it was chamfered in its Coalition like Nitre to the wonderment of the beholders These Examples do shew that by how much Alcaly is fuller of Fire the Mercury falls so much the darker because that in the very instant of absorbing Arsenick called by Paraâ—â—sus the Soot of Metals fired with Nitre and resolved is not excepted the Fiery Alcaly affects and flashes against its Sulphur like Lightning but the further it recedes from Ignipotence the Mercury falls the brighter so that volatile Alcalyes as of Soot and of all Animals from the aforesaid Solution do precipitate Mercury of a white and snowy colour all which will more clearly appear in the Progress So Mercury precipitated from the Balsam Samech casts a snowy colour Balsamus Samech somewhat inclining to yellow but if you pour on more than its Nature can bear then it turns to a glittering colour But salt things of what kind soever do not precipitate Mercury out of the above-named solution yea by how much the nearer they approach to the nature of Salts so much the less they hurt Acids Examples follow Alcaly of Saltpeter though its first Original be from Alcaly of Urine yet with Sulphur being fix'd into Alcaly and therefore it tasts somewhat saltish it somewhat disturbs the Mercury so dissolved but doth not precipitate it but if you add to this Pulverised mixture before it doth deflagrate and leave burning a certain fixed and dried Alcaly of Tartar and keep it over a gentle fire then first it melts the Sulphur and the pingueous Acid of the Sulphur preparing for its flight is greedily imbibed or drunk in by the Alcaly which is also pingueous as it happens in the preparation of Lac Sulphuris the moist way The heat still continuing the Nitre also is melted whose sulphureous and inflamable part is associated to its like viz. to the Pinguedo of the Sulphur yea it is greedily received in by the Alcaly a middle part of which is sufficient in respect of the Powders as of * Sal Fulminant Nitre three parts of Alcaly of Tartar two parts of Sulphur one part and so becomes Salt In this Salt mass each of the Sulphurs doth boil or bubble up and the fire continuing and being increased they take flame which in the kindling not enduring the narrowness of place in the Salt bursts out into the Air with a noise like Thunder That these things are so the Alealy which is sometime left behind may inform us especially when it is kindled not in a Concave but in a plain place and very leisurely for then it is changed by the Acid Spirits into Salt and doth not any longer precipitate Mercury Hence by the way we may learn that This is the ground why Ceraunocryson or Aurum Fulminans gives a crack or loud noise I have elsewhere shewed that the Spirit of Nitre in Alcaly is made Nitre of Tartar Aurum Fulminans Gold is almost all Sulphur after its own sort and manner as I have also experimentally demonstrated in its place for which reason it is not corroded by Acids Gold therefore being dissolved in salt water of Nitre Allum and Sal Armoniack or common Salt if you pour in by little and little not all at once a certain Alcaly the Acid Spirit of the Nitre for the Spirit of Allom or Vitriol in the distillation of Aqua fortis doth not ascend takes to it self a Body in the vacuous and empty Alcaly and so becomes natural Nitre but the sulphurous Nitre easily adheres via humida to the sulphurous * This is the cause that Gold dissolved in Spirit of Salt and the same fore-cited Alcaly precipitat is not falminans for it returns to Salt which resists the flame Gold because of the similitude between them and they are so throughly mix'd together that by no art of Ablution they can be separated i. e. when the Acid of Nitre is imbibed by the Alcaly it is coagulated into natural Nitre which finds the Sulphur in the dissolved Gold and with it as being of the same nature to use Hippocrates's words it receives coagulation as I have shewed in Calx But if you pour on more of the Alcaly so that it exceed the degree of Nitre then the Nitre also inclines and deflects to the nature of Alcaly and it can no longer be called Aurum Fulminans of which more anon But to return from this digression So also Fel Vitri * Anat. Croll in Lupide medicam contracts the same relish becoming Salt from the Acidity of the Flint for it doth not precipitate Mercury at all Liquor of Talck not Oyl as the ignorant vulgar think for it conceives not flame stirs not Mercury at all as neither do Salts from all Diuretick Herbs as Bean-stalks Broom S. John's Wort Rupture Wort Nettles c. all these I say are Acid-salt and do not precipitate Mercury from the said Solution but when they are Alcalized by a quick flame or Fusion then the Mercury falls down reddish Hence it appears that that most Learned Man of the Ancients who taught us to extinguish red hot Glass in the Ashes of Bean-stalks and not in its Salt did rightly institute the burning thereof and not according to the Doctrine of our unskilful Reformer lest the Salt should unadvisedly assume the nature of Alcaly of which I have spoken before in the fifth Chapter The salts of the Ashes of vulnerary Herbs such as Bettony Agrimony Winter-green Elatine Star-wort Sanicle c. all yielding a tart Salt are therefore unfit for vitrification and do not precipitate Mercury which is of the same taste as shall be shewed in its place But all the aforesaid Salts by the fire of Fusion do change their nature and become Alcalyes are vitrified and do precipitate Mercury of a sparkling colour Hence Zoar upon Exodus observes that Glass is made of any Ashes i.e. when they are reduced to Alcaly Common Salt doth not precipitate Mercury Conslancy of Salt in the Fire from the above-mentioned Solution yea although it be burnt a long time and with a quick flame it would never become Alcaly neither doth it change its nature by digestion wherefore it is the perfectest of all Salts and by a singular priviledge is called by Helmont The excellentest of Salts So Salt of Vipers doth not precipitate Mercury unless the Acid and the Alcaly be again separated one from the other of which hereafter Salt of Wormwood being Acid-salt doth not for that reason precipitate Mercury Pharmico f. 788. neither doth it absorb Spirit of Vitriol as the Reformer teaches under the Title of Coagulated Spirit of Vitriol but when it is Alcalized it precipitates Mercury yellow and then also it absorbs the Acid Spirit of Vitriol and vitrifies Hence we learn that in a fire stronger than the nature of the thing will bear Salts will be fixed and converted into a Neutral thing wherefore many things are produced by the sole Regiment of Fire not as
out of which it was made and again is Congealed into Verdigreese the Faeces being rejected c. Spirit of Venus made This purged Aerago or eroded Brass is distilled with an open Fire out of a plated Retort and afrerwards is rectified out of Sand. Lo here Thou Mystes of Nature This is that Spirit of Venus and asecret menstruum as Alcahest see Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 29. which the Deans and Doctors of the Austrian and Norinberg Physick with their Fellows do adore for the Son of Venus of whom Epictetus sayes well Many are word-wife not deed-wise The proâ—city and filthy licentiousness that Venus is accused of by the many but vain clamours of false witnesses viz. that It admits of Five Lovers in one Act hath drawn Philosophers not only to the admiration but even to the unbelief thereof unless they had also known That in the Court of Accusation a multitude of Witnesses is many times loathsome and suspected by the Judges especially since they are not ignorant that in Nature Love is so far from admiting Five that it endures not a Third whence it is That they rather give sentence against the Accusers and say That as Venus upon Examination notwithstanding the false Imputations of her Accusers is found chaste and constant to one Male so it may likewise happen that any man may grow Famous from such Accusations as many have done who were otherwise unknown 'T is known to be True That indeed Venus is Lascivious Copper growe green from all Acids and that she admits every Male that is all Acids as well Occult as Manifest as Vinegar Oyl Suet Sugar Honey c. I say they all wax green with Copper without any difference into her Imbraces so that all Males are hot in Love i. e. wax green with Her But witness Alcaly the Mother of Natural Things She is never ravished with the delight of any of them to a del quium but only with her own Brother But that this discourse may appear more clear we will setch the Doctrine of it a little higher viz. That the Acid of every Vegetable drawn forth either by Fermentation on Distillation or Expression whether it be Occult or Manifest if it be poured on the Alcaly of Tartar doth inform the fame Alcaly with the Soul of That from whence it was taken and it is made a Salt of the same Acid Nature as I have shewed in the beginning of this Chapter by the Graines of Kermes in which the Deans with their Fellows deny that there is any Acid i. e. any Seminal Vertue and by Meal out of which They boast they can distill Acid Spirit of Sal Armoniackâ— see also Hippoc. Chymic Chap 2. and the end of Chap. 17. So also Vinegar of Wine distilled and cast upon Alcaly of Tartar to fatiety is Coagulated into Tartar Artificial Tartar and 〈◊〉 of the same Nature with the Wine from whence the Vinegar was taken This Tartar if it be distilled out of a Retort with Fire of Sand or an open Fire there comes forth a fat Oyl and bitterish Liquor as in the Distillation of Common Tartar I have also shewed the same thing Artificial Silt. in the beginning of this Chapter concerning Nitre concerning Salt concerning Allum and also concerning Vitriol for all Acid Liquor joyned with Alcaly doth impregnate it with the Soul of that Body from which it was reduced and forms a Body to it self ad Lubitum i.e. like its own proper Nature Let us see now Spirit of Venus â—reduced to an Examen for a Tryal of the Verity and Glory of Noble Physick whether That Vinegar Distilled from Verdigrease which they do so solicitously endeavour to keep from the Examen of Learned Men be the Legitimate Son of Venus or no I have shewed That Acid is the one only Spirit of the World and the Child of the Sun which is not found naked upon the earth but refusing to be alone It assumes Matter wherewith it dwells encreaseth regerminates and is multiplied sometimes as the Artificer pleases for his proper ends This when it falls on the seed of Copper that I may so speak it cloaths it self with the Nature of Copper in a long and laborious work Therefore it is not separable from Copper it self unless by the total destruction of the Copper as the example of Salt of Tartar in my Hippoc. Chymic Chap 10. doth shew for carrying in it the least Odor of a Metalline Nature it cannot descend to the Nature of Vegetables And the same Spirit falling upon the Seed of a Vine Clothes it self there with the indoles of the Vine and in like manner cannot ascend to the Nature of Minerals as I have demonstrated out of Lully and by Experience yea it is not separated from the Disposition or Indoles of the Vine unless being dissolved or loosned from its Body by Nature and Art it return to the Element of Air whence it came as Hippoc. Chymic in the fore-cited 10. and 18. Chapters shews The same is also to be understood of Salt of Vitriol of Nitre and of all the Things in the World for this cause because Art cannot create Seeds he that boasts he can do it Cosmopolita proves him to be a Deceiver so that every Spirit either Occultly or Manifestly Acid hath but one only Soul within it with which it being inseparably joyned doth constitute the Form of That Body in which it determines to dwell from which wehn it is extracted and again instilled upon a new Alcaly and is absorbed by it it takes upon it the like Body wherewith it was cloathed before or from whence it was first extracted but that Body somewhat clearer an Infallible Argument That a Spirit either Occultly or Manifestly Acid is the Vehicle of the Soul and the Bond uniting Soul and Body together And unless the Spirit of all Things in the Universe were Acid it could not invisibly carry in its Belly or Womb the Aima or Soul of the Body as Hermes and Experience Teach Let us now return to the Child new born which the Sworn Servant of Venus have lately begun to nominate and to commend for the Son or Spirit of Venus peremptorily also affirming That This hath drawn mighty Vertues from his Mother or Copper but they consider not that the Vertues of Things as also the force of Purgatives do confist in their Soul which I have shewed in the first Chapter to be a Child of the Sun The Vertue of Purgatives whence and to be inseparably joyned to the Spirit of that Thing both which do constitute that Eximious Vertue which is in Copper which Spirit ought again to manifest it self in Alcaly if it did flow in an Acid form as I have experimentally shewed to the Eyc concerning other Spirits and concerning Alcaly of Tartar Let us now proceed to Experience and to make Trial of this Acid and Rectifyed Spirit of Venus saturated to Susliciency Spirit of Venus in Alcaly made Tartar
though he takes his beginning from it which he presently clears by a plain familiar example Man says he doth thresh wash and grinde Bread corn and baking it he uses not a strong Fire to make it up in a body but a soft and gentle one Wherefore the Fire of the Chymical Philosopher in the extraction of Animals Minerals or Vegetables called Small Elixirs by the Modernes must be moderate Hippocrates teaches All things to be like which were unlike But as soon as Fire exceeds the degree of being moderate 't is no longer the Philosophers fire but the Artists for then things are not advanced by the intervention thereof but are altered thereby as our Master teacheth in the fore-cited Book Whosoever therefore do apply themselves to the Fusion or Liquation of Salts either with a gentle or a vehement heat They all have their dependance on this Ancient Chymical Philosophy So that such persons are in a gross and ignorant Mistake in the judgement of Hippocrates who exclude Apothecaries from this Art For when Pharmacopaeans do pound Vegetables and wring out their Juice then it is that they make a fusion of Salts expelling and thrusting out the Exotick and Forrain not being of one and the same temper they are Hippocrates his words but when they condense the melted Salts with Sugar into a Syrup then they throughly mix and alter them So 't is says Hippocrates with the nature of Man all Arts communicating with humane Nature Wherefore if Nature do precede Art and Art doth but imitate Nature there is no man under the Sun who hath not within himself as it were a Chymical and Salt-melting shop only the Canonical Physician who bears an hatred to the opinions of Hippocrates by reason of his ignorance of this Ancient Art excepts himself as being altogether unacquainted with this divinely inspired Science And by means of such Ignoramus's Physick is accounted the meanest of all Professions for it hath no foundation to build upon Of such Ignorants Seneca speaks That they are always learning but never attain to the knowledge of the Truth Hence it is that Galen in his rich Writings approves and commends Hippocrates to us Ars Glaucon initio and lib. 1. De Venaesect adversus Erasist as the Guide and Author of all Good which Epithites he frequently bestows upon him thereby eternizing and consecrating his Name to Posterity This so well grounded opinion of Galen hath moved me never as long as I live to admit of any other Doctrine in Physick but that of Hippocrates which I believe will be Coaevous with Nature it self Otto Tachenius HIS HIPPOCRATES CHYMICVS The Occasion of writing the Ensuing Treatise A man knows only so much as is certainly discovered to him by either Mental or Manual Operation and Experiment CHAP. I. THe perfect knowledge of all Sciences is so difficult that the Life of Man would sooner be at an end than he can attain unto the compleat understanding of any one of them so as to be put beyond all dispute by the help only of * Whic'â— yet are not wholly to be rejected Paper-books Socrates having made a through disquisition into almost all Sciences was then judged the wisest of men by the Oracle when he openly professed that he knew nothing at all This the Preacher seems to confirm to us I beheld says he all the Works of God Eccl. Ch. 8. v. 17. that a man cannot find out the reason of the Works which are done under the Sun and the more he labours to find it out the further it is off though a wise man think to know it yet shall he not be able to find it out The Divine Hippocrates was not ignorant of this difficulty of obtaining knowledge in our Art of Physick which made him ingeniously to confess it in his * In Epist Epistles to Democritus For says he though I am an old man yet I am not arrived to the true knowledge of Physick And the same person avers * 1. Apb. 1. That our life is too short for the acquist of any one Science from the very Foundation thereof Hereupon he advises us to honour and esteem those which have endeavoured to search out the hidden works of Wise Nature L. 1. de Diaet adding withal that no one of them could be justly blamed though he were not able fully to find them cut But it seems the Writer who reformed the Augustane or Auspurgh Dispensatory was of another mind his Book was printed at Tergow by William Vorhoven A. D. 1657. Upon occasion of that Book a few days since my respected Friend John de Lanou a Famous Bookseller of this City asked my advice whether I thought it worth his labor to Print it here c. 'T is true I had heard of the Title before but I had never seen the Book for I had not so much leisure as to spend my time in reading such Pieces Nevertheless upon that occasion at spare hours I read it all over and could not but take notice of and wonder at that corrupt Custom so familiar to him and others against the direct Precept of Hippocrates that whatsoever a man had honestly found out by great Labour and Study and had commended it to Posterity in writing for the good of the Publick the same should presently be traduced defamed and spurned at amongst the Ignorant Vulgar not by force of Reason and Experience but by monstrous Calumnies and Reproaches that so like Herostratus they might procure some fame to themselves by the ruine of other mens Credit The Reformer of the Auspurgh Dispensatory treads in those steps railing and declaiming not only against the Ancients but the Moderns also Followers of Hippocrates and Galen in such sort that there is hardly an Arrow in the Quiver of Slander which he shoots not at them I had formerly instructed this Man in the way of making Vâ—perine Salt but under a Metaphorical disguize for I had denied to teach him in plain terms and now he proclaims me for a Cheat Pharmace f. 487. and that I hinder by Imposture the making of it publick I ingeniously confess that here at least in part the Reformer speaks truth for whatsoever made Physicians who were lovers of Truth famous heretofore the same things Impostors do craftily adulterate Our Hippocrates was afraid of such Cheats which made him conceal his Antipestilential Medicament by which he had procured so much Honour to himself and had happily and securely cured that Disease as his Epistles do testifie Paracelsus did also dread Impostors who by his wonderful Art cured the otherwise incurable Contagions of the Body as his Epitaph speaks which may be seen graven on a stone at Saltsburge in the Hospital of S. Sebastians In our dayes Lazarus Riverius feared the like Cheats and for that cause he published his Specifique against Feavors under a Metaphor So Helmont very prudently vailed the Liquor which with Paracelsus he calls by a corrupt Name
with a sufficient quantity of water they extract the Lixivious Fiery Alcaly I call it Fiery Of Lime and Honey is made a mixture good for the brawniness of the Feet because this boiling Lixivium or Ley consumed in a moment a Drunken Man with his Woollen Cloaths so that nothing of him was found but his Linnen Shirt and the hardest Bones as I had the Relation from a Credible Person Professor of that Trade which Fiery Lixivium they call Magistra which is glutted with so much Alcaly that an Egg will not sink in it Of the same mixture is made also another Lixivium less saturated which will not bear up an Egg with this last Lye for certain reasons in boiling of Soap they first mingle Oyl or Tallow which is contrary to Alcaly as containing an occult Acid as will appear by degrees but they boil it with a soft fire till they wax white then they add the Magistra in a triple proportion to the Oyl or Fat The greater is en-creased by the less Hip. l. 1. de Diaet Hip l 1. de Diaet and in biling the Oyl and Alcaly are coagulated till they are compacted into one Body as contraries and throughly mixed For they never consist together in the same but are always altered so that of necessity the things severed and produced from them must be dissimilary in their nature For out of the manifest Alcaly and the occult Acid in the Oyl is produced a thing of a Neutral Nature of a salt relish sometimes they make tryal of it by the tongue if the taste be sweet they add the Magistra if it be biting it must be boiled till it hath absorbed the Oyl but if it be more than ordinarily pungent then they pour in Oyl leisurely at discretion as Hippocrates teacheth L. 1. de Diaet Spiritus unus trahit alter protrudit c One Spirit draws to another thrusts from but both do the same thing and tend to either part and so they imitate the nature of man Sea-salt because it is no vacuous and empty Body as Alcalyes are is not coagulated with fat or Tallow into Soap for it hath both its Faculties not to be separated without difficulty as I shall shew hereafter For which cause Nausicca the Daughter of Alcinous washed her Linnen out of a Fountain on the Sea-shore as Homer relates 6. Odyss CHAP. V. The Composition and Dissolution or Destruction of Glass GLass is made of the same Flint and the same Sal Alcaly by the Rule of Contraries but not the moist way as Soap but by a dry and fiery Fusion and Liquation For sometimes three sometimes two parts at least of the Powder of Flints are mixed with one part of Sal. Alcaly not of Acid Trencher-salt which by corrosion slacks the Flint and absorbs it in the fire of Fusion I say part of the Alcaly sucks up the Acid which the Flint contains for Lime or Calx and it swims a top of the slaked Flint Aâ—â—run Croll in Lep. Mediâ—um and is called Axungia Vitri The Fel Vitri being another part of the Alcaly makes a coalition with the Flint and is saturated by it and because they consist not in the same as Hippocrates teaches they both become a Pellucide Mass then Artificers say the Glass is baked But the Alcaly swimming a top and saturated with the Acid that they scum off with an iron Ladle and call it Fel Vitri and cast it away as unfit for Glass for by the mixture it is changed into Salt therefore Shepherds give it to their Cattle to lick especially in places where Salt is dear this in moist weather easily turns to a liquor and then the Powder of Flints subsides of its own accord The liquor by heat is coagulated into true common salt as its Granulation and also its Distillation shews but the Bottom or Eoex is a Medicine not to be despised in difficulty of Urine as also is Flint fired and slaked in water But this Water is sometimes prescribed without success especially when the Flint is less heated by its proper heat and that Diuretick vertuo ceaseth which then perisheth and ceaseth when the haat of the fire doth Alcalize the Flint i. e. when both Faculties go together into one for then it doth not reach to the Urinary places by reason of its fixedness yea at that time it hinders and retards other things which provoke Urine in as much as it troubles the digestion of the Stomach which is made by Acids and appropriates it to it self Burning of Glass Then the Ancients began to reduce Glass into Powder of Flints by Extinction into an Acid Salt with good success This Reduction and Preparation which is purely Hippocratical and very Ingenious Pharmac f. 732. the Reformer like himself calls sleight unprofitable inept and by all means to be exploded See saith he A monstrous Speech is the sign of a monstrous Wit says out Galen how basely such Putative and Wordy Philosophers do discover themselves who are destitute of that Philosophy which is true and into what crrours they fall discoverable and derideable not only by those who throughly search the secrets of Nature but even by Clowns and Rusticks old Wives and Gossips Glass this way prepared as our Reformer pungently goes on cannot be given without danger and hazard to a sick man though he be not presently sensible of it But I will prove against the frivolous Objections and Grounds of this Reformer that he who taught this Burning of Glass was in the right and I will vindicate him from those Calumnies wherewith he is aspersed especially from this That Glass this way prepared cannot be given to the Sick without danger and detriment Glâ—ss whereof it is compounded into the same and by the same it is resolved Take then clear and transparent Glass melt it with more Alcaly like Glass afterwards expose it to the moist Air and you shall soon find the whole Glass to be resolved into water your upon this a sufficient Acid contrary to Alcaly and the Powder of Flints will subside This Powder is no longer Glass but the Powder of Flints which the Reformer abhors and says it cannot be given to the Sick without detriment In Append. Pharmacop Reg. f. 136. forgetting that he himself commends the Powder of Flints to Queens for producing of Milk The Ancients were not acquainted with this separating Art which was bestowed on Mortals from above yet they had some hints of it by discourse and therefore they began to extinguish or slake the Powder or Flower of Glass in Ashes of Bean-stalks whose Salt is of an Acid salt nature as I shall shew by and by they repeated the Extinction always with new Ashes The over-busie Reformer having his eye on the Ancients in the interim sees not his own errours and washed away the Powder of the Glass with water so that every Extinction was the destruction of the Glass or Aloaly
with a new body which is again sublimated and separated It may be demanded The Spirit of Sal Armoniack re-assumes a body in Tartar why in this place a Spirit is elicited from the fixed Alcaly of Tartar and the Volatile Acid whereas above from the Alcaly of Flints and the Acid spirit of Salt it succeeds not To which I answer that the Acrimony of the Salt of Tartar in a fire not very vehement returns quite to nothing as I have shewed elsewhere and for this cause with its associate it is easily elevated into Spirit but the Alcaly of Flints is more fixed which before it flies is rather with its adjunct turned into Glafs CHAP. XII How Volatile Alcaly is generated in an Animal and the parts of it I Have said in the Examination of Mindâ—rerus his water that * I call Sweat either that insersinly transpiring or that which makes wet 't is all one here Sweat by the Natural Proto-Chymist is made Salt as is also every compound of Acid and Alcaly Urine not excepted which this Operation shews Take that Lye wherein foul Linnen Shirts have been steeped and washed not boiled put this Lye into a Glass of a long narrow and equal neck set to a Limbeck at least carelesly and place it in a digesting Bath or Sand and in a few days you shall see the Alcaly of Sweat to ascend yet not stinking as That which is sublimated from Urine This Alcaly could not be seperated from Sweat unless its Salt relish were divided The pure Alcaly of Sacat which consists of Acid and Alcaly both Volatiles as I have shewed in Mindererus his Water and elsewhere so that the Lye is a Fixed Alcaly absorbing the Acid part of the Sweat in the Heat of Digestion and the sugitive Alcaly being divided from it goes to top and a cold place I once observed as I was travelling post Sweat salt and pingueous this Salt Volatile Fat and therefore penetrating and resolving Sweat how although my Leggs were armed with Boots made of the choicest Leather and well waxed so as to admit neither Rain not Water yet the Sweat of the Horses exhaling like a Vapour had penetrated them as it also happened to my Companions of good note To avoid this inconvenience I invented an Oyntment like Vernish which in other cases could resist Aqua fortis and then in a second Journey for the first days I found less inconvenience but the days following the Sweat had not only penetrated the Vernish but had plainly dissolved it as far as the Vapour of it reached Hence I learned That Sweat was therefore made Salt by Nature that it might resolve the filth in living Bodies which here and there was coagulated in them But how the Sweat of all Animals and whatsoever doth insensily exhale from them yea of which the Animal consists doth acquire Saltness I shall explain a little more clearly only for the sake of this Viperine Salt whose Acidity as it is occult so the Saltness of it is more subtil and grateful The Invention of the Salt of Vipers I profess my self to be the Inventor thereof though Momus fret never so much which the following Epistle shews And though for Lucre of a little Gain in this Age and Theatre of the World some unskilful men and ignorant of Natures instruments and of this Hippocratical Doctrine have appeared who obtrude I know not what on the unwary and unexpert to the Prejudice of my Name yet I now give the Readâ—r to understand that which I have not discovered to any man living hitherto save by this publique Writing Mareus Aurelius Severinus wisheth prosperity and good success to Otho Tachenius a great Studier of Nature and the Hermetical Art The Epistle THe confidence which I alwayes had in your friendship and good will I now really experiment For my desire to hav some of your Viperine Sult being scarce signified to you you presently satisfied me therein for which I return you many thanks I wish some chance would happen that you might pass over the Fordye Adriatique to the flourishing Parthenope it would be neither unuseful nor unprofitable to you Besides that choice Matron whom you visited in her blindness at Naples from that very day hath impatiently longed for you wishing that the hinder ances of your intended Voyage were removed but because you have sent me a Viperine gift I will requite you with another of the same kind I mean a Volume of the Nature Poyson and Medicinalness of the Viper printed for me at Padua by the Famous Printer Paul Frombottus who upon the sight of this Letter will diliver one to you in my Name and he will give it to you the more freely if you shewing a willingness to communicate the useful observations Mary Fremies for Truths sake are a great honour amongst understanding Men. An Old Proverb which you have long made of this Viperine Salt do bâ—take your self to the Famous John Rhodius my special Friend the Corrector of the Press who if need be can add them to the end of the Work I wish also you would add some preparation and description of this Viperine Sale of your own I have her with inserted the preparation of Volatile Salt out of Johannes Vepserus Pray tell me how far you approve it and continue to love me as I do you For I desire nothing more at Naples than to enjoy the hopes of such a felicity as your Conversation and Company would afford Here you would find a Liberal Harvest Farewel From Naples the Ides of May Anno Dom. 1650. The Illustrious Matron the Wife of Capicius Regens to whom you gave your Viperine Remedy Salutes you BUt to what end should I produce the Testimonies of Learned Men this present Writing sufficiently declares that this Salt with all its requisites was not so much as dream'd of by this Reformer before I acquainted him with It as I could shew by his own Letters to me but that I am willing to consult his Credit yet unless he produce other Foundations of Art and Nature than he hath hitherto done he will never come to the knowledg of this Salt No more will men of a far higher Order and Rank than himself however they boastingly and ambitiously word it out and pretend to be able to attain it As Urine and Sweat so also Blood The Alealy of Blood Volatile and pure precipitates a white Mercuâ—â— whilest it is yet hot and reaking may be commixed with Lye and Alcaly be sublimated from it but when the same Blood without the Lye is distilled out of a Retort with the Fire of Sand then in the Caput Mortuum it leaves much Salt somewhat fixed More Fixed Salt of Blood a noble Medicine doth not precipitate Mercury The Alcaly precipitates Mercury from the oftennarned Solution into a white Powder but the Salt doth not Hence 't is manifest that as the Lixivious and Fixed Alcaly drinks up the Acid from
frequently cat Sand or pieces of Bricks whereby to restrain the super-abounding Acidity the said Acid would slide down from the Stomach and trouble the other Digestions whence they would fall into an Atrophy and never grow fat or else it is coagulated by the Juices of Vegetables as of Lemmons Oranges Barberies Vinegar and what ever else tastes Acid and Sharp Milk also sowres of its own accord as do other Juices as well of Vegetables as Animals when they incline to putrefaction yea nothing can putrify or be generated anew Acid and Alcaly in Milk unless this Acidity do proceed and then it is also coagulated and the Whey separated which carries off with it the occult Volatile Alcaly by means of which it doth refrigerate as shall be shewed in its place Both these faculties are latent in good and sound Milk and therefore they cause an occult Saltness therein which is the reason that Salt of what kind soever either Natural or Artificial never hurts Milk yea sublimate Mercury it self being a compound of the above-named Acid Minerals i e. Vitriol Nitre and Salt whose Acidity being suckt up by the Quicksilver Salt things do not curdle Milk as by Alcaly is changed into a very excellent Salt doth Milk no hurt at all Hence it appears that Salt things do indeed dissolve mucilaginous compounds but destroy not harder and more compact Bodies as will be more plainly manifested in the Sequel CHAP. XIV The Precedent 〈◊〉 Illustrated by the Resolution and Composition of the Stone I said in the foregoing Chapter that the perceptable or manifest Acidity The Analysis of the Stone out of the Stomach was the cause of Diseases which assertion the Composition of the Stone doth confirm which for greater Illustration I will now Mechanically resolve and again compound Take a Stone cut out from the Bladder or coming voluntarily from the Reins a drachme or two is sufficient put it into a Glass Retort new and clean let not the Stone be beat to Powder but of that bigness that it may not stick to the Neck of the Retort put the Retort into Sand set too a new and clean Receiver urge it with a moderate Fire First of all an Alcaly like Urine yet of no smell will drop into the Receiver and a little after you shall see the more fixed part of the same Alcaly to be sublimated in the Neck of tho Retort mix both those Spirits the Liquid and the Solid and keep them diligently in a Glass Vessel stopped with Wax For if it be open they vanish to Air of which Hippocrates taken part it is not sufficient either for it self L. i. de Diat or any other In the Retort when it is cooled you shall find the pieces of Stone in the same form as they were put in yet so light and friable that if you touch them but lightly with your finger they fall to powder as dead carkasses in Roma Subterraneâ upon which entire pieces if you again pour the Alcaly reserved from the stone or else other Alcaly of Urine presently it hardens as it was before which is a signe that the Alcaly in the aforesaid cadaver finds an occult Acid which may absorbe it for unless it finds the Acid it abides not alone in the open Aire but according to its nature would vanish away Because being severed they are sufficient neither for themselves nor any other as Hippocrates teacheth Hence we learn That the Stone for Example is not congealed neither in the Bladder nor in the Reins unless by the Alcaly of Urine or the Alcaly of the place and the Acid unduly unproperly and by mistake falling down from the Stomach and there being degenerated the Acid and the Alcaly being joyned there must needs concrete into a Masse as I shall every where plainly shew and they lay hold also on that which is not much different from their Nature which together with these two undergo coagulation as I have said in Calx or Lime and daily experience also witnesseth I know it says the Author of the Rosary because of necessity the work mast come to such a Nature Hence Red Stones are congealed by a little Blood which falls down in the same place from the Acid out of the eroded vein wherefore they are more friable and brittle but the other Stones having mucilage joyned to them are whiter and thporefore harder This is that which my Hippocrates most skilful in Chymistry doth proclaim These things are thus brought to pass by Divine necessity yet they know not what they do but every thing fulfils his destined fate which is as if he had said both these Spirits or Faculties being joyned together in whatsoever place L. 1. de Diat must of necessity concrete and congeale but being severed they effect nothing in Nature neither can they subsist being neither sufficient for themselves or other things as my Doctor says So that manifest Acidity without the Stomach in whatsoever place it be is Morbous and Inimicous to Nature This Doctrine of the Old man is most true for it is daily observed in practice that Stones do concrete all vacuities of the body wheresoever the Acid being out of its place by mistake meets with the Alcaly as in the Lungs the Liver the Vena porta the Ureters the Intestinum Colon and the Bladder of the Gaul which is against the most Aoute Galen L. 1â— de â—â— affect who teaches That the Stone is generated in the Bladder and Reins only by heat wherefore the Stone of all Animals of which we now speak hath nothing in its Composition but Acid and Alcaly both Volatile as also Blood or Mucilage but when it is coagulated in the Bladder of the Gaul then it lays hold of that bitterness which it meets there â—â—pp L. 1. de Diaet some going hither some thither and being throughly mixed amongst themselves c. Hence we may learn of what Vertue in dangerous Diseases the Water tempered with or poured upon the Stone which is found in the Gaul of an Hedghog may be which yet some ignorant Practicioners do mightily extol 't is a wonder they are not afraid of this Stone as of an igneous or fiery nature since it is better from the Gaul which hitherto they have not observed If the ablution of this Stone were good for any thing furely one drop of the Gaul of the meanest Fish were much better then twenty Ablutions thereof Wherefore from the coagulation of the Stone it now appears how far Lithon-Tribon Cantharides the Blood of an Hare of a Fex and the like have hitherto profited in the Stone so that Paracelsus rightly judges that the Stone and the Knotty Gout are coagulated like Tartar by two Faculties according to the Doctrine of Hippocrates i. e. the Acid and the Alcaly it also coagulates with it some foeces which by chance it finds there and Galen witnesses against himself and his followers Lib. 7 de Meth. The cause
tinge of a black colour Yea Silver doth the same without Galls and the blackness appears after the Acid Spirits are spent Other Metals though dissolved and re-coagulated do shew as if they were Vitriol but perform not the actions of Vitriol Find out the cause if you can for it is not unpleasant to discover it A Semi-acid-Salt Spirit Distilled from the Caput Mortuum of Tartar and Sal Armoniack An admirable Spirit was mixed with Bole Armonick of which above This Spirit with juice of Galls was greenish in a moment From which I learned that the Bole Armonick did necessarily contain in it immature Copper-seed which the soresaid Spirit catcht away with it in the torture of the Fire I call it a Copper-seed for Vitriol made of Copper with Spirit of Vitriol being precipitated with juice of Galls appears of the same green colour as I shewed above but when it is made of common Bole-Armonick then it is black Whence it is clear that the Volatile Salt or the Alcaly of Galls or of Pomgranate Rinds Foundation of black colout or of Vulnerary Herbs do not dye of a black colour unless with Iron dissolved in an Acid Mineral There is another observable thing that a pure Acid natural Spirit cannot be extracted or acquired by any man for being Distilled from Vitriol however rectified it never forsakes the Liquamen of the Metal neither can it be precipitated from it by any Alcaly after the common way for in these it cloaths it-self again with a new body and returns to what it was as I have shewed in its place yet Paracelsus doth praise that Acid Spirit which is found near the Village Veltin in Helvetia as in some sort pure as I have elsewhere observed Add hereto the Counterseit which the Reformer boasts for Magistery of the Seed of Kermes which yet is nothing else but the Alcaly of Allum Pharm Regiaâ— fol 282. which sucked up the Occult Acidity from the very grains for fear of a Vacuum inasmuch as it lost its own proper Acidity in the Alcaly of Tartar CHAP. XVIII Pass we now out of the Mines Vnder-ground into a pleasant Garden to the more hidden Volatile Alcalyes of Vegetables ALl Vegetables Mechanical Instruments of Vegetables are the two faculties of Hippoc. L. 1. de Diaet as well as Animals have Vital Instruments which they make use of for their encrease and propagation The prevailing Acidity therefore lies sleeping in the Seed as in an Egg or in a Stomach with a little Alcaly for its sustentation and with the specifick Rector of which elsewhere but when it is cast into the earth it is dissolved by Humidity and excited by Heat The Acid as being igneous begins to act upon the Alcaly to which the Humid also comes and the Rector by the assistance of Heat informs it So invisibly the Acid assumes the Alcaly and the Alcaly again swallows up the Acid they tend to each side as Ferments do yea they cease not The Mystery of Fermentation was heretofore hid on purpose till they have finished their several and prefixed Courses for their proper ends one Spirit draws another protrudes as Hippocrates in the fore-cited place So that the Humidity of every Vegetable contains Acid and Alcaly in some the Alcaly predominates in others the Acid The Acid is most known but the Alcaly yet known to few which I will now demonstrate to the Eye in the sweet expressed juice of Grapes as most known wherein the first days the Rector is Dormant who a while after applying the Mechanical Organs the Acid begins to Corrode the Alcaly and This absorbs the Acid and so there happens a vehement Contention and Fight which from the Heat or Boyling is called Fermentation which lasts till the Acid as Victor hath overcome the Alcaly Fermentum quòd servendo erescit In this Fight both the Faculties or Tastes or Sapors Instruments Mechanical or Architechtonical call them as you please or else the Archeus or Innate Heat c. undergo a great overthrow there being made a mighty slaughter the Acid being swallowed up destroyed and enfeebled by the Alcaly both mutually fall in a mutual embrace into a Cadaver in respect of Wine which is called Tartar If you Distill this Tartar out of a Retort Spirit of Tartar the Acid is excited by Heat and begins again to act upon the Alcaly and This likewise on the Acid and so a new Fermentation begins for which you must use a very slow fire and though the Receiver be great yet the incondensible Odor of the Fermentation which Helmont calls Gas is perceived a far off yet at last the Alcaly overcomes the Acid and doth plainly absorb it and both of them for the greatest part are fixed The Liquor and Oyl in the Receiver are Saturated and Impregnated with Volatile Alcaly which is of excellent use of it self yet known to few If you again re-infuse the Distilled Liquor and the Oyl upon the Caput Mortuum then the Volatile Alcaly which the Liquor did contain is drunk up by the Acid in the Caput Mortuum and becomes fixed but that which then re-distills out will be of greater Affinity to the Element of Water and so of less efficacy But the Reformer here as every where else grievously mistakes Mantis Herm. f. 745. for he says That Common Spirit of Tartar which is not rectified from its remaining Caput Mortuum is by no means to be accounted for pure Spirit of Tartar From this his Rectified Spirit of Tartar and out of his own insipid Brain he compounds a Medicine Mantis f. 750. truly lamentable which he calls A mixture of Three from the Spirits of the Minerals First The Volatile Alcaly in the Tartar is Saturated with the Acid of the Sulphur of Antimony That he calls the Tartarized Spirit of Antimony if by chance some of the Volatile Alcaly do yet remain what doth he then He mortifies it with Vinegar from Verdigrease and the Acid of Vitriol whence this hurtful though artificial and unprofitable Composition consists of Elementary Water and Vinegar this mixture the Ancients called Posca to which the Reformer adds nothing but the stinking smell of Tartar But the Spirit of Tartar being prudently Distilled by an Hippocratist is not Acid but somewhat bitter and full of Volatile Alcaly on which if you poure Spirit of Vitriol it waxeth hot that you can hardly hold the pot in your hands which is an evident sign that the Acid of the Vitriol hath drunk up the Alcaly of the Tartar as it happens when water is poured on Lime and as in the slacking and heating of Lime the Salts dye and it degenerate into a Neutral the same is to be understood of Spirit of Tartar with whatsoever Acid it be mixed so my Master Hippocrates teaches I return now Things thorowly miâ—'d undergo alteration L. 1. de Diaet whence I digressed i. e. to the Chymical Fermentation of Wine for whose sake the
Twenty five pound or thereabouts according to the capacity of the Vessel which held more or less of the Mixture So that of 280 l. of the live Mercury and 20 l. of the Sublimate you may gather 380 l. of the Sublimate Now the live Mercury thus encreaseth in weight Eighty pound not from the Acidity of the Rubified Vitriol as the * The Reformer's Error Reformer thinks which he therefore says must be warily Calcined but only from the Common Salt which I prove thus Let the same Mercury be Sublimated Mercurius Dulcis Sublimated of a Red Colour with the same proportion of Nitre and Rubified Vitriol without Common Salt then the Mercury ascends Red and acquires nothing of weight or of the Corrosive So also Common Mercury precipitated if the same Mercury be precipitated with Aqua Fortis from Nitre and Vitriol then it waxes shining Red and acquires no further weight The cause is because the Sulphureous Nitre elevates the sulphur of Vitriol which do joyntly act at least upon their like i. e. upon the External Sulphur of the Mercury and so it can encrease nothing at all in weight nor assume a Corrosive Vertue CHAP. XXV Minerva Treated NOw That Vulgar Mercury hath a Sulphur external and separable from the effence of Mercury 2 Part. L 2. Sum. Perfect besides the testimonies of Geber and other wise Men Experience also shews the furest School-Mistriss both here and every where by this Operation Put clean and pure Mercury into a Glass of a plain bottom and very narrow mouth boil it in Sand first with a slow and moderate afterwards with a stronger fire to that degree that Mercury may endeavour to ascend which if it happen by a simple motion cause it to subside again This way without the addition of any thing but External fire it is precipitated shining Red like That Sulphur rubifies Mercury which was precipitated with Aqua Fortis out of Vitriol and Nitre and it neither gets nor loses in its weight in as much as the small portion if its proper Sulphur hath mortified and rubified it as I have shewed in Aqua Fortis from Sulphureous Nitre For it is the property of Sulphur to rubify Mercury as I have also demonstrated in the preparation of Cinnabar which also gets nothing in weight which our Chymists must attentively consider for it is of concernment Mingle this red Precipitate either made per se or otherwise of whatsoever condition with Common Salt urge this Compositum with a moderate fire and then it will be elevated into a Sublimate Corrosive neither doth the Salt here hinder the Acid Sulphurs yea without Salt it would never be made Sublimate Corrosive out of red precipitate neither would the Mercury encrease in its weight So That precipitate which Crollius calls Turbith Minerale in as much as it is made with Spirit of Vitriol or Sulphur is not red because little of the Sulphur of Vitriol is elevated without Nitre in the Distillation but because of the affinity and symbol which it hath in acting upon the Sulphur of Mercury it grows Yellow and hath acquired no weight after the aluminous taste is washed away with hot water The strength and Vertues of all the aforesaid Precipitates are equal they provoke Vomit corrupt the Gumms and taken often do cause the Execrable Ftyalism Hence Helmont Of Feavors c. 15.5 6. As long as Vulgar Mercury can be revificated 't is no good Man's Remedy For as all Medicines are Poyson in reference to us and not to the Excrements assaulting us rather than Diseases So also is the Vulgar precipitate of Mercury Hence That of my * Of Purging Medicines Hippocrates No Physician can primise Health by prescribing the assuming of Laxatives And although many affirm That Mercury precipitated per se without the addition of Corrosive doth mightily provoke Sweat and for that reason cures all Feavors as well continual as intermittent and six or seven times given wholly cures the French-Pox yet it is not true but as I have said by reason of its Sulphur though it be diligently handled the common way yet it remains the same Mercury still And although Sulphur with great ingenuity and Art be separated from it yet not enduring a Vacuum in a small space of time it regains new like the former L. de Diaet as our Master teacheth A-part it is sufficient neither for it self nor any other Nay besides Experience Geber confirms it and other learned Men. Hence the Author of the Book called Aureum Seculum f. 90. Very elegantly Sâ—turn his Grand-father out of meer anger again changeth it into what it was before and therefore this Spirit hath obtained the name of Multiformous and of Mercury Those that have passed through these painful labours I am not ignorant that Mercury is a perfect Metal know this to be true But when it is regenerated and resuscitated out of Silver or any other perfect Metal and also cleansed as much as is necessary and with his requisite precipitated to a Redness it becomes a Medicine not to be despised which provokes neither Stool nor Vomit unless in an undiscreet dose yet it is not the Aurora of the Philosophers though as it were Rain-bows Peacocks-tails with sundry admirable colours appear in the sides of the Glass Every like is not the same and in the matter it self after the same sort as it happens in Sulphureous Steel whiles it is under the hand of the Workman neither let any Man believe that this Precipitate is that Panaâ—aea which * About the midst of his Sixth part Crollius saw at Michael Sâ—â—ndivoius's whose name he expressed in his Preface with great Letters here and there in these words Apud Magnum aliquem cui in aeternum bene sIt 'T is a point of Art to read it Cum primis egregium Helioc Antharum bor Eaâ—em nunc in Christo quiescentem cujuSmodi IENtis DenIque consueVerunt latâ—tare tempOrum curnIcVliS because it is not by the first Universal matter reduced to its first matter But what the first matter of the Philosophers is besides Hippocrates Ovâ—d also doth indigitate Metamorph. L. 15. Tempus edax rerum i. e. the first matter in time doth consume whatsoever is produced in or from it Hence the Ancients Fabled that Saturn did devour his own Sons as the Venerable Pythagoras doth witness All Secrets says he are in Saturn i. e. in the most Ancient and first Matter Of which enough at this time Wherefore the External Sulphur in the Mercury is the cause of Vomit and Salivation and not the Corrosive Spirits with which it is Precipitated or Sublimated Sulphur of Mercury is Poyson which the inunction with Quick silver it self proves which is not perceived by the Taste but the most Acid Sulphur of Mercury as I have shewed first pierceth the Skin after the manner of Acids Then it creeps to the Ventricles or cavities of the Muscles
Chap. 21. And he writes thus to Apothecaries That these are boiled according to Art But among Metals there is none that doth more readily associate with fixed Acid than Lead For according to the species of the Acid it changes its form as I have said of Alcalyes The steam of Vinegar turnes It into white Ceruss Acidity in flame into red Minium Lead yields Colours and Glass by the Acid of Sulphur fire being added 't is turned into black with Acid Minerals impure and mix'd ' tis-turned into a double Litarge with the Acid of yellow Clay 't is burnt into Glass of a box-like colour with the Acid of black Clay into a swarthy vitreous colour as the Glass-men know For which cause Melters and Refiners of Metals do honour it very much because it absorbs all sorts of Acids and clears the Metal from all spots The Ancients have observed that all inflamations in living creatures arise from Acidity * In his Book of Ancient Medicine Hippocrates attesting the same In Man says he there is Acid bitter most Acid and hundreds of other things which according to their quantity and strength have various faculties For which cause they devised several Oyntments and Plaisters of Lead How Lead cools That they might take away that Acidity and the oftner those foresaid Unguents are changed the sooner is the Acid consumed and the Distemper cured This consumption of the Acid in condescention to the oapacities of the Vulgar we call re-frigeration in as much as it mortifies the cause of Heat CHAP. XXVII A further Probation that there is Acidity in Flame REverberate whole Corals in an open fire Tincture of Corals twelve ounces for example for six days and nights the fire serves the Skilful for distilling Spirit of Vitriol and you will find fifteen-ounces i. e. three ounces encreased and turned into a most fine powder this encrease is nothing else but the Acid from the flame which dissolves the Corals and is coagulated and fixed with them after the manner of Acids into Salt If you poure distilled Vinegar on this Salt it doth not send forth Bubbles as it otherwise happens in Corals not reverberated for they are saturated with Acid and it dissolves Them into a pellucid Semi-Acid Liquor which though transparent and colourless yet it hath a Latent Sanguineous Redness which the affusion of Spirit of Vitriol in a moment makes manifest 'T was neither the Vinegar nor the Spirit of Vitriol This Tincture is the Rector or Archeus as long lifed as Coral it self of great Vertue not destro ' d by fire it self as I have shewed in Wine which introduced this redness for then the Mixture would be always red when the Magistery of Corals is prepared the common way wherefore of necessity this redness must be secretly Latent in the Coral and by the help of Fire be produced to maturity of which I shall now forbear to speak more 't is enough that contrary to the sleepy Doctrine of the Reformer I have shewed that Acid hath not destroyed this Salt and that Tincture of Corals abides constant in the fire which you may by ingenuity separate and it will commend and praise it self So place the Regulus of Antimony Antimony fixed by Acid from fire being elevated into Flowers E. C. twelve ounces on the floure or hearth of the Glass-mens Oven or Furnace in a large fit Earthen Vessel well covered lest the flying Ashes should fall into it and remove it far from the Eye where the flame plays that it be not melted so let it stand eight days afterwards draw the Vessel nearer to the Eye every fifth day a little until about the fiftieth day then you will find the Flowers of the Regulus fixed into a small light and most white powder and encreased by two ounces by the Acidity drawn from the fire which pierced the Earthen Vessel without hurting it after the manner of Spirits This Regulus was erst melted with a gentle fire now it resists even Antimonial Fusion unless it be urged with quick blowing Bellows then the Acid Spirits return from the fire to their Elements and you will find twelve ounces of Regulus as I before shewed in Lead In like manner deal with Crude Antimony and it will part with its Volatile Acid Spirits and assume other more fixed ones from the fire and is turned into a white powder like Antimonium Diaphoreticum of greater vertue in Physick then that which is burnt with Nitre the reason is that here so much of the Sulphur doth not deflagrate with the Nitre but it is here fixed by its proper Regulus by the fire which this Mechanick shews Boil Antimony in simple water let it be mixed with three parts of Nitre and by turns kindled and calcined in that Ebullition Milk of Sulphur of Antimony of great Vertue the Nitre from the Sulphur of Antimony being burnt to Alcaly dissolves the Sulphur of the Antimony which is now fixed as the boiling or bubbling Alcaly of Tartar doth dissolve common Sulphur for Milk as Crollius hath it sprinkle Vinegar on this Solution being filtrated warm and you shall perceive the Odor of the Sulphur which presently is drunk up by the Alcaly and the Sulphur falls into a white small rare Fixed Antipesti ential Antimony light and spongy Powder which you must wash A drachm of this given with Vinegar in the Plague is more worth than an ounce of that which is not boiled nor dissolved Hence it appears That the Sulphur of Antimony which elsewhere deflagrates with the Nitre here is fixed by its proper Regulus by the Fire in the above-named Vessel and so becomes more perfect so that there is Acidity in the flame of Fire which I have shewed to be imbibed by Corals and Antimony as well as Lead and so by Iron it self which with this and all other Acids is with fire turned into Rust So that there is no difference betwixt that Crocus Martis Câ—ocus Marth which is made either with manifest or Occult Acids both of them are either binding or loosning CHAP. XXVIII The ways and necessities of Precipitation discovered THere are Varieties of Opinions amongst Writers concerning the Properties and Operations of Iron and how and by what manner it performs them in Man's body * L. 3. P. 2. sect 2. C. 7. Sennertus gives us a Catalogue of them but few of them have hit the Mark by reason of their ignorance of Hippocrates his Doctrine * L. 1. de Diaet I will therefore shew how It adstringes and how it loosheth Iron doth manifestly bind and consequently it strengthens the Stomach and neighbour parts Therefore it is good in the Dysentery Lientery Diarrhaea and all Laxative diseases c. But I hear some object that Iron Medicaments provoke the Terms in Women and restore the defects of the Liver and Spleen and so do rather Loosen than Bind Lanswer not as that Canonical Physician who asserted That the stones
of Crabbs were a Mineral and therefore an enemy to Nature but my answer is from the works of Nature in which I have demonstrated out of * L. 1. de Diaet Hippocrates That these things must needs so happen by Divine necessity To wit that there is often observed to wander up and down in us a certain dissolved Salt the Generation whereof I have shewed before in its place It consisting of Acid and Alcaly Compounded less agreeing among themselves and unfit for Transpiration and Sweat This by reason of the inequality of the Sapors doth not obey Purging Medicines as Experience shews Call this if you will an Humour truly excrementious lodging either in the first or in the last region of the Body produced either by the Womb Liver Spleen Reins Sweet-bread Mesentery or Stomach as to this point 't is all one Iron then being taken which as I have shewed Mechanically doth easily imbibe all Acids presently That Noxious Liquid-Salt or Excrementitious Humour runs hastily to the Iron and adheres to it that it may dissolve it and so that Saline Excrement according to the kind of the Sapor whiles it sticks to the Iron and corrodes it is coagulated as we have seen it with the Acid of Vitriol to be turned into Vitriol with the Acid of Wine into * And becomes the Tincture of Mars of the Reformer in his Appendix fol. 83. Rust So also it happens in Copper which if Vinegar corrode it becomes Verdigrease if the same Copper be corroded by Spirit of Vitriol it becomes Vitriol of Venus Consonant to this Doctrine is what I have formerly Ocularly demonstrated concerning Alcalyes and Acids but sithence It cannot be assumed into Aliment therefore it is purged by Stool It doth not â—scend the Viaphragma with the dissolved Iron of a black colour which colour ariseth when the Acid Salt corrodes the Iron and the Alcaly precipitates it into Colcothar as I have shewed above in its place But when Iron is drank As appears in Acid Fountains dissolved in an Acid Liquor but grateful to the Stomach The same Liquors being taken and throughly admitted the Iron presently being unfit as I said for Aliment is separated from the Acid by the Vertue of the Alcaly in the Mixture In which Segregation the aforesaid Salts or Humours flow to the Iron and adhere to It as we see it happens to Silver dissolved in Aqua Fortis if thin Plates of Copper be cast into the Solution then presently the Acidity of the Aqua Fortis deserts the Silver and corrodes the Copper and the Silver adheres to the Copper I speak not of him that never few any thing in his life but stinking Excrements as a compact Powder Again put a thin plate of Iron into the Solution which is now greenish from the Copper and the water presently leaves the Copper and corrodes the Iron and the Copper adheres to the Iron whiles the Vitriolate water of Goslarla corrodes the Iron then the Copper falls from the water into the place of the Iron which contained the Vitriol unripened this red powder melted in the fire turns to Copper This Precipitation many learned Men but ignorant of Hippocrates his Doctrine have believed to be the transmutation of Iron into Copper even so Mechanical reason and necessity also do Dictate that it must be in Man's body especially since Nature is alike in every think as the Old man speaks For unless the excrementitious Humour were of a certain Semi-acid Nature and Taste the Iron would not be dissolved in the body into a green or black mash as we daily see that it is and I have also shewed in its place And unless the Excrements be so tinged Iron is unadvisedly given for it finds not a fit Humour to dissolve it and in that case Iron is Astringent The use and abuse of Acids though the Aperitive Crocus Martis of the Reformer had been taken by the Mouth The same thing is to be understood of Acid Spirits as of Vitriol Sulphur Glass and Salt for These if they find not a wandering Alcaly in the body of Man an enemy to Vitality and therefore Morbous which the Acid Spirit may receive into it self they do more hurt than good for then by their over much Acidity they infect the neighbour Aliment of the Stomach and make it unfit for Nourishment A Physician of Rome a friend of mine Anno Dom. 1656 in the time of the Plague used Spirit of Sulphur in quantity for a Preservative who thereupon became * The Remedy of Arthritis is by Alcalyes Arthritical and was afterwards restored by the Alcaly of Animals as I have elsewhere shewed concerning the Feet-Gout For the Alcaly imbibes the Acid wanderingly dispersed over the the body which was the cause of Disease and Pain in the Ventricles not being accustomed to things manifestly Acid for so * Of Purging Medicines Hippocrates teacheth If any one prescribe Acid meats inconsiderately and without choice they do no good On this principle of Precipitation was the Golden Nail of the great Duke of Florence made which Ferdinand the first of happy Memory graced with this Testimony which is to be seen with the Nail at Florence Mr. Leonard Turneisser in my sight and presence A Golden Nail turned an Iron Nail heated in the fire and immersed in Oyl into Gold done at Rome the 20th day of November after Dinner Such Nails I have also in Sport sometimes made with my own hands but such as deal in Metals the vulgar way think it altogether impossible that Gold and Iron should Conglutinate and therefore they firmly believe that This Nail is really changed out of Iron into Gold and that which confirms their belief is that Gold doth not adhere to Iron yea Gold melted corrodes It in a moment and turns it into Rust * As Common Sulphur doth But Gold is connected with Iron by means of Precipitation as I have said on the same reason and ground for which Iron precipitates Copper Cut then an Iron Nail into two parts moisten the end at least with Spittle and presently touch that part with Cupreous Vitriol and in the very punctum the extremity of the Iron waxeth red and hath now acquired the nature of Copper The passage from one Extream to another is impossible withcut a Medium as the Philosopher says 6. Phys Now Gold is easily associated to and with Copper and so fit a Guspe or point made of Gold to this Cupreous Iron and with Borax and Golden Solidature or Soder which is made of * Glew of Gold Copper money a little Silver and Gold melted at the Eye is better melt it after the accustomed manner in a fitting Coal-fire and then you shall have the Golden Nail so much spoken of Turneisser tinged this Nail with Ferrugo wherewith he hid the Gold and so without doubt offered it to that great Prince to handle with his hands which being so disguised the
turning of the Stomach yea they resist Digestion as appears in Meats seasoned with Spice who do destroy the ferment of the Stomach Hence the Ancients commend simple Food as most wholsome For this cause Simple Food most profitable the heaping together of Sipots is Pestiferous Plin. l. 11. c. 53.5 even for this Syrup they chose Pontick Wormwood as less Odorous and boiled it in old Wine together with Spike that the Odor together with the Spirit of Wine to which it is easily associated might wholly be expelled and gone which the addition of Juice of Quinces shews for unless This had been the Intention of the Ancients instead of this Syrup they had used Quince-Wine and Wormwood-Wine as we may * L. 5. c. 49. see in Dioscorides They preserved the remainder with Sugar from an hoary Vinew and thickned it into a Syrup So also sundry sorts of Wines mixed together and drunk as is usual in Feasts and Banquets do not only create trouble and labour to the Rector in Man which I shewed above Chap. 15. out of * Of the Humours Hippocrates hath his seat in the mouth of the Stomach to unite them but moreover do easily Inebriate Men and by tender Persons are sometimes violently cast out by Vomit Gic. Loccat Nov. 7. Fab 2. observed this also but when the Juices of the same Grapes though Multiformous and Various are united together by Fermentation then from and by diverse Rectors one wholsome drink is made not offending the Stomach even as Treacle is made out of diverse simples co-united by Fermentation over which one only Rector doth Predominate Hence It is commended by Avicen as of wonderful Vertue as I have noted in my Preface But since it is none of my Intent to discover Pebbles in the Sea-shore as the Proverb is where there is such an infinite number of them especially not being delighted with this kind of Writing it is against my Genius to insist any longer on these Trifles and therefore I will now withdraw my Pen and Hand This is the Stress of the Matter The Reformer came to act his Part on the Stage before he knew That Nature did act alike in every thing Now for a Conclusion a word or two to our Friends in their ears the Acid doth inform the Alcaly with These the ancient Foundations of Old Physick and of the Viperine Salt do absolutely agree in a perpetual Concord and an immutable Similitude The specifick Rector dwells in the Acid which iâ— forms the Alcaly as I have shewed to those that uderstand me aright from the decree of Nature it self and out of the Doctrine of my Hippocrates by the most Harmonious and Mechanick Reason and the highest necessity My pretended Friend endeavouring heretofore to learn this consent of Nature and Art by examples and not being able to do it he rages like a mad Dog and bites all that come near him prefering himself far before others as appears throughout all his Writings So every Bird likes his own note best neither is any thing more unjust than an unskilful Man as Tirence speakes Who thinks nothing well done In Adâ—â— act 1 sc 2. but what he does himself FINIS AN INDEX Of the Experiment 〈◊〉 other Remarkes 〈◊〉 in HIPPOCRATES CHYMICVS AFOREGOING Fitted to the several Pages A ACids diverse to be diversly taken away Page 85. Acid retains the property of Seed p. 87. Acid its diversity in the Body p. 88 Acids not contrary to Salts p. 90. Acids all offend the Teeth p. 102 Acid Fountains why they make not the Teeth black p. 53 Acid Waters when to be drunk p. 54 Acid destroyeth Black Colour p. 57 Acids forbidden to wounded Men p. 65 Acids expel and put to flight Metals proved by experience p. 20 Of Acid Spirits only spirit of Salt dissolves Gold p. 25 Acid in a sound Stomach p. 38 Acid Juices differ one from another p. 39 Acids their Vse and Abuse p. 113 Acid and Alcaly in Lime of Flints p. 8 Acid Coagulating Milk threefold p. 40 Acid and Alcaly in Milk p. 41 Acid and Alcaly in Lime p. 8 Acid out of the Stomach Morbous p. 41 Acid and Alcaly Volatile in the Stone p. 44 Acid of the Stomach and Alcaly of the Aliments produce a salt Chyle p. 46 Acids more sharp Precipitate Bodies dissolved in an Acid Liquor less sharp p. 48 Acidity the Vital Instrument in all things p. 49 Acid manifest in the Stomach p. 49 occult in other members p. 49 Alcaly is a Vacuum in Nature p. 87 Alcalyes fixed their Mutations with Acid. p. 87 Alcalyes 〈◊〉 their Mutations with Acid p. 89 Alumen catinum the same with Saltcaly p. 7 Alcaly fixed its Degrees and Kinds proved by diverse Experiments p. 14 Alcaly fixed of Tartar p. 14 Alcaly fixed of Vinegar p 15 Alcaly of Tâ—rtar and Lime p. 15 Alkaly of the Herb Kaly p. 15 Alcalyes of Oak and Lime p. 14 15 Alcaly of Cephalick herbs p. 15 Alcaly of Celandine p. 15 Alcaly of Flesh p. 45 Alcaly and Sea-Salt in Vrine p. 45 Alcaly of every thing preserves the Occult Acid p. 47 Alcaly of Vipers commended in the Feet-Gout p. 48 Alcalyes their diversity discovered from the precipitation of the Colcothar of Vitriol of Mars dissolved in Water p. 52 Alcaly fixed not found in living Animals p. 53 Alcaly of Galls made more perfect by Oyl p. 57 Alcaly Volatile like Alcaly of Galls abounds in some Vegetables p. 58 Alcaly in Vinegar p. 64 Alcaly in Vulnerary Herbs proved by Experiments p. 66 Alcaly Occult in Rain and Well-water p. 68 Alcalyes Occult in Cooling Herbs p. 67 Alcaly and Acid Volatile of Vegetables by fire burnt into fix'd Salt p. 75 Alcaly Volatile in Soot p. 76 Alcaly of Salt-Petre p. 16 Alcalyes invisibly hide calcined Metals p. 23 Alcaly of Herbs draws forth a like fixed Alcaly from Flints p. 28 Alcalyes turned into Salt imitating Acids p. 29 Alcaly of Animals p. 30 Alcaly Volatile of Blood p. 37 Alexius his Secret p. 59 Aliments have little Acid and much Volatile Alcaly p. 46 Alcahest of the Reformer is distilled Vinegar p. 28 29. Antimonium Diaphoreticum how good and for what p. 84 Antimony its Sulphur p. 90 Antimony is fixed by the Acid of Fire p 110 Animals have a Volatile Salt p. 5 Antimony its Emetick force p. 83 Antimonium Diaphoreticum made Emetick p. 84 Argentum Potabile p. 90 Arsenick a subtil Poyson p. 96 Arthritick person from the use of Spirit of Sulphur recovered by Alcalyes p. 113 Aurum Potabile p. 92 Aurum Fulminans from the solution of Spirit of Nitre not of Salt p. 17 Apples rotten Cool p. 81 B BLood of Venus and Mars Page 60 Blood by one drop of Acid made Morbous p. 49 Balsam of Sulphur of Rulandus p. 93 Balsam of Samech p. 16 Bezoar Minerale p. 105 Butter of Antimony p. 105 Butter fresh hath more Alcaly then Acid p. 81 Bezoar stone its use p. 85 Black Colour
administred against the aforesaid Indications as I have shewn then indeed it wants not a deletery Vertue as Avicen teaches well for it excites the gripings of the Intestines dryness and roughness of the tongue siccity of the Body costiveness of the Belly and pains of the Head because it doth consume not only the manifest Ferment of the Stomach but also the occult Acid of the other Bowels and sucks up the Vital Seed but the quantity of it being small viz. the 8200 part of its Body 't is no wonder if upon the taking of Crocus Martis though it should be Aperitive as they ignorantly babble the Disease become more vehement to the destruction of the Patient And in that Case they blame the Apothecary-behind his back as if he had mistook the Box and so detract from his honesty without Cause But if they will not hearken to an old faithful Admonition and to my Experience but pertinaciously resist good Counsel it may chance to come to pass that at last daily Experience and the Death of their Patients will in spight of their teeth enform them of the Truth Otherwise the World would be filled with far fetched ill understood false and dubious Receits and the diligent Observations of our Ancestors would be lightly esteemed and so a new unskilful ambiguous costly speculative infinite and groundless way of Physick would take place which under the disguise of false Words and deep Learning would be entertained by Ideots who not knowing the Vertues of Things hotly contend amongst themselves and rail one at an other not only about Aperitive or Astringent Iron but about many other things some of which I have spoken of as much as the nature of the Argument and the good of my Neighbours require So also by uncertain Conclusions and vain Opinions they revile the Wits of the Studious and to the hurt of their Neighbour and the infamy of the Art they approve and subscribe to Lying Fables And not at all studying the Truth they boast themselves to be great Doctors who yet never will attain to Science because they follow the herd that went before and think they have already attained it as Seneca rightly speaks but to return to the matter Dioscorides handles Iron two manner of ways either preparing Ferrugo out of it or extinguishing It in Water or Wine yet to both the Preparations he ascribes an Astringent Vertue he doth not call the one Astringent and the other Aperitive For when Iron opens it comes from the specifick Acid degenerating in the body which Nature could not receive into nourishment and therefore by reason of its Acid taste it rushes to the Iron so the Bowels being strengthened by degrees Nature expels That together with the detained excrements by stool Hence Helmont says that Iron doth open by a specifick and appropriate Vertue but it binds by a second quality so that neither of the Vertues of the Iron do proceed from the absence or presence of its Mercury which they boast but without Truth that they can extract from it but from the attraction of the specifick Acid in the Morbous Bodies as Hippoc. Chymic shews Chap. 16. and 28. Thither I refer the Reader that I may not clog him with the repetition of things there spoken But we may grant that they can as well extract Mercury from Iron as Eximious Vertues from Copper These Vanities are and always were nausceous to Me as well as to the World and the Sick for they have no foundation in Nature so that they and their Masters are to be banished from the society of good Men whilest on the other side I deal with the Doctrine of Truth and the most Ancient Science which the Ancients found to be agreeable to the Nature of Man and thought worthy to be ascribed to God as the School of Truth yet thinks as Hippocrates hath it De Veterum Medicina for He there teaches that as there is a manifold Acid in the Macrocosme so also in Mans Body And in his Book de Arte every Acid hath its proper Ventricle which yet the vocal and wordy Colledge is ignorant of and therefore he adds as they know who study these things but seeing it is easier to steal blind Receits and to approve them to suppress Truth and to load It with Calumnies then to learn the knowledge of the Ventricles of Mans Body 't is no wonder that They are ignorant of the Instruments of Physick who have no regard to the Ventricles For if says the Old Man they do not know the Constitution from the beginning and that which is predominant in the body they cannot prescribe that which is good for a Sick Man Lo here the Cause why Crocus Martis being Aperitive in the hands of superficial and ignorant Doctors becomes Astrictive and Vice Versa because they are ignorant of their proper Instruments and in the method of Curing know not how to apply Active things to Passive because they have not the knowledge of Ventricles or Sapors neither did they ever learn Them out of Hippocrates of which my Hippoc. Chymic doth discover very many This is the reason why as I said before they come to Practice as the Ass to his fodder not knowing to what he extends his Lips but only as far as his exterior senses without understanding by seeing and tasting do draw him to his meat But why do I insist on the decrees of Philosophers deduced and drawn down from Nature it self since I have to do with such Persons who never so much as dreamt of the Verity and Excellency of the Art of Physick Therefore they are to be instructed by Examples taken out of the Shop of Wise Nature Observe then That in the Stomach and Milt of a sound Animal there dwels a Vital Acid proper to the Milt but when That Acid doth degenerate into an unusual taste or sapor all the neighbouring parts are also contaminated and presently the pores are contracted and the Body which was transpirable in health now ceases from action hence the Milt swels from the motion of the Ferment which will not obey purging Medicines as experience shews Now Iron taken at mouth is good for that Ferment and prae-acid Taste by which the Milt is lessened or dried call it which you will but not by reason of the Aperitive force of the Iron but that Acidity there detained doth in a special manner love the Iron as a thirsty Man doth Beer Let Silver dissolved in Aqua Fortis be an Example Aqua Fortis hath the smell and property of Sulphur of Iron because it is made of Sulphurous Nitre Vitriol or Allum whence by reason of the likeness between them it loves Copper and Iron as I have above Mechanically shewed Now as in the Stomachs of Animals the hungry Acid desires to be satisfied with its like and That like i. e. food it dissolves and is delighted with it 't is just so in the Matrocosme For Example The Acidity of Aqua Eortis is as an
empty Stomach which desires to be satisfied Silver being given it for food it dissolves it and is pleased with it but when you cast in a Physical Drug as I may so call it into this Solution I mean Copper with which for the similitude between them it is more delighted than with the Silver presently it deserts the Silver and again dissolves the Copper and the whole Solution becomes green It must needs be so also in the Body of Man since Nature is in every thing alike as Pythagoras and since Him Hippocrates have taught us Again If you put Iron into Aqua Fortis which here is as the Stomach or Ventricle impregnated or loaded with Copper in regard Copper is of harder Solution and Concoction than Iron the Water presently leaves the Copper and dissolves the Iron And although Aqua Fortis hath already deposed Silver and Copper yet its Acidity and Property hath still dominion over them until they are freed by a melting Fire which is to be observed by Our Friends for it is else where of great use But it is objected by such as are ignorant of this Common and Ancient Order and Consent of Nature and who out of their small Skill go about to overthrow the Hippocratical Verity That I put my Sickle into another Mans Corn and Harvest as if it were a shame for me to know That which all men should or ought to know in an Art or as if They were the only famous Philosophers who compile together Surreptitious and ill understood Receits without the knowledge of the Causes of Things And as Silver and Copper were troublesome to the Stomach of Aqua Fortis that I may so speak which is better when it is cured with Iron so also this Morbóus Forrain Ferment or Humour call it which you please being consumed by the Iron The Ventricle of the Milt and the neighbour parts become botter affected Take therefore at mouth Stomoma i. e. Steel or its Crocus either Astringent or Aperitive with which that Acid Ferment hath a greater agreement than with the Milt and therefore it hastily rushes in pervading its Pores from the Ventricle of the Milt to the whole Stomach Horat'us his Sterilis Rubigo that it may associate it self with the assumed Iron which by that Acid Forrain Ferment is dissolved into a Black or Green Fax according to the property of the Acid as the Excrements of the Belly do testify and if this Acid be not totally consumed by the Iron at one turn it is repeated so often till the Milt shew some signs of its Exiccation so the Anima of one ens i. e. the Ferment of the Disease enters into the Iron and the Anima of another goes out because the Acid or Anima of the Iron which constitutes the Iron goes forth Hence Crocus Martis is called by Horatius Sterilis Rubigo that the Acidity of the Disease might again enter in according to the Doctrine of the Pythagoreans For Nature acts in the Microcosme by the same Instruments as in the Macrocosme For the Ancients have taught us That it is every where alike Here Ideots and Destroyers of Hippocratical Medicine will object That I place a Disease in the Ventricle of the Milt and yet give Iron by the Mouth How then can the Morbous Acid come or reach from the Milt to the Iron as they have also written concerning burnt Harts-horn Which Objection is not worth the answering for one Fool may raise more Questions than an hundred Wise Men can answere but sithence these sluggish Doctors never understood This out of Hippocrates his Sixth Book de Morbis Popularibus out of pitty to them I will shew them the place for he there says that the whole Body as long as Life is in it is perspirable and penetrable see Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 16. But when the Milt or Liver is gone to a Schirrhus then indeed the Steel by consuming the Faber or Operant would more harden the Bowels though the Aperitive Crocus Martis of all these Subscribers be never so much taken by the Mouth He that desires to know more of Iron let him read Hippocrates Chymicus in the fore-cited Chapter So that the Acid which Iron consumes in the Body of Man differs very much from the false Spirit of Venus and from all other Acids in general because it is a specifick and to be found in no other place for if Iron be not wholly dissolved by It in the Body the Excrements of the Belly are not tinged into a Black or Green Colour and then indeed Iron doth Astringe though the Aperitive Crocus of these Innovators be administred as Hippoc Chymic in the fore-cited Chap. doth experimentally shew so that Acid is also a Specifick which burnt Harts-horn drinks up in some Feavors which the sluggish Approvers do judge must needs pass through the intestines to the place affected and to the seat of the Feavor if otherwise it ought to consume the Acid there generated and detained They understand not what Hippocrates teaches in the fore-cited place that the whole Body in Living Persons is permeable and that a Spirit Acid more Acid or most Acid is the Cause of Diseases c. and that it is fermentable and so flows as well through the Pores adextra by diaphoresis or gentle sweat as appears in the Crisis as it goes and rushes to the Intestines unto the Harts-horn as I have shewed concerning Steel provided it find a convenient and specifick Acid in the Body Truly this is a rural clownish Doctrine and worthy the Approvers for if Mediciues must needs pass out of the Stomach to the Seat of the Disease through the Pores then the Sweat and Urine would wax Red from the Crocus Martis especially their Aperitive Crocus Bezoar in Swoonings doth not pass through the Membranes of the Stomach to the Heart nor doth it return from thence for consuming the Lypothymick Acid Neither doth Ostiocolla travel to the broken Bone that it may prohibit or absorb the Specifick Acid there neither doth the Stone of a Crab go to the Wound nor doth a grain of Opium taken at Mouth for the Head-ach pass up or ascend to the Head They are ignorant that the Subtile Argute Judge and equal Weigher of all things which distinctly knows the Seminal Vertue not only of Medicines but also of all other things besides and accordingly doth either embrace segregate or neglect It dwels in the Stomach as I shall shew by Experience Authority and Reason in the following Chap. wherefore this indecent kind of ignorance is to be hissed out of the School of Hippocrates and out of Common Life too To instruct Block heads as Lucian says is a greater and nobler Secret than the very Philosophers Stone for it were to transsorm the understanding and to make Dolts and Stupid Persons Teachable CHAP. IX That Acid and Alcaly in Animals is the innate Calid and Radical Humid HAving discovered the Properties and Essences of Things the Rise Progress and Death
exercising their lying Genius's and in fruitless blotting of Paper Their labour both formerly and hereafter shall be in vain for if a generous Horse regards not the Barkings of following Curs I shall as little esteem my present or future Opposers either single or altogether you know my meaning for I live and conside in just actions but enough of This To return In Vitriol there is an Acid most grateful to pleasant and desired by humane nature as Paracelsus and Experience say This Acid because it cannot be alone associates it self with the immature Metal and with It grows into a Saline Body free or separate It and it will be worth your labour for there lurks in It an Arcanum for the Epilepsy of which the ingenious Crollius speaks Paracilsus attributes many Vertues to the volatileness of Spirit of Vitriol Pasilius Vâ—lâ—â—â— his White Spirit of Viâ—â—iol what in curing the Ep lepsy but I could never see any of Them neither did ever any man affirm to me that he could cure a confirmed Epâ—lepsy only by Vulgar and simply prepared Spirit of Vitriol Thus far He. Therefore for the reasons hinted before it cannot be elicited by Distillation as all Candid Operators witness for this cause the Searchers into the Secrets of Nature have tried another way which I should willingly have declared in this place but that I have experience That 't is a foolish thing to expose ones self to Ignorants and to the Vulgar for what they praise is blame-worthy what they think is vain what they speak is false what they disapprove is good what they allow evil and what they extol infamous as I have hitherto proved by clear Examples Neither doth an Arcanum lie hid in the said Volatility only for the Epilepsie but also for the Suffocation of the Matrix for the Palpitation of the Heart and for the Corroboration of the Spirits Brain Heart and of the whole Individuum since it is the Child of the Sun and the Twin-brother of our Vital Spirit But of This I have said enough I return now to the Vacuous Alcaly of Vipers which is ill treated by the company of Vulgar pretended Chymists As we do not give a Scorpion or a Piece of Wood to those that are hungry and ask for Bread neither do we give Oil mixed with Gaul to such as are thirsty but we exhibite to them similary and consentaneous Aliments of the same family of which the hungry person consists as Hippocrates teaches So also the Alcaly of Vipers being vacuous hungry and thirsty must be satisfied with That of which it consists not with Calx or Spirit of Salt as unskilful Writers give out for I have shewed in the 3. Chapter of this Tract That Nature doth so and she is every where alike And if the Alumnus and Scholar of Truth in his Operations shall imitate Her he can never go out of the way as by and by will appear by a clearer Example But here I would have all Readers to take Notice that as all Remedies proceeding from Animals are weaker for Mans use than Those that come from Minerals so we are here to understand that Alcaly of Vipers possesses a specifick Form and is impregnated with Natural Acid supervening and under a convenient heat of Digestion it is ripened into one excellent Body The same Alcaly indeed may arise more efficacious by reason of its Masculine adjunct yet it cannot ascend beyond the boundary before alledged out of Raymund so that the Remedies taken from the Mineral Family are found to be much more perfect in the Epilepsie Asthma Stone and most Coagulated Diseases Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 14. in as much as their Radical Humid is found by Experience to be more constant Now Those in general are called Coagulated Diseases Coagulated Diseases who from Immature Acid flow from the Stomach to the other Shops of Digestion and are Coagulated there or if in these very Shops through the degenerating of the Occasional Cause the Acid become more powerful then it suppresses the Innate and presently the Pores are contracted and it undergoes Coagulation with the Alcaly of the place according to the property of the Member as I have above shewed out of Hippocrates And as in the Macrocosme there dwels an Occult Food of Life in the Air which because it contains all things which the World hath is therefore called a Multiventrous Spirit we must also understand the same in the Microcosme So that in the Air of Mans Stomach there inhabits a Multiventrous Spirit which contains in it whatsoever a Man can do or hath as I have shewed out of Hippocrates in his Book de Carnibus If therefore any of This Spirit dwelling in the Stomach shall suck in a more Acid Air of a strange and forraign taste or smell not agreeing to its own Nature which it cannot throughly change into Mature or Salt and it falls into another Shop of Digestion where Concoction and Alteration proceed more sweetly than in the Stomach then presently the more powerful suppresses the weaker and they are both Coagulated into a forrain Indoles whence the indwelling Spirit rages and as it were disdains the Member waxes hot and doth not Concoct its proper Aliment from whence a Disease is manifestly produced after the same manner as when Vinegar suppresses the indwelling Rector of a Pearl and doth so weaken It that it loses the form and shape of Pearl as I have elsewhere clearly shewn Wherefore the vivid and manifest Acid if by mistake it fall from the Stomach and pass to the Oeconomy of the Bowels immediately as forrain and more powerful it subdues the feeble Operator of the place and takes the Province to it self causing either Collick pains or making the Belly either loose or costive or working such like disorders in the Intestines which I think better to avoid Prolixity to omit in this place for they require a distinct Tract by themselves I have only endeavoured to deduce necessary Arguments in this matter from thence to discover the folly of Those who have learned to do nothing else but to defame and revile the Truth which is unknown to them Viral Aura Now this vivid and manifest Acid of which I now speak must not be understood to be a certain Fluid Liquor which as the vulgar speaks descends as a swist Torrent but it is also a vital thing called by Hippocrates Aura Levis by Virgil Igneus Vigor by Horatius Divina Aura of it self wanting a Body but not enduring to be alone as Hippocrates says de Diaeta it incorporates it self with Meats and Drinks and informs Them into the Vital Aliment of the Body which takes in that Food Hence again Hippocrates in his first Book de Diaeta The Soul of Man is excreased in Man and in no other and the like of other great Animals Aâ—â—a the Cause of Diseases Now this Aura by Irradiation alone persects its work but a forrain Aura mixed with it as Water with Water
Fire with Fire is alone sufficient to be the cause of Diseases as our Master teaches de veteram Medicina because it can easily alter the inbred Operator for every Male hath its Ventricle which being altred presently the Digestion of the place is disturbed A way of Cryptography and the very Aliment otherwise Vivid is pâ—â—verted into a Mucous Indâ—les according tothe property of theÌ„ diseased and affected Member just as the Occult Sulphurous Odor of Orpiment doth die and denigrate Sal Saturni though far distant from it after this manner Write with Saccharum Saturni dissolved in Water that Writing will not be seen upon the Paper place that written paper in the Frontispiece of any Book then have ready an Humid Sulphurous Odor which is made of unslaked Lime and Orpiment both first severally pounded and afterwards mixed together pour Water on this Powder and make a Lixivium with which you moisten another Paper and place it at the end of the same Book shut the Book and the next morning you shall find the Writing to appear obscurely black because the Sulphureous Odor of the Orpiment being excited by the Alcaly of the Lime hath pierced through the whole body of the Book unto its own subject Art imitates Nature and this Art In like sort says Hippocrates de Diaeta The nature of Man doth operate with which all Arts and all Artifices do communicate For if the Operator and Causes of that glewish matter called Synovia in the joynt of the Foot for Example were so disposed to receive the vitiated Aura of the Stomach as Sal Saturni is to entertain the Aura inquinated by the Odor of the Sulphur of Orpiment then indeed the Aura of the Stomach being tinged with a forrain Odor would also inquinate the Synovia in the joynt of the Toe and this is done only by Odor that I may so speak from whence ariseth pain in the joynt of the Foot which from the place is called Podagra or the Foot-gout and immediately the Aliment otherwise vivid is perverted into a Mucous Indoles c. as I said but now This kind after the manner of the Ancients Hippocrates in general called Divine and hath enjoyned every one to take notice of and observe That if there be any Divine Thing in Diseases we should have special regard to that if ever we would be good and admirable Physicians Now that Divinum of Hippocrates is the Occult The Diviâ—um of Hippocrates Arduous Obscure Hidden Cryptical and Admirable Ferment in all the Ventricles both of the great and lesser World which cannot be seen with the eyes neither can it be perceived by any outward sense but only 't is known by its effect and that not without much labour and no little expence of time but I have shewed it to be the Child of the Sun Chap. 2. For whatsoever doth escape the sight of the bodily eye the eye of the Understanding doth and can reach it as in His book of Preccpts The Vieâ—â—â— Professors gross and Contumelious Opinion of the foundation of Ancient Physick This arduous and obscure Ferment hath so crazed the Brains of the Deans and their Collegiats though they think they were solid strong and well grounded in Art That they do altogether dislike that Divinum as a certain piacular thing which my Hippoc. Chymic celebrates both in Diseases and Remedies and they are also ignorant how to distinguish new things from old latter from former which the fourth in order of the Vienna Professors a scurrilous and dicacious prater doth confess viz. that he is amazed to find that it should be treated of by learned men as being manifestly false and foolish but he Dreams waking as the Proverb is But our Galen even when he was old deriding such mens madness together with many other famous Men had It in great esteem and with Hippocrates consesses in his 2. Book of the Differences of Feavors Chap. 27. That It is placed in a certain secret affection and that it doth inhere in the very parts saying of intermittent Feavors It ceases not to bring abcut the Circuitus of their Fits as long as the Disposition in the generating part is preserved whence it appears that in that place he fetches the Cures of Feavors a little higher than he doth in his Books of Method and in his First Book of Art to Glaxcoe affirming That the correction of this Disposition is the principle scope of the Cure and in the same book Where heat overcomes the matter it is called increment He means nothing else but what my Hippoc. Chym. hath more clearly explained for the sake of the studious viz. Ferment either occult or manifest which speaking to Plebeiasn he calls heat and Alcaly matter for if heat do overcome it must needs have dominion over the Matter or Alcaly as I have abundantly proved by all examples both in the great and lesser world and then sayes Galen Heat is encreased not only in Feavors but also in all other Diseases and Matters as I have before shewed in Barly a seed of the Macrocosme and now shall likewise shew even ad oculum in Paronychia i. e. and imposthumation under the root of the Nails a seed of the Microcosm Now Paronychia the Mistress or Queen of almost all Diseases is an Igneous Tumour so called from the most Acute pain accompanying it the like whereof is hardly to be found amongst Men it arises in the root of the Nails i. e. in their Ventricle when the Occult Ferment is by mistake There made manifest and soured in that very moment the vivid Aliment is perverted the neighbouring parts are disturbed and sometimes the Bones themselves are eroded But this Disposition is corrected by a more powerful Acid descending from a perfecter Family which can subdue the inflamed Ferment of the Microcosme For before the Tumour be opened it must be anointed over and the whole Nail too with Acid of Sulphur as it is gathered Ex Campana which by reason of its thickness they call Oil when this Unction causeth pricking and itching a little in the part affected in that very moment you may observe the corruptive Disposition to be corrected because the more powerful Anima gets dominion over the weaker no otherwise than as counterfeit Spirit of Venus subjugates the Occult Acid in a Pearl Do but wash your Finger with this warm Water and it is enough I would have discovered many more of these things for the benefit of my Neighbours as also a pleasant safe and delightsome Remedy for the Lues Venerca it self unless I had been every where prevented by the deep Wisdom of the Vienna Professors I know Learned Men not a few have by long use and experience taken notice of things that do eradicate certain Dispositions but by reason of the multitude of Ignorants in this woful age which with one mouth would raile against them I am almost ashamed to speak it they are afraid to publish Them because
Dog Serpen's-stone receives not beyond its measure it neglects the rest and spontaneously falls from the Wound so that this Stone according to Galens sense hath an Attractive Faculty with the Magnete but no such Faculty is found in the Hogs-stone and therefore sayes Galen it hath no Magnetick Vertue so that it is clear that whatsoever is devised against the dangerous Diseases of Great Men from the Ablution of this Stone hath no existence but in the Brains of the Inventors but sinks down into a meer Nullity and a dark Chymera of ignorance But when it is given in Powder then without doubt like other Stones it would attract any Acid agreeable to its Nature as Crabs Eyes draws forth that other Acid which putrefies the Wound A Sponge-stone the Acid which Coagulates the Struma The Stones of Perchce the Acid of Urine in the Strangury Bezoar-stones the Lypothymick Acid arâ—â—ng about the heart The Stone Ostio Colla That Acid which hinders the Conglutination of the Bone c. All these aforesaid do imbibe the Specifick Morbous Acid. So also the Hedghog or Histrixes Sâ—ones taken by the Mouth would imbibe its Specifick Acid which was yet never described or taken notice of by any of these Approvers But what that Specifick Acid is which I have spoken of The Cause of Diseases Acid. and which is the Cause of Diseases it cannot be explained in words as my Doctor says De Veteri Medicinae who after he had demonstrated that the Cause of Diseases was Acid yea and most Acid he goes on in these words There is none of them can be seen or known by our Bodily Eyes and therefore they are called by Me Obscure not that they alwayes remain so and exceed our understandings but because they are not found out but with much labour and in a long time for those things which are above and beyond the sight of our Bodily Eyes The same may be reached and fetched in by the Mental Eyes viz. of us Chymists Hitherto Hippocrates his meaning is that we must gradually ascend from known things to unknown as my Hippocrates Chymicus shews which doth proceed as it were by steps from Artificials to the Fabrick of Humane Nature for as I have shewed that the Acid of Iron though it be scarce perceived by the sense and is found no where but in Iron being of a singular kind yet the Loadstone perceives It and attracts it even at a long distance so also there are many yea infinite Acids in Mans Body some of which are made by the degeneration of the Morbous Cause which are not perceived nor attracted by other then their own proper Magnetes as the Morbous Acid in the Spleen is attracted by no other thing but the Rubigo of Iron the Morbous Acid generating The Struma is perceived and drawn forth by no other that I know of but a Sponge-stone They may be called Magnetes because they scent and attract the fore-said Spirits as the Magnete doth Iron and unless the aforesaid Acid Spirits were in readiness and were smelt or scented by their Magnetes they would not be attracted nor absorbed by Them So Gold is inodorous to our senses yet it is smelt even afar off by its own Magnete or Mother for she draws the King says Bernhard and not the King her Upon which occasion of Occult Odors a convenient opportunity is offered to me to speak of the manifest Odors of things The Odor of Things for as I have shewed that the former come from Acid so I shall also experientally shew that these latter also proceed from Acid or Celestial Calid Odors are quiet and at rest till they be rouzed up or stirred and they are stirred as soon as a proper and consontaneous Humid acts upon the Odorous thing for then its Odor is presently spread far and near more or less stinking or sweet according to the Seminal Vertue of the innate Calid which Paradox before I proceed I shall make plain by clear Examples taken out of the Shop of Nature Lime is inodorous of its self but when it is dissolved in simple Water for the building of Walls the Acid acts upon the Alcaly and on the contrary This Action and Commotion diffuses and scatters a smell not agreeable to Mans Nature and therefore before a Man can dwell safely in an House newly built a yeare time had need pass over in which time the Action of the Humid upon the Acid will be at an end Barley also of it self is almost of no smell but when its Meal is boiled and fermented for Beer that is when the constituting parts do begin to act one upon another then they afford an inebriating smell which though it be not noisome yet it so disturbs the Spirits that it prejudices the Memory A Grape hath little smell but the Juice expressed under the Action of Fermentation yields a smell afar off so doth Bread under the Action of Fermentation i. e. when the Humid acts upon the Galid or the Acid on the Alcaly Acid Fountains themselves yet bubbling forth in their Native Soil do expire a most grateful Odor because the Agent it self is a Celestial Acid friendly to Mans Nature So Vinegar when it corrodes any thing as Coral for Example smells more strongly than when it was at rest Amber is pinguous and of a most sluggish smell Amber you can scarce tell that it gives forth any smell at all because its Calid or Acid is the least part in respect of the Radical Humid or Alcaly but when it is stirred up and excited by Solution with a just proportion of Odors and convenient Fat v. g. Zibeth the purer and sincerer it is Zibeth the more acute and ingrateful is its smell then the torpid 〈◊〉 of the Amber being excited by the Zibeth begins to act upon the Humid and upon that Action there ariseth a most sweet smell as for Example Pound ten Grains of Amber and three Grains of Zibeth in a Mortar and the Amber presently melts upon which for encreasing the Acid instil a drop or two of Juice of Lemmons and by this means you will have an unguent of an admirable suavity which rubbed upon the Skin yields an incredible Odor So Musk Musk. by how much the purer and simpler it is it smells strong indeed but 't is a bad scent or at least not a very good one but when it is dissolved with some drops of Ardent Spirit of Rosos which I have proved to be Acid 't is to be admired what a feagant smell it will afford Three Graines of this Musk so dissolved being added to the aforesaid Solution of Amber and Zibeth you will hardly find a more odoriferous thing but I have shewn that the harsh smell of Lime Beer c. is noxious to many Men so also this sweet smell is an enemy to many both Men and Women Those that are troubled with Uterine Distempers or Diseases of the Lungs cannot endure it which