalies have lost the acidum contracted from Fire which they do by keeping and sometimes exposing to the air together with the addition of somewhat which dints the foresaid Acidum may then by Art be made to split into Oyle and urinous Spirit or volatile Salt As to that great objection against the acidity of fixt lixivial Alcalies viz. the precipitation of such solutions made with Alcalies by Acids inasmuch as it is generally observ'd that what solutions Alcalies make are most promptly precipitated by Acids I answer First That although what more simple I mean volatile Alcalies do dissolve are precipitated very readily by Acids vice versa yet where Alcalies are more complicated and interwoven with other essential parts there the precipitation by Acids of what those already have dissolv'd are in no wise wholly ascribable to them as alcalies but equally compitible to other parts in the concretion And in the next place I answer that even some acids are capable of precipitating what others have dissolv'd to prove and illustrate which I try'd this following instance viz. I took a clear solution of saccharum Saturni which I had prepared with distilled Vinegar which no man will deny to be an Acid upon which I poured a pretty smart Spirit of Vitriol whereupon it presently became Milkie and caus'd a precipitation of a pure white calx of Saturn which precipitation may also be done with Spirit of Salt The same likewise will Spirit of Salt do poured upon a solution of refin'd Silver made in double its weight of Aqua fortis in preparing that admirable anomolous neutral concretion call'd Luna Cornea mentioned by the honorable Boyle in his origin of forms and not onely Spirit of Salt but also Oyle of Vitriol will cause the like precipitation Whence its obvious to any eye that what some Acids dissolve others may precipitate from the congenealness of the solvend to one solvend more then another For both those wherein the solutions of the metals were made viz. Spirit of Vinegar and Aqua-fortis are as undoubtedly acids as those which cause the precipitations viz. Spirit of Vitriol and Spirit of Salt So that the precipitation of bodies depend not upon acid or alcalizate Liquors as such but upon the consanguinity if I may so say of bodies or solvends to liquors or solvents viz. whilst an acid having dissolv'd one body meeting with another akin thereto le ts the former fall and from an abstruce affinity of parts dissolves the latter From whence it need not seem heterodox although to the most it may as yet a paradox to say that fixt Alcalies open the bodies of mineral Sulphurs as they are acido-Sulphurous Salts and that chiefly as they partake of the acidum of Fire assum'd by calcination and that precipitations of the same folutions may be perform'd and that too without the least absurdity in Philosophy by other supervening Acids as we have even now demonstrated As I observ'd all fixt Alcalies made out of Vegetables to work upon Mineral Sulphurs on the account of their being Acido-Sulphurous-Salts so I could not otherwise whilst I look'd upon the matter with a very intent eye judge of calx vive whose manner of operation in opening the bodies of Brimstone and other Mineral Sulphurs I could not charge to any other then its Acid which it had contracted from the Fire in the very calcination of that sort of Stone call'd Lapis calcarius viz. Free-stone or Lime-stone which that it chiefly partakes of the Acidum of Fire and thereby performs not only that but various other effects we have already in short demonstrated and shall further in Lithologia Physica From the premisses it will easily appear in eonfirmation of our former Doctrine that all solutions of Mineral Sulphurs in the bowels of the Earth are made by their peculiar Acids and that other solutions made by Art are but from the same principles under other disguises Therefore that which opens the body of Sulphur in these Mineral Marcasites through which this water we treat of runs must of necessity be an Acidum which afterwards is precipitated by another Acid of the Alom-bed through which at last it passeth As to that experiment we gave to illustrate the cause and manner of making that water by opening those vitriolin Marcasites with quick-lime in our Hydrological Essays although we there imputed it to the alcali yet now from second and
so say of a subtiliz'd Sulphur to dint Acids and thereby to resolve such as are coagulated so that to me the discussion of all tumours whether Scorbutick or others depend upon the resolving those coagulated Acids the intimate and real efficients thereof No sooner doth a Spurious predominant Acid coagulate any portion of the blood or other juice in any part of the body but presently an obstruction of those parts happen more or less according to the intense or remiss degree of the prevalent Acid which as it falls out in Vessels or Bowels reputed more or less noble viz. intensely or remissly concerned in the fabrick and circulation of vital juices and animal Spirits so it becomes the patron of different sorts of Diseases some whereof easily bending to more facile methods of Cure others more stubborn of which are the last mentioned not yielding but to more volatile subtiliz'd and penetrative Sulphurs such as are in this and other Sulphureus Baths By which I mean our Sulphur-Bath Scorbutick and Podagrick Patients have received considerable relief for which cause many persons finding thereby so much alleviation of the otherwise grievous Symptoms and such a mittigation of the severity of future fits of the Gout I mean as to what they might have expected without such a previous help do voluntarily make their annual returns to the Bath of which I could give several instances but that it doth not suit my present defign 3. By the use of this Bath the blood and humours are purified whence it becomes proper for Blâ—â—ches Scabs Itches Elephantiasis or Bastard Leprosie and other Scorbutick impurities of the Blood For it procures most excellent Sweats whereby the other impure Acids which are precipitated or cast off from the Blood in its circulation and topically fixed upon this or the other external part are loosened dissolv'd or mortifi'd which deprav'd Acids lodge in the habit of the body having their very Roots fixed in the ultimate digestion vitiating the Blood and Latex sent thither for the ordinary nutriment of the body in the common circulation thereof yea they are sometimes so fixed upon their own Roots as to transmute the otherwise alimentary juice by their Ferments into those external impurities which they do as really as a Crab-tree-scions or Bud ingraffed into a good Apple-stock doth from its own seminal Ferment turn the juice of the Stock into the nature and property of a Crab So that in such external vitiating of the humours which are onely skin deep the applications in order to Cure or Abstorsion must be such as can mortifie dissolve alter or correct the foresaid externally scituated Acids which may be and is most aptly perform'd by this Sulphur-Bath So that in many the like cases where those Acids are most pertinacious and the Maladies thence have taken deepest root viz. in the Elephantasis Psora Leprosie c. the most common and usual Purges and Diaphoreticks are altogether insignificant because they reach not those deeply impress'd Acids nor correct those spurious Ferments seated yea rooted in the habit of the body which such subtiliz'd Sulphurs as are in this Bath skilfully applyed with other assisting Medicines are apt chiefly to perform Amongst which external impurities the Lues Venerea being made by carnal contract may not improperly be reckoned which consists in a peculiar sort in its kind of a contagious Fermental Acid thence communicable to the juices of the body especially where the contagious Ferment by the first contract entered which by its corroding acor as a caustick fretting and inflaming those tender parts or coagulating the juices of some particular parts brought thither by an afflux of humours into venereal tumours whose restless Ferments yet lodge in their Bellies or inwards in both become the Authors of Noctunal pains polutions c. to the dinting of which spurious Fermental acor the cause of the aforesaid dolours the just mulct of that Sin must be chiefly aim'd at in the curing thereof which besides other Diaphoreticks may very well be perform'd by the help of this Bath And that too because Sulphurs especially such as are prepared and volatiz'd by the admirable Chymistry of Nature in the body or bowels of the Earth do sweeten and mortisie all such sort of Acids For which purpose in order to the Cure thereof not only Bathing and some other assisting Diaphoreticks but also the drinking the same water is requisite 4. By the use of this Bath the nervous maladies are also much helped of which sort are Cramps Convulsions Palsies Apoplexies being caused from the various seisures upon these juices also from the contorsions and disablements of the Vessels or Conduit-pipes the Nerves those juices are circulated or at least carryed in being the Organs wherein the animal Spirits move in order to sense motion and other vital functions proper thereto whose tone are altered contorted contracted or relax'd by several sorts of supervening Acids sent up in flatulent steams resulting from some spurious subordinate Fermentation whose Acids being strong have prevail'd and by a sort of sublimation are at length fixt upon those animal Cords causing obstructions contractions relaxations c. according to the morbid Acids the causes of Diseases relating to the genus nervosum Now as Acids are the cause why Nerves undergo those various alterations in their tone or texture by contractions relaxations c. and in their juices by coagulations and thence obstructions or other debilitudes whereby the volatile nimble animal Spirits become interrupted in their motion being block'd up by such sort of coagulations so in order to the Cure of these Diseases such Medicaments and Methods are to be inquired into as may dint alter and dulcifie such kinds of Acids and thence may loosen the contracted smooth and make even the contorted may strengthen the relaxed Cords yea and may every way answer the indications of the deprav'd tones of those animal pendula's or vital strings whereby the imprisoned Spirits the immediate product of vital Fermentation may again be set at liberty and all the animal functions be restored to their pristine state of which sort are our Sulphur-Bath which by correcting the Acids supple and soften the contracted strengthen and bind up the weak and very much repair in the maine the deprav'd tone of the genus Nervosum Lastly By the use of this Bath the contraction of the tendons and musculous parts I mean stiffness of the Limbs Joynts c. where the contraction is not too fixed are often remedied For these outward maladies being caused through some rejected Acids which wanting a due Fermentative motion to give them wing by perspiration are coagulated or hardened partly by the assistance of the Air in the external parts but by the Sulphur in the Bath the pores being opened and they dissolv'd and put into motion are either sweetened or carryed off Also its proper for alleviating Aches Old pains Strains Sciatica's which is a sort of Gout in those parts Rheumatisms and other griefs now too tedious to relate concerning most of which we might have given som particular instances but that it doth not suit with our present design undertaking chiefly a rational account of its causes and in general of its virtues As to the particular cases themselves which may confirm what we have already deposited as to the medicinal efficacy thereof we shall refer to another opportunity The END