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A42035 Curiosities in chymistry being new experiments and observations concerning the principles of natural bodies / written by a person of honour ; and published by his operator, H.G. Person of honour.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. 1691 (1691) Wing G1877; ESTC R9237 46,575 122

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Sulphur and less Mercury And tho the judicious Mr. Boyle has some suspitions of this strange Relation yet as to the Generation of Animals and Plants he thinks it not incredible since common Water which is indeed often impregnated with variety of Seminal Principles and Rudiments long kept will putrify and stink and then perhaps too produce Moss and little Worms or other Insects according to the Nature of the Seeds that were lurking in it And tho' the Distillation of Eels yielded him some Oyl Spirit Volatile Salt and Caput mortuum yet were all these so disproportionate to the Phlegm in which at first they boyl'd as in a pot of Water that they seem'd to have been nothing but Coagulated Phlegm which does likewise strangely abound in Vipers as hot in their operation and as vivacious as they are And seven ounces and a half of Human Blood yielded near six ounces of Phlegm before any of the Spirits began to arise and require the Receiver to be chang'd Corrosive Acid Spirits tho they seem to be nothing but Fluid Salts yet you 'l find them to abound with Water if either you entangle and so six their Saline part by making them corrode some idoneous Body or mortify it with a contrary Salt Thus in making of Balsamus Samech with distill'd Vinegar instead of Spirit of Wine the Salt of Tartar from which it is distilld will by mortifying and retaining the Acid Salt turn near twenty times its weight of the Vinegar into worthless Phlegm before it be satiated And in making the true Balsamus Samech which is nothing but Salt of Tartar dulcifi'd by distilling from it Spirit of Wine till it be glutted with the Vinous Sulphur as soon as the Spirit of Wine is depriv'd of its Sulphur by the Salt of Tartar the rest which is incomparably the greater part remigrates into Phlegm so that if Helmonts process be true which was confirmed to Mr. Boyle by a sober and skilfull Spagyrist who did indeed prepare the Spirit and Salt by a way that is neither short nor easie but added nothing to them Spirit of Wine seems to be Materially nothing but Water under a Sulphureous disguise tho' being so igneous that it will totally flame away 't is of all Liquors the most likely to be free from Water But Helmont's grand Argument for his Hypothesis is taken from the operation of the Alcahest which he says does adequately resolve Plants Animals and Minerals into one Liquor or more according to their several internal Disparaties of Parts without Caput mortuum or the destruction of their seminal vertues and that the Alcahest being abstracted from these Liquors in the same weight and vertue wherewith it dissolv'd them they may by frequent Cohobations from Chalk or some other fit substance be totally depriv'd of their seminal Endowments and by that means reduc'd to Insipid Water Here Mr. Boyle judiciously observes that it may be doubted whether this Water because insipid must be Elementary since the candid P. Laurembergius affirms that he saw an insipid Menstruum that was a powerfull Dissolvent and the Water which may be drawn from Quicksilver without addition tho' almost tastless will manifest a very differing nature from simple Water if you digest in it appropriated Minerals However the forementiond Experiments concerning the growth of Vegetables do sufficiently prove that Salt Spirit Earth and Oyl which are four of the pretended Chymical Principles may be produc'd out of simple Water But to return to our Author Having prov'd That Water is the only Material Principle of Bodies usually calld Mixt by three Arguments 1. Because none of the other pretended Chymical Principles have a right to that Title some of them not being naturally pre-existent in the Bodies from which they are obtain'd and all of them being reducible to Elementary Water 2. Because Water is the only Nourishment of all Animals Plants and Minerals and by consequence the only Matter of which they consist Because all Animals Plants and Minerals are by a true Analysis ultimately reducible to simple insipid Water Having evinc'd this I say by these three newly mention'd Arguments and Fire being the only Sublunary Body besides Air of which heareafter that these Arguments as hitherto prosecuted can with any colour of reason be pretended not to reach and being likewise by many enumerated amongst the Principles of Natural Bodies the next Proposition shall be that Prop. XVI Fire is nothing but an Acid Volatile Sulphur very swiftly mov'd FOR there is a certain Sulphur in every Inflamable Body which takes fire as soon as 't is put into a rapid motion whatsoever the Cause be that excites it to that motion This appears in the striking of fire by the collision of two Flints in the firing of the Axel-tree of a Mill or Coach that sometimes happens upon a long continued and vehement attrition and in many other such obvious Instances Oyl of Vitriol contains a great many Acid Sulphureous Particles proceeding as well from the Embryonated Acid that Corroded the Iron or Copper Oar in the Bowels of the Earth as from the Iron or Copper it self these Particles being excited to motion by the affusion of Oyl of Tartar or even genuine Spirit of Tartar produce a notable heat and Effervescency The Sulphur of Quick-lime whether it be innate or adventitious from the fire conceives a vehement Heat as soon as 't is excited to motion by the Alcaline Lixivial Particles set at liberty by the affusion of Water Finally to add no more Butter of Antimony consists chiefly of the Sulphureous Particles of the Antimony and the Salino-Acid ones of the Mercury Sublimate the latter being wash'd off with Water the former do more manifestly appear namely in Mercurius vitae which causes Vomiting without any danger of Corroding the Bowels and both of them being vehemently mov'd by the affusion of Spirit of Nitre there is an intense heat produc'd So that the Formal nature of Fire or Heat consists in Motion Now that the Sulphureous Particles of which Fire is materially constituted are of an Acid nature will abundantly appear from the ensuing Considerations I. The particles of the Flame of common Sulphur being receiv'd and Condens'd in a Glass Bell do compose a very piercing Acid Liquor II. There are not any Bodies more akin to Fire than the totally inflamable Spirits of fermented Vegetables And yet all the Principal Effects of these Fermented Spirits depend upon a Volatile Acid. For 'T is upon the account of its Acid Salt that Spirit of Wine is Coagulated in Spirit of Urine or Salarmoniac or in any other Volatile Alcali as also that it loses its strength by distillation from Salt of Tartar which imbibes and retains the Acid and receives an increase of weight thereby And Generous Wine that is turgent with this Spirit being drunk moderately sends a Volatile Acid to the Brain that makes a subtile effervescence with the Alcaline Animal Spirits and thereby produces Cheerfulness and a Vigorous Promptitude to
are form'd which are nourish'd at first by the grosser Part of the Seed and afterwards partly by the Mothers Blood and partly also perhaps by the Liquor contain'd in the Amnos or inner Membrane of the Foetus From this Process of Generation 't is easie to understand how that Disposition of some particular Part of the Parents Body which renders Him or Her obnoxious to any particular Distemper may be communicated to the same Part of the Foetus and render it obnoxious to the same Distemper Only the nature of the Impression which is made upon the Spirit that forms the Parts of the Foetus and which qualifies it to form them like the Parts of the Parents Body which it came from I say the particular nature of this Modification remains in the dark still Nor do I know how to illustrate it better than by comparing it to that which is little less obscure than it self namely the Modification which the Rayes of Light receive by being Reflected from various Objects and by which they are qualifi'd to produce in a darkned Room lively and distinct Representations of each of those Objects both as to their Figure and the Colour of their surface and 't is from the surface only that the Rayes receiv'd this Modification whereas the fore-mention'd Effluvia come from all the innermost Recesses of every Part and therefore from the correspondent Part of the Foetus like unto it not only in Figure and Colour but in the whole Nature and inward Textur of it That the Ideas of all the Parts do really exist in the Blood appears from the following Arguments 1. They have sometimes visibly appear'd in the Blood receiv'd into a Cucurbit immediately as it slows out of the Vein whilst it is warm and turgid with Spirits for some Medicinal Preparation See Borell Observ 2. Some that have drunk the Blood of any Animal or of another Man have been observ'd to partake of the Nature and Disposition of that Man or Animal Commodus his disposition was owing to his Mother who presently after his Conception drank the Blood of a cruel Gladiator that she was desperately in love with A certain Maid having drank some Cats-Blood as a Remedy for the Epilepsie did imitate Cats in her voice motion and Actions when the Fit was coming upon her watching silently at little Mouse-holes See Becker Microcosm Therefore to note that by the way the Transfusion of Blood seems not a safe way of curing Diseases 3. The Spittle of a Mad Dog makes other Dogs Men Horses or any other Animal wounded by his Teeth turn mad also and imitate his Actions and Gesticulations such as Barking Grinning Fearfulness of Water c. Now Spittle is an immediate production of the Blood that circulates through the Salivary Glandules therefore must have receiv'd from thence the Ideas that it infects the Spirits of the bitten Animal with Also other Venemous enraged Animals as the Tarantula c. communicate such Ideas by the little Wounds that their Teeth make in the Part they bite as transform the Spirits of the Party bitten to a ridiculous imitation of their Gesticulations Though every particular Part of the Foetus be form'd as has been said by the Evolution of its own Idea convey'd by the Circulation of the Blood from the Correspondent Part of the Parents Body unto the Testes where the Seed is made yet maimed Parents may have perfect Children namely if both Father and Mother be not mutilated at least not of the same Parts or if they have had perfect Seed in store before they were dismembred or if the defect of the Architect tonic Spirit that should have come to the Seed from the Part that is deficient be suppli'd by the strength of the Parents Imagination who by seeing daily other Infants Boys Girls Men Women all perfect without the defect of any Part may conceive so firm an Idea of a perfect Foetus as will by the Sympathy between the Imagination and the Seed formerly explain'd produce the very same Modification in the Seed that an Idea convey'd by the Blood from the deficient Part if it had not been wanting would have done For the Mothers Imagination may not only add to the Foetus a Spot representing the Thing Imagin'd in Figure and Colour but even the very Thing it self in its whole Nature How many Instances are there of Pregnant Women that have conceiv'd so strong an Idea of the Horns of some Beast that has terrifi'd them that the Impression thereby made upon the Foetus has produc'd not a Spot only representing it but a real substantial Horn though perhaps this Cause of the Phaenomenon be not always observed And hence it is that if the Parents be maimed from their Birth their Children are often mutilated of the same Part because they cannot easily conceive a firm Idea of the entireness of that Part which they never felt entire in themselves But if they were dismembred long after they can easily form a strong Idea of the Part that they have felt entire and known the use of in themselves and so supply the defect of that Idea in the Seed 'T is also probable that the Mothers Imagination is the principal Cause why the Childs Face sometimes resembles the Fathers sometimes the Mothers and sometimes some other Person according to the Idea that is prevalent in the Mothers Brain while she is with Child That the Mother as well as the Father is furnish'd with true Seed endow'd with the Ideas of the Parts of her own Body as well as the Fathers is with the Ideas of his and consequently that she does contribute part of the Plastick vertue that forms the Foetus as well as afford the Matter of which it is form'd and nourish'd in the Womb appears from several Parts of the foregoing Discourse as well as from the three following Considerations 1. The Ideas of the Masculine Seed can only be taken from the Parts of the Mans Body and therefore can never form the Organs peculiar to a Woman 2. The vitious Conformation of any Part of the Mothers Body as well as of the Fathers is often propagated to the Foetus 3. When a Male and Female of differing Species copulate the Foetus is of a mixt kind resembling the one in some of its Parts and the other in others We have besides the instance of Mules too many instances of this in the Monstrous Foetus's produc'd by the detestable Venery of some Men that copulate with Female Brutes The flowing of the Menstruous Blood to a young Womans Womb is a sign of Maturity because it signifies that besides the Seminal Idea of her own Sex which she was really furnish'd with before there is now also Aliment provided for the Evolution of that Idea whensoever it comes to be Foecundated by the Masculine Seed Death happens when the Vital Spirit or Calidum innatum that is the chief Mover in the Evolution of the Ideas and in all the Animal Functions is supp●●ss'd