small a quantity of Poyson some small Concretions or Coagulations made of the minute particles of the bloud into little clots less agile and more unwieldy than they were when they moved separately which may be illustrated by the little Curdlings that may be made of the parts of Milk by a very small proportion of Runnet or some acid liquor and the little coagulations made of the Spirit of Wine by that of Urine Nor will I now enquire whether besides the retardment of the motion of the bloud some poysons and other analogous Agents may not give the motion of it a new modification as if some Corpuscles that usually are more whirl'd or brandish'd be put into a more direct Motion that may give it a peculiar kind of grating or other action upon the nervous and fibrous parts of the body These I say and other suspicions that have sometimes come into my thoughts I must not stay to examine but shall now rather offer to Consideration Whether since some parts of the humane body are very differing from others in their structure and internal Constitution and since also some Agents may abound in Corpuscles of differing shapes bulks and motions the same Medicine may not in reference to the same humane body be potentially cold or potentially hot according as 't is applied or perhaps may upon one or both of the accounts newly mentioned be cold in reference to one part of the body and hot in reference to the other And these effects need not be always ascrib'd to the meer and immediate action of the Corpuscles of the Medicine but sometimes to the new Quality they acquire in their Passage by associating themselves with the bloud or other fluids of the body or to the expulsion of some calorific or frigorific Corpuscles or to the Disposition they give the part on which they operate to be more or less permeated and agitated than before by some subtile aethereal matter or other Efficients of Heat or Cold. Some of these Conjectures about the Relative Nature of Potentially cold bodies may be either confirmed or illustrated by such Instances as these that Spirit of Wine being inwardly taken is potentially very hot and yet being outwardly applied to some Burns and some hot Tumours does notably abate the Heat of the inflamed parts though the same Spirit applied even outwardly to a tender eye will cause a great and dolorous agitation in it And Camphire which in the Dose of less than a half or perhaps a quarter of a Scruple has been observed to diffuse a Heat through the body is with success externally applied by Physicians and Chirurgeons in refrigerating Medicines But I leave the further Inquiry into the Operations of Medicines to Physicians who may possibly by what has been said be assisted to compose the differences between some famous Writers about the temperament of some Medicines as Mercury Camphire c. which some will have to be cold and others maintain to be hot and shall onely offer by way of confirming in general that Potential Coldness is onely a Relative Quality a few Particulars the first whereof is afforded by comparing together the VI. and the VII Experiment before going which have occasion'd this Digression about Potential Coldness since by them it seems probable that the same thing may have it in reference to one body and not to another according to the disposition of the body it operates upon or that operates upon it And the Fumes of Lead have been observed sometimes for I have not found the Effect to succeed always to arrest the fluidity of Mercury which change is supposed to be the effect of a Potential Coldness belonging to the Chymists Saturn in reference to fluid Mercury though it have not that operation on any other liquor that we know of And lastly for I would not be too prolix though Nitre and Sal Armoniac be both apart and joyntly Cold in reference to Water and though however Nitre be throughly melted in a Crucible it will not take fire of it self yet if whilst it is in Fusion you shall by degrees cast on it some powder'd Sal Armoniac it will take fire and flash vehemently almost as if Sulphur had been injected But our Excursion has I fear lasted too long and therefore I shall presently re-enter into the way and proceed to set down some Trials about Cold. EXPER. VIII IN the first Experiment we observed that upon the pouring of water upon Sal Armoniac there ensued an intense degree of Cold and we have elsewhere recited that the like effect was produc'd by putting instead of common water Oyl of Vitriol to Sal Armoniac but now to shew further what influence Motion and Texture may have upon such Trials it may not be amiss to adde the following Experiment To twelve ounces of Sal Armoniac we put by degrees an equal weight of water and whilst the Liquor was dissolving the Salt and by that action producing a great Coldness we warily pour'd in twelve ounces also of good Oyl of Vitriol of which new mixture the event was that a notable degree of Heat was quickly produced in the Glass wherein the Ingredients were confounded as unlikely as it seemed that whereas each of the two Liquors is wont with Sal Armoniac to produce an intense Cold both of them acting on it together should produce the contrary Quality But the reason I had to expect the success I met with was this that 't was probable the Heat arising from the mixture of the two Liquors would overpower the Coldness produceable by the operation of either or both of them upon the Salt FINIS EXPER. IX IN most of the Experiments that we have hitherto proposed Cold is wont to be regularly produc'd in a Mechanical way but I shall now adde that in some sort of Trials I found that the Event was varied by unobserv'd Circumstances so that sometimes manifest Coldness would be produced by mixing two Bodies together which at another time would upon their Congress disclose a manifest Heat and sometimes again though more rarely would have but a very faint and remiss degree of either Of this sort of Experiments whose Events I could not confidently undertake for I found to be the dissolution of Salt of Tartar in Spirit of Vinegar and of some other Salts that were not acid in the same Menstruum and even Spirit of Verdigrease made per se though a more potent Menstruum than common Spirit of Vinegar would not constantly produce near such a heat at the beginning of its operation as the greatness of the seeming Effervescence then excited would make one expect as may appear by the following Observation transcrib'd verbatim out of one of my Adversaria Into eight ounces of Spirit of Verdigrease into which we had put a while before a standard-Thermoscope to acquire the like temper with the Liquor we put in a wide-mouthed Glass two ounces of Salt of Tartar as fast as we durst for fear of making the
VI. By putting a very strongly stinking Body to another of a not sweet smell to produce a mixture of a pleasant and strongly Aromatick odour WHat is here proposed is performed at the same time that the Eleventh of the foregoing Experiments of Tasts is made For the Liquour thereby produced if it be well prepared has not onely a spicy tast but also a kind of Aromatick and pleasant smell and I have some now by me that though kept not over-carefully does after some years retain much of its former odour though not so much as of its tast EXPER. VII By digesting two Bodies neither of them well sented to produce Bodies of a very subtile and strongly fragrant odour WE took a pound for instance of Spanish Wine and put to it some ounces of Oil of Vitriol then keeping them for a reasonable time in digestion we obtained as we expected a mixture odoriferous enough But this Triall you will find improved by that which insues EXPER. VIII By the bare addition of a Body almost inodorous and not well sented to give a pleasant and Aromatick smell to Spirit of Wine THis we have several times done by the ways elsewhere related for another scope the summ of which as far as it needs be mentioned in this place is this We took good Oil of blew Vitriol that was brought from Dantzick though the very common will serve well and having put to it by degrees an equal weight of Spirit of Wine totally inflammable we digested them together for two three or four weeks sometimes much longer and then with better success from which when we came to distill the mixture we had a very fragrant Spirit which was sometimes so subtile that though distilled in a tall Glass with a gentle Heat it would in spite of our care to secure the closeness of the Vessels at the junctures pierce through and fill the Laboratory with a perfume which though men could not guess what body afforded it yet they could not but wonder at it Whence we may learn both how much those spirituous and inflammable particles the Chymists call the vegetable Sulphur of Wine may work on and ennoble a mineral Sulphur for that such an one there is in Oil of Vitriol I have elsewhere proved by experience and how much the new Commistions and Contextures made by digestion may alter the odours of Bodies whether Vegetable or Mineral That also another Constitution of the same matter without any manifest addition or recess of particles may proceed to exhibit a very differing smell will appear by the following Triall EXPER. IX To make the forementioned fragrant Body without addition or fire degenerate into the rank smell of Garlick TO make out this I need onely relate that I have more than once put the above mentioned fragrant Liquour in stopt Glasses whereof the one and not the other stood in a warm place till in process of time I found that odoriferous Liquour so to degenerate in point of sent that one would have thought it to have been strongly infected with Garlick And the like unpleasant Smell I observed in a certain Oil made of Vegetable and Mineral Substances distilled together And on this occasion I will add though not as an Argument this Observation which though I shall not undertake it will always succeed I think may not impertinently be set down in this place partly because of the likeness of the odour produced to that which was the effect of the last named Triall and partly or rather chiefly because it may shew us that a Body which it self is not onely inodorous but very fixt may yet in some cases have a great stroke in the Phaenomena of Odours whether by being wrought on by and sometimes mingled with the parts of the odorous body and thereby giving it a new modification I shall not now stay to enquire We took then good Salt of Tartar and put to it several times its weight of the expressed juice of Onions we kept them in a light digestion for a day or two and then unstopping the Vial we found the former smell of the Onions quite degenerated into a rank smell of Garlick as was judged even when fresh juice of Garlick was procured to compare them To vary this Experiment we made with fixt Salts and some other strongly sented Juices Trialls whose events 't would perhaps be tedious here to relate EXPER. X. With an inodorous Body and another not well-sented to produce a muskie smell THis we have sometimes done by casting into Spirit not Oil of Vitriol a large proportion of small Pearls unbroken For the action of the acid Menstruum upon these being moderated partly by the weakness of the Menstruum and partly by the intireness of the Pearls the dissolution would sometimes last many hours Holding from time to time my nose to the open orifice of the Glass 't was easie to perceive a pleasant muskie smell which also others to whom I mentioned it took notice of as well as I. And if I misremember not I took notice of the like smell upon Pearls not onely dissolved in Spirit of Vinegar but in another Liquour that had but a bad sent of its own The foregoing Experiment calls to my mind that which follows EXPER. XI With fixt Metals and Bodies either inodorous or stinking to produce strong and pleasant smells like those of some Vegetables and Minerals THat Gold is too fixt a body to emit any odour and that Aqua Regis has an odour that is very strong and offensive I think will be easily granted But yet Aurum fulminans being made as 't is known by precipitating with the inodorous Oil of Tartar the Solution made of the former in the latter and this Precipitate being to be farther proceeded with in order to another Experiment we fulminated it per se in a Silver Vessel like that but better contrived that is if I misremember not somewhere described by Glauberus And among other Phaenomena of this operation that belong not to this place we observed with pleasure that when the fulmination was recently made the steams which were afforded by the metal that had been fired were endowed with a delightful smell not unlike that of musk From which Experiment and the foregoing we may learn that Art by lucky Contextures may imitate the odours that are presumed to be natural and specifick and that Mineral and Vegetable Substances may compound a smell that is thought to be peculiar to Animals And as Art sometimes imitates Nature in the production of Odours as may be confirmed by what is above related concerning counterfeit Rasberry-Wine wherein those that drank it believed they did not onely tast but smell the Rasberry so sometimes Nature seems to imitate her self in giving like odours to bodies extreamly differing For not yet to dismiss the smell of Musk there is a certain Seed which for the affinity of its odour to that perfume they call the Musk-seed and indeed having some of it
proportion of the Elixir to the Mercury was so inconsiderable that it cannot reasonably be supposed that every Corpuscle of the Quick-silver that before was volatile was made extreamly fixt meerly by its Coalition with a particle of the powder since to make one grain suffice for this Coalition the parts it must be divided into must be scarce conceivably minute and therefore each single part not likely to be fixt it self or at least more likely to be carried up by the vehemently agitated Mercury than to restrain that from avolation whereas if we suppose the Elixir to have made such a commotion among the corpuscles of the Mercury as having made them perhaps somewhat change their figure and expelled some inconvenient particles to bring them to stick to one another according to very great portions of their surfaces and intangle one another it will not be disagreeable to the Mechanical Doctrine of Fixity that the Mercury should endure the fire as well as Gold on the score of its new Texture which supposing the story true appears to have been introduced by the new colour specifick gravity Indissolubleness in Aqua fortis and other Qualities wherein Gold differs from Mercury especially Malleableness which according to our Notes about that Quality usually requires that the parts from whose union it results be either hooked branched or otherwise adapted and fitted to make them take fast hold of one another or stick close to one another And since in the whole mass of the factitious Gold all save one grain must be materially the same body which before the projection was made was Quick-silver we may see how great a proportion of volatile matter may by an inconsiderable quantity of fixing additament acquire such a new Disposition of its parts as to become most fixt And however this Instance will agree much better with the Mechanical Doctrine about Fixity than with that vulgar Opinion of the Chymists wherewith 't will not at all comply That if in a mixture the volatile part do much exceed the fixt it will carry up that or at least a good portion thereof with it and on the contrary But though this Rule holds in many cases where there is no peculiar indisposition to the effect that is aimed at yet if the Mechanical affections of the bodies be ill suited to such a purpose our Philosophical Experiment manifestly proves that the Rule will not hold since so great a multitude of grains of Mercury in stead of carrying up with them one grain of the Elixir are detained by it in the strongest fire And thus much for the first way of fixing Volatile Bodies CHAP. III. THE second way of producing Fixity is by expelling breaking or otherwise disabling those volatile Corpuscles that are too indisposed to be fixt themselves or are fitted to carry up with them such particles as would not without their help ascend That the Expulsion of such parts is a proper means to make the aggregate of those that remain more fixt I presume you will not put me solicitously to prove and we have a manifest instance of it in Soot where though many active parts were by the violence of the fire and current of the air carried up together by the more volatile parts yet when Soot is well distilled in a Retort a competent time being given for the extricating and avolation of the other parts there will at the bottom remain a substance that will not now fly away as it formerly did And here let me observe that the recesse of the fugitive corpuscles may contribute to the fixation of a body not barely because the remaining matter is freed from so many unfixt if not also volatilizing parts but as it may often happen that upon their recesse the pores or intervals they left behind them are filled up with more solid or heavy matter and the body becomes as more homogeneous so more close and compact And whereas I intimated that besides the expulsion of unfit corpuscles they may be otherwise disabled from hindering the fixation of the masse they belong to I did it because it seems very possible that in some cases they may by the action of the fire be so broken as with their fragments to fill up the pores or intervals of the body they appertained to or may make such coalitions with the particles of a convenient additament as to be no impediment to the Fixity of the whole masse though they remain in it Which possibly you will think may well happen when you shall have perused the Instances annext to the fourth way of fixing bodies The third means of fixing or lessening the Volatility of bodies is by preserving that rest among the parts whose contrary is necessary to their Volatilization And this may be done by preventing or checking that Heat or other motion which external Agents strive to introduce into the parts of the proposed body But this means tending rather to hinder the actual avolation of a portion of matter or at most procure a temporary abatement of its volatility than to give it a stable fixity I shall not any longer insist on it The fourth way of producing Fixity in a body is by putting to it such an appropriated Additament whether fixt or volatile that the Corpuscles of the body may be put among themselves or with those of the additament into a complicated state or intangled contexture This being the usual and principal way of producing Fixity we shall dwell somewhat the longer upon it and give Instances of several degrees of Fixation For though they do not produce that quality in the strictest acceptation of the word Fixity yet 't is usefull in our present inquiry to take notice by what means that volatility comes to be gradually abated since that may facilitate our understanding how the Volatility of a body comes to be totally abated and consequently the body to be fixt CHAP. IV. AND first we find that a fixt additament if its parts be conveniently shaped may easily give a degree of fixity to a very volatile body Thus Spirit of Nitre that will of it self easily enough fly away in the Air having its saline particles associated with those of fixt Nitre or salt of Tartar will with the Alkaly compose a salt of a Nitrous nature which will endure to be melted in a Crucible without being deprived even of its Spirits And I have found that the spirits of Nitre that abound in Aqua fortis being concoagulated with the Silver they corrode though one would not expect that such subtile Corpuscles should stick fast to so compact and solid a body as Silver yet Crystalls produced by their Coalition being put into a Retort may be kept a pretty while in fusion before the metal will let go the Nitrous spirits When we poured Oil of Vitriol upon the Calx of Vitriol though many Phlegmatick and other Sulphureous particles were driven away by the excited Heat yet the saline parts that combined with the fixt ones of the
Colcothar stuck fast enough to them not to be easily driven away And if Oil of Vitriol be in a due proportion dropt upon Salt of Tartar there results a Tartarum vitriolatum wherein the acid and alkalizate parts cohere so strongly that 't is not an ordinary degree of fire will be able to disjoyn them Insomuch that divers Chymists have though very erroniously thought this compounded Salt to be indestructible But a less heavy liquour than the ponderous Oil of Vitriol may by an Alkaly be more strongly detained than that Oil it self experience having assured me that Spirit of Salt being dropt to satiety upon a fixt Alkaly I used either that of Nitre or of Tartar there would be made so strict an union that having without additaments distilled the resulting salt with a strong and lasting fire it appeared not at all considerably to be wrought upon and was not so much as melted But 't is not the bare Mixture or Commistion of Volatile particles with Fixt ones yea though the former be predominant in quantity that will suffice to elevate the latter For unlesse the figures of the latter be congruous and fitted to fasten to the other the volatile parts will fly away in the Heat and leave the rest as fixt as before as when sand or ashes are wetted or drenched with water they quickly part with that water without parting with any degree of their Fixity But on the other side it is not always necessary that the body which is fitted to destroy or much abate the volatility of another substance should be it self fixt For if there be a skilful or lucky coaptation of the figures of the particles of both the bodies these particles may take such hold of one another as to compose corpuscles that will neither by reason of their strict union be divided by Heat nor by reason of their resulting grossness be elevated even by a strong fire or at least by such a degree of Heat as would have sufficed to raise more indisposed bodies than either of the separate Ingredients of the mixture This observation if duly made out does so much favour our Doctrine about the Mechanical Origine of Fixation and may be of such use not onely to Chymists in some of their operations but to Philosophers in assigning the causes of divers Phaenomena of Nature that it may be worth while to exemplifie it by some Instances The first whereof I shall take from an usual practice of the Chymists themselves which I the rather doe to let you see that such known Experiments are too often over-looked by them that make them but yet may hint or confirm Theories to those that reflect on them The Instance I here speak of is that which is afforded by the vulgar Preparation of Bezoardicum Minerale For though the rectified Butter or Oil of Antimony and the Spirit of Nitre that are put together to make this white Praecipitate are both of them distilled liquours yet the copious powder that results from their Union is by that Union of volatile parts so far fixt that after they have edulcorated it with water they prescribe the calcining of it in a Crucible for five or six hours which operation it could not bear unless it had attained to a considerable fixation This discourse supposes with the generality of Chymists that the addition of a due quantity of spirit of Nitre is necessary to be employed in making the Bezoardicum Minerale But if it be a true Observation which is attributed to the Learned Guntherus Billichius but which I had no Furnace at hand to examine when I heard of it if I say it be true that a Bezoardicum Minerale may be obtained without spirit of Nitre barely by a slow evaporation made in a Glasse-dish of the more fugitive parts of the Oil of Antimony this Instance will not indeed be proper in this place but yet will belong to the second of the foregoing ways of introducing Fixity I proceed now to alleage other particulars in favour of the above-mentioned Observation If you take strong Spirit of Salt that when the Glass is unstopt will smoak of it self in the cold air and satiate it with the volatile Spirit of Vrine the superfluous moisture being abstracted you will obtain by this preparation which you may remember I long since communicated to you and divers other Virtuosi a compounded Salt scarce if at all distinguishable from Sal Armoniac and which will not as the Salts it consists of will doe before their coalition easily fly up of it self into the air but will require a not despicable degree of fire to sublime it Of these semivolatile Compositions of Salt I have made and elsewhere mentioned others which I shall not here repeat but passe on to other Instances pertinent to our present design I lately mentioned that the Volatility of the spirits of Nitre may be very much abated by bringing them to coagulate into Crystalls with particles of corroded Silver but I shall now add that I guessed and by trial found that these Nitrous spirits may be made much more fixt by the addition of the Spirit of Salt which if it be good will of it self smoak in the Air. For having dissolved a convenient quantity of Crystalls of Silver in distilled water and precipitated them not with a Solution of Salt but the Spirit of Salt the phlegm being abstracted and some few of the looser saline particles though the remaining masse were prest with a violent fire that kept the Retort red-hot for a good while yet the Nitrous and Saline spirits would by no means be driven away from the Silver but continued in fusion with it and when the masse was taken out these Spirits did so abound in it that it had no appearance of a Metal but looked rather like a thick piece of Horn. The next Instance I shall name is afforded us by that kind of Turbith which may be made by Oil of Vitriol in stead of the Aqua fortis imployed in the common Turpethum Minerale For though Oil of Vitriol be a distilled liquour and Mercury a body volatile enough yet when we abstracted four or five parts of Oil of Vitriol from one of Quick-silver especially if the operation were repeated and then washed off as much as we could of the saline particles of the Oil of Vitriol yet those that remained adhering to the Mercury made it far more fixt than either of the liquours had been before and inabled it even in a Crucible to endure such a degree of fire before it could be driven away as I confess I somewhat wondered at The like Turbith may be made with Oil of Sulphur per Campanam But this is nothing to what Helmont tells us of the operation of his Alkahest where he affirms that that Menstruum which is volatile enough being abstracted from running Mercury not onely coagulates it but leaves it fixt so that it will endure the brunt of fires acuated by Bellows omnem follium ignem