violently driven about by the volatile part of Salt-peter finds a little hole to fly out at The more fixt part of Arsenick remains at bottom with the fixt salt-peter The matter is Calcined again that being the more open it may be the more Caustick but this must be done in a covered Crucible for otherwise the Arsenick which is almost all of it sulphur would fly quite away by the great fire Corrosive Oil of Arsenick This liquor is an Arsenick opened and become of the consistence of butter by the acids of sublimate Corrosive Take equal parts of Arsenick and Sublimate Corrosive powder and mix them put this mixture into a glass-retort and set it in sand fit to it a Receiver and luting the junctures distil with a gentle fire a butter-like liquor resembling the butter of Antimony and when no more will distil take away the Receiver and put another in its place filled with water Encrease the fire and you 'l see the Mercury fall into the water drop by drop continue the distillation till there comes no more You may use this Mercury on all occasions like to another after you have washed and dried it The Butter of Arsenick is a very strong Caustick it makes an Eschar more quickly than that of Antimony Remarks The same thing happens in this operation that I spoke of in the Butter of Antimony that is the Spirits of Sublimate Corrosive do leave the Mercury to joyn with the Arsenick which they draw along with them in a gummous liquor the Mercury being afterwards disengaged and finding no sulphurs to fix it comes forth in a vapour and condenses into water CHAP. XI Of Quick-lime QVick-lime is a Stone whose moisture the fire hath quite dried up and brought into its place a great many igneous bodies It is these little bodies that cause the Ebullition when water hath opened the matter that kept them inclosed and this Ebullition lasts until all the parts of the Lime are dilated and the fiery particles set at liberty so that there is no need of further trouble to get out These little igneous bodies do likewise render the Lime Corrosive for the stone is not at all so of it self When the stone that Quick-lime is made of is grown red hot in the Furnaces the Workmen have a special care to keep up the fire at an equal height until the stone is quite Calcin'd for if the flame which has begun to burn among the stones should be suffered to lessen for a while and so the heat be checkt before the end of the work they would never afterwards be able to make Quick-lime with those stones any more though they should be at the charge of burning fifty times as much wood as is commonly required and this because in that interval of heat the pores of the stone which were begun to be opened do close and shut and the matter sinks down in a lump to the destruction of the whole And then again the flame can't rise in it any more for it finds none of those interstices or spaces between which were frequent before for it to pass through The matter therefore is rendred uncapable of receiving the fire any more because all the small cells that were useful for its reception are shut up and destroyed in this confusion It is objected that if igneous bodies were they that caused the Corrosion of Quick-lime Tiles Bricks and all stones that are not of the nature of Lime-stone and Iron Copper Silver Gold and many other bodies should be as Caustick as Quick-lime after having endured the fire as long if not longer than it But this does not follow for Tiles and other Calcined stones have not the pores disposed like those of Quick-lime to retain fiery particles and if some metals are found impregnated with them during their Calcination they are known to retain them so well by the solidity of their parts that neither the heat nor moisture of the flesh are able to draw them out of the places they are fixt in to cause a Corrosion upon the part It is easie here to give you an example for if you take the Calx of Lead that encreased its weight in the Calcination as I have said before and steep it in water the water will not act at all upon it and the Calx may be taken from the water in the same weight it was put in you must melt it by fire if you would separate the igneous bodies but now as for common Quick-lime a small matter of moisture is able to separate the tender parts of the stone and drive out the fiery particles in abundance It is said likewise that the ebullition of water which happens when flung upon Quick-lime must not be imputed to fiery bodies seeing neither spirit of wine nor oil when thrown upon it do at all cause heat although they are both of them Inflammable bodies nay on the contrary they are observed to quench the heat that uses to happen to Quick-lime when water is joyned with it I Answer that these effects do proceed from this that Oil spirit of wine and other Sulphureous liquors of the same nature instead of separating the parts of quick-lime as water does do rather hinder any separation from being made by stopping up the pores That which withdrew me from the Sentiment of those who will have all the effects of quick-lime derived from its salt was that I could never find any in it though I have sought after it with care enough for some through mistake do take a certain Bituminous scum which often swims upon the Lime-water for a salt Neither can I be of the opinion of those who will needs have an acid to be in quick-lime which being drawn out by the water and meeting an alkali does cause the effervescency which is observed when water is poured upon quick-lime for although according to appearance an acid may enter into the natural composition of the stone that quick-lime is made of this acid has lost its nature not only by breaking its points in its strict union with earth at the Petrification but also in the violent Calcination that is given to this stone to reduce it to a Calx So that we may here say the same thing happens to the acid which enters into the composition of the stone as I have said did happen to the salt of Vegetables and other mixt bodies which though naturally an acid salt changes into an alkali by means of its union with earth and the fiery particles in time of the Calcination there is only this difference between them both the acid of the stone is mixed with more earth than the salt of Vegetables When Lime is once slackt it neither causes any more ebullition nor heat with water but if you add to it an acid it makes both a considerable ebullition and heat because the acid edges will penetrate into the particles of the Lime where the water was not able to go There is not made
likewise Precipitate what an alkali hath dissolved as we see in the Operation of the Magistery of Sulphur and this because the acid having dissolved and separated the parts of the alkali makes it let go its hold and the body precipitates by its own weight When Milk coagulates by the means of an acid it is because it contains a great deal of Cheese into which the acid enters and losing its motion weighs it down whence it comes to pass that the Coagulum which is made with a weak acid precipitates much less than that which is made with a greater quantity of acid but if you should in curiosity pour a great deal of acid upon the precipitated Coagulum you would find it dissolve by degrees The fermentation of Dough and other matters of the same nature does proceed from this that the natural salts having been put into motion by trituration or some other cause do rarifie and dissolve as much as they can whatsoever resists their motion but because these acid salts do exert their activity by little and little and do meet with much resistance the solution is made slowly and the division of some parts is with difficulty enough And this is that which causes the matter to swell as it does and to take up greater room than it had before Leaven does encrease the fermentation in dough because it self being a paste whereof the salts are become free to act by means of a long fermentation these salts do easily join with those of the other paste or dough and do help them to rarifie and dissolve the whole The same may be likewise said of other acid matters which cause a fermentation But when the acids have rarified the matter as much as they are able they lose their motion in it and then the matter coagulates that is to say returns into the same extension as before There is still one effect of acids which seems different from those I have now spoken of that they do preserve certain bodies which are put into them as salt keeps or preserves meat Thus when young Cucumbers Samphire or Capers are steeped in Vinegar there is no fermentation with them and consequently no corruption The reason of which is that the parts of Cucumbers and other like things being very viscuous and sluggish the acids do insinuate to dissolve them but they have not there their motion free enough to make their jostles and to divide the parts minutely so that the acids of the Vinegar do only fix in the pores of these matters and coagulate in them It is this coagulation which hinders the Cucumbers from corrupting for these acids do shut their pores and serve for so many little pegs wherewith to sustain their parts firm and quiet Sea-salt which is an acid does preserve meat and many other matters for the same reason I have already spoken of that in my Remarks upon the Principles The Coagulation then which acids do cause may justly be said to be an imperfect dissolution of bodies and I could here relate a great many other Examples to prove what I have asserted But I shall content my self with those already said And now let us see whether this discourse can furnish us with any thing that illustrates the digestion of Aliments in the Stomach Most of our modern Philosophers have not spared the notion of acid when they have endeavoured to explicate digestion they have conceived the Membranes of the Stomach to be all impregnated with it and many of them not contented with this liquor alone have brought some more of it from the Spleen and Pancreas but if all these acids were really in the Stomach the aliments would not escape coagulating and consequently an Indigestion as uses to happen after taking too many acids at Meals for conceive never so great a quantity of them either there would not be enough to dissolve the Aliments or else the Membranes of the Stomach would be attenuated and concocted too as well as that which they contain which nevertheless doth not happen in the natural temper of the body There is no need of seeking after these imaginary acids to cause digestion the spittle which mixes with the Aliments as they receive their first Trituration between the Teeth will furnish us with enough to actuate the Fermentation in the Stomach there is but little acid requisite to set the parts in motion but when once they are moved they do contain enough Salts and Spirits of the same nature which being quickned by the heat of this viscus will break all their Chains and find a vent out whence does infallibly follow an attenuation of the Aliment into a Chylous substance It will be said without doubt that the irritation in the Stomach which is called Hunger cannot be produced by any thing but an acid which finding no more Aliments to work upon uses to act upon the Membranes themselves But I think I shall explicate this Irritation better according to my own opinion than that of these men for I may with reason enough say that the spittle finding the stomach empty of all nourishment ferments alone and creates this Irritation seeing that spittle as every body must grant is loaded with a Salt but as for them they must make an acid to come from the membranes which nevertheless doth not irritate them but only when it meets with nothing else in the Stomach to exercise upon which is a thing hard enough to comprehend I know very well that some of them to avoid this difficulty will say that the acid is generated in the stomach from the remainder of that which is eaten which continuing some time in the stomach produces a Leaven after the same manner as Dough but then they must explain to me what the Ferment did consist of which served to digest the first Aliments that the Infant took Another Objection may be made to what I have said touching digestion it is that whereas I have maintained that acids do dissolve when they abound and Coagulate when they are but few in a great deal of matter it should happen that Spittle should then be apter to Coagulate the Aliments in the stomach and cause indigestion than would a greater quantity of acids for it seems according to my discourse the more acids are found in a matter the more liable it must be to dissolve To resolve this difficulty which seems to be very considerable we must observe that the natural acids of Aliments taken into the stomach are sufficient to rarifie and dissolve those bodies which hinder their motion when it has been begun by Mastication or by some salt of the spittle which serves as a Leaven to them much after the same manner as the salts of meal do rarifie the Paste when they have been actuated before by Trituration and Leaven together but now if there happens to be too much acid in the Aliments that are taken into the stomach they will have the same effects as Cucumbers
than when it is filled with water nevertheless it is plain that when an empty vessel is set over the fire the bottom does heat and grow red-hot especially if left so a good while I answer to this that when the kettle which was set in a great fire is full of liquor the fiery parts having passed through the bottom in a strait line as I said are in a manner absorbed by the liquor and have no more strength or action left to reflect again upon the bottom of the vessel and so to beat it but now when it is empty the fiery parts which pass through the bottom finding nothing to drown them and check their motion many of them do return back upon the bottom and that way heat it so much as they do And the same reason holds why an empty Tinn or Leaden vessel being set in the fire does quickly melt but when filled with liquor they will not melt make what fire under them you please for the fiery parts finding nothing that is able to hinder their activity in an empty vessel do pass to and fro through its pores often enough to melt it But these same fiery parts finding moisture to engage them in a full vessel they cannot return upon the bottom so as to melt it Copper does not melt so easily as many other matters because it contains more terrestrious parts than those others Brass or Yellow Copper is a mixture of Lapis Calaminaris and Copper and vessels that are made of it give less impression to liquors than the others Calcination of Copper To Calcine Copper is to purifie it from its more Volatile parts by the means of common Sulphur and fire in order to render it the more compact Stratifie plates of Copper with powder'd Sulphur in a large Crucible cover the Crucible with a Cover that hath a hole in the middle to give the Vapours vent Place your Crucible in a Wind-furnace and light a very strong fire about it until there rise no more vapours then draw off your Plates as they are hot and separate them this is the Aes ustum that is used in outward remedies to deterge Remarks In the making of this stratification we begin with a bed of Sulphur and lay over it a bed of Copper-plates then another bed of Sulphur and another of Plates We continue to do so till the Crucible is quite full but you must be sure to let the first and last bed be of Sulphur This Calcination is thus performed that the common Sulphur by its burning may cleanse the Copper of its superficial Sulphur but it will be much better purified by the following Operation Purification of Copper This second Purification of Copper is to render it fair to the eye and of a high colour Take what quantity you please of Calcined Copper heat it red-hot in a Crucible placed among burning coals and cast it red-hot into a Pot wherein you shall have put enough Oil of Linseed to swim above it four fingers cover the Pot presently for otherwise the Oil would take fire let the Copper steep till the Oil is grown pretty cool separate it and put it to heat again in the Crucible then cast it into Oil of Linseed continue to made it red-hot and quench it in the Oil nine several times You must change your Oil every third time and you 'l have a Copper well purified and of its former colour If you Calcine it once again to consume the Oil and powder it you 'l have a Crocus of Copper that is detersive and good to eat the proud flesh of Wounds and Ulcers Vitriol of Copper or Venus This Operation is a Copper opened and transformed into a Vitriol by Spirit of Niter Dissolve two ounces of Copper cut into little pieces in five or six ounces of Spirit of Niter pour the dissolution into a Glass-Cucurbite and evaporate in Sand about the fourth part of the Liquor put that which remains into a Cellar or some other cool place and let it lye there five or six Hours you 'l find Blue Crystals separate them and continue to evaporate and crystallize till you have drawn them all dry these Crystals and keep them in a Viol well stopt They are Caustick and are used to consume superfluous or proud flesh If you leave these Crystals in a Pan uncover'd they will turn into liquor that may serve for the same use Remarks You must put the Copper into a large body placed within the Chimney and pour to it by little and little the Spirit of Niter there does presently rise a great effervescency and a red cloud from it which would be very mischievous to the breast if it were not avoided Then the vessel grows so hot that a man cannot keep his hand upon it and the heat continues until the solution be finished for then the liquor clears up and becomes of a fair blue colour The great effervescency that happens does proceed from the sutable Pores of Copper to the edges of Spirit of Niter so that they can make their entrance and jostles with a good force for when these edges which did before swim with all liberty in a liquid do find their motion checkt in the body of the metal they do strive to disengage themselves and do thereby separate the parts of the Copper It is this violent separation which causes the ebullition and heat for the acid edges striking strongly against the solid parts of Copper do cause a great agitation in the liquor and by that means do excite a heat much after the manner as when two solid bodies are beaten against one another violently they grow so hot as even to strike fire The red cloud is derived from the Spirit of Niter which upon rarefaction does always acquire that same colour When the Copper is but half dissolved it is green but when it is all dissolved it assumes a blue colour if you will separate the acids again from the Copper dissolved and reunite the parts by the help of fire it recovers its red colour After that the acids have divided the parts of Copper as much as they are able they stick fast to them and suspend them in the liquor Some part of the liquor is evaporated that the rest may crystallize the more easily That which flies away in time of the solution is the more phlegmatick part Vitriol of Copper is nothing but the acids of Spirit of Niter incorporated in the Copper and it is these Spirits that cause all the Corrosion for they are like so many little knives fastned to the Body of the Copper which do tear and gnaw the flesh on which they are applied This Vitriol dissolves into Liquor because the Copper having large Pores the moisture doth easily insinuate into them Other Crystals of Venus These Crystals of Venus are the acid part of the Vinegar incorporated into Copper Take what quantity you please of Verdegrease in powder put it into a large Matrass and pour upon it distilled
writ that if Aqua Regalis dissolves Gold and cannot dissolve Silver the reason of it is that the gross points of spirit of Niter or Aqua fortis are subtilized by the mixture of sal Armoniack and are rendred fit to enter into the small pores of Gold whereas the delicate Fabrick of these same points does not leave them the necessary strength nor motion to divide the parts of Silver whose pores are a great deal bigger But this way of arguing does not agree with experience for what likelihood is there that the points of spirit of Niter are so subtilized by the penetration and division of the parts of sal Armoniack or where shall we find any example that after a considerable effervescency of two salts met together in conflict the acidity grows sharper than it was before this is a thing that can never be proved On the contrary every body knows well enough that no effervescency happens but the acid is in part blunted or broken thereby Moreover the Argument supposes that spirit of Niter does break its subtilest points in violently contending with the Sal Armoniack since also that in sal Armoniack there are alkali salts whose property it is to destroy acids I could further add here that the conjunction of salt with spirit of Niter should of necessity render its points more gross than they were and that the Crystals which are drawn by aqua Regalis have their shape not so keen as those that are drawn by aqua Fortis But that which I have said is so probable in itself and so easie to be convinced of if a man takes never so little pains to consider it that I should but amuse my Reader to little purpose if I should offer to give any proofs of it Neither do I find it convenient to make a long discourse in explicating how Silver which has lesser pores is more susceptible of the impressions of Air and Fire than Gold which has larger seeing I have already supposed that the matter intercepted between the pores of Gold is more compact and consequently more hard to separate than that of Silver Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack This preparation is a volatile salt raised from sal Armoniack by the means of Quick-lime and dissolved into a liquor Take eight ounces of sal Armoniack and four and twenty ounces of Quick-lime powder them apart and when you haved mixed them in a mortar pour upon them four ounces of water and put it quickly into a Retort whose half must remain empty Set your Retort in a sand Furnace and fitting to it a great Receiver and luting the junctures exactly begin the distillation without fire for a quarter of an hour afterwards increasing it by little and little unto the second degree continue it until nothing more comes forth take off your Receiver and pour out the Spirit immediately into a Viol turning away your head as much as may be to avoid a very subtile vapour that continually rises from it Stop the bottle close with wax to keep the Spirit in you will have of it five ounces and six drachms It is an excellent Remedy for all diseases that proceed from Obstructions and corruption of humours such as Malignant feavers the Epilepsie Palsie Plague Small-pox c. It drives by perspiration or by Urine the dose is from six drops to twenty in a glass of Balm or Carduus water Remarks Quick-lime which is an alkali destroys the strength of the acid Sea-salt which in a manner bound up the volatile salts in the Sal Armoniack whence it comes to pass that as soon as Lime and Sal Armoniack are mixed together there exhales an unsufferable smell of Urine for the volatile salts coming forth abundantly do so fill the Nose and Mouth of the Artist that he would never be able to put the mixture into the Retort if he did not take good care to turn away his head while his hands are at work Water is added to it to liquifie these volatile salts for if there were nothing to moisten them they would suddenly sublime to the neck of the Retort and stopping it all together would break it to pieces You must stop the Retort with your hand so soon as you have poured the water into it and shaking it one minute you must hasten all you can to fit to it the Receiver and to lute well the junctures for the Quick-lime does presently grow hot so soon as its body is opened and this heat which is very considerable would spend the more volatile of the salts if there were no care taken to preserve them The Quick-lime being wetted does swell and take up a great deal of room wherefore the Retort must be filled but half full that there may remain room enough for the Spirits to rarefie in you must also use a large Receiver in which the vapours that rise in abundance may be able to circulate with ease This Spirit is nothing but a solution of volatile salts in water if you would sublime and separate it from the water you must put the liquor into a matrass with its head and proceed as I shall shew when I describe the volatile salt of Vipers but this salt being dry flies away more easily than when it continues dissolved in water so that it were better keep it as it is This is a stronger Spirit than that which is prepared with Salt of Tartar because the little fiery bodies of the Quick-lime which are mixed with it have quickned the motion of the volatile salts likewise these fiery particles are they that do hinder the coagulation of this Spirit with spirit of Wine when they are mixed together for there must be a cohaesion and repose of parts in order to make a Coagulum You must also have a care when you remove the Receiver not to hold your head over it for this volatile salt suffering a greater separation than before enters the Nose immmediately and hinders Respiration insomuch that several persons have been seen to fall in a swound by that means alone Now to avoid this accident you had best have ready a wet cloth to stop the Receiver with so soon as it is unluted This Spirit is an excellent Menstruum to make precipitations with it destroys acids exceeding well as do all other volatile alkalis it is used to precipitate Gold after it is dissolved It is good in those diseases I named because it opens the pores and drives the humours by perspiration or by Urine according to the disposition of bodies moreover as it is an alkali it destroys the acids which caused these diseases Again it sometimes causes sleep because it dulls the keenness of acid salts which entring into the little conduits of the Brain do cause perpetual watchings It is better give volatile Spirits in Sudorifick waters than broth because the broth being taken hot the heat would evaporate the better part of the volatile Spirits before a man could reach the Porringer to his mouth You
soluble part of the other Divers little Objections have likewise been made me on this subject for want of duly examining what I have established Wherefore I do not desire to enlarge in the relation of them for I do aim as much as I can to avoid Repetitions as being good for nothing but to swell a Book and tire the Reader Wine diminishes the appetite as saith Hippocrates and the cause may be because the Sulphureous Spirits it is charged with do dull and oppress the Ferment of the Stomach which by its irritation caused hunger Vinous liquors may be made of all Fruits and many other things by means of Fermentation as from Apples Pears Honey and Hopps In like manner Berries Seeds Leaves and Flowers may be made to Ferment but because several of these things are naturally too dry to ferment easily they must be wetted with water after they are beaten and to quicken their Fermentation a little Yest is to be added and by this means liquors are made whence burning Spirits may be drawn as well as from Wine That which happens in the fermentation of Wines may serve very well to explicate many diseases but especially the Small Pox for it is very probable that in this disease the bloud does boil and ferment in the vessels much after the manner as Wine ferments in a vessel The little pustules of the Small Pox are a Tartar which is separated from the bloud to the skin after the same manner as the Tartar separates from the Wine to the sides of the vessel and indeed they have the same effect as salt in corroding the skin Infants are more subject to this disease than elder persons because their bloud is more like to Muste and consequently is more subject to ferment The Small-pox does usually happen but once in a mans life just as Muste does ferment also but once Distillation of Wine into Brandy Fill with Wine half a large Copper body cover it with its Moors head bordered with its Refrigeratory and fit to it a Receiver lute well the junctures with a wet Bladder and distil with a gentle fire about a quarter of the Liquor or else until the liquor which distils doth not burn when fire is put to it that which is in the Receiver is called Brandy and in French Aqua vitae Remarks Brandy is a Spirit of wine loaded with phlegm that it hath carried with it in the distillation these Spirits do always rise first and so it is known that there remain no more in the Cucurbite when the liquor that distils is no longer inflammable Brandy may be drawn from all sorts of Wines but more of it may be drawn in some Countries than others For example the Wines that are made about Orleans and Paris do yield greater plenty of Brandy than many others which seem to be stronger and the reason is that those Wines which appear stronger being loaded with a great deal of Tartar have their Spirits as it were fixed whereas the others containing but a convenient portion of this Tartar do leave their Spirits at greater liberty When Wine has been drunk there is made a separation of Spirits in the body much resembling that which is made by distillation for the heat of the bowels warming it causes the Spirituous parts to spread on all sides through the pores and some part of them to mix with the bloud and rarefie it from whence it comes to rejoyce the heart and encrease the vigour of the whole body but because these Spirits do always tend upwards the greatest part flies into the brain where it quickens its motion and produces a certain gaiety of mind that is wont to furnish us with many excellent thoughts But now if wine moderately taken is so profitable for the Functions of the body it likewise causes many mischiefs when it is excessively used for the Spirituous parts rising in great abundance do circulate in the brain with so much celerity that they soon confound the whole Oeconomy And then the objects will appear double and the walls of the place where one is seem to have changed their ordinary situation This Confusion remains until the Spirits having some good time dissolved the phlegm do in part condense with it and in part spend through the pores It likewise then happens that a man is prone to sleep because the Pituita being attenuated either by the Spirits of wine or by the phlegm they have drawn along with them glides into the small passages of the brain and retards the Circulation of the Animal Spirits by gluing them together for after the same manner as the motion of the Spirits in the Brain doth beget watchfulness so their repose or condensation produces sleep But I shall speak more amply of this subject hereafter when I come to treat of the effects of Opium The sleep which is caused through excess of Wine doth usually remain until the Animal Spirits have rarefied this phlegm and opened a free passage Those who are intoxicated with Beer Sider or some such like liquor do remain in their Drunkenness a longer time and sleep more after it than those who are drunk with Wine because the Spirit of these liquors carrying along with it a viscous phlegm into the brain remains a longer time in the disengaging it self and passing through the pores Again it is the viscosity of this phlegm which entring into the Sinus of the brain does cause so long a sleep because it is so hard to rarefie Those Accidents that I have related to proceed from the immoderate use of Wine are but the first and the less grievous though indeed they are but little to be desired every body knows that a continuation of frequent debauches doth at last render a man dull and stupid and this by reason the Spirits of Wine do not only trouble the Natural Spirits in their functions and render them Phlegmatick but likewise by rarefying them do ever carry off and lose some store of them These Persons are likewise subject to a continual spitting or else they are molested with defluxions Catarrhs and Gout because the Pituita being rendred more liquid by the Spirits and phlegm of vinous liquors is forced to descend through the Lymphatick vessels but if there happens to be the least obstacle in these vessels it takes its course with the Nerves and falls upon all the parts of the body Lastly when excess of wine does occasion falling into the Apoplexy and Palsie it is by reason the Pituita is rendred too liquid by the Spirits and Phlegm of wine and causes Obstructions in the head and hinders the natural course of the Spirits into the Nerves Many other sad effects of wine-debauches might be here mentioned but this digression is too long Let us return to our Operation After the wine hath been deprived of these Sulphureous Spirits there remains in the body a Tartareous liquor which being exposed a good while to the Sun in a Cask without its stopple turns
enough to suspend the particles of Gold and hinder them from precipitating Wherefore if you would add never so much Gold more when these points have seized upon as much as they are able to joyn with they cannot possibly dissolve one grain more and it is this suspension that renders the particles of Gold imperceptible But now if you add some body that by its motion and figure is able to engage the acids enough to break them the particles of Gold being left at liberty will precipitate by their own weight And this is what I conceive the Oyl of Tartar and Volatile Alkali Spirits are able to do They are impregnated with very Active Salts which finding bodies at rest do presently move them and by the quickness of their motion do shake them so violently as to break the points by which they were suspended these fragments of little points being thus disengaged from the Gold are still keen enough to act and they have action enough remaining to pierce and divide violently the parts of Alkali Salts which are much more soluble in their nature than Gold and this occasions the Ebullition which presently happens when these Spirits are poured upon the Dissolution These edges then being thus broken two things must follow thereupon The first is that the remaining Aqua Regalis is rendred uncapable of dissolving any more Gold because it hath no more power left of making a penetration The second is that the precipitated Powder of Gold is impregnated with some part of the Dissolvent by reason that the sharpest part of these edges remains within it Experience teaches us both the one and the other to wit the force of the Aqua Regalis is quite destroyed for dissolving any more Gold and the precipitated Powder hath drawn along with it some Spirits that are so closely lockt up that though it be several times washt in warm Water they cannot possibly be disengaged from their hold And this is evident when it is put upon the Fire for the great Detonation or noise that it makes cannot proceed from any thing else but the inclosed Spirits which violently divide the most compact body of Gold to get out quickly when they are forced to it by the action of Fire I can here explicate by the by after the same manner the action of a certain Powder consisting of three parts of Niter two parts of Salt of Tartar and one part of Sulphur This Powder being heated in a Spoon to the weight of a Drachm gives as Thundering a noise as a Cannon it self Now the fixt Salt of Tartar causes in this Powder what the Gold did in the other that is to say it retains the Spirits of Niter and Sulphur so lockt up that they cannot be separated without violently breaking their Prison and this is that which makes such a noise Aurum Fulminans taken inwardly causes sweat because the heat of the Body volatilises it and drives it through the Pores Now if the Pores are very open it will only cause an insensible transpiration but if they are closed up by the coldness of the weather so that it must remain some time before it passes the vaporous humidity which bears it company dissolves upon the skin into what we call sweat Some think the Gold contributes nothing at all to these transpirations and that the spirit of Niter alone being forced by the heat of the body to pass through its Pores causes all the action But I conceive it is more likely that these spirits do carry along with them some parts of the Gold with which they are so intimately mixed And by this explication may be better comprehended how so small a quantity of spirits is able to produce sweat for suppose there passes through the Pores one grain of Gold and two grains of spirits these spirits being as I may so say armed with the grosser parts of Gold will be better able to conquer the resistance that shall oppose their passage than if they were separate after the same manner as a good piece of Timber that is driven along by the stream of a River will strike with much more violence against the Arch of a Bridge and endanger it much more than a single Wave would be able to do though never so swift There are two sorts of insensible Transpirations one hapening at all times as well in health as sickness and the other in a Burning Feaver or else sometimes upon the taking a Sudorifick The first Transpiration is insensible because the vapour which passes continually through the pores is yet in so small a quantity that though it does dissolve in a moisture upon the skin it is not perceived at all The other is caused by a great motion of the Spirits which drive the humours through the pores of the body after a rapid manner and whereas at that time the pores become very open and the skin is heated more than ordinarily the vapour passes away through the skin without condensing upon it But if once the rapid motion of humours begins to slacken then the sweat appears and begins to be felt and this does happen in Agues for during the great heat of the Ague men do not sweat at all but only in the declination of the fit because then the skin somewhat cools the vapour condenses into a moisture which we call sweat wherefore sweat may be said to issue from a middle degree of heat between the first insensible Transpiration and the second Most men think that there goes out more moisture in the time of the sweat than by the insensible Transpiration which is made during the height of the hot fit but they seem to be mistaken very likely for it may easily be conceived that there should be a greater disposition in the vigour of the fit than afterwards in the declination by reason that at that time the heat is greater and so more able to impel forth effluviums Distillation in a Retort will confirm what is here maintained For if you make only a moderate fire under the Retort the moisture which rises out of the matter will distil drop by drop because the vapours cooling and condensing in the neck of the Retort do resolve into a liquor but if you make a great fire in the Furnace so that the neck of the Retort comes to be heated too much all the moisture is driven in a meer vapour and there appears not the least humidity in the neck of the Retort I have already said that Gold doth repress the violence of Mercury because it doth Amalgamate with it but Aurum Fulminans doth it much better for being Volatile it is more easily carried through all the body and fails not to find out the Mercury wheresoever it lies We need not fear lest Aurum Fulminans taken inwardly and heated by the stomach should cause such a Detonation there as it does when set over the fire in a spoon for so much the more moisture as comes to it so much
that it may be joyned with but because it doth sometimes prove very difficult to separate it from the Earths with which it is in a manner incorporated they are forced to distil it through Iron Retorts into Receivers filled with water Natural Cinnabar called Mineral is a mixture of Mercury and Sulphur that sublime together by the means of a Subterraneous heat and this is done near after the same manner as Artificial Cinnabar is made of which I shall speak anon Quicksilver by reason of its fluidity is hard to transport wherefore a great quantity of it is reduced into Cinnabar in the places whence it is taken after the manner following Artificial Cinnabar Cinnabar is a mixture of Sulphur and Quicksilver sublimed together Take a quantity of Sulphur and melt it in a great earthen pan then mix by little and little thrice as much Quick-silver you must stir about and preserve the Matter in Fusion till all the Mercury disappears Then powder your mixture and sublime it in pots in an open fire well governed you 'l have a hard Mass and of a very red colour If any heterogeneous Metal should have been mixt with the Mercury it would remain at the bottom of the Pots Besides the convenience of easily transporting Mercury by this means it is very useful in Painting It is also used in Pomatums for the Itch and to make Fumes withal to raise a Salivation Remarks A pound of Sulphur is able to incorporate three pounds of Mercury and to make a Mass together The cause of this mutation of Mercury into Cinnabar does proceed from the penetration which the more acid part of Sulphur does make into the Mercury and the intangling its parts whose motion is now checkt And being raised by the fire it volatilizes as it does but the Saline or acid Spirits of Sulphur do fix it so as that it is constrained to stop its volatility and settle in the upper part of the pot which is called subliming whereas when it is all alone or else joyned with some matter that cannot fix it it evaporates quite away Cinnabar is shaped like needles by reason of the acid Spirits of Sulphur which have entred into its body and have impressed such a figure its red colour may proceed likewise from the Sulphur which is of this colour when it is well rarified This Red appears brown while the Cinnabar is in the Mass but if you powder it very fine beating it a good while it becomes of a shining and that so high a colour that it has been called Vermillion Some women do rub their Cheeks with it when they have mixt it in Pomatum but they don't consider that so dangerous an accident may happen from it as a Salivation The Fumigation with it is made by causing a patient to receive the Fume of the Cinnabar thrown into the fire Reviving of Cinnabar into Quick-silver This Operation is performed in order to separate the Sulphur which is in the Cinnabar Take a Pound of Artificial Cinnabar powder it and mix it exactly with three pounds of Quick-lime also powdered put the mixture into an earthen or glass Retort whose third part at least remains empty Place it in a Reverberatory Furnace and after having fitted to it a Receiver filled with Water give your fire by degrees and at last encrease it to the height the Mercury will run drop by drop into the Receiver continue the fire until no more will come the Operation is commonly at an end in six or seven hours Pour the Water out of the Receiver and having washed the Mercury to cleanse it from some little portion of earth it might carry along with it dry it with Linnen or the crum of Bread and keep it for use You must draw thirteen ounces and a half of flowing Mercury out of each pound of Artificial Cinnabar You may again Revive the Cinnabar by mixing it with equal parts of filings of Iron and by proceeding in the Operation as I have taught Remarks When Mercury is thus revived you may be sure of its purity because if any Metal should have mixed with it in the Mine it would remain as I have said at the bottom of the Pot you sublime it in and if the Cinnabar were adulterated that which had been used in the adulteration either would not rise with the Mercury or else would separate from it in the Receiver Cinnabar being nothing but a mixture of acid Spirits and Mercury together if you mix it with some Alkali and drive it upwards by fire the Acids for the reason I have already spoken of concerning the Depart of Silver must leave the Bodies they were joyned to before for to enter into the Alkali and this is what happens here for the Acids finding the Quick-lime very porous do leave the Mercury and adhere to the Quick-lime so that this Mercury being disengaged from what held it fixt before and forced by the fire comes forth of the Retort in form of Spirit but the coolness of the Water that is in the Recipient condenses it and resolves it into Quick-silver A third part of the Retort is left empty because the rarified Mercury comes forth with such violence as would otherwise be apt to break the Retort You must leave the mixture to settle a day or two before you put the fire under it to the end that the Quick-lime may slake the while for if you should not observe this circumstance the Retort would burst You might also use such a Quick-lime as has been already slak't in the air and then you might begin your distillation immediately after the mixture but I do think that the Revivification will be the more exact when unslak't Lime is used because the Alkali will act more strongly upon the Sulphureous acids When the distillation begins abundance of Sulphureous fume is seen to come out of the Retort the juncture of the Receiver with the Retort must not be luted because it is better to let this Sulphur fly away for if it had no vent we might have reason to fear lest some part of the Quick-silver would joyn and unite with it in the Receiver and so we might be obliged to make a second Revivification of it If by way of curiosity you weigh the Lime which remains in the Retort after distillation you 'l find three pounds and half an ounce of it this little augmentation of weight proceeds from a remainder of the Sulphur of Cinnabar and the matter does smell of Sulphur Quick-silver is one of the greatest remedies we have in Physick when it is used as it should be but is full as dangerous when it happens into the hands of Quacks who use it upon all occasions for all sorts of Diseases and give it indifferently to all sorts of persons without any respect to the Temperament they are of Those who draw it out of Mines or work much with it do often fall into the Palsie by reason of Sulphurs that
continually steam from it for these Sulphurs consisting of gross parts do enter through the Pores of the Body and fixing themselves rather in the Nerves by reason of their coldness than in the other Vessels do stop the passage of the Spirits and hinder their course Mercury is given in the Disease called Miserere unto two or three pounds and is voided again by siege to the same weight it is better to take a great deal of it than a little because a small quantity might be apt to stop in the circumvolutions of the Guts and if some Acid humours should happen to joyn with it a Sublimate Corrosive would be there made but when a large quantity of it is taken there 's no need of fearing this Accident because it passes quickly through by its own weight Mercury mixes so well with rosinous and fat Bodies as to remain imperceptible all Vnguents Pomatums and Plaisters in which it enters are good against the Itch and Tetters and do dissolve cold tumours because it opens the Pores and drives by perspiration Furthermore seeing these Distempers are fomented by Acid humours it breaks their edge and hinders them from causing any further Fermentation Hitherto there is no Remedy found out to be so soveraign for the cure of Venereal Maladies as Mercury wherefore its greatest enemies have been forced to fly to it after they had tried a long time to no purpose to drive out the poison by other Remedies And in truth if we knew any milder ones that were able to terminate the Accidents of the Pox as well as this does 't would argue much rashness to make use of Mercury because it is not always conducted according to our desires and sometimes very scurvey consequences do happen upon it but we know no other that can be esteemed to approach it in virtue for all Venereal Diseases and especially the Universal Pox. It is killed in Turpentine then with Suet an Ointment is made of it that serves to rub the parts of the Body and particularly the joints with several days together after the Patient hath been prepared by Baths Broths and Purges The Friction is continued until the Salivation rises which is caused by a great many Shancres in the mouth for these Shancres by an exceeding great acrimony do open exceedingly the salivating Vessels and give way to a tickling Phlegm that runs down abundantly A Flux is also raised by applying Mercurial Plaisters upon all the Body and also by Fumigations by making one receive the Fume of Mercury Again it is raised by taking inwardly white Precipitate or some other Mercurial Preparation without using it outwardly Let us now come to reason a little upon it The effect of Mercury hath puzled almost all Chymical Philosophers and those Moderns who have explicated with much probability and likelihood many other Natural things that lay hid to our Forefathers have declared those of Mercury to be some of the most difficult I know very well that several Persons governed by false Principles have not forborn to give us their Explications but when their discourses come to be examined by Chymistry which alone is able to give us Demonstrations on this matter they presently come to nothing I shall here present you with a Thought of mine that seems more probable than any thing I ever met with and is maintained by Chymical Experiments You must first take notice and it is a thing indisputable among all Physicians that the Nodes Tumors and other effects of the Venereal Poison are fomented by Saline or Acid humours which make a certain Ferment and that this disease can never be cured until this Poison is quite destroyed This being supposed we must examine the nature of Mercury and see what will become of it if we mix it with Salts or Acids I have said that Mercury is a Volatile and we shall find hereafter that in the making of Sublimate Corrosive Mercury is mixed with Salt and Vitriol which are Acids that upon the encreasing the fire the Spirits adhering unto Mercury which is an Alkali do sublime along with it to the top of the Vessel and make together that which is called Sublimate Corrosive Let us now see in the cure of the Pox how Mercury is used It is mixed as I have said with Suet and with this Unguent the parts of the Body are rubbed a long time that the Mercury may pierce and enter through the Pores which it does as every Body must grant and this hapning there 's no contradiction at all in thinking that some part of it mixes with the Saline or Acid Ferment of the venereal matter after the same manner as it doth with Salt and Vitriol The Acid Salts of the Venereal Poison fixing in the Pores of Mercury which is as I have said a Volatile Alkali do sublime together being driven by the heat of the body up to the head which is the top of the vessel and the coolest place and so most proper to condense them At the same time it is that the Head swells and the inside of the mouth is full of Shancres which cause a pain much like unto that a man would receive if Sublimate Corrosive were applied some time upon an excoriated part Moreover the Salivating Vessels being prickt and corroded with this sharp humour do open and let fall abundance of Phlegm and this causes the involuntary Salivation that uses to accompany these Shancres and remains sometimes a longer sometimes a less time according as the Shancres are more or less acrimonious for the Phlegm trickling down continually cleanses them from their keen Salts and mitigates the pain whence it comes to pass that they are often cured of themselves and then the Salivating Vessels closing up again the Flux doth cease It sometimes happens when a man is not well prepared to receive a Flux or that it is raised too soon that the Sublimation being too violent some part of the Sublimate sticks to some one or more of the vessels and coroding their membrane causes grievous Hemorrhagies as I have seen to happen several times and among others to a man in Languedock who voided in half an hours time twelve pints of blood by mouth without dying of it notwithstanding because he was a very stout lusty man As for what may still remain of the Venereal Poison after the Salts are driven out its dissolution is then a very easie business because nothing but those Salts was able to hold it coagulated so that it is easie to conceive that the subtiler part of it may pass through the Pores and the more terrestrious precipitate and be evacuated by way of Urine Perhaps you 'l object that Mercury will raise a Flux in Persons who never had such a Disease as the Pox and who never had any of those tumours that contain Acid Salts but it is an easie matter to answer that there is no man whatsoever let him be never so sound but hath store of Saline or Acid humours in his
you desire to make this Precipitate exceeding white you must dissolve the Mercury in a vessel whose mouth is very large that so the red vapour of the Spirit of Niter may sly out the more easily When the dissolution is made without the help of fire the Precipitate is the whiter The Precipitation of Mercury may be made with the Spirit of Salt as well as the salt in substance This is not so easily made as that of Bismuth because the pores of Mercury being smaller than those of Bismuth do retain with more force the acids which are fixt into it Moreover Quick-silver being of a volatile nature does remain suspended in the liquor more easily than Bismuth which is a body altogether fixt It may well seem strange that an acid salt such as sea-salt should be able to precipitate that which the acidity of Spirit of Niter had dissolved To resolve this difficulty you must know that though our Senses tell us that acids do all perform the same effect which is to prick and to pierce yet nevertheless they all do differ in the figure of their points for according as they have received more or less fermentation they have also consequently their points more subtile sharp and light and this is attested not only by taste but the sight also for if you should Crystallize the same body by dissolving several parts of it in several vessels by Spirit of Salt Spirit of Niter Spirit of Vitriol Spirit of Alom and by Vinegar you 'l observe so many kinds of Crystals different in figure as there were different dissolutions The Crystals made by Vinegar will be more sharp than those prepared by Spirit of Niter those made by Spirit of Niter will be sharper than those by the Spirit of Vitriol those made by Spirit of Vitriol will be sharper than those by the Spirit of Alom but of all these Crystals none will be found to have grosser parts than those prepared by the Spirit of Salt for these Crystals do all retain the figure of their constituent parts This now being supposed it will be an easie matter to explicate our Precipitation for the salt or its spirit containing points more gross or less delicate than those of Spirit of Niter and falling on this dissolution do move jostle and easily break the points impregnated with the body of Mercury and so do make them let go their hold whence it comes that Mercury precipitates by its own weight The same Principle may serve to explicate why Lead dissolved in Vinegar precipitates by means of the Spirit of Vitriol or Salt You must observe not to make the water too salt for then the great quantity of salt would hinder the Mercury from precipitating The Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack containing an alkali salt does much help the Precipitation for its agility carries it into every recess of the liquor where the sea-salt whose parts are not of so active a nature was not able to go which is proved from hence that if you use only sea-salt dissolved in water to make this Precipitation with it will then happen that if after pouring off the clear liquor which swims upon the Precipitate into another vessel you drop the Spirit of Sal Armoniack into the liquor there falls a considerable quantity of Mercurial Precipitate which may serve like the other If instead of the volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack you 'd use the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium the Pricipitate would then be reddish Two objections have been made against my manner of explicating the Precipitation of such matters as Spirit of Niter had dissolved made by Sea-Salt First they say it is not proper to make the jostles and encounter of salt-water with Spirit of Niter loaded with bodies which it had dissolved to be the cause of its precipitation whenas the most violent jogs that can be given to the solution either from an arm or with matters much more heavy and solid than sea-salt are not able to cause the precipitation This Objection will raise no difficulty to any that are a little skill'd in Natural Philosophy for although I have said that by reason the edges of sea-salt are grosser than those of Spirit of Niter the sea-salt does precipitate what Spirit of Niter had dissolved and suspended I never meant that if these edges were as big as a mans arm they would do it the better It is sufficiently known that there must be a proportionable subtilty of parts between the dissolvent and that which does precipitate and that the edges of an acid must be otherwise treated than with a cuff of the fist in order to make them let go their hold But I intended to make it appear that if sea-salt does jog and shake the edges of Spirit of Niter it does it by dividing into very minute parts and thereby entring into the pores of the phlegm which in would not be able to do if these parts were as big as a mans arm or were like the solid heavy matters now spoken of Secondly if the grossness of the edges of sea-salt or the shock they give did make the precipitation of substances dissolved by Spirit of Niter we should expect afterwards to find the first with its gross edges separated from those of Spirit of Niter whereas upon evaporating and crystallizing the liquor their edges are indeed reciprocally confounded the one with the other making together a new body I answer that the shock and jostle which the edges of sea-salt do give to Spirit of Niter when loaded with some bodies does not hinder the edges of Spirit of Niter remaining after the precipitation from uniting with the sea-salt by which union the Crystals do become confused I shall here add one preparation more that is very proper to raise a Salivation with Take an ounce of the solution of Mercury made in Spirit of Niter put it into a glass-vessel and pour upon it three or four and twenty ounces of water all the liquor will turn white let it settle until it becomes clear filtrate the liquor and keep it for use This water may be given from half an ounce to an ounce in a glass of Ptisan or broth It vomits gently and provokes a Salivation some do drink half an ounce of it to cure the itch but they ought to be purged and bled before-hand Red Precipitate This preparation is a Mercury impregnated with Spirit of Niter and calcined by fire Take eight ounces of Mercury revived from Cinnabar dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of Spirit of Niter which is eight or nine ounces pour the dissolution into a Viol or Matrass with a short neck set it in Sand and evaporate all the moisture with a gentle heat until there remains a white Mass then quicken the fire by little and little to the third degree and keep it in this condition till all your matter is turned red then take it off the fire let the Viol cool and break it to obtain your Precipitate
there do rise no more sparkles pour out your matter into a Cornet or Iron mortar that you shall have greas'd with a little Suet and heated before-hand then strike the sides of the mortar with pincers to make the Regulus fall to the bottom when it is cold separate it from the dross with a hammer melt it in another Crucible and cast into it two ounces of Antimony in powder when it is melted add to it by little and little three ounces of Salt-peter which being burnt and the matter casting forth no more sparkles pour it into the Iron Cornet greased and heated as before then strike it with pincers that the Regulus may fall down and when it is cool separate it from the dross as I have said repeat melting the Regulus twice more and each time cast Salt-peter into it but the last especially you must observe to melt it well before you cast the Salt-peter into it that the Star may appear There is no need of adding any more crude Antimony to the two last Fusions This Regulus is used as the other and hath the same effects Remarks The Iron in the first Fusion mixing with the Antimony turns almost all of it into dross because it joyns with the more impure Sulphur so that the Reguline part being more weighty falls down to the bottom Salt-peter is used in order to open the Antimony and cause a more perfect Fusion that a separation of the grosser parts may be made the better Moreover it carries off some Sulphurs by its volatile parts The dross then does consist of Iron Sulphur and sixt Salt-peter The Fusion is repeated three times over because some portion of Iron doth always precipitate with the Regulus and a little crude Antimony is added to the first of all to the end the Mars which easily joyns with Antimony by reason of a gross Sulphur it contains may leave the Regulus and stick to it The two last Fusions do make a gray or white dross and this is a mark that the Salt-peter can receive no more After the first Purification ten ounces of Regulus and thirteen ounces of Scories do remain after the second Purification nine ounces and a half of Regulus do remain after the third eight ounces and two drachms of Regulus and after the fourth you 'l have seven ounces and six drachms The Star which appears upon the Martial Regulus of Antimony when it is well Purified has given occasion to the Chymists to reason upon the matter and the greatest part of these men being strongly perswaded of the Planetary Influences and a supposed correspondence between each of the Planets and the Metal that bears its name they have not wanted to assert that this same Star proceeded from the impression which certain little bodies flowing from the Planet Mars do bestow upon Antimony for sake of the remaining Iron that was mixed with it and for this reason they wonderfully recommend the making this preparation upon Tuesday rather than another day between 7 and 8 a clock in the morning or else between 2 and 3 in the afternoon provided the weather be clear and fair thinking that day which is denominated from Mars to be the time that it lets fall its Influences most plentiful of any They have likewise conceited a thousand things of the like nature which it would be too much trouble to relate here But all opinions of this kind have no manner of probability for no bodies Experience did ever evince that the Metals have any such correspondence with the Planets as I have maintained otherwhere much less can they prove that the Influences of the Planets do imprint such and such Figures to Metals as these men do determine It would be no hard matter for me here to shew how little reason or foundation there is in discourses of that nature and how very weak and uncertain are the Principles of Judicial Astrology but this would be too long a Digression for this place and serve only to swell this Book with things that may be found treated of at large elsewhere and particularly in the Epitome of Gassendus made by Monsieur Bernier My thoughts therefore shall not soar so high as these mens do and though I may seem dull and mean in their eyes I shall not search in the Coelestial Bodies for an explication of the Star we now contend about seeing I can find it out in causes near at hand There have been who gazing too earnestly upon the Stars above have not perceived the stone at their feet that caused them to stumble I say then that the Star which appears upon the Martial Regulus of Antimony does proceed from the Antimony it self for this Mineral runs all into Needles but because before it is Purified it is loaded with sulphureous and impure parts which do make it softish these Needles do not appear but confusedly Now when it is purified with Mars not only a great many of the more sulphureous parts of Antimony and such as are fittest to hinder its Crystallization are carried away but also there remains the hardest and the most compact part of Iron which makes the Antimony firmer than it was So that the Purification does serve to lay open the natural Crystals of Antimony in form of a star and the Iron by its hardness does expatiate these Crystals from whence it comes that the Martial Regulus of Antimony is harder than the other Regulus The Crystals then do appear in form of a star in the Martial Regulus of Antimony because they were so naturally in the Antimony before This star does not appear exactly the same in the common Regulus of Antimony let it be Purified never so much because its parts have not the same tension as those of the other Glass of Antimony This preparation is a Regulus of Antimony become vitrified by a long fusion Calcine in a small fire a pound of Antimony in powder in an earthen pot unglazed stir the matter continually with an Iron Spatule until vapours arise no longer but if notwithstanding your stirring the powder should chance to run into lumps as it often happens to do put it into a mortar and powder it then Calcine it again as I have said and when it will fume no more and is of a gray colour put it into a good Crucible cover it with a tyle and set it in a wind-furnace in which you shall make a very violent coal-fire round about the Crucible to the end the matter may melt About an hour afterwards uncover the Crucible and putting the end of an Iron rod into it see whether the matter that sticks to it is become Diaphanous and if it be pour it upon a Marble well warmed it will congeal and you 'l have the Glass of Antimony which you must let cool and so keep for use It is a strong Vomitive and one of the most violent that is made of Antimony The Emetick Wine is made of it by setting it to steep in White-wine
submit to think so both because many Authors have written so and because the heat of the body may possibly separate some of its Sulphurs which not being strong enough to make one Vomit may only drive by Transpiration sensible or insensible according as the pores are more or less open Others do think Antimonium Diaphoreticum is meerly an alkali that is good for nothing but to destroy acids and on this principle do give it for the same ends as Coral Perle Calcined Harts-horn and such like things as do absorb sharp or acid humours which abounding too much in the body do cause divers diseases but without doubt they that follow these principles have not built them on Experience for pour any kind of acid on Antimonium Diaphoreticum it will never dissolve at all and take away the acid after a very long Infusion it will be as strong as ever which proves it to be no alkali and therefore not to produce the effects that are pretended The Cornachine Powder is made of equal parts of Antimonium Diaphoreticum Diagryde and Cream of Tartar The dose is from 20 to 45 grains Another Antimonium Diaphoreticum This preparation is a Calcination of Antimony by which it is fixed and rendred sudorifick without losing the volatile part which sublimes from it Take a good earthen pot unglazed able to resist the fire with a hole in the middle of its height and a stopple to it set it in a Furnace of an equal proportion and fit to it three pots more of the same earth all three open at the bottom and fit a glass head to the uppermost pot with a little Viol for a Receiver Lute the junctures well and by the means of some Bricks and Lute together let the fire transpire only through some little holes and be but strong enough to warm the bottom of the lowermost pot then give your fire by degrees to heat this pot by little and little red-hot In the mean time mix three parts of Salt-peter with one of Antimony in powder cast a spoonful of it into the red-hot pot through the hole and stop it again quickly you 'l perceive a great detonation and after it is over cast in another spoonful and continue to do so until all your matter is spent Then encrease the fire to the utmost for half an hours time and so let it go out Unlute the vessels as soon as they are coid you 'l find a little Spirit of Niter in the Receiver white flowers in the three upper pots and a white mass in the lowermost which may be washed as the other Antimonium Diaphoreticum and so dried This Mineral Diaphoretick is as good as the former you must wash the flowers several times with warm water and then dry them They are not so Emetick as those I shall describe hereafter the dose is from two to six grains Remarks In this preparation the volatile or Sulphureous parts of Antimony do stick to the sides of the pots like flower if you don't wash them they will not be so Vomitive because the Salt-peter that rises with them hinders their activity The acid spirit which is found in the Recipient may be used in the Colick the dose is from four to eight drops in Broth or some appropriate liquor If you use in this operation five ounces of Antimony and fifteen ounces of Salt-peter you will draw half an ounce of Spirit of Niter two drachms of flowers of Antimony washt and dried and five ounces of very white Antimonium diaphoreticum after that it is well washt and dried and if you evaporate and crystallize the lotions you will find ten ounces of Salt which will be a Salt-peter half fixed and which will flame being thrown upon the coals insomuch that there will be lost in the whole of the mixture four ounces and two drachms This diminution comes from what loses through the hole of the pot during the detonation for stop it as well as you can there will always vent out a great deal of fume which will incommode the Artist unless he takes care to turn away his head from the steam The purified Salt-peter loses no more than the other because the sulphur of Antimony can take of the volatile parts of Salt-peter but such a proportion as it requires to raise it So that in fifteen ounces of Salt-peter whether it be the purified sort or the common there are much more volatile parts than are necessary in order to joyn with the sulphur of five ounces of Antimony Although there do rise a great many parts of Antimony with the volatile portion of Salt-peter in the detonation yet we find that the Antimonium diaphoreticum which remains does weigh as much as the Antimony which was imployed in the operation the reason of which is that in place of the part of Antimony that exhales a great deal of Salt-peter does as it were inseparably join with the remainder and this is that which fixes it and hinders it from being vomitive as I have said Again although Antimony is naturally black it becomes altogether white when it has been well rarefied for all that we see in this operation is a pure white as well the volatile as the fixt which shews very well that colours have no real being An Antimonium diaphoreticum may be prepared and at the same time likewise a sulphur of Antimony after the following manner Dissolve within the chimney what quantity you please of crude Antimony with three times as much Aqua Regalis in a glass body there will appear a strong ebullition with red vapours which must be avoided as being very injurious to the breast when the dissolution is over pour upon it a great quantity of water in order to weaken the Aqua Regalis upon which the whole turns into a milk and then a Precipitate in a white powder falls to the bottom of the vessel You will likewise see a kind of gray scum swim upon the liquor which you must gather up with a Spatule or with a wooden spoon and dry it in the shade it is a sulphur which fires like common sulphur and is good for nothing else You must decant the water from the body and washing the precipitated powder divers times and drying it you will have an Antimonium diaphoreticum that may be used as the former this preparation indeed is not much in use but many do prefer it before all the others When Antimony is Calcined by the heat of the Sun as through a Burning-Glass instead of losing its weight as one would think it should by reason of the evaporation of Sulphureous parts it does increase in weight which shews that some more ponderous bodies have succeeded in the place of those that are gone Flowers of Antimony This preparation is the more volatile part of Antimony raised by fire Fit the same pots I spoke of in the last Operation one upon another set them in the same Furnace and observe the same circumstances for their situation
will find in the Retort thirty ounces of a white matter which you must throw away as useless it is the fixt salt of sal Armoniack mixed with the Quick-lime Another Preparation of the Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack together with its Flowers and Fixt Salt against Feavers Powder and mix together eight ounces of Sal Armoniack and so much Salt of Tartar put this mixture quickly into a glass body and sprinkle it with three ounces of Rain-water set a head upon it and after fitting the Receiver and luting the junctures close with a wet bladder place your vessel in sand with a gentle fire at first to warm the Retort by little and little and distil the Spirit drop by drop but when you perceive there will distil no more take away the Receiver and stop it close then encrease the fire to the third degree and continue it about two hours there will sublime the white Flowers of Sal Armoniack which will stick about the bottom of the head like meal The Spirit hath the same strength and virtues as the former you will have seven ounces of it and a half Gather up the Flowers with a Feather and use them as you would those I described before the Preparation you 'l have of them ten drachms and a half There remains at the bottom of the Cucurbite nine ounces and three drachms of a white fixt mass You must dissolve it in sufficient water then filter the dissolution and evaporate it until it is dry you 'l have a very white Salt that may be reckoned a good Remedy for intermittent Feavers the dose is from eight grains to thirty in the small Centaury water or some other convenient liquor Remarks The Salt of Tartar serves in this Operation as the Quick-lime did in the other but because it is a more powerful Alkali than Quick-lime you must not use so great a quantity of it The fixt Salt of Niter might be substituted in its place or any other Alkali that you will When the fire begins to heat the matter there do rise up into the head store of volatile Salts in a fine delicate Crystalline form but the moist vapours coming upon them do dissolve them into Spirit The Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack is then a dissolution of Volatile salt in water and if there be not phlegm sufficient to dissolue all the Volatile salt there will remain some part of it at bottom of the Receiver and that may likewise be turn'd into Spirit by only adding enough water to dissolve it Thus the Spirit becomes as strong as it can be made for the pores of the water being filled with as much salt as they can contain it can receive no more But if there happens to be more water than the proportion of Volatile Salt requires then the Spirit proves weak and must be given in a larger dose This Spirit is Sudorifick but you may perceive more sensibly the effect of Sal armoniack to cause Sweat by dissolving six or eight grains of this salt and the same quantity of Salt of Tartar each separately in two small doses of some proper liquor and giving them to a Patient one presently after the other for the salt of Tartar working upon the Sal Armoniack in the stomach after the same manner as it does when they are mixt together in a Mortar the Spirits do separate from the latter with the more force and act more powerfully than when they were mixed before they were given for the little violence that the Volatile Spirits do use in their separation from sea-salt does leave them the more activity and disposes them the better to pass through the pores Again it is probable that in the former effort which these Spirits made in their separation from the fixt part when Sal Armoniack was mixt with salt of Tartar in a mortar the more subtile part might fly away first and be lost now it is this subtile portion that is most proper to rarefie the humours and to drive them forth by Transpiration The flowers do proceed from some part of the Sal Armoniack which the salt of Tartar had not sufficiently opened The Febrifugous salt is nothing but a mixture of salt of Tartar and the fixt and acid part of Sal Armoniack it works by Urine and but seldom by Sweat by reason that being fixed it precipitates more easily than it rarefies and it is by this means that it opens obstructions which are often the first cause of Feavers If you mix in a Viol equal quantities of Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack Spirit of Wine and shake them a little together they will cause a Coagulum This Coagulation proceeds from hence that the Spirit of Wine which is a rarefied Oil does unite with the Spirit of Sal Armoniack which is a saline liquor and it is but the same thing which happens from stirring Oil and some salt liquor in a mortar in order to make an Unguent called Nutritum By this incorporation together the salt is involved in the ramous parts of the sulphur and these same sulphureous parts are checkt or as it were fixed by the salt so that neither of them have any more freedom of motion and from this repose of these parts does result the Coagulum It may be likewise said that the conjunction of the acid that is in Spirit of Wine with the volatile Armoniack alkali does contribute much to this Coagulation The Spirit of Sal Armoniack prepared with Quick-lime does not at all coagulate with Spirit of Wine by reason of fiery parts that it contains The Salt of Tartar too may have mixed some fiery bodies in the Spirit of Sal Armoniack but there are not enough of them in it to hinder its adunation with Spirit of Wine Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack dulcified This Operation is a volatile Armoniack salt mixed and dissolved in Spirit of Wine Take Sal Armoniack and Salt of Tartar of each four ounces powder them separately and mix them well in a glass or marble mortar put this mixture into a glass body pour upon it ten ounces of rectified Spirit of Wine stir it all together with a wooden Spatule and fit to the body a head and Receiver lute well the junctures place the vessel in a Sand-furnace and give it a very little fire to warm the body The volatile salt will rise and stick to the head and neck of the receiver Increase the fire a little and continue it until there distils nothing more the operation is ended in four or five hours Let the vessels cool and unlute them You will find a volatile salt stuck to the head and a spirit in the receiver Put quickly both the one and the other into a Retort in sand and after having fitted another Retort to it to serve for a Receiver and having luted the junctures distil the whole with a small fire Cohobate it again three times then keep what you have distilled in a bottle well stopt almost all the
Sympathetical powder When you would use this powder you are to take the bloud of a wound upon a linnen cloth and to sprinkle some of it upon the bloud It is pretended that though the bloudy linnen were ten miles off from the Patient when the Sympathetical powder is applied to it the wound would presently heal But the experience of several persons who have tried it and others may do the same does evince that men have had a great faith when they have talked of the effects of this powder for if it be not applied to a cloth newly blouded and even in the chamber of the Patient you will certainly find no effect from it Nay where such precautions have been used it performs no great matter and sometimes does nothing at all Now to explicate the action of Vitriol called Sympathy you must know that there does continually exhale into the air little bodies from this mineral salt and to convince you of it you need only to put the several Vitriols of different colours pretty near one another in the same place you will find after 12 or 15 daies that they have all changed colour a little in their superficies The white will become yellow the green whitish the blue greenish the red grayish These changes of colour cannot proceed but from little bodies which being separated from each kind of Vitriol and mixing in the air some part of them do fall confusedly on the matter And it must not be said that these changes are caused by the air which does open and rarefie these salts for if you put them into places separate or distant from one another this effect will in no wise happen You must also observe that the bloud to which the Vitriolick powder is applied retaining some heat still may thereby increase the activity and number of the little bodies which do arise from the Vitriol And these Vitriolick bodies dispersing themselves in the air are they that cause all the Sympathy for they do mix in the wound of the patient and because the virtue of Vitriol is to stop the bloud and to dry it you need not wonder if the volatile parts which come from it do perform the same effect But it may be objected that the volatile parts of Vitriol have no more determination naturally to go find out the wound of a person than other parts of the body and other places of the chamber Nay on the contrary that a wound being commonly covered with a plaister and somewhat thick bandage is not so likely to receive those bodies I answer that there is no need of giving any other determination to these volatile parts of Vitriol than is given to other volatile salts which are dispersed in the air but because wounds are always of a glutinous temper it is easie to conceive that these little bodies will adhere to them in greater quantity than to others as any downy substance which flies about a room wherein there is Glue or Turpentine will more easily stick in them than in other places As for the Bandage and Plaster used to wounds you must know that those who do use the Sympathetical powder do apply none of them But when it happens which is very rare that a mans wound has been cured by this Powder although there was a Plaister and bandage also laid upon it this effect can never be attributed to any thing else but the penetration of Vitriol for there are wounds that a very little quantity of Vitriol is capable of drying Thus I have given you the most rational explication that can be of an effect which has hitherto passed for a thing altogether inexplicable To conclude I would not advise any wounded person to insist or depend too much on a remedy of this nature for to one who ever received considerable good there 's a hundred who never perceived any effect from it and the cause of it has been that the volatile parts of the Vitriol have hapned to be diverted from the wound by some wind or else because the greatest part of people have their bloud too subtile and too active to be fixed by so little a quantity of Vitriol Nevertheless those whose heads are filled with the Sympathetical Powder do speak of it as of a never failing medicine And if a man offers to convince them by an experiment to the contrary as it is not hard to do they presently cry out that the reason it fails is because it is ill prepared but it is easie to convince them if they desire a serious satisfaction in it for the powder of their own preparation that they so much magnifie though it be successful in one will be found to fail in a great many others Many Authors have also written a great many falshoods in defence of the Sympathy as for example that if the urine of an Infant were cast into the fire so soon as it is made it would cause a heat of urine that if the excrements of an animal were thrown into the fire or among Nettles there would be an Inflammation in the guts of the same creature and many the like stories which a thousand experiments will prove not to be true Distillation of Vitriol This Spirit is an acid salt of Vitriol dissolved into a liquor by a great fire Fill two thirds of a large earthen Retort or glass one luted with Vitriol Calcined to whiteness place it in a close Reverberatory furnace and fitting to it a great Balon or Receiver give a very small fire to warm the Retort and make the water come forth that might still remain in the Vitriol and when there will distil no more pour the water out of the Receiver into a Bottle this is called Phlegm of Vitriol it is used in Inflammations of the eyes to wash them with refit the Receiver to the neck of the Retort and luting the junctures exactly encrease the fire by degrees and when you perceive Clouds to come forth into the Receiver continue it in the same condition until the Receiver grows cold then strengthen the fire with wood to an extream violence until the flame rises through the Tunnel of the Reverberatory as big as ones arm The Receiver will fill again with white Clouds continue the fire after this manner for three days and so many nights then put it out unlute the junctures when the vessels are cold and pour the Spirit into a glass body set it in sand and fit to it quickly a Head with its Receiver lute the junctures close with a wet Bladder and distil with a very gentle fire about four ounces of it this is the Sulphureous spirit of Vitriol keep it in a viol well stopt It is good for the Asthma Palsie and diseases of the Lungs the dose is from four drops to ten in some convenient liquor Change the Receiver and augmenting the fire distil about half the liquor that remains in the body this is called the Acid Spirit of Vitriol it is mixed in Juleps
Limbeck and fitting a Receiver to it and luting close the junctures with a wet bladder distil with a pretty good fire three or four pints of the liquor then unlute the Limbeck and pour into it by Inclination the distilled water you 'l find at bottom a little oil which you must pour into a Viol and stop it close Distil the liquor as before then returning the water into the Limbeck take the Oil you find at bottom of the Receiver and mix it with the first Repeat this Cohobation until there rises no more Oil then take away the fire and distil the water that remains in the Receiver the same way I shall shew hereafter to rectifie Spirit of wine you 'l have an excellent spirituous Cinnamon water The Oil of Cinnamon is an admirable Corroborative it strengthens the stomach and assists nature in her evacuations It is given to make women have an easie delivery and to bring their Terms it likewise encreases Seed a drop of it is commonly mixed in a little Sugar-Candy to make the Eleo-saccharum which is easily dissolved in Cordial or Hysterical waters The spirituous water of Cinnamon hath the same virtues but two or three drachms are requisite for a dose After this manner almost all the Oils of Odoriferous Vegetables may be drawn such as those of Box Roses Rosemary Lavender Juniper Cloves and Anis-seed which do either swim above the water or fall to the bottom according as they are more or less loaded with Salts Remarks You must make the fire strong enough for if there be not a sufficient heat the Oil will not rise The Cohobation serves to open the Body the more that the Oil may compleat its separation Cinnamon yields less Oil than other woods or Barks and it is very difficult to draw six drachms of it out of four pounds let it be never so good The Spirituous water of Cinnamon is nothing but a rarefied Oil whose parts are separated in the water by Fermentation so as they become imperceptible they do make what is called a volatile Spirit which easily mixes with all sorts of liquors as doth the Eleo-saccharum for the Eleo-saccharum is properly an Oil whose parts being separated in the Sugar do easily mix in waters Tincture of Cinnamon This operation is an exaltation of the more oily parts of Cinnamon in Spirit of wine Take what quantity of bruised Cinnamon you please put it into a Matrass and pour upon it Spirit of wine one finger above it stop your matrass close and set it in Digestion in horse-dung four or five days the Spirit of wine will be impregnated with the Tincture of Cinnamon and become red separate it from the Cinnamon and after it is filtrated keep this Tincture in a viol well stopt it is an admirable Cardiack it fortifies the stomach and rejoices all the vital parts it may be used like Cinnamon water in a little smaller dose After this manner the Tincture of all Odoriferous Vegetables may be drawn CHAP. VI. Of the Bark of Peru. THE Peruvian Bark called Quinquina or Kina Kina by the French is a Bark that has been brought into these parts some years since from Peru it retains the name of the Tree from which it is taken the Spaniards do call it Palo de Calenturas or the wood against Feavers There are two kinds of this Tree the one is cultivated and the other grows wild the cultivated is much better than the other you must choose it of a compact substance bitter to the taste and of a reddish colour It is the most certain remedy that ever yet was known to hinder the fits of Agues The manner of using it for a great while past has been to give the patient the powder from half a drachm to two drachms with a little white-wine at the coming of the fit But this method has been quite changed in our days for at present we do infuse an ounce of the powder in two quarts of wine eight and forty hours in a Balneum the infusion is then strained and the patient is made to drink every day three or four little glasses of it at some distance from the Paroxysm The use of this remedy is continued a fortnight at least Some do frequently add to the infusion of this Bark the lesser Centaury Wormwood Chervil Juniper-berries the bark of the Alder-tree Sassafras Salt of Tartar and divers other ingredients thought to be Febrifuges But the basis of all is the Bark of Peru the rest of the ingredients do no great good Some do likewise mix with it a little Opium but that ought not to be done without a great deal of precaution You must observe to purge your patient well before you give him the Bark because this remedy shuts up the humors for some time and when they come to ferment a-new they do sometimes cause more dangerous maladies than he had before such as Asthma's dropsies rheumatisms dysenteries suppression of the menses in women and many others which have too too often succeeded Cures by this Bark For which reason many diseased persons have again wished for their Ague that were cured by this remedy The Bark is likewise very ill for those who have any Abscess in their body for it fixes and hardens the humor for some time which afterwards ferments and causes a gangrene in the part You must forbear the use of Milk and aliments of that nature when you take this remedy by reason of their cheesie part which would lie heavy upon the stomach and be apt to corrupt in the vessels It is probable that the Bark does check the humor of the Feaver much after the manner as an Alkali does stop the motion of an acid salt that is to say it unites with it and makes together a kind of Coagulum this humor does commonly remain quiet a fortnight and the person cured does find himself a little swelled and heavy especially if he were not purged before he took it Afterwards the Ague returns because the feaverish humor having been agitated by the Spirits or else being joyned with other humors of the same nature which have been preparing in the body during the fornights respite it gets quit from the Bark and ferments as it did before But sometimes and that especially when the body of one in an Ague has been well cleansed if you should persist in continuing the use of the Bark you will so fix the humor that you will dispose it to precipitate and be evacuated either by stool or urine or by insensible perspiration and the Ague returns no more for the Spirits in our body do by their motion push outwards as much as they are able whatsoever molests the oeconomy of the parts Tincture of the Peruvian Bark This Operation is an extraction of the more oily and separable parts of the Bark by Spirit of wine Put into a Bolt-head four ounces of good Peruvian Bark grosly powdered pour upon it Spirit of wine four fingers height above the
into good Vinegar It may be some such thing happens in the Bodies of those who accustom to drink too much wine for whereas the volatile parts which ascend to the Brain and Heart by an agitation of the Spirits do beget Joy so on the contrary the Tartareous parts by fixing the humors about the Hypochondria do cause by little and little that which is called Melancholy which proceeds from an acid whence it comes to pass that many men making a debauch upon wine with design to pass away their Melancholy do afterwards find they have encreased it when the debauch hath had its effect If you would by way of curiosity make an exact Analysis of wine you must take that which remains in the body after distillation of the Brandy and distil off all the phlegm there will remain a Matter like unto Rosine put it into a Retort and placing it in a Furnace distil away more phlegm in a small fire until it begins to come sharp Then fit a large Receiver to the Retort and luting well the junctures strengthen the fire by degrees to drive forth acid Spirits and a little fetid Oil continue the fire until there comes no more The Oil is separated from the Spirit in a Tunnel lined with brown paper for the Spirit will pass through and the Oil being too thick will remain But it is here remarkable that more of this Spirit and Oil is drawn from Muste than wine which sufficiently proves the Remark I made before touching the origine of the volatile Spirit of wine for seeing good store of the Oil of Muste hath contributed to the making volatile Spirit of Wine there must needs remain but very little Oyl in the liquor that Brandy is drawn from The acid Spirit of wine and the Black Oil are like to those of Tartar which I shall describe anon And an alkali salt wholly resembling that of Tartar may be drawn by a Lixivium from the mass that remains in the Retort Spirit of Wine Spirit of Wine is the oily part of wine rarefied by acid Salts Fill a large bolt-head with a long neck half full with Brandy and fitting a head and Receiver lute close the junctures set your bolthead upon a pot half filled with water to distil in a vaporous Bath the Spirit which separates from the phlegm and rises pure continue this degree of fire until nothing more distils thus you 'l have a dephlegmated Spirit of Wine in the very first distillation It serves for a Menstruum to a great many things in Chymistry half a spoonful of it is given to Apoplectical and Lethargical persons to make them come to themselves likewise their Wrists Breast and Face are rubbed with it 'T is a good Remedy for Burnings if applied so soon as they happen and it is good for cold pains for the Palsie Contusions and other Maladies wherein it is requisite to discuss and to open the pores Remarks The usual way of making Spirit of Wine is by distilling Brandy in a Limbeck so many times over until it comes pure and to do this about half the Brandy is drawn by distillation and the phlegm that remains at bottom accounted of no use Again half the Spirit which was distilled is anew drawn off and the phlegm thrown away these Rectifications are continued until you find by firing a spoonful of the Spirit that every drop burns and there remains not the least Phlegm but because this Operation is very tedious and it is a hard matter thus to get a Spirit of Wine wholly free from Phlegm even after nine or ten times repeating these distillations let the fire be never so small Artists have invented a long Machine which they call the Serpent by reason of the circumvolutions which it makes It is fitted to the Cucurbite containing the Brandy and the top made like a Tunnel receives the head to which a Receiver is fitted and the junctures well luted and the vessel placed in a small fire the Spirits of Wine do rise by this gentle heat but the phlegm being too heavy cannot ascend so high so that thus a Spirit of Wine deprived of its phlegm is had the very first time But because this Machine is hard to carry into the country and other places where one would desire to make Spirit of Wine and besides that it is subject to loosen in the joints through the violence of the Spirits I have thought that the way I delivered for making Spirit of Wine was more commodious for provided you have but a matrass and a head it will be an easie matter to draw as good Spirit of Wine as that by the Serpent and there 's no need to fear the Spirits breaking any way out of the vessel if you do but lute well the junctures as I have said The matrass must have a very long neck that no phlegm may be able to rise into the Receiver The vaporous Bath is fitter than any other to perform this Operation in because a most moderate heat is requisite to raise up the Spirits all alone now the vapour of water warms very insensibly You must continue the same degree of fire until there comes nothing more Some persons do endeavour to reject the method that I have described for drawing Spirit of Wine because say they a long time is required to draw a little Spirit and by reason of the difficulty they conceive in procuring such vessels well made at Paris and much more so in the Country But it is likely these Gentlemen do blame this method because they never tried it for if they had but taken the pains to make Experiment of it they would have found that with two or three of these vessels they might have drawn as much Spirit of Wine as they could be able to do with their great Machine and that this Spirit is not liable to the impression which might be communicated to it from Copper or Tin vessels As for the difficulty that there is pretended of getting such glass vessels there is none at all that I know of but only for such as will not take the pains to visit the Glass-houses for there they would find enough for their turn and though I use a great many of them in my Courses of Chymistry I never was to seek for any yet But suppose there were none to be found ready made methinks they might as easily bespeak them and have them made at the Glass-houses as well as bespeak those grand Copper or Tin Machines that are commonly used I know that such as are better pleased with making a Fair shew than with the effects of things and who measure the goodness of an Operation by the trouble it gives one and by the greatness of vessels and Furnaces will find here but little to their satisfaction But I am very little concerned at such mens exceptions I never endeavoured to follow their Track My design is simply to facilitate the means of working in Chymistry and to take away
and those other things I mentioned which are preserved in Vinegar The acids will indeed endeavour to cut in pieces what stands in their way but having to do with parts too viscous and heavy they will soon lose all their activity and fix by their quantity and their gravity the natural salt of these Aliments as Vinegar fixes that of Cucumbers for when the acids do shut the pores of the matter and keep them firm and quiet the natural salt cannot exalt so as to cause any Fermentation or digestion The reason then why a small portion of acids will cause digestion in the stomach and a greater quantity will hinder it is that the small quantity will joyn with the natural salt of the Aliments and have its operation without shutting the pores of the matter whereas a great store of acids will quite fill the pores of this matter and hinder the motion of the natural salt for it is not enough that there be a great many acids to cause such a dissolution these acids must have room to move in and to make their jostles Thus these effects do make nothing against what I have asserted concerning acids for a greater quantity of them will always have more disposition and tendency to a dissolution but if this great quantity does Coagulate divers things it is only by accident and through the disposition of the matter into which the acid points have entred What I have here established concerning acids may serve very much to explicate the nature of Feavers and their principal symptoms First of all every body must grant that when there are Obstructions in our bodies the obstructed matter does ferment and sowr as Dough Wine and several other things grow sowr by being stale This matter by Fermenting sends saline or acid vapours into the mass of bloud which do cause divers alterations in it according to their quantity and quality for these acids are commonly mixt with sulphurs which are a kind of Vehicle to the acids and are more or less corrupted according as the matter whence they are derived has sojourned more or less in the obstructed part Now if these acid vapours are carried into the vessels but only in such a quantity as is fit to make a kind of Leaven they will then rarifie the bloud too much and whereas they by consequence do encrease its motion and heat they do cause that which we call a Feaver this Feaver must remain as long as the Ferment continues in the bloud and according as there comes a new supply of matter in place of that which nature has thrown off But if a greater quantity of acids should rise all of a sudden from out of the Obstructions then there must needs happen a kind of Coagulation for these acids thus abounding and fixing the grosser part of the bloud do partly lose their motion and quiet the Ebullition of the bloud by fixing its parts It is this kind of Congelation which causes those cold shiverings which are felt before the hot fit begins for as the heat is derived from the motion of the Spirits the cold is produced from the cessation of their motion The cold fit continues until the Spirits have by their activity rarified this Congelation for the Spirits being continually supplied with additional forces do make violent assaults until they have made their way free The Coagulum being dissolved the bloud should seem to Circulate as it did before but because the matter of the Coagulum is converted into a Leaven this Leaven makes the bloud to boil and so causes a Feaver this Feaver continues until the bloud is freed from all this Ferment either by Transpiration or by Urine Now to conceive how this Coagulum may be converted into a Leaven we must consider that the Spirits of the bloud have lost most of their acidity in dissolving this Coagulum and that there remains but only acidity enough to produce a Fermentation Nevertheless you must not think I mean by this Congelation now spoken of a Coagulum altogether like to that in Milk or to that which happens when an acid liquor is syringed into the Veins of an Animal for these Congelations are too strong and there would then happen the same thing or very near the same as does to the Animal who soon afterwards falls into Convulsions and dies because the course of the Spirits and bloud would be intirely stopt and they would never be able to break through so great an obstacle but I do understand here that the bloud is made thicker than it was and has not so free a motion as it had before which is enough to cause such cold fits Now it remains for me to explicate how it comes to pass that Feavers have their returns regularly by fits The matter that makes the Obstructions which I have laid down for the Fundamental cause of Feavers begins not to send forth its vapours nor to disperse its acid salt into the bloud in order to cause a Feaver until it has got together a certain quantity in the obstructed vessels and then it is probable that there is a new discharge of the matter This discharge or eruption of Feaverish matter must happen at set times so long as the Obstruction lasts because the humors which Circulate to the obstructed parts and there stop are always in an equal quickness and an equal quantity Now because in a Tertian the vessels wherein the obstruction happens do acquire in two days a sufficient repletion of matter to produce the Eruption and Fermentation I have spoken of the Fits do come to operate every second day But because in a Quartan the humors are more tenacious and heavy and flow with less expedition the Fermentation and eruption must needs be slower and consequently the fits more distant the one from the other The Quotidian Ague is caused by a Saline Pituita which is naturally fluid enough to make the matter ferment in less time wherefore it is that the fits do return every day We may reason concerning the other kinds of Feavers upon the same principle and explicate all the accidents that happen but I have no design to enlarge my self further upon this subject I should think it would be too great a digression and a book should rather be made on purpose to express all the circumstances which might be deduced from it Volatile Salt of Tartar This Operation is the Salt of the Lees of Wine volatilized by fermentation Dry the Lees of wine with a gentle fire and fill with them two thirds of a large earthen or glass Retort place this Retort in a Reverberatory Furnace and fitting to it a large Receiver give a small fire to it to heat the Retort by degrees and to drive forth an insipid phlegm when vapours begin to rise you must take out the phlegm and luting carefully the junctures of your vessels quicken the fire by little and little until you find the Receiver filled with white clouds continue it in
it will be here objected that Opium is full of subtile parts which on the contrary instead of condensing the Spirits must needs rarifie them and further that according to my discourse all sorts of Gummous matters should incline to sleep as well Opium which is a thing manifestly false In the first place I answer that the Spirits of Opium being actuated by the heat of the Stomach do serve to raise the Gummous part and to conduct it into the little passages of the Brain but having there introduced them they either fly away through their volatile nature or else condense with the moisture of the Brain The same thing happens after drinking any Spirituous liquor such as Wine Cyder or Beer for the Sulphureous Spirits of these liquors carrying along with them some phlegmatick parts do conduct them into the little vessels of the Brain or else do cause some Coagulation there whence it comes to pass that a man who is drunk commonly sleeps until the Spirits of the liquor he is intoxicated with are in part spent or evaporated out of his Brain In the second place I say that all Gummous or viscous things are not able to cause a sleepiness as Opium does because they have not equally the same proportion of volatile Spirits to convey them into the Brain They may indeed by giving more consistence to the bloud moderate its motion a little and excite some disposition to sleeping but it will not be done so quickly as by the means of Opium and they likewise do it with a great deal less force If you should mix volatile Spirits with the Gummous matters I now spoke of it would not follow that they would prove narcotick as Opium is because the Spirits not being capable of so strict an union with those matters as the Spirituous part of Opium has received with its viscous substance they would soon separate from one another in the stomach and the gummous matter would want a vehicle to convey it into the channels of the brain as would be requisite in order to cause sleep The viscous parts of Opium insinuating into the small channels of the brain do there produce a condensation or inspissation of the humors until by little and little new Spirits do draw together which by dissolving and rarifying this glue do carry it along with the bloud or other humors And then it is that the sleeping ceases a man finds himself awake as before Reason may be given why pains in many places are asswaged after the effect of Laudanum for these pains being caused by an agitation of the Spirits when these Spirits are condensed the pain consequently ceases And this Opium does perform exceeding well as I have said Those who fall into Deliriums in a continued Feaver do find themselves strangely relieved by the use of Opium by reason that the principal cause of this accident is an acrimonious salt which is got into the Brain and irritates its membranes Now Laudanum which is a viscous substance unites with these salts by means of its Sulphur and takes away their Acrimony It likewise stops the Dysentery the Flux of the menses and other Hemorrhagies by sweetning the acrimonious Salts which fomented them Lastly Opium may be said to be one of the greatest Remedies that we have when it is properly administred and in a reasonable dose but when it is given in too great a quantity it so thickens and glues the humors in the brain by its viscous parts that the Spirits which come afterwards to succour not being able to dissolve this viscosity are forced to stop and congeal likewise by little and little until at last they lose all their motion whence it comes to pass that many do dye upon the taking of Opium It is remarkable that many do so accustom themselves to the use of Opium that at last it is scarce able to make them sleep except when they take three or four times as much as is commonly given There are some men in France who can venture to take to a drachm and this quantity does no more in them than two grains in another It is well known that the Turks will take of it to the bigness of a hazle nut to fortifie themselves when they are going to fight The reason that they can do so is that Opium passing a great many times into the small vessels of the Brain hath in great measure dilated them So that finding the passages very large it makes little or no stop unless taken in a greater quantity than before for the Turks do not only accustom themselves to the taking of Opium by little and little but being of a hotter Temperament than we they supply more Spirits to the Brain for rarefaction of the humors which Opium might there have condensed If the Turks do find themselves fortified so soon as they have taken Opium it is by reason of these volatile Spirits which work in them much the same effect as the Spirits of Wine use to do with us Some have writ in opposition to what I have establish'd on this subject and say that if we have regard to the quantity of Narcotick vapours that may arise from a small dose of Opium it ought not to be imagined that those vapours should be able to shut the channels of the Spirits and humors which make a defluxion upon some part but that we should rather conclude the mitigation of pains and stopping of defluxions to proceed from a just proportion of the salt and sulphur of Opium and from the secret ferment they contain But this Objection will give us little trouble to answer when we consider that although the vapours caused by it are but few yet the vessels of the Brain in which the Animal Spirits do move are exceeding delicate and easie to be obstructed and that the too great activity of the Spirits which often fly into the diseased parts being thus abated by the viscous nature of Opium there must needs follow thereupon some ease and comfort without any need at all of admitting a stoppage of the vessels which contain the humors As for the proportion of salt and sulphur in Opium and the secret Ferment they pretend to acquaint us with in order to explicate this matter I know they are high terms indeed but illustrate the matter very little for though they say these salts and sulphurs do unite with Homogeneous particles that they meet with and destroy such as are the cause of the distemper yet we can never by this means obtain any clear Idea of that which makes Opium to be soporiferous Besides the virtue which Opium has to cause sleep I have observed that it is often Sudorifick I conceive this effect must not be attributed only to the volatile parts of this mixt which may be thought to operate this way after they are disingaged from its viscosity but rather to this that during sleep the inward vessels being as it were obstructed or in some manner coagulated and
and there will distil a liquor to the bottom of the vessel which you may take out and keep for use This is called the Oil of Myrrhe it is good to take away spots and blemishes in the face applied outwardly Remarks Though this liquor improperly called Oil is only the more soluble part of Myrrhe humected with the moisture of whites of Eggs and the Cellar together yet it is the best of any that have been invented whether you should draw it in Spirit of wine or distill this Gumm in a Retort for by Spirit of wine the more volatile part of Myrrhe is lost either by Distillation or Evaporation and it is so torrified in a Retort that it loses its best virtues whereas per Deliquium what volatile this Gumm contains is preserved in its natural being for the wet that mixes with it is no ways capable of destroying or altering its nature THE THIRD PART Of Animals CHAP. I. Of the Viper PAssing by the fabulous Stories that the Ancients have left us concerning the Birth of the Viper I shall say it is a sort of Serpent that comes into the world by eating through the belly of her Dam and killing her whence she is called Vipera quòd vi pariat This Animal is very common in Dauphiné and Poictou from whence it is carried all over France While it is in the field it feeds upon several little Animals but when taken and shut up in any place it may be kept a whole Summer without eating any thing at all provided it hath Air enough to breath in The reason why they can live so long without eating is doubtless that the pores of their skin being so exceeding narrow as they do appear to be upon examination very few of their Spirits do come to be lost wherefore they have little need of successive nourishment to beget new ones as other animals have who spend abundance of Spirits 'T is good to take Vipers in the Spring or Autumn because then they are fattest and in greatest vigour The Cold kills ' em They differ from other Serpents in that they never grow so much they have two Teeth on the sides of their Jaws and those very long in comparison with a great many little ones that are round about and the Gum of each of those long Teeth is full of a Yellowish Juyce in which many do think their venom consists now Serpents have none of those long Teeth but only little ones Again they differ in that being taken up by the Tails they can't wind themselves like Serpents to make such circumvolutions about the Arm or thing that holds them and this by reason of the different connexion of their Vertebra's When the Viper is irritated it shoots out a forked tongue which looks like a little fire-brand by reason of the vigorous motion of its Spirits those who never had seen the teeth of the Viper do think this is that which causes all the mischief but the tongue is not at all venomous Some do save the tongue to wear about their neck instead of an Amulet in order to preserve them from the effects of ill airs Serpents do likewise thrust out their tongues as the Viper does But here it may be good to advertise you by the by that those things which are brought to us from Maltha for the tongues of petrified Serpents are nothing but the teeth of a fish which that Countrey affords The biting of Vipers is more dangerous than that of other Serpents but the most quick and assured Remedy that can be used upon it is to crush the head of the Animal and lay it on the wound because by opening of the pores it lets out the venomous Spirits that were got in The bit person may likewise take the volatile salt of Vipers as I shall shew hereafter It is not yet sufficiently known wherein consists the venom of Vipers nor can any good substantial reason be given of the accidents which happen after the biting Most men think this malignity consists in the enraged spirits And this is the opinion of Van Helmont and Poterius according to the relation of Zwelfer in his Remarks upon the Augustan Dispensatory where he treats of the Troches of Vipers He saith there have been a great many eminent men who have confirmed this opinion with curious observations on the bitings of enraged Animals particularly of Man of the Cat Wolf Horse Dog Weasil c. And among others Fabritius Hildanus in his Chirurgical Operations to whose proofs he thinks nothing further can be added to confirm the truth of this opinion If accidents saith he do happen that are sometimes more severe and sometimes less they must be attributed only to more or less provocation and anger or sometimes to a more profound or slighter biting of these Animals This opinion seems likewise to have been confirmed by some experiments which Monsieur Charas relates in his book of Vipers where he shews not only that the enraged Spirits are the sole poison of the Viper but also pretends that the Yellow Juice which is found in the hollow part of the Jaw wherein the great tooth is fastned and was supposed to be the venom of this Animal is no such matter for having poured some of this liquor on the wounds of several beasts not one of them died nay further that those persons who had ventured to taste it never found any inconvenience from it Nevertheless Monsieur Redy in a particular Treatise on the Viper will not grant the truth of these experiments On the contrary he maintains that having put some of this Yellow juice into the wounds of divers sorts of Animals they soon died upon it and thence concludes that the venom of Vipers consists in the Yellow juice and not in the enraged Spirits only as the others have thought he taking this cause alone to be too Metaphysical And in truth who would believe that the Idea which this Animal forms when he finds himself provoked should be able to imprint on the Spirits qualities so malignant Now in so great an opposition of Opinions and Experiments a certain great man of these times found a way to reconcile them by affirming that the Yellow juice of Vipers did produce different effects according to the several places where these Animals lived so that Monsieur Redy might have found the Yellow juice to be venomous in Italy whereas in France where the Climate is not so hot this juice doth not produce any poisonous quality unless it be quickned by the Angry Spirits of the Viper which gives it a sufficient penetration Others do confidently assure us they have seen several Animals in France die soon after they had put some of this Yellow liquor into the wounds they had made for that purpose which very much favours the assertion of Monsieur Redy Furthermore as for what is related that in France people have ventured to taste this Yellow liquor without any harm I find this not to be a convincing proof
when the Phosphorus is not so hot as in the first Experiment and when it is not altogether so cold as in the second the alteration of the least circumstance quite alters the Experiment but the same things always happens in proportion with those already described We made another Experiment thus we put a little piece of the solid Phosphorus into a crystal vessel and we poured upon it a very fixt acid liquor I think it was Oil of Vitriol a great fume arose from the mixture we stopt the bottle with paper and stirred the matter several times after having left it some hours in digestion We lookt upon it in the dark and it appeared luminous though it were stopt and it has still been alike luminous from about two months ago until the present Indeed the light of it is not so great as is that of the Phosphorus but it keeps a much longer time That which is surprizing in these Experiments is that the air does sometimes make the Phosphorus shine and sometimes not Now to explicate this difficulty I do say that in the first Experiment the greatest part of the luminous matter of the Phosphorus did fly out of the bottle into the receiver and that that which remained in the bottle after it was separated from the receiver being deprived of its most subtle sulphurs was not able to give so great a light as before nevertheless the matter still retaining a little warmth there did rise from it enough particles to give a light when the bottle was unstopt but because by the cold the little bodies do condense and lose very much of their motion this Phosphorus likewise loses much of its strength and gives but a languid or weak light When the air was drawn out of the bottle the matter lookt very light and when the air was let to it again it went out the reason whereof is that the light being weak could not preserve its self but with a convenient proportion of air and there was some remaining still in the bottle for though the air be never so much pumped out of the vessel there will still remain a little behind The Phosphorus loses its light by the usual great quantity of air as a little candle will be put out by being exposed to the wide air or a small fire will soon go out when too great a wind blows strongly upon it So long as the Phosphorus sends forth a great many vapours a good deal of air is requisite to make it appear luminous and a little air will not be sufficient Wherefore when the Phosphorus was hot it would not shine until the bottle was unstopt but when it was cold it sent forth only weak vapors wherefore then a very little air sufficed to make it shine and when it received too much it was thereby suffocated The last Experiment made in the little Crystal bottle does further very well prove my explication the fixt acid liquor which was poured upon the Phosphorus did slacken the motion of its parts so that from that time they could not display their light with so much vigour as they did wherefore a very little sufficed to continue its light so that the paper-stopple served to give it sufficient air but when the bottle was stopt closely with its Crystal stopple no more light was seen for some time afterwards because that stopple did wholly hinder the entrance of air It is likewise the fixing of the Volatile parts of the Phosphorus which preserves the light so long for the matter having now less motion than before it was fixed its parts do come to be dissipated with the more leasure But you will tell me that the great fume which exhaled from it when the acid liquor was poured upon the Phosphorus is rather a sign of a greater than less dissipation of parts I grant that when this acid acts upon the matter there is at that time a considerable exaltation of parts but I say also that when this great motion is once over that which remains is in much less agitation than it was and you must observe that the strong acids such as Oil of Vitriol and Spirit of Niter upon being mixed with Spirit of Wine do cause a much like fume as this and yet afterwards the Spirit of Wine is much less volatile than it was Again the light of the Phosphorus which is in the little crystal bottle that is stopt may be said to be partly caused by an air which is produced by a kind of fermentation for doubtless there is some little action between the acid and the matter I find therefore that there is a parity of reason in the explication of the light which appeared in the viol after the air was pumped out of it and that which is seen in the little crystal bottle stop'd It is further remarkable that this same Phosphorus which went quite out when air was let into it by means of the Pneumatick Engine yet did not altogether lose its light when it received the air the common way that is to say meerly by unstopping the bottle whereof the reason is this the air that is communicated from the Air-pump comes in with a great force and violence through the pipe and so may very well put out the light of the Phosphorus which the air that has its ordinary motion is not able to do after the same manner as a candle lighted is much sooner put out when exposed to a blast of wind than when it is set in a place where the air is quiet From considering all the kinds of Phosphorus both Natural and Artificial and the Experiments that have been made upon them I cannot but conclude that the general cause of the light they give does proceed from a very great agitation of insensible parts and whereas it is very probable that fire is only a very violent motion of little bodies round their center the parts of our Phosphorus may be said to have received the same determination by the fermentations it has undergone for Wood never shines in the dark until it is become rotten that is to say until it has undergone a sufficient fermentation to make its most subtile parts move nimbly round their center The Bolonian stone is not luminous until it has been calcined a certain time in order to excite a motion of its parts The Viper being irritated darts forth its tongue with so much quickness that it appears all on fire Many little creatures such as some kinds of Caterpillars and Woodlice do shine in the night because they have a matter so exceeding subtile towards their tail that it produces a sort of fire and it is for the same reason of the motion of parts that Vrine does become luminous That which gave occasion to the working upon Vrine for the making of the Phosphorus was that in some little holes of the earth wherein there had been standing-puddles of Vrine a light had been observed to be seen at nights But you
more effectual Sometimes a little Wax is found in the receiver which came with the Spirit from the Honey in the distillation CHAP. IV. Distillation of Wax THIS Operation is a separation of the Oil of Wax from the Phlegm and Salt Melt two pounds of Yellow Wax in an earthen pan and mix with it three or four pounds of potters earth powdered or so much as is requisite to make a Paste of it form it into little pellets and put them into an earthen Retort or glass one Coated a third of which remains empty place this Retort in a Reverberatory Furnace fit to it a Receiver and luting the joints give a small fire at first and there will come forth Phlegm then a Spirit encrease the fire a little and a liquor will distil that congeals in the Receiver like Butter continue the fire till nothing more comes forth then unlute the joints separate the Spirit mixed with Phlegm from the Butter and keep it in a Viol well stopt It is a good opener the dose is from ten drops to twenty in raddish water or some other appropriate liquor Some do use the Butter of Wax to discuss tumors rather than the Oil that I am going to describe Melt the Butter of Wax in an earthen pan and make a paste of it with sufficient quantity of potters-earth powdered form this paste into little pellets put them into a glass retort set your retort in a Sand-heat fit to it a Receiver and luting the joints begin the distillation with a small fire a great many Spirits will come forth mixed with Phlegm after which encrease it a little and a clear yellow Oil will come having distil'd about three ounces of it change the Receiver for that which comes at last is as thick as Butter It may be Rectified with other clay or potters-earth and it will change into as transparent an Oil as the other Separate the Oil from the Spirit and keep it in a Viol. It is a good discutient for Tumors and Cold pains it is mixed in Unguents and Oils for that purpose The Oil of Wax may be rectified several other times to make it still clearer than before Remarks The solid consistence of Wax doth proceed from a proportionate mixture of Water Volatile Salt and Oil united and incorporated together wherefore its solidity comes to be destroyed according as the Principles do suffer a separation and this is easily observed in the Rectifications for in every distillation that is made some considerable quantity of water is separated and the Oil does likewise become clearer The Clay serves only to separate the parts of Wax and to rarifie it the more If by way of curiosity you desire to know exactly what quantity of liquor or Spirit can be drawn from Wax you must dry your Clay as much as you can or else use in its place broken pots or Bricks powdered which are not at all wet out of three and twenty ounces of Wax you 'l draw in the first distillation just the same weight of liquor to wit twelve ounces of Phlegmatick Spirit and the rest is a Butter in the second and third distillation you 'l draw fourteen ounces of Spirit and six ounces of clear Oil. Spirit of Wax is only a small quantity of acid Volatile salt dissolved in Phlegm but you must not believe what some have written that having distilled a considerable quantity of Wax and put that which was drawn into a Bolt-head they could sublime the Volatile salt like others of that nature For this salt though it be indeed Volatile yet it is not Volatile enough to rise before the Phlegm it is an acid salt much like unto that of Ambar but is not of the nature of Volatile alkali's which are known to sublime so easily it were better therefore to keep this Spirit as it is or else to evaporate about half of it with a very mild heat that it may be the stronger The Volatile salts of many sulphureous matters are drawn acid as they are in the mixt because being clothed with soft and ramous parts which give way easily to their motion they do not break their natural keenness by endeavouring to separate when they are forced to it by fire and so they do not receive so much terrestrious and firy matter as is requisite to make them porous like Volatile alkali's This Operation and that of the Distillation of Ambar which I have described do much confirm what I said before in my Remarks upon the Principle that all the salt of mixt bodies is naturally acid and that alkali is nothing else but an alteration of the Natural Salt made by fire Besides all sorts of Experiments do seem to me to confirm and establish this opinion but yet I am not so peremptory in the vindication of it but that I would gladly give place to another if I could be shewed that it is better than mine for I seek after nothing so much as to discover truth FINIS THE INDEX A ACID what Page 24 How different Crystals are drawn with different acids 188 That acids drawn by violent fires do much differ from the natural 287 How they do become able both to dissolve and to coagulate 453 That they will preserve bodies from corruption 455 That Digestion and Hunger are not so mnch beholding to acids as is commonly thought 456 457 Acid and Alkali not the only cause of ebullition 302 342 Aes ustum 123 Alchymy well defined 58 Alkaest 309 Alkali whence so called 22 What it is 25 Aloes 477 Roch-Alom 350 Alom-water 352 Alumen Saccharinum 350 Burnt-Alom 351 Amalgamation of Gold 65 Ambar 363 Ambargrease 372 Antimony 202 What renders it emetick 203 206 Its emetick quality drawn better in wine than other liquors 207 The violence of Antimonial vomits to be conquered with Cream of Tartar 231 Antimony Calcined in the Sun increases in weight 228 229 Antimonial Cup 205 Antimonium Diaphoreticum whether sudorifick 224 That it is not an alkali 225 Cinnaber of Antimony 234 Regulus of Antimony increased in weight by Calcination 208 What gives the form of a star to its Martial Regulus 212 Glass of Antimony why more emetick than its other preparations 217 How it may be corrected ib. What gives it vitrification 216 Sulphur of Antimony 236 Our Golden Sulphur of Antimony different from that of the antients 210 Aqua Regalis why it dissolves Gold and cannot dissolve Sylver 313 c. Aqua secunda 77 Arcanum Corallinum 193 Arsenick 244 What to be done when this poison happens to be taken 2inwardly 246 B Balm distilled 404 Balsom of Sulphur anisated 357 Bath-waters their heat explicated 140 Benjamin 491 Animal Bezoar 511 Bismuth 101 Bolonian stone 525 Butter of Saturn 111 C Camphire 494 How it comes to be an Amulet in Agues ib. Carduus Benedictus distilled 406 Chylification explicated 356 Cerusse 106 Cineres Clavellati 433 Cinnaber of Antimony 234 Anatomized 235 Cinnamon 389 how it differs from Cassia lignea 390 Cloves 399
Colcothar the Natural 330 And the Artificial 333 339 Colophone 490 Colour what it is 194 195 228 Variety of colours 199 344 345 and the reason of them 201 Coppel 77 Copper 118 Coral 270 The ebullition it causes with Vinegar in its dissolution thought to be a cold ebullition 273 The solution of Pearl and other alkali matters perform'd as that of Coral 274 Coral prepared 272 much better than the Magistery 275 Cornachine powder 225 Crocus Martis its best preparation of all 132 133 Crocus metallorum how often the same will serve to make the Emetick wine 221 D Depart 62 79 That Digestion owes more to the saliva than to acids 456 E Earthquakes their nature explicated 140 Ebullition without the encounter of acid and alkali 302 342 Elosaccharum 391 Elixir proprietatis 479 Emetick Syrop 215 Emetick wine 218 222 Extracts of greater virtue than waters 406 Extractum Panchymagogum 484 F Feavers their nature and their principal symptoms explicated 459 460 The regularity of their fits explicated 461 A Febrifugous salt 321 Fermentation 26 Fire how it alters the nature of bodies 20 21 25 26 251 How the substance of fire does increase the weight of some medicines 107 116 208 228 229 What Fire is 303 Flints how generated 263 Fulminant powder 71 Furnaces and vessels 31 G Gold 48 The wicked cheats which Alchymists do use in pretending to make it 49 c. The improbability of making Gold fairly represented 56 57 Whether it be a Cordial 58 59 That it can be volatilized 60 Purified by an operation called the Depart 62 Purified by Cementation 63 Its Precipitation 68 Its Fulmination from whence 70 Why it spreads under the hammer better than Sylver 315 Gravelled ashes 256 Guaiacum 383 its Oil why so good for the tooth-ach 385 Gumm Armoniack its best Purification 497 Other Gumms how Purified 498 H Hair distilled 518 Harts-horn distilled 516 Honey 542 Hunger from what cause 457 Hydragogues why they do work more on watery humours than the others 358 Hysterical vapors why allaied by ill smells 367 368 I Jalap 373 That all its Purgative virtue consists in the Rosine 373 Inks called sympathetical 258 330 Iron 130 How made Steel 131 Preferred before Steel for Physical uses ib. 132 133 c. That it opens obstructions by its salt 133 When mixed with Sulphur and wetted with water it grows extraordinary hot of it self which serves to explain the nature of Earthquakes and hot baths 140 141 Ivory distilled 517 L Lead 105 That it purifies Gold and Sylver as the white of an Egg clarifies a Syrop ib. increased in weight by Calcination 107 increased in weight by Distillation 116 how to be Revived 115 118 Lignum sanctum 383 Lime water 254 Litharge 76 Lutes 37 M Mace 425 Magnesia Opalina 219 Marcassite 101 Mercury 154 Why it remains fluid and why it so easily volatilizes by fire ib. it s ill effects 160 and its good effects 161 especially in Venereal Maladies ib. the raising a Flux by Mercury ingeniously and at large explicated 162 163 c. proved to be an alkali 167 168 why it requires less Spirit to dissolve it than other metals 172 in what form to be taken inwardly 185 Mercurius vitae 236 Mercurial water 190 191 Metals seven 46 Milk its coagulation explicated 29 454 Virgins Milk 493 Minerals their formation and growth 45 Minium 106 Mountebanks their cheat in taking Poisons 182 Myrrhe 500 N Niter see Salt-peter Nutritum or Butter of Saturn 111 Nutmegs 401 O Oleum Philosophorum or Oil of Bricks why so called 270 Opium and Meconium 467 how its narcotick quality is best to be preserved in the Extract 469 That it ought not to be Torrified 470 how it is that Opium causes sleep more than other things 471 Reason given why it allaies pains takes off deliriums and cures fluxes 473 The Turks taking such quantities of it descanted upon 474 Why Sudorifick 476 P Paper both antient and modern how made 386 Perpetual Pills 204 not good in the Iliaca passio but good in the Colick 207 Whether they do lose their virtue by frequent use 206 Perspiration insensible two sorts 72 That more is Perspired in the heat and drought of a Feaver than in the violent sweat ib. Petrification how 264 Petroleum 363 364 Peruvian Bark 393 The greatest Specifick ever known in Agues ib. The different manner of giving it heretofore and at present ib. The body to be well Purged before the Bark is given 394 The ill effects of taking it irregularly ib. To be avoided by such who have an Abscess ib. How it comes to remove the fit ib. 395 Its febrifugous virtue lost by distillation 398 Phagedenick water 171 Philosophers Stone or Powder of Projection a miserable cheat 51 c. Phosphorus the solid 523 and the Liquid 525 Its Inventors 526 Experiments made upon the Phosphorus 528 529 c. Baldwin 's Phosphorus 538 Plumbum ustum 106 Poison what it is 179 The difference between Coagulative or cold Poisons and the Corrosive or hot 179 How different the Remedies proper to each of them be 180 181 Principles of Chymistry 2 That they are not first Principles 5 How much they are indebted to fire in their production 6 c. The five Principles not to be found in Minerals 9 Pulvis Cornachinus 225 Purgative medicines their different operation explicated 487 Purgative virtue of mixt bodies wherein it consists 381 382 Pus how it becomes white 356 Q Quicklime how made 251 Fiery bodies proved to cause its corrosion and ebullition with water 252 253 No salt to be drawn from it 253 That Acids will give it a new ebullition after it is slak't 254 but will make no ebullition with Lime-water ib. R Rhubarb commended as it deserves 379 Rosines how distilled 490 S Salivation explicated 162 163 c. Sal Armoniack the Natural and the Artificial 310 Its Purification ib. Its Flowers Chalybeated 312 Sal Gemme its origine 13 277 Sal Prunellae often counterfeited 295 Salt one chief of which all the rest are compounded 12 Three sorts of it drawn from Vegetables 19 That it becomes Alkali by fire 23 24 Alkali Salts how made exceeding white 446 Common Salt 277 its origine 13 That made by evaporation not so strong as that by crystallization 278 The manner of making Salt at Rochel 279 Its Spirit drawn without addition of earth 284 New Spirits drawn several times from the same matter exposed to the air after distillation 285 Salt decrepitated must be newly made for use 282 Salt-peter or Niter of the antients different from ours 289 its origine 15 289 That it is not inflammable in it self nor sulphureous 290 308 That it is a Sal Gemme impregnated with greater store of Spirits 292 Salt-peter Purified judged better for use than Sal prunellae 295 Sanguification explicated 356 Sea-sickness its cause 278 Small-pox ingeniously compared to the fermentation of Wines 416 Vniversal Spirit 2 Steel how made 131 Stones how generated