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
Calcination of Vitriol 332 Distillation of Vitriol 338 Styptick Water 346 Lapis Medicamentosus 347 Salt of Vitriol 348 Chap. XIX Of Roche-Alom and its Purification 350 Distillation of Alom ibid. Chap. XX. Of Sulphur 353 Flower of Sulphur ib. Magistery of Sulphur 355 Balsom of Sulphur 357 Spirit of Sulphur 358 Salt of Sulphur 361 Chap. XXI Of Succinum or Ambar 363 Tincture of Ambar 364 Distillation of Ambar and the Rectification of its Oil and Spirit 365 Volatile Salt of Ambar 370 Chap. XXII of Ambar-grease 372 Essence of Ambar-grease 373 SECOND PART Of Vegetables Chap. I. OF Jalap 375 Rosin or Magistery of Jalap ib. Chap. II. Of Rhubarb 379 Extract of Rhubarb 380 Chap. III. Of the Wood Guaiacum 383 Distillation of Guaiacum ib. Chap. IV. Of Paper 386 Oil and Spirit of Paper 387 Chap. V. Of Cinnamon 389 Oil or Essence of Cinnamon and its Celestial water 390 Tincture of Cinnamon 392 Chap. VI. Of the Bark of Peru. 393 Tincture of the Peruvian Bark 395 Extract of Peruvian Bark 397 Chap. VII Of Cloves 399 Oil of Cloves per Descensum ib. Chap. VIII Of Nutmegs 401 Oil of Nutmegs 402 Chap. IX Distillation of an odoriferous Plant such as Balm its Extract and Fixt Salt 404 Chap. X. Distillation of a Plant that is not Odoriferous such as Carduus Benedictus and its Essential Salt 406 Chap. XI Of Sugar 408 Spirit of Sugar 410 Chap. XII Of Wine 412 Distillation of Wine into Brandy 417 Spirit of Wine 421 Spirit of Wine Tartarised 425 Queen of Hungary's Water 427 Chap. XIII Of Vinegar 429 Distillation of Vinegar 430 Chap. XIV Of Tartar 433 Crystals of Tartar ib. Soluble Tartar 435 Chalybeated Crystals of Tartar 437 Chalybeated Soluble Tartar 438 Soluble Emetick Tartar 439 Another Soluble Emetick Tartar 441 Distillation of Tartar 441 Fixt Salt of Tartar and its Liquor called Oil of Tartar per Deliquium 444 Tincture of Salt of Tartar 447 Magistery of Tartar or Tartarum Vitriolatum 450 Volatile Salt of Tartar 462 Chap. XV. Of Opium 467 Extract of Opium called Laudanum 468 Chap. XVI Of Aloes 477 Extract of Aloes 478 Chap. XVII Elixir Proprietatis 479 Chap. XVIII Of Tabaco 481 Distillation of Tabaco 482 Chap. XIX Extractum Panchymagogum 484 Chap. XX. Of Turpentine 488 Distillation of Turpentine 489 Chap. XXI Of Benjamin 491 Flowers of Benjamin and its Oil 492 Tincture of Benjamin 493 Chap. XXII Of Camphire 494 Oil of Camphire 495 Chap. XXIII Of Gumm Ammoniack 497 Distillation of Gumm Ammoniack 498 Chap. XXIV Of Myrrhe 500 Tincture of Myrrhe 501 Oil of Myrrhe per deliquium 502 THIRD PART Of Animals Chap. I. OF the Viper 505 Distillation of Vipers 512 Chap. II. Distillation of Vrine and its Volatile Salt 520 The PHOSPHORUS 523 The Hermetick PHOSPHORUS of Baldwinus 538 Chap. III. Of Honey 542 Distillation of Honey 543 Chap. IV. Distillation of Wax 545 A COURSE OF CHYMISTRY Of Chymistry in General THE Word Chymistry is derived from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Juyce or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to melt because it teaches us to separate the purer substances of Mixt bodies which are sometimes called Juices and because it shews us how to melt things that are of the most solid nature The Chymists have added the Arabian particle Al in the word Alchymy intending to give it a sublime signification as particularly when the Transmutation of Metals is understood by it though otherwise Alchymy signifies no more than Chymistry It is called the Spagirick Art from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to separate and to gather together because it teaches how to separate the useful parts of a body from the unuseful and how to joyn them together again 'T is called the Hermetick Art from Hermes one of the first Inventors of it Lastly it has been called Pyrotechnia from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the Art of Fire for in effect it is by Fire that we bring all Chymical Operations to pass Other names have been given to this Art but because the knowledge of them is to no great purpose we will be contented with having related some of the chief Chymistry is an Art that teaches how to separate the different substances which are found in Mixt bodies I mean by a Mixt body those things that naturally grow and increase such as Minerals Vegetables and Animals Under the name of Minerals I comprehend the Seven Metals Minerals Stones and Earths under Vegetables I understand Plants Gumms Rosins Fruits the several sorts of Fungus Seeds Juyces Flowers Mosses and whatsoever else comes from them Among these also I reckon Manna Honey and those that are called imperfect Mixts And under Animals I contain both the Animals themselves and whatsoever belongs to them as their parts and excrements But before I begin to speak particularly of all these things I believe it will be convenient to say something of the Principles of Chymistry and give a general Idea of Furnaces Lutes the degrees of Fire and Terms that may occasion any obscurity Of the Principles of Chymistry The First Principle that can be admitted for the composition of Mixts is an Vniversal Spirit which being diffused through all the world produces different things according to the different Matrixes or Pores of the earth in which it settles But because this Principle is a little Metaphysical and falls not under our senses it will be fit to establish some sensible ones wherefore I shall relate those that are commonly held Whereas the Chymists in making the Analysis of Mixt bodies have met with five sorts of Substances they therefore concluded that there were five Principles of Natural things Water Spirit Oil Salt and Earth Of these five three of them are Active the Spirit Oil and Salt and two Passive Water and Earth They called them active by reason they do cause all manner of action and the others passive because being in repose themselves they only serve to stop and hinder the quick motion of the actives The Spirit which is called Mercury is the first of the Active principles that appears to us when we make the Anatomy of a mixt body 'T is a subtile piercing light substance that is more in motion than any of the others It is this which causes all Bodies to grow in more or less time according as it abounds in them more or less But it happens that the Bodies wherein it abounds are more liable to corruption by reason of its too great motion and this is observ'd in Animals and Vegetables On the contrary the greatest part of Minerals as containing but a very small quantity of it do seem to be incorruptible It cannot be drawn pure no more than the others I am going to speak of But either it is involv'd in a little Oil that it carries along with it and then may be called a Volatile Spirit such as the Spirit of Wine of Roses of Rosemary of Juniper or else is
detained by some Salts which check its Volatility and then may be called a fixt Spirit as the Acid Spirits of Vitriol Alum Salt c. The Oil which is called Sulphur by reason of its inflammability is a sweet subtile unctuous substance that rises after the Spirit This is said to cause the diversity of Colours and Smells according to its disposition in Bodies this gives them their Beauty and Deformity uniting together the other Principles this also sweetens the acrimony of Salts and by shutting up the Pores of a mixt hinders it from corrupting either through too much moisture or cold Wherefore many Trees and Plants that have a great deal of Oil are wont to last green much longer than others and can resist the extremity of ill weathers It is always drawn impure For either it is mixt with Spirits as the Oils of Rosemary of Lavender which swim above the water or else it is fill'd with Salts that it draws along with it in the distillation as the Oil of Box Guaiacum Cloves which do precipitate to the bottom of the water by reason of their weight Salt is the last of the Active Principles which remains disguised in the Earth after the other Principles are extracted It is drawn by pouring water upon the earth to imbibe its Salt then filtring the dissolution and evaporating all the moisture a Salt is found at the bottom of the Vessel It is a fixt incombustible substance that gives Bodies their consistence and preserves them from corruption This causes the diversity of tasts according as it is diversly mixed There are three different Salts as the Fixt Volatile and Essential The Fixt Salt is that which remains after Calcination the Volatile is that which easily riseth as the Salt of Animals And Essential Salt is that which is obtained from the Juyce of Plants by Crystallization This last is between the Fixt and Volatile Water which is called Phlegm is the first of the Passive Principles it comes in distillation before the Spirits when they are fixt or after them when they are volatile It is never drawn pure but always receives some impression from the Active Principles And this causes it to have a more detersive virtue in it than common Water It serves to separate the Active Principles and to bridle their motion The Earth which is called Caput Mortuum or Terra Damnata is the last of the Passive Principles and can no more be separated pure than the rest but will still retain some Spirits in it and if after you have depriv'd it of them as much as you are able you leave it a good while exposed to the Air it will recover new Spirits again Remarks upon the Principles The word Principle in Chymistry must not be understood in too nice a sense for the substances which are so called are only Principles in respect of us and as we can advance no farther in the division of bodies but we well know that they may be still divided into abundance of other parts which may more justly claim in propriety of speech the name of Principles wherefore such substances are to be understood by Chymical Principles as are separated and divided so far as we are capable of doing it by our weak imperfect powers And because Chymistry is an Art that demonstrates what it does it receives for fundamental only such things as are palpable and demonstrable It is in truth a great advantage to us that we have Principles so sensible as they are and whereof we can have so reasonable an assurance The fond conceits of other Philosophers concerning Natural Principles do only puff up the mind with grand Idea's but they prove or demonstrate nothing And this is the reason that going to discover their Principles we find some of them do frame one Systeme and others another But if we would come as near as may be to the true Principles of Nature we cannot take a more certain course than that of Chymistry which will serve us as a Ladder to them and this division of substances though it may seem a little gross will give us a very great Idea of Nature and the figure of the first small particles which have entred into the composition of mixt bodies Some modern Philosophers would perswade us that it is altogether uncertain whether the substances which are separated from bodies and are called Chymical Principles do effectually exist and are naturally residing in the body before these do tell us that the fire by rarifying the matter in time of distillation is capable of bestowing upon it such an alteration as is quite different from what it had before and so of forming the Salt Oil and other things which are drawn from it This objection does at first seem to have much weight and reason in it because it is certain as hereafter shall be shewn that the Fire does give a very considerable impression to the preparations and that very often it does put such a new face upon things that they are very hardly to be known when compar'd with what they were before But it is easie to shew that though the Fire does so diversifie and alter substances yet it does not make those Principles for we see them and smell them in many bodies before ever we bring them to undergo the Fire For example it cannot be denied but that there was existent Oyl in Olives in Almonds in Nuts and in many other fruits and seeds because it is drawn only by beating and pressing them Turpentine which is a thickned Oyl and many other fat or unctuous liquors are drawn by meer incision into the trunk or root of trees and what else I pray is the fat of animals but an Oyl or Sulphur coagulated Nor can it be denied but that there is salt actually in mixt bodies since that by bruising a Plant and making expression to draw out its juyce and then leaving the juyce to settle in some cool place for a few daies a salt will be found fixt about the vessel in form of little Crystals I know that some doubting Scepticks who make it their business to doubt of every thing will still say that by beating the Almonds and then pressing them and by making incision into Trees the parts which compose the plant are agitated and put in motion after such a manner as they are by Fire and that this agitation of parts is capable of ranging them so as to make the Oyl and Salt But such reasonings as these do destroy themselves by too much niceness and there is no sober understanding man but easily perceives the falshood for can a man well perceive that meer trituration or incision are able to make Salt Oyl Earth it is abundantly more probable nay and it may be sufficiently demonstrated that those substances did exist in the bodies before and that by incision and trituration the gate has only been opened to let them come freely out Others again do attack the Principles of Chymistry after
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
another manner a little differing from this these do acknowledge that the foresaid substances are naturally in the Mixts much as we draw them by Art but they assert that we have no proof that the Mixts are compounded of these same substances called Principles and that they are not drawn from the juyce of the earth in such a form that Salt Sulphur c. may indeed have been formed in the natural Fermentations and other elaborations which happen in the Mixt during its growth and therefore they conclude that those substances cannot properly be called Principles because we do not know sufficiently whether the Mixt was composed of them at first But since we are satisfied that the earths which serve for a matrix to Mixt bodies are impregnated with Salt Sulphur and other substances of the nature of those which we do find in the bodies and since we can perceive nothing else which can contribute to their composition it remains beyond all doubt that they are even compounded of them It must be granted that the Fermentations or other Elaborations which come to pass in mixt bodies have given the Principles a certain order of parts or some dispositions they had not before but they do by no means form or compose them The five Principles are easily found in Animals and Vegetables but not so easily in Minerals Nay there are some Minerals out of which you cannot possibly draw so much as two nor make any separation at all as Gold and Silver whatsoever they talk who search with so much pains for the Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries of these metals I can believe that all the Principles do indeed enter into the composition of these Bodies but it does not follow that they must remain in their former condition or can be drawn as they were before for it may be these substances which are called Principles are so strictly involved one within another as to suffer no separation any other way than by breaking their Figure Now it is by reason of their Figure that they are called Salts Sulphurs and Spirits For example if you mix an Acid Spirit with the Salt of Tartar or some other Alkali the edges of the Acid will so insinuate into the pores of the Salt that if by distillation you would separate the Acid Spirit again from the Salt you 'l never be able to effect it the Acid will have lost almost all its strength because the edges of these Spirits are so far destroyed or changed that they no longer preserve their former Figure Every body knows that glass is made of Salt but because the Fire hath wrought so great a change upon its Texture or Figure it can do nothing at all that Salt is used to do nay and it is in a manner impossible to draw any true Salt from it by Chymistry There are three sorts of Liquors that are qualified with the name of Spirit in Chymistry the Spirit of Animals the Burning spirit of Vegetables and the Acid spirit The first of them as the spirit of Harts-horn is nothing but a Volatile salt dissolved by a little Phlegm as I shall shew when I treat of Animals The second as the Spirit of Wine the Spirit of Juniper and the Spirit of Rosemary is an exalted Oyl as I shall shew speaking of Wines And the last as the Spirit of Vinegar Tartar and Vitriol is an Acid Essential salt dissolved and put in fusion by the fire as I shall prove when I speak of Vinegar and the distillation of Tartar this last is called a Fluid salt These three sorts of liquors comprehending all that can any way be called Spirit this may pass for one Principle very well for seeing that the Spirit which is drawn from Animals is nothing but a Salt dissolved by a little Phlegm that Spirit of Wine is only an Oyl exalted and that the Acid Spirit is a Salt become fluid we can observe nothing in these liquors but an Oyl Salts of a different nature and water Wherefore it must be concluded that the Spirit or Mercury which Chymists have talk'd of is a meer Chimaera that serves only to confound mens minds and render Chymistry unintelligible for men might if they would have called these liquors by more proper names thus what hindred them from calling the Spirit of Animals by the name of a Volatile salt dissolv'd the liquors which come from Oyls might have been called an exalted Oyl and the Acid spirits a Fluid salt and hereby we should not have been troubled about an imaginary Principle and Chymistry would have been better understood But it is impossible to change a name that has been so long fixt and appropriated to these liquors All that I can do is to explicate as I have done what is meant by the word Spirit in order to avoid Equivocations Nothing but the Oyl can properly be said to be Inflammable and the Oyl is so much the more so as the Salts with which it is closely united have been more or less spiritualized For that which I call Spirit in the Oyl is nothing but an Essential or Volatile Salt this Salt is not of it self Inflammable but serves to Rarifie and Exalt the parts of the Oyl to render them the more susceptible of Motion and consequently of Flagration after the same manner as when Salt-peter is put to mix with some Oily substance this Oily matter fires much more easily than when it is alone though Salt-peter of it self is not at all Inflammable as I shall prove hereafter We have examples of the truth of what I say in Spirit of Wine Oyl of Turpentine and all other Inflammable Liquors for they are only Oyls subtilized and refined by the Volatile Salts they contain Vegetables have a great deal of Salt much like to Salt-peter this Salt being straitly united with their Oyl makes them the more apt to flame than if they had been deprived of it The Fat of Animals as well as their other parts is full of a Volatile Acid salt Wax Rosine and all other matters that are inflammable are impregnated with an Acid Salt Essential or Volatile I say the Salt which causes the flagration of Oyls must be either Volatile or Essential for if it were a fixt Salt 't would have a contrary effect it would allay in some measure the quick motion of the parts of an Inflammable body and this we see happens when Sea-salt is flung into the fire it serves to put it out Common Sulphur yields us another instance of the same kind consisting of one part Sulphureous or Oily and another Saline or Acid fixt which plainly appears in the opening of it the Oily part fires and would soon rise like other Oils into a great white flame but that the Acid part being a load to its activity hinders it from rising and so forces it to cast but only a small blue flame and a proof of what I affirm may be had from mixing Salt-peter with Sulphur for the Volatile salt of Salt-peter
the reason that less fixt salt is to be found in Animals than Plants As for what many do say that Choler causes an Effervescency like an Alkali when an acid is cast upon it 't is a mistake through want of right Observation for no Ebullition at all happens for some time Nevertheless I will not say that an acid produces no Fermentation in Choler Bloud and other parts of the body for it does very often really do that but that is no more than uses to be done in new Wine Beer and other liquors of the like nature I have already explicated this sort of Fermentation We ought not to omit speaking of the Coagulation that 's made in Milk after a Fermentation caused either by Heat or some Acid put into it Methinks here is no need at all of supposing an Alkali salt that ferments with the Acid of this liquor as many suppose for explicating this Effect since if we consider but the natural composition of Milk we shall find it to be nothing but a Creamy substance swimming on the Serum and mixed only superficially with it by the intermixture of some salt so that it is in a fitting state of separation as soon as the salt gains a little more motion than it had whether it be by Fermentation or by encreasing its activity by an acid of its own nature Thus when the heat of the Summer or fire has stirred up the acid that is in the Milk or else some acid is poured into it the edges of the acid do cut and divide the Creamy part to gain a free motion in the Serum and separate into Curd all the Butter and Cheese Now there 's nothing strange in the Precipitation of the Curd especially when an acid has been poured upon the Milk for besides the weight it gains by thickning some part of the acids do mix with it and encrease its weight for according as the acid that was mingled is stronger or weaker the Curd does Precipitate more or less Perhaps some will say for as much as acid is always the cause of Coagulation in Milk there 's no great likelihood that a salt of the same nature should be the instrument of uniting the several parts of Milk But it must be considered that although there is an acid in Milk as no body can doubt seeing it sowres of it self when stale this acid is as it were imbodied in the ramous parts of the Oyl so that there is loses all its motion and cannot come to action but by rarifying the Oyl and making it fit to mix with the serous part it is the due proportion of this salt Oyl and serum that makes the Butter and Cheesy part of Milk Now I hope I have said enough to establish what I have affirmed that there 's no salt in nature besides the acid out of which all other Salts are made and that the Alkali salt has no Natural existence in mixt bodies My discourse will be the better relished when I speak of the Operations of Chymistry and you 'l find that by this Principle which I may call the most Natural and impartial of all that have been laid till now I shall be able to give account of many Phaenomena's that have never been explicated by common Principles Of Chymical Furnaces and Vessels It is not my design to relate here exactly all the kinds of Vessels and Furnaces that Artists have invented to use in Chymistry I shall describe only those with which you will be able to perform all Operations and send curious persons who would be more particularly instructed in them into the Laboratories where they may learn more on this subject than ever they will be able to do by consulting all the Books in the world These then are the principal The Furnace which is most in use among Chymists is that which is called the Reverberatory it must be large enough to hold a great Retort for the Distillation of acid Spirits and other things This Furnace must be fixt and made of Brick joyned together with a Lute compounded of one part of Potters earth so much Horse-dung and twice as much Sand the whole kneaded together in Water let it be two Bricks breadth that the Furnace being the thicker the heat may be retained the longer let the Ash-hole be a Foot high and the Door contrived if possible on the side that the air comes that when you have a mind to open it the Fire may be lighted or encreased the more easily the fire room need not be quite so high you must lay a-cross it two Iron-bars of the bigness of your thumb which will serve you to set your Retort upon and the Furnace must be still raised near about a Foot higher to cover the Retort fit to it a Dome or Cover that may have a hole in the middle with its stopple and a small Chimny a foot high for to place upon this hole when the stopple is taken out and when you would raise a great heat for the flame preserving its self by means of this little Chimney it reverberates the more strongly upon the Retort This Cover may be made of the same Paste that I shall presently describe speaking of Portable Furnaces It will be necessary to have several Furnaces of this same fashion but they must be of different sizes to work conveniently according to the bigness of the Vessel you would place in it For that the Fire may act more vehemently upon the Retort there must be left but only the space of a fingers breadth all round between the Furnace and the Retort These Furnaces may also serve for Distilling by the Refrigeratory in the Sea-Bath the Vaporous and the Sand-bath for you may place the Copper body upon the Iron bars when you would distil by the Refrigeratory It is easie to do the same with the Balneum Mariae As for the Sand-bath lay an iron or earthen pan on the bars and put sand enough into it for to cover the bottom and sides of the Vessel you desire to heat As for Fusions you must build a Furnace of the same matter and form as those spoken of before only you must forbear laying the two Iron bars in it that you did in the others for support of the Vessel Moveable Furnaces are made of a paste that consists of three parts of broken pots in powder and two parts of clay temper'd together with Water Their structure is just like that of the An Explication of the FIGURES of the FIRST TABLE A Great Reverberatory Furnace a The Ash-hole b The Fire-room c A Retort supported on two Iron bars d The Dome or Cover e The Receiver f A little Chimny g The Dome taken off the Furnace h A Retort i A small Reverberatory Furnace ready to work with k A fixed little Furnace for Fusions l An Iron pot to hold the sand m The Fire-place n The Ash-room o A Furnace in which is placed a great Copper Body p The Copper Body
tinn'd o' th' inside supported on two Iron bars q The Head r A copper Pipe tinn'd passing through a vessel filled with water s A glass Receiver t A small Iron Furnace u An Iron pot x The Cover to the Iron pot y A Cock to let the water out of the vessel when it grows too hot z A Matrass or Bolt-head The FIRST TABLE The SECOND TABLE a a A Moveable Furnace for fusions b Registers or holes to let the air into the fire c A Dome divided in two d A little Chimny and the flame passing through it e An Iron trevet to support the furnace f A glass Mortar with its Pestle g h A pot with a coffin of paper over it for receiving the Flowers of Benjamin i k l A Matrass or Bolt-head and its blind-head for sublimations m n A great earthen pan with a little Cup turned upside downwards A Crucible containing the lighted Sulphur A great glass Tunnel to draw Spirit of Sulphur o A Mould p A copper Body q Its Refrigeratory r The Receiver s A Circulating vessel t A Pot with a hole in the middle of its height and the stopple of the hole lying by u Three Aludels or Pots upon one another x The glass head y A Mould to make the balls of Regulus of Antimony which are called perpetual Pills z The Mould wherewith to form the lapis infernalis a a A little furnace and its pan with sand in it and an earthen pan filled with liquor to be evaporated b b A Coppel c c A little Coppel to make trials with The SECOND TABLE The THIRD TABLE A Moveable Furnace to distil in Sand. a The Ash-hole and its door b The Fire-place and its door c The Cucurbite or Body d The Sand wherein the Body is placed e The Head f The Receiver g The same Furnace empty h A Body i A Head k A glass in which Oil of Cloves is made l A Copper Balneum to contain and distil with four Alembicks m n A Pipe through which the hot water is poured into the Balneum according as it evaporates o The Receiver p A Balneum to distil with one Alembick q A Mold to make Cups of Regulus of Antimony r A French Crucible s A German Crucible The THIRD TABLE Reverberatory Furnace You may also leave holes through which the Iron-bars may pass which support the Retort that they may be easily taken out when you have a mind to use this Furnace for Fusions A Furnace of this form may be called Polychrest or general because such a one may be used for all sorts of Operations It is likewise convenient for Fusions to have a moveable Furnace of the same matter as the others it must be round and may be set upon a stool it is to have only one grate and six Registers or holes on the sides to let in the air to the fire The Dome may be made of the same matter for to cover it and a small earthen Chimney for to place upon the hole of the Dome that the fire may keep the stronger See the figure of it in the second Table You must be sure to put sand or broken pots or such like things into the Paste that you use for the building Furnaces either fixt or moveable to hinder them from cracks when they come to dry for these matters rendring the clay more porous the wet breaths out much the more easily Again Lime and Sand tempered together might serve for the building your fixt Furnaces and stones might be used instead of bricks but because it is necessary to increase and lessen the Furnaces to proportion their size to the vessels you would place in them the description which I gave before is the more convenient for that a man may very easily break them and build them again without the help of a Brick-layer A small Iron Furnace with its iron pot and a cover to it is convenient for performing many operations this pot may serve for a Balneum Mariae and for a Vaporous Bath when there is no other It may be likewise used to distil by an Alembick in a Bath of Sand Ashes or of filings of Iron See the description of it in the first Table A great Iron Furnace should likewise be had whereon to place a Copper Balneum Mariae for to distil with four bodies at once In the middle of this Bath there should be a pipe raised the top of which must be made like a Funnel into which you are to pour hot water in place of that which consumes away in vapour See its figure in the third Table As for Vessels chuse them as much as may be of Earth or Glass for it is to be feared that those which are made of Metal will communicate some particular impression to the Liquors you put into them but because sometimes you may have occasion to distil a great many things in a little time you may use the Copper-Cucurbit or Body Tinn'd because that Tinn is not so soluble as Copper and besides hath no such pernicious quality upon this Cucurbit place a fit head round about which must be made a kind of bason to hold the water that cools and condenses the vapours which rise from the Matter contained in the Vesica so soon as it is heated See its description in the second Table You may likewise provide a Copper pipe tinn'd o' th' inside which may pass sloping downwards through a vessel fill'd with water and when you would distil Essences with it you must fit the upper end of it to the nose of the head and the lower end of it to the mouth of the Receiver but you must remember to empty the water out of the vessel according as it grows hot for to cool the liquor that is distilling and to this end there must be a hole made at the bottom of the vessel to be stopt with a wooden stopple which may be taken out and put in again as often as you would let out the water The Moor's head is a Copper cap tinn'd on the inside made like to a head See the figure of it in the first Table Many Retorts of different sizes are necessary in a Laboratory those which are of Earth are convenient for the distillation of Acid Spirits because they are able to endure the utmost degree of Fire and will not melt as glass do The Vessels made of Earth have their pores as close as glass it self and preserve the Spirits as well They who want Earthen Vessels may coat their glass Retorts with the Lute that I shall describe hereafter that if the glass should melt when they are distilling Acid Spirits the Lute may preserve the matter safe Earthen and Glass Cucurbits with their heads do serve for a great many Operations Matrasses both great and small when they are fitted to the nose of a Limbeck are called Receivers at other times we put things into them to digest and they are also fit for sublimations When the
Although I cannot absolutely deny but that some certain Artist by a particular method might have got the way of making Gold heretofore nor that some body may be as lucky in time to come yet there is more appearance of Impossibility than possibility in the case because of the small knowledge that any of us have of the Natural Composition of this mixt for seeing that Gold as well as Silver is drawn from Mines environed with Waters it is very probable that these Waters do bring along with them some Saline Principles that congele and incorporate in Earths of a particular composition and whose Pores are disposed in such a manner as 't is impossible for Art to imitate Nevertheless in order to make Gold a perfect knowledge of the Salts that the Waters of the Mines do convey is very requisite as well as the disposition of the Matrixes or Earths in which they do congele Wherefore a man must be soundly prejudiced before he can believe that by the help of artificial fires he can concoct metals so as to turn them into Gold As for the Mercury which men pretend to draw out of Minerals and Metals and which they believe to be the seminal principle of Gold it is a thing meerly imaginary for first of all it is a great question and may be doubted whether there be any Mercury in those metallick matters wherein it is sought after but if we should suppose it in them what reason shall we have to make it be the seed of Gold we can no ways find that Mercury is able to produce Gold nay further as I said before the growth of metals and minerals is quite of another nature than that of Vegetables Now say they the seed of Gold is communicated unto all bodies and that it does abound in the Universal Spirit And because Manna Dew Hony are impregnated with this Spirit that Gold may by Art be drawn out of those substances We grant unto them that the Universal Spirit does contain an Acid which serves towards the production of Gold because the acid waters or salts which do enter into the composition of this metal do proceed from the Universal Spirit but if you go to call this acid a seed it will prove to be the seed of all other mixt bodies as well as that of Gold and there 's no more reason for thinking that the Universal Spirit does abound in the seed of Gold than in the seed of the grossest metal or the most unuseful plant or the most contemptible of animals so that we may conclude that to spend ones time in making of Gold seems properly to lose it by working in the dark and I find that Alchymy has been very well defined to be Ars fine arte cujus principium mentiri medium laborare finis mendicare an Art without any Art whose beginning is Lying whose middle is nothing but Labour and whose end is Beggery Gold is a good Remedy for those who have taken too much Mercury for these two Metals do easily unite together and by this union or Amalgamation the Mercury fixes and its motion is interrupted This is plainly enough perceived in such as have received the Frictions with Mercury for if they do but hold a piece of Gold in their mouth a little it will grow white by the vapour of the Quicksilver Gold taken inwardly is thought to be a most potent Cordial because Astrologers tell us it receives its Influence from the Sun which is as it were the Heart of the world and by the communication of those Influences to the heart it serves to fortifie and cleanse it from all impurities upon which ground a great many Operations have been invented in order to open this Metal and separate its Sulphur from its salt Moreover this Operation by way of bravery is called Aurum Potabile because this salt or this Sulphur dissolving in a Liquor can be taken by way of Potion And because this Aurum Potabile can be thought to be distributed into all parts of the body they fancy it can drive out every thing that interrupts the Functions of Nature that it can free him that takes it from all fear of any Diseases for a long time and can prolong life But this Opinion is built upon a weak foundation and Experience does not confirm any of these glorious effects for what assurance can we have or what Evidence is there that the Sun is such a great friend of Gold or that it bestows more Influence on it than on other mixt bodies it is a thing that can never be prov'd and we fee that the Sun casts its light and heat in general upon all bodies without making any difference Who can understand that the Pores of Gold are so disposed as to have a greater facility of retaining the Suns Influences than other metals or things This will be full as hard to prove as the other But though we should grant Astrologers this supposition concerning the Suns Influence on Gold the consequence they draw from it that therefore it Fortifies the heart would be ne're a-whit the truer for all that we are able to apprehend in Gold is that it is a most compact and weighty body the union of whose Principles is extraordinary close which is proved from hence that no Art can instruct us to dissolve it Radically so as to separate its salt and its sulphur This Gold being beaten into the thinnest Leaves that can be imagined and taken inwardly receives not the least change in our bodies and is voided the very same it was before excepting when Quicksilver has been taken beforehand for it unites with that as I have said Wherefore we must conclude that if Gold has received more Influence from the Sun than other Metals yet it is never the fitter to dissolve in our Bodies nor to produce those rare effects that are talkt of I know that stories are told to prove that Gold does communicate virtue to the bodies of those who have taken it and that it loses in the body some of its quantity and among other stories 't is said that several persons who had fed upon Capons nourished with a Paste made of a mixture of Vipers flesh and Gold together have been cured that way of several Diseases but there 's a great deal more reason to attribute this effect rather to the Vipers than Gold for we know by experience that Vipers taken inwardly without any thing else do use to produce divers sensible effects whereas we observe none at all in Gold when 't is given alone As for the diminution they imagine of Gold in bodies they prove it by their gathering together all the Excrements of those Capons and Calcining them for they could obtain again but the fourth part of the Gold that was used in the Paste the Capons had fed upon But this proof is as weak as the former for the Excrements of the Capons being full of a Volatile Salt that Salt may have Volatiliz'd
and its reduction into an impalpable Powder To Amalgamate Gold is to mix it with Quicksilver Take a Drachm of the Regule of Gold beat it into very thin little Plates which you must heat in a Crucible red hot in a large Fire then pour upon it an ounce of Quicksilver revived from Cinnaber as I shall shew hereafter stir the matter with a little Iron-rod and when you find it begin to raise a fume which quickly happens cast your mixture into an Earthen Pan fill'd with Water it will coagulate and become tractable wash it several times to take away its blackness thus you have an Amalgame from which you must separate the Mercury that you find not united by pressing it a little between your fingers in a linnen cloth The Gold retains about thrice its weight in Mercury Now to reduce this Gold into Powder you must put this Amalgame into a Crucible over a gentle fire the Mercury will evaporate into the Air and leave the Gold at bottom in an impalpable Powder Remarks Mercury doth easily penetrate Gold and insinuating into its Pores makes a soft matter that is called Amalgame it doth the same with other Metals too except Iron and Copper which are too ill digested to receive its impression The Amalgamation of Gold is useful to Gilders for so it is easily extended upon their works Aurum Fulminans called Saffron of Gold This Operation is a Gold impregnated with some Spirits which cause it to give a loud crack when it is set over the Fire Take what quantity you please of Gold beaten into thin plates put it into a Viol or Matrass and pour upon it by little and little three or four times as much Aqua Regalis compounded after the manner I shall shew in its proper place Set the Matrass upon Sand a little heated until the Aqua Regalis has dissolved as much of the Gold as it is able to contain which you will know by the ceasing of the ebullitions pour your solution into a Glass-vessel of five or six times as much common Water Afterwards drop into this mixture by degrees the Volatile Spirit of Salt Armoniack or the Oyl of Tartar made by Deliquium or Solution you 'l find the Gold precipitate to the bottom of the Glass Let it alone a good while to settle that all the Gold may fall down then pouring off the Water by Inclination wash your powder with warm Water till it grows insipid and so dry it in Paper at a gentle fire because it is apt to fire and the Powder would fly away with a terrible noise If you use one drachm of Gold you will obtain four scruples of Aurum Fulminans well dried Aurum Fulminans causes sweat and drives out ill humors by Transpiration It may be given in the Small Pox from two to six grains in a Lozenge or Electuary It stops Vomiting and is also good to moderate the activity of Mercury Remarks The Plates of Gold are made use of in this Operation that its dissolution may be more easily performed You must pour the Aqua Regalis by little and little to avoid the great effervescency that might be able to drive it out of the Matrass The effervescency proceeds from the violent division of the particles of Gold by the Aqua Regalis for when it finds no more bodies to act upon having divided the Gold into as many parts as 't is possible the ebullition ceases and though the Gold doth all remain in the Aqua Regalis it becomes so imperceptible to us as it seems the Water hath not changed from what it was before it appears so very clear and transparent Indeed the solution has received a Golden colour and becomes yellow The dissolution of Gold is a suspension of this metal in Phlegm made by the edges of Aqua Regalis For it is not enough that the Aqua Regalis does divide the Gold into subtle parts but it is further requisite that its edges do hold up the Gold as if it were like so many Finns otherwise it would always fall to the bottom in a powder though it were never so subtle Now 't is objected that the particles of Gold should fall to the bottom of the liquor because they being joined to the points of the Aqua Regalis they are become more heavy than they were before for the union or adhaesion of two bodies does cause a greater weight than when the two bodies were separated one from the other I answer that we ought to conceive the particles of Gold being suspended or held up in the Phlegm by the acid points much after the manner as we do conceive very well that a small piece of metal fixed to a staff or a plank will swim with the wood in the water for although the small piece of metal sinks to the bottom when it is alone yet it swims when it is affixed to the wood the acid edges are bodies exceeding light in comparison with the particles of Gold and they have likewise their superficies more extended and consequently do take up more room in the phlegm this is that which holds them up and causes them to swim The Oyl of Tartar or the Spirit of Salt Armoniack is used for the Precipitation of Gold because both those Liquors do contain an Alkali Salt which being mixed with Acids must cause a Fermentation Now in this Fermentation the parts of Aqua Regalis that held up the particles of Gold do grow weak and having no more force to retain them longer they must needs precipitate by their own weight Perhaps some may find a difficulty in comprehending how the Volatile Spirit of Salt Armoniack should come to weaken the Aqua Regalis that is it self compounded of Salt Armoniack but there will be no difficulty at all when they shall consider that the force of the Aqua Regalis doth not so much depend on the volatile part of the Salt Armoniack as on the Sea-salt that is in good store in it united with the Aqua Fortis for Sea-salt or Sal Gemma may be substituted very well in the place of Salt Armoniack for making Aqua Regalis as I shall observe hereafter speaking of the composition of this Water It may be also enquired here why the Dissolvents do quit the bodies they held before in Dissolution to betake themselves to some other for example why the Aqua Regalis leaves the Gold it was impregnated with to give way to the Alkali Salt This question is one of the most difficult to resolve well of any in Natural Philosophy Nevertheless I 'le give you my opinion of what can be said most sensibly on this Subject I do suppose that when the Aqua Regalis hath acted upon the Gold so as to dissolve it the points or edges that enabled it to do so are fixed in the particles of Gold But seeing that these little bodies are very hard and consequently hard to penetrate these points do enter but very superficially yet far
Liquor till you have recovered all that is in it Mix all your Crystals dry them and weigh them and if you have half an ounce of them powder them and mix them with six drachms of the matter I described for reviving the Calx of Silver remaining in the Matrass put this mixture into a Crucible and covering it with a tile light a strong fire about it to put the matter into fusion then taking it off the fire and letting it cool break the Crucible you 'l find the Silver at the bottom which will be fit for the same Operation again when you please Note that all the Liquor which was drawn by Distillation is as clear as common water wherefore I conclude that the Colour did consist in the dissolution of Silver it self and not of its sulphurs as some have thought You must cut the Silver into little pieces or plates that it may dissolve the more easily The Salt-water must be made of an ounce and a half of Salt dissolved in a quart of water this salt precipitates the Silver because it engages the points of the dissolvent and shaking them violently about makes them let go the hold they had with other bodies I shall speak more at large concerning these kinds of Precipitations in the Remarks which I shall make upon White Precipitate and shall then explicate the reason why Sea-salt which is an acid does precipitate that which another acid had dissolved I shall likewise answer the objections which have been raised on this subject Silver may be also precipitated by means of a Copper-plate as I have said already It is very indifferent which way you please to Precipitate it for it is done for no other end but to reduce the Silver into a very fine powder for an easier dissolution The Precipitate of Silver made with salt or Copper waxes brown in the drying and though dried in the shade which doubtless is by reason of some small proportion of Copper that it contains If you have dissolved an ounce of Coppel-silver and precipitate it with Salt or Copper you 'l draw an ounce and three drachms of Precipitate well washt and dried this augmentation does proceed from a remainder of the points which were broken in pieces and yet do still remain in the pores of the metal for these pores being very small they do but hardly let go what they have received into them There is no need of distilling a part of the Liquor that the Tincture may be the stronger as some have presumed to write for on the contrary it causes a Crystallization which diminishes both its colour and strength for the reason I have given before The effect of this Tincture for Diseases must rather be attributed to the Salt of Urine and spirit of Wine than to the Silver for they are not only able to fly into the Head and open obstructions there but assisted with the Natural heat do open the pores of all the body and drive out ill humours by transpiration The portion of Silver which remains at the bottom of the Matrass being impregnated with volatile parts would fly into the Air if it were melted alone without the addition of something else wherefore the abovementioned matter is added to it that being of a very fixt nature may weigh it down and hinder it from flying away Diana's Tree Take an ounce of Silver and dissolve it in three ounces of spirit of Niter pour your dissolution into a Matrass wherein you shall have put eighteen or twenty ounces of water and two ounces of Quick-silver Your Matrass must be fill'd up to the neck let it lye still upon a little round of straw in some convenient place for forty days together during which time you 'l find a Tree spread forth its branches and little balls at the end which represent their fruit This Operation is of no use at all in Physick I have here described it only to please the Curious Remarks These branches do proceed from the spirit of Niter which being incorporated with the Silver and Mercury do form divers Figures according to the room and moisture it hath to expatiate it self in For if you should put to it but ten or twelve ounces of water nothing but a kind of Crystals in great confusion would be able to appear On the contrary if you should use too much water nothing would then be seen besides a little precipitated powder You must let the mixture lye still for forty days together because the spirit of Niter being very much weakned by common water is able to work but very slowly If the matter should happen to be removed the figure would quickly fall into confusion but would recover it self again if you let it lye still long enough This Preparation is best performed in a cool place being properly a Crystallization This Operation may be fitly compared with the manner of Generation and Nourishment of Plants in the Earth for if the seed abounds with too much moisture the spirits which serve to ferment and dilate its parts will be rendred so weak as not to be able to act and so nothing can be produced if on the contrary there should prove too little moisture the spirits not finding room enough to expatiate in would either continue imprisoned or evaporate into Air and so be ineffectual But when there happens to be a fit proportion of water in the Earth then the spirits gently moving about do insensibly expatiate themselves and do rarifie and sublime along with them the substance of the seed from whence Vegetation doth proceed But to return unto our Operation If you should desire to separate the Silver from the Mercury shake the whole together and having poured it out into an earthen Vessel make it boil for half a quarter of an hour then let it cool a little till it becomes little more than luke-warm pour upon it a quart of water by little and little in which you have dissolved two ounces of Sea-salt and a white Precipitate will fall down pour off the water by Inclination and dry the Powder Then put it in a Retort placed in a Sand-furnace and having fitted to it a Receiver fill'd with water give a small fire at first then encrease it by degrees till the Retort grows red-hot and your Quick-silver will distil drop by drop into the water continue the fire till nothing more will distil let the Vessels cool pour the water out of the Receiver and having washt the Mercury dry it with linnen or the crum of bread and keep it for use You 'l find your Silver in the Retort which you may reduce into an Ingot by melting it in a Crucible with a little Salt-peter in a great Circular fire CHAP. III. Of Tinn TInn is a Metal that comes near unto Silver in colour but differs very much in the figure of its Pores and in the solidity and weight The name of the Planet Jupiter is given unto it and it is thought to receive its
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
Vinegar four fingers above it Place the Matrass in Digestion in hot Sand and let it lye so three days stirring it ever now and then the Vinegar will acquire a blue colour separate by Inclination the liquor that swims upon the Copper and pour new distilled Vinegar upon the matter leave it in Digestion for three days as before decant the Liquor and continue to put other distilled Vinegar on the matter until three fourths of the Verdegrease or thereabouts be dissolved and there remains nothing but a terrestrious matter Then Filtrate all these Impregnations and evaporate two thirds of the moisture in a Olass Body in Sand put the Vessel into a Celler and leave it there without stirring it four or five days little Crystals will appear separate by Inclination the Liquor and gather them up consume again about the third part of the moisture and put it a crystallizing as before continue these Evaporations and Crystallizations till you have got all your Crystals dry them and keep them for the following Operation Remarks You had better use Verdegrease than crude Copper in this Operation because it is more open and disposed for solution by the acids of Vinegar for Verdegrease is nothing but a Copper opened and reduced to a rust by the fermenting spirits of Tartar For the making of Verdegrease Plates of Copper are stratified with the husks of Grapes pressed They are left so for some time and part of these Plates is turned into Verdegrease which is scraped off with a Knife then these same Plates are stratified again with pressed Grapes and are penetrated as before and more Verdegrease made This stratification is continued until the whole is turned into Verdegrease You must observe that Verdegrease is better made in Languedock and Provence than other places because in those Countries the Grapes do yield more Tartar and consequently do abound in these fermenting Spirits which do penetrate the Copper The Crystals of Venus are nothing but Copper dissolved and afterwards coagulated with the acids of Vinegar that incorporate with it and form a kind of Vitriol Spirit of Venus Put what quantity you please of the Crystals of Venus prepared with distill'd Vinegar as I shewed before into a Glass Retort whose third part remains empty Place your Retort in Sand and Fitting to it a large Receiver and Luting well the junctures give a small Fire at first to drive out a little insipid Phlegm this Phlegm will be followed by a Volatile Spirit Then augment the Fire by degrees and the Receiver will fill with white Clouds Towards the latter end kindle coals round about the Retort that the last Spirits may come forth for they are the strongest When you see the clouds disappear and the Recipient grow cool put out the Fire unlute the junctures and pour all that which is in the Recipient into a Glass Body to distil it in Sand until it is dry This is the rectified Spirit of Venus This Remedy is used against the Epilepsie the Palsie the Apoplexie and other Diseases of the Head Seven or Eight drops of it are given in a convenient Vehicle many do use it to dissolve Pearl Coral and such like substances The black Mass that remains in the Retort may be revived into Copper if put in a Crucible in a Fire of Fusion with a little Salt-peter or Tartar Remarks The Acid is drawn from the Copper by fire without breaking its points for Spirit of Venus is considerably sharp which happens not in other Metals The reason that may be given of it is that Copper which is very full of Sulphur doth but barely touch upon the Acids by its ramous parts So that when these points are stirred by the violence of fire they come forth whole because they do not meet with resistance of a body hard enough to break them in pieces They do also draw along with them some of the most Volatile parts of Copper with which they are inseparably united It hath been thought that this Spirit being poured upon Coral and Pearl was able to dissolve them without losing any thing of its force so that when you would use the same Spirit it would corrode the Matters as before But Experience doth not confirm it it is true the dissolvent comes from the Coral with a great deal of sharpness but it hath lost the Acidity which was the principal Menstruum and if there remains any sharpness it proceeds from the Copper If you use a pound of Crystals of Venus in this distillation you 'l draw half a pound of liquor and the matter which remains in the Retort will be just the same quantity CHAP. VII Of Iron IRon is called Mars from the Planet of that name whose Influence it is thought to receive it is a very Porous Metal compounded of a Vitriolick Salt Sulphur and Earth ill digested together wherefore the dissolution of its parts is very easily performed Iron is found in many Mines in Europe in form of a Stone or Marcassite which much resembles the Loadstone but this last is more heavy and brittle than Iron The Loadstone is also found in Mines of Iron and may be reduced into Iron by a strong fire Iron for its part does easily acquire the virtue of the Loadstone as every body knows so that these bodies do seem to differ only in the figure of their Pores as has been very well observed by our modern Philosophers Iron in the stone is melted in large Furnaces made on purpose both to purifie it from some earth and to bring it into the Form we desire Having continued some time in Fusion it Vitrifies as it were and much resembles an Enamel of several colours and it enters indeed into the composition of ordinary Enamels with Lead Tinn Antimony Sand the Saphire the Stone of Perigord a Province in France Gravelled ashes and the ashes of a Plant called Kali It is turned into Steel by means of Horns or Nails of Animals with which it is stratified and so Calcined These matters containing a great deal of Volatile Salt which is an Alkali do kill or destroy the Acids of the Iron that kept its Pores open and do render it more compact Besides the Fire carries off many of the more Volatile and Soluble parts of Iron whence it comes to pass that Steel will remain longer without rusting than Iron Steel is to be preferred before Iron for the making of Vtensils but for Remedies Iron is the better beyond comparison I shall give you the reasons for what I say in the following Operations Although Mars does contain an Acid Vitriolick Salt yet it ceases not the being an Alkali for it ferments with Acids and no body needs wonder at this effect when they consider there is more Earth than Salt in this Metal and this Earth containing this Salt within it retains Pores sufficient to receive the Points of Acids when thrown upon it and so does the office of an Alkali for as I have said speaking of the
repeat these evaporations and Crystallizations until you have got all your Crystals then dry them and keep them in a Glass bottle well stopt This Vitriol of Mars hath the same virtues as the former and must be given in the same Dose Remarks The Spirit of Vitriol is weakned by the Water to the end that it may be incapable of dissolving but only the purer part of Mars Moreover if it were used alone it would incorporate with the very substance of Mars but would not be able to dissolve any of it because there would be wanting sufficient moisture to separate its parts During the dissolution the liquor heats and boils considerably because the acidity of Spirit of Vitriol doth violently enter the body of this metal and makes a separation of its parts To Evaporate unto a Pellicle doth signifie to consume the Liquor until a kind of thin skin is perceived to swim upon it which always happens when some part of the moisture being evaporated there remains but little more than is necessary to hold the Salt in Fusion An Acid Spirit may be drawn from this Vitriol of Mars by distilling it in a Retort in a Reverberatory fire like common Vitriol this Spirit hath been thought to have the same virtues as ordinary Spirit of Vitriol but it can't be near so good because it hath much blunted or broken some part of its edges against the body of Mars in the dissolution and distillation That which remains in the Retort after distillation is that part of Mars which the Spirit of Vitriol had dissolved It may be used like an aperitive Crocus Martis Those who do attribute the aperitive effect of Mars only to its sweetning as an Alkali the acid juices which do too plentifully abound in mens bodies will find it hard to explicate how these two last preparations do come to be esteemed the best aperitives which are made upon Mars for the acid does so far predominate in their composition that the Alkali is able to do little or nothing Tincture of Mars with Tartar This Preparation is a dissolution of Iron performed by the acid of Tartar Take Twelve ounces of the Rust of Iron and Two pounds of White Tartar of Montpelier powder and mix them together then boil them in a great Iron pot or Cauldron with Twelve or Fifteen pints of Rain-water for Twelve hours time stir the matter with an Iron Slice from time to time and take care to put more boiling water into the Cauldron according as it consumes afterwards leave it a while to settle and you 'l have a black Liquor Filtrate and evaporate it in an Earthen Pan over a Sand-fire to the consistence of a Syrup or till there rises a Pellicle upon it It is a very great Aperitive it opens the most inveterate Obstructions and is given in Cachexies Dropsies Obstruction of the Terms and other Diseases that proceed from Oppilations the Dose is from a Drachm to half an ounce in Broth or some appropriate Liquor Remarks Water alone would not be able enough to penetrate the Iron for to make a Tincture though you should boil it a Month together But when it is impregnated with Tartar it dissolves it very easily Nevertheless you must not think that this Tincture is a perfect solution of Mars for if there were an intire solution of it there would appear no more Tincture than there does in the solution of it with Spirit of Vitriol and water but because the soluble part of Tartar which is the agent in this Operation is only an impure acid Salt it can but grosly rarify the Mars and after mixing with it keep it suspended in the water After the Tincture is drawn there remains a whitish matter that you must fling away as good for nothing it is a mixture of the grosser parts of Tartar and Mars This Tincture is called Syrup of Mars by reason of a certain sweetness that is perceived in its Taste It is reduced into the consistence of a Syrup to keep the better As for its virtues it is a very great Aperitive because the force of Mars is assisted by the Tartar that serves to be its Vehicle Opening Extract of Mars This Preparation is a solution of the more open parts of Iron by aperitive juices and reduced into a solid consistence by fire Take Eight ounces of the Rust of Iron prepared in the Morning Dew put it in an Iron pot and pour upon it three pounds of the Water of Honey and four pounds of Must or the juice of White grapes perfectly ripe Add to it four ounces of juice of Lemons cover it with an Iron Cover and set it in a Furnace over a little fire leave the Matter in Digestion three days then boil the Matter gently three or four hours uncovering the Pot ever now and then to stir up the bottom with an Iron slice then cover it again that the moisture may not evaporate too fast When you perceive the Liquor to be black you must take away the fire and leave it a while to settle pass warm through a cloth that which is clear and evaporate the liquor in a Sand fire in an Earthen pan or Glass vessel to the consistence of an Extract 'T is a very good aperitive it hath the same virtues as the Tincture for Obstructions of the Liver Spleen and Mesentery it delivers the Lymphatick vessels admirably well of what may hinder the current of Serum The Dose is from Ten grains to two Scruples in Pills or else dissolved in some proper Liquor That which remains in the bottom of the Iron pot is the more Earthy part of Mars that is good for nothing Remarks This Extract doth not receive its consistence only from the Iron but from the Tartareous juices of the Grapes and Lemons with which it is mixed its virtue is augmented by the Essential Salts and the Spirit of Honey that leaves in it a very good impression The mixture is left in digestion for the better Dissolution of the Mars but seeing the Menstruum is not very sharp or corrosive it dissolves only the more Saline and soluble parts This Description is not common but may be preferred before many others Every body grants that Mars is as excellent a Remedy as any in all Physick for opening Obstructions and restoring a good complexion to those that want it by reason of Obstructions but you must not be contented with giving it once or twice but for a fortnight together some intervals may be observed that nature may not be troubled too much In hot climes such as Languedoc and Provence where are more Oppilations than in other Countries they make no difficulty to take it sometimes every day for a month together after a due Preparation and it is the best Remedy that hath been known for that Distemper Binding Extract of Mars This Preparation is a solution of Iron made with an astringent Wine and reduced into a thick consistence by fire Take Eight ounces of the
body the Serum which runs into every part is full of Salt and all the Ferments that preserve the Oeconomy of Nature do it by nothing else but Salts or Acids Now there is no more difficulty in comprehending that Mercury may joyn with the Acids of a sound Person than those of an impure tumour for I don't think that Mercury goes immediately and seeks out the Acids in the tumours of impure Persons it must have an understanding to do that but being rarified and moved by the heat of the body it circulates every where until it comes to find a Salt that is able to fix it in some measure and hinder its motion Sometimes this Mercury not meeting with salts enough to detain it passes off by transpiration and carries along those that were united to it whence it comes to pass that many have been cured of the Pox without a Flux At other times it meets with Alkali salts which force it to quit its hold of these Acids and then it precipitates downwards and purges by way of stool whence it comes to pass that those who have a looseness in the time of their taking Mercury are exceeding hard to receive a Flux Upon the same Principle may be given the reason of many other Accidents which follow the use of Mercury But let us see whether any thing of use may be drawn from this Discourse for the cure of Venereal Maladies Although the Poulains Phymosis Shancres Gonorrhoea's and other Precursors of the Pox may be cured without a Flux yet nevertheless you must not neglect the use of Mercury for these Diseases do contain in them a Poison that is not at all different from that of the Pox but only in that it hath not fermented enough to be rarified and carried by the Circulation into the Habit of the body so that there will remain some Salts which cannot be carried away clear by any thing but Mercury which when given in a small quantity on these occasions drives only by perspiration or by stool without a Flux Sweet sublimate of which I shall shortly speak is very much used in these Distempers among other general Remedies When you undertake the cure of one in the Pox you must bathe him a good while purge and bleed him for Preparation of the humours to the end that Mercury finding them more fluid may be able to unite with them the more easily and so carry them off This Mercury must be administred by little and little at first afterwards the Dose is augmented according to the strength of the Patient and when the Jaws begin once to ake you must give no more unless it be now and then for continuation of the Flux They spit commonly three Weeks together but if it doth not by that time stop of its own accord you must endeavour to stop it with Detersive Gargarisms It happens sometimes that the Salivating vessels dilate and open so extreamly by the Corrosive Salts which caused the Salivation that they cannot be closed again by any kind of Gargarism and then the Brain dries up by little and little and Death is the consequent of all wherefore you must have a great care of not letting the Flux run too long I could attribute the invention of this discourse to my self being the first who have thus treated of this matter in France and maintained it in publick meetings but I am not possessed with that vanity of Authors I leave it to those who love it I had no affectation to make a Book on purpose concerning it but have only mentioned it as a thing incident to the Subject I treated of I shall only say by the by that those who make pretence of first finding it out have hapned to make their complaints a little too late having Printed their Book a year after mine and three years after I held a Publick Discourse of it at Monsieur de Launay's not to speak of what I taught a long time before in the first Courses of Chymistry that I shewed Some thinking to invalidate what I have hereupon established do say that Mercury cannot be absolutely called an alkali because the alkali that is in Mercury is but one part of its Composition and is not to be separated from its other parts To Answer this difficulty you need but only read in the Remarks that I have made upon the Principles how it is that I do explicate the nature of an alkali and you 'l find that although the name alkali comes from the Salt of a Plant called Kali that is soapwort yet all bodies that cause a sudden Effervescency with acids are called Alkali's without any need of their containing any Alkali salt within them So that I have no need to enlarge this Book without reason by Answering all the little Objections that have been made to me upon the supposition of Mercury's being a pure Alkali It is likely enough that those who have rais'd them have not read with attention what I have said in my Remarks upon Mercury For there they might find Solutions enough I shall speak neverless to some of the Principal ones First It is Objected that if Mercury be an Alkali and the Venereal venom an acid this same acid should certainly fix it whereas the Dissolutions of it that are made by the Juices do only serve to encrease its Volatility and render it Corrosive instead of being at all sweetned by it I Answer it is as false to say that Mercury is Volatilized by the Acid juices of the Venereal venom as it is that Mercury mixed with Acid Spirits to render it Corrosive should be Volatilized by the same Spirits On the contrary Mercury alone does easily Volatilize by the heat of the body and nothing but Acids are able to fix it at all I thought I had sufficiently explicated my self as to this when I said that sometimes Mercury finding not in the body enough Acid Spirits to fix it does pass by Transpiration c. As for the Corrosive nature that the Mercury assumes we must attribute it to the Disposition of its Pores and the abundance of Acid points it is impregnated with and seeing it will not sweeten the Acidity of Salt and Vitriol with which it is mixed to make Sublimate Corrosive why should we expect it to sweeten the Acid juices of the body I do not pretend nevertheless that it never Dulcifies at all for I do conceive it may destroy much of their force by dividing and breaking their points when the Acids are but few as does happen in Mercurius dulcis Secondly It is Objected that if the venom of the Pox were an Acid it might then be Cured by the use of Alkali Salts either fixt or Volatile as by Crabs-Eyes Pearl or Coral and such like bodies as are wont to kill and sweeten Acid humours I Answer we often find that Volatile salts do give some ease to those that are troubled with the Venereal distemper whether it be by opening the Pores and so
making the subtiler part of it perspire away or that by being Alkali's they do absorb some part of it For this reason some do use to give their Patients the Volatile Salt of Vipers several mornings together but these Alkali's are in truth of too weak a nature to carry off such an Acidity after they are impregnated with it as Mercury is able to do without losing its nature They are Nets of too fine a make to catch such keen and active bodies if these Salts do destroy some part of the Acidity they destroy themselves likewise in the conflict so that they can have no further operation wherefore there 's need of a more powerful Volatile Alkali than these Salts are to eradicate the Acidity of the Venereal poison As for Fixt Salts and Alkali bodies as Pearl Coral Crabs-eyes whereas they have no Volatile quality in them and their tendency is wholly downwards it is very uncertain whether ever they reach to Venereal tumours which commonly rise in the Joints by reason of the long way they have to pass thither and the Juices they have to encounter with in their passage which may in all likelihood change their nature but suppose they were carried to those Tumors with the same qualifications with which they were taken they would only serve to weaken a little this Acidity without being able to carry it off and so they would only give a little ease without removing Radically the Ferment of the Distemper as Mercury is able to do It may be further asked why Sublimate does not fill the substance of the Brain with Vlcers as well as it does the mouth I Answer that this Sublimate being in the Brain finds it self so clog'd with a Mucilaginous moisture that it is fain to lose there some part of its Acidity so that it can do nothing else but cause a Fermentation which makes the Phlegm purge away through the Salivating vessels and this it is that causes the Spittle of those who have a Flux to be so sharp and stinking This sharp Phlegm may also as it passes in the mouth encrease the number of Vlcers for the mouth is as it were the sink of the whole body upon this occasion Sublimate Corrosive Sublimate Corrosive is a Mercury impregnated with acids and raised by fire to the top of the vessel Put a pound of Mercury revived from Cinnabar into a Matrass pour upon it Eighteen ounces of Spirit of Niter Set your Matrass in Sand a little warm and leave it there till it be all dissolved pour your dissolution which will be clear as water into a glass vessel or earthen pan and evaporate the Liquor gently in Sand until there remains a white Mass which you must powder in a glass mortar and mix with a pound of Vitriol Calcined white and so much Salt decrepitated put this mixture into a Matrass whose two thirds at least remain empty place your Matrass in Sand and begin with giving a small fire which you must continue so for three hours then encrease it with coals to a pretty good strength there will arise a Sublimate to the top of the Matrass the Operation must be ended in six or seven hours let the Matrass cool then break it avoiding a kind of Farine or light powder that flies into the air when the matter is stirred you 'l have a pound of very good Sublimate Corrosive keep it for use The red Scories that are found at the bottom must be flung away as useless This Sublimate is a powerful Escharotick it eats proud flesh and cleanses old Ulcers very well If half a drachm of it be dissolved in a pound of Lime-water it turns Yellow and makes that which is called Phagedenick Water Remarks There needs not half the Spirit of Niter for dissolving a pound of Mercury as there does for the same weight of Bismuth although the pores of this last be much the larger and the parts more disposed for separation the reason of which is that the Mercury being Volatile and very disunited in its parts it will divide almost of it self and is held up more easily by Acid Spirits than another body can be whose parts are more united and whose tendency is downwards such as Bismuth is When the dissolution of mercury is a making there appears a great ebullition in the Matrass accompanied with Red vapours also the heat is so very strong that a man cannot endure his hand upon it all this great stir proceeds from the Acids which meet with resistance in their penetration of this body for jostling one against another they heat the liquor and cause some part of the Spirit of Niter to evaporate away in red clouds as it uses always to do when it rarifies When the mercury is all dissolved the dissolution clears up and cools because the edges of the Spirits are all sheathed in the mercury whence their motion comes to be interrupted and cease and this is a thing so true that if you should by way of curiosity distil this dissolution you would draw off only a weak acid for the greatest part of the edges do remain involved with the mercury in a white mass That which proves this Remark is this that the white mass which is drawn from the Solution of sixteen ounces of Quicksilver in eighten ounces of Spirit of Niter does weigh at least two and twenty ounces that is to say six ounces more than the weight of the Quicksilver Now this augmentation cannot proceed from any thing else but the acid Spirits This mass is exceeding Corrosive by means of the same acid Spirits which become very active whereever they are met with If instead of Spirit of Niter we should use Aqua fortis to dissolve the Mercury the Solution would become clear like the other but there would be this difference between them that when we have evaporated about a fourth part of the liquor in a glass-body in Sand the remainder would be as red as Claret wine and if we should let the liquor cool there would appear in it white Crystals in form of long needles and the liquor would still retain its red colour I conceive that the Solution acquires this colour from the Sulphurs which remain in the Aqua fortis for the Sulphureous parts being in great motion may often turn and whirl about the insensible parts of Mercury round their center Now it is easie to Remark by abundance of Experiments that the red colour is a consequence of the great attenuation or disposition to circulary motion which the matter has received But the Solution which is made with Spirit of Niter does not become red because there is no Sulphur in this Spirit or else there is not enough to do it You might perform this Operation by only mixing crude Mercury with Salt and Vitriol without taking the pains to dissolve it with Spirit of Niter but you would be an intolerable while incorporating them together so as to make the Quicksilver imperceptible Moreover
there rises up a dust to the Nose that is very unwholsom that which we aim at therefore by dissolving it and reducing it into a white Mass is only to prepare it for an easier mixture In the Sublimation I have described the Mercury loads it self with as many Acid Spirits as it is able to contain these Spirits are a kind of load to it and restrain its great Volatility so that it doth not evaporate quite away as it would do if there were nothing to withhold it but it only Sublimes to the upper part of the Vessel in fair white Crystals that are called Sublimate Corrosive the Mass that remains at the bottom of the Matrass is nothing but a mixture of the Terrestrious parts of Salt and Vitriol it weighs eight and twenty ounces Some will needs blame this preparation of Sublimate Corrosive by saying that when it is used to the making Mercurius dulcis the Spirit of Niter ought to be suspected by reason of its acrimony and particularly its Saline Sulphureous parts But by performing this Operation the way that I have described there will be no need of retaining any scruple upon this account because the Sublimate can't be made without an evaporation of many red vapours through the entrance of the Matrass for three hours time at the least and these vapours can be nothing else but the Spirits of Niter for so small a fire is not able to separate and raise so high the Spirits of Salt and Vitriol Thus there is no need of fearing these Saline Sulphureous Spirits with which Spirit of Niter is thought to be well stored because they being of a Volatile nature must necessarily come before the others But supposing that Spirit of Niter did still remain in the Sublimate Corrosive of which we make our Mercurius dulcis I see no reason why we should apprehend more hurt from their acrimony than from the other Corrosive Spirits because few men scruple to give this Spirit itself inwardly in potions for the Colick and other diseases and they give divers Preparations made with this dissolvent such as white Precipitate and many Precipitates of Gold and Silver without any visible harm But that which is most remarkable is that even those who cry out upon this Preparation for being made with Spirit of Niter do nevertheless themselves recommend and use much a Mercurius dulcis which they make by Subliming white Precipitate that is prepared with Spirit of Niter The Corrosion of Sublimate does proceed from the edged Acids which do fix in the body of Mercury and it may be said with great probability that this metal always retaining a round figure let it be divided never so subtily does rarifie by the heat of fire into an abundance of little balls which the acid Spirits do fix into on all sides and so interlace themselves in it that they hinder its rising higher and do together make one body that is called Sublimate But when this Sublimate is applied to flesh the heat and moisture of it do set in motion the Mercurial parts and the motion of the little balls being once raised they rowl about with great fury and tear the flesh with the edges they contain which are like so many little knives cutting whereever they touch from whence it comes to pass that if the Sublimate should be taken inwardly it kills in a very little time the humidity which does always accompany and soften our flesh gives it a greater hold than otherwise it would have which is the reason why Sublimate does act with that celerity it does upon a soft moist part rather than a dry nay it is often wetted with a little water to make it work the more quickly By this Remark may be explicated why the Lapis infernalis which is a Silver filled with the edges of Spirit of Niter has not so violent an effect as Sublimate Corrosive because the parts of Silver have no such aptitude to rowl to and fro and to rise as those of Mercury have for which reason it is likewise that it does not make so great an Eschar as the Sublimate although it does contain at least as much Spirit of Niter as the other And thus a reason may be given why even six grains of Crystals of Silver may be given by mouth without any danger whenas not two grains of Sublimate can be given without a manifest danger because the Crystals of the Moon have not that circulary motion in their parts as Sublimate has all their tendency is only downwards and all that they can do is to purge by their Acidity When Sublimate Corrosive is dissolved in Lime-water the water presently turns yellow as is seen in the Phagedenick water and it loses so much of its Corrosive quality that it may be given inwardly after that without fear of poisoning and the reason of this is that the greatest part of the acid points strike off from the Sublimate to enter into the alkali of Lime which is a more porous body so that the Mercury losing some of its most keen acids becomes the less Corrosive It will not be amiss to acquaint you here that you 'l often meet in the Shops of Druggists with a Sublimate Corrosive made of Arsenick Now to know the truth of it you must only rub it with a little Salt of Tartar and if it turns black there is Arsenick infallibly in it on the contrary if it turns yellow it is good Those who have thought fit to Criticize upon what I have said about the effects of Mercury would methinks have spoken more to the purpose than they have done if they had objected to me one difficulty that I have made my self since the first Edition of my Book and which has seemed to me to be the greatest that can be made on this subject It is this If the Mercury that is given in order to raise a Flux does joyn with the acid salt of our humors and so does make a Sublimate Corrosive after the same manner as it does in the Matrass when it is mixt with Salt and Vitriol this Sublimate of the body cannot be well made so long as there is any watry humor in the part wherein the Mercury is mixt with the acids just as none of it can be made in a Matrass until all the Phlegm that 's in it is evaporated away Now it is not to be conceived that there should ever happen such a Desiccation of humours to the body for it would be Corroded by the Mercury so loaded with acids before it could Sublime To answer this Objection I say That although I have made a comparison between the Sublimation of Mercury that 's made in the body and that which is done in a Matrass nevertheless there is this difference between them that the first is not only made with Salts extremely volatile but is likewise assisted or carried on by the motion of the humours with all their humidity up to the head whereas this other is made
with fixt salts whose acidity is so strongly rooted in the Earthy part that it cannot be separated from it without a very considerable fire Nor must we think that the Mercury in the body is loaded with as many and as strong acids as that in the Matrass for if it were so it would carry destruction and cause a Gangrene wheresoever it came but it is enough that its Pores are in part impregnated with them sufficient to diminish a little of its volatility and cause those prickings and pains which do happen during the Salivation If you dissolve Sublimate Corrosive in Water then Filtrate and separate the filtred liquor into two Viols and cast into one of them some drops of the Oil of Tartar made per deliquium you 'l presently have a Red Precipitate that you may dry and use Then if you drop into the other Viol the volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack you 'l have a fine white Precipitate of the same virtues with that I shall describe anon Because Sublimate Corrosive is so great a Poison I have thought it not amiss to speak here of the Counterpoisons that may be given to such persons who by misfortune have taken it But lest some may imagine that one and the same Antidote can serve for all sorts of Poisons as the Mountebanks and Sellers of Orvietan do pretend and indeavour to perswade I shall say something of Poisons and their differences Whatsoever is able to break and destroy the Oeconomy of the body and the orderly connexion or derivation of humours or else to hinder the natural course of the Spirits is really a Poison It may be taken or received two ways the one outward as when the Pestilence and many other Malignant diseases which do proceed from an infected air do seize upon a man or when one is bit or stung by venemous beasts The other inward as when a man takes Arsenick Sublimate Hemlock Woolfsbane c. The same Poison does not kill all sorts of Animals as for example the Nux Vomica is a Poison to dogs and yet does many other beasts no hurt at all The smoke of Tabaco does kill Vipers in a very little time although there is hardly a creature that has more life than the Viper and that this smoke will only give a little purging to other creatures The water in which Quicksilver has been infused will kill Worms and yet does good to other animals Arsenick soon kills a man and many other creatures and it will only purge a Wolf and render him more lively than he was before All these different effects can only proceed from a diversity of natures and a difference of humors for that which is able to tear and destroy one sort will cause only a light Fermentation in others We must consider two sorts of effects in Poisons the one does coagulate the bloud by degrees as that of the Viper the Tarantula Hemlock Wolfs-bane c. and whereas these do hinder the motion of the Spirits by this coagulation the Animal falls into Convulsions and dies soon after much after the same manner as it happens when some acid liquor is syringed into a Vein or Artery The others such as Sublimate and Arsenick do tear and excoriate the viscera by their pungent Salts until they come to gangrene and then they dye The Medicines which are very properly given to obviate the accidents caused by the first poisons I now mentioned are volatile Salts Treacle Mithridate Orvietan and an infinite number of other remedies of this kind Vipers flesh and the flesh of Scorpions do cure the poison themselves do give as I shall shew hereafter when I come to speak of the Viper And hereupon the Reader will not take it amiss if I give him a short story that is very pertinent to this subject One day I put two living Scorpions into a glass-bottle and then added a little Mouse to their company Which Mouse runing over the Scorpions provoked them to bite her till she cried out Half a quarter of an hour after I saw her dye of Convulsions Some hours after this I threw in another Mouse a little bigger and more active than the first to the same Scorpions She leapt upon the Scorpions as the other had done before and was bit by them in like manner she cried aloud and was so provoked to revenge her self that she eat up both the Scorpions leaving only the head and the tail I would needs observe the end of this Tragedy I left the Mouse in the bottle four and twenty hours and during all that time she had not the least appearance of being hurt and was only concerned at the being imprisoned I intended to have dissected her in order to see whether there were no change in the parts or in the blood But a stander by hapning to take up the bottle too carelesly let it fall and broke it so the Mouse escaped Now the Volatile salts which were in the Scorpions flesh might be said by their active power to hinder the coagulation of the blood which would soon have â—een in the veins of the Mouse after she was bit but let every body explicate this experiment according to his own principles I shall resume the thread of my discourse The remedies which ought to be given to obviate the effects of Arsenick Sublimate and other corrosive poisons are of a contrary nature to those I now mentioned for instead of agitating the mass of blood and adding new heat to all the body as those do these must calm and quiet the violent agitation of humors and sweeten the acrimony of its salts Therefore you must so soon as you can make the Patient take a porringer of old Oil of Olives in order to make him vomit fresh butter fat and all unctuous things will very properly be given because they do not only purge away the poison both upwards and downwards but likewise which is a thing very considerable they consisting of unctuous slimy parts do blunt and dull the edge of those salts which remain of them in the body You must afterwards make him drink warm milk and continue the use of it several days after which you must purge him The effect of Sublimate Corrosive is much quicker than that of Arsenick because its acids being presently set to work by the heat of the body and by the volatility of Mercury do tear and cut in pieces all that is in their way Wherefore if remedies be not immediately given after the poison is taken the person is in a most deplorably dangerous condition What has been here said does shew that it is exceeding necessary for a man to understand the nature of the poisons which are taken before he presume to give a Counter-poison or Antidote and that a box of Orvietan must not be esteemed a sure Antidote in all cases And hence it is plain that if the Quacks and Mountebanks who shew upon stages should offer to take Sublimate or Arsenick by mouth
which weighs nine ounces It is a good Escharotick it eats proud flesh it is used for the laying open of Chancres mixt with burnt Alom AEgyptiacum and the common Suppurative Some do give it inwardly to four grains for to raise a Flux with but this is dangerous unless rectified Spirit of Wine be burnt two or three times upon it Remarks This Preparation is improperly called Precipitate here being no Precipitation at all Many Authors have thought they could much encrease the redness of this Precipitate by Cohobating it or distilling Spirit of Niter three times upon the white mass but I have found by experience both ways that these Circumstances are of no use The white Mass which remains after Evaporation of the humidity is a mixture of Mercury with a great many acid Spirits for it weighs three ounces more than the Mercury did which was dissolved it is extreme Corrosive and fiery if applied to the flesh but according as it is Calcined in order to make it red the edges of the Spirit of Niter which caused the Corrosion do strike off and fly into the Air whence it comes to pass that the more we desire to encrease its redness by Calcination the less it weighs and the less it corrodes Some Chirurgeons observing this effect do choose the Precipitate that is not so red as usual when they would make an Eschar quickly If you still continue the fire some hours under the red mass it will sublime and still retain its colour this sublimate is not so Corrosive as the other which makes me think that the points of Spirit of Salt are necessary to make a sublimate very Corrosive The reason why it sublimes is because the Mercury being delivered from a great many acid Spirits which did fix it has power to rise with those that remain But because these remaining Spirits do moderate a little its volatility it makes a stop in the middle of the Viol. Some do put red Precipitate into an Earthen Pot and pour upon it Spirit of Wine well rectified then fire it and when the Spirit is consumed they add more and burn it as before they repeat the adding Spirit of Wine and burning it six times and then call this Preparation Arcanum Corallinum The Spirit of Wine by burning does carry off some edges of the Precipitate and joyns it self to the rest so that this Precipitate is sweetned and rendred fit to be taken inwardly If by way of curiosity you pour Spirit of Vitriol upon common red Precipitate such as I have described a dissolution will soon follow because Spirit of Vitriol joyning with the Spirit of Niter that remained in the Precipitate an Aqua fortis must happen from their union which is able to dissolve imperceptibly the parts of Mercury but this dissolution will happen without any Ebullition because the Mercury has been already rarified by an acid so that the Spirit of Vitriol does only dissolve them without making any commotion The solution is clear like other solutions of Mercury without any appearance of redness and the same Preparations may be made with it as are used to be by the solution of Quicksilver in Aqua fortis If instead of Spirit of Vitriol you pour Spirit of Salt upon the red Precipitate it turns presently into a curious white because the Spirit of Salt does break the force of the Spirit of Niter that was in the red Precipitate and the same thing must happen here as does when Spirit of Salt is poured upon the solution of Quicksilver for although red Precipitate be a dry body yet it is nothing else but a mixture of Quicksilver and Spirit of Niter I have given the reason why Spirit of Salt comes to weaken Spirit of Niter in my Remarks upon white Precipitate As for the sudden change of colour it is indeed somewhat strange that a matter which is grown red by Calcination should in a minutes time turn so exceeding white This Effect can be attributed only to the dislocation which the acid spirit of Salt does cause in the parts of red Precipitate and to the disposition it puts them anew into so that their Superficies is put into a capacity of reflecting the light in a right line to our eyes to give the appearance of a white colour for if by means of another sort of liquor or else by fire and some alkali body the disposition of the parts of your Precipitate is again changed it will obtain some other colour or else it will return and revive into Quicksilver If you pour the volatile spirit of Sal Armoniack upon red Precipitate it turns into a grey powder but if you throw a great deal of water upon it it becomes a milk though none of the whitest The same thing happens when you drop Spirit of Sal Armoniack into the solution of Quicksilver made with Spirit of Niter for soon after the effervescency is over a grey powder is seen to Precipitate and if you add to it water it becomes a milk of the same whiteness as the other Common red Precipitate then is subject to the same alterations as the solution of Mercury the red colour giving no particular impression to it which truly is a good proof that colour is no real thing but wholly depends upon the modification of parts Turbith Mineral or Yellow Precipitate This Preparation is a Mercury impregnated with the acidity of Oil of Vitriol Put four ounces of Quick-silver revived from Cinnabar into a glass Retort and pour upon it sixteen ounces of Oil of Vitriol set your Retort in Sand and when the Mercury is dissolved put fire underneath and distil the humidity make the fire strong enough toward the end for to drive out some of the last Spirits of all afterwards break your Retort and powder in a glass Mortar a white Mass you find within it which weighs five ounces and a half pour warm water upon it and the matter will presently change into a yellow powder which you must dulcifie by a great many repeated Lotions then dry it in the shade you 'l have three ounces and two drachms of it It purges strongly both by vomit and stool it is given in Venereal maladies the dose is from two grains unto six in Pills Remarks Though that which is improperly called Oil of Vitriol be the strongest and most Caustick acid of this Mineral Salt it is nevertheless much weaker than Spirit of Niter and so requires a greater quantity of it and longer time to dissolve the Mercury in for there 's much a-do to dispatch the solution in ten hours That which is distilled is exceeding weak because the Mercury retains the greatest part of the acid Spirits and they are the things that purge so strongly although many of them be carried off by the Lotions All these Preparations are nothing but so many different shapes of Mercury made by acid Spirits which according to their different adhesions do cause such different effects All these Precipitates and
Sublimates may be revived again into flowing Mercury by mixing them with Lime and distilling them as I have said iâ— the reviving of Cinnabar into Quick-silver because the alkali of Lime destroys those acids thaâ— disguised the Quick-silver Oil or Liquor of Mercury This preparation is an acid liquor loaded with Mercury Put the lotions of the white mass that Turbiâ—â— Mineral was made of into an earthen pan oâ— glass vessel evaporate in Sand all the liquor until there remains at bottom a matter in form oâ— salt which weighs two ounces and a drachm puâ— the pan in a cellar or other cool place and then leave it until this matter be almost all dissolveâ— into liquor It is used for the laying open Venereal Shancres and eating the flesh Pledgets being dipt into it Remarks This liquor is nothing but Mercury so penetrated and divided by the acid Spirits of Vitriol that it can dissolve like a Salt now for that it contains these corrosive Spirits it eats and corrodes where-ever it touches like unto a Sublimate Corrosive This liquor may be made with spirit of Niter and then it will be more violent in its Operation but because it would then pierce too much and cause dangerous accidents I would rather choose to prepare it with Oil of Vitriol If you drop a few drops of the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium into this liquor there will fall immediately a Mercurial Precipitate because the alkali of Tartar will break the edges that held up the Mercury dissolved Another Oil of Mercury This preparation is a Sublimate Corrosive dissolved in spirit of Wine Powder well an ounce of Sublimate Corrosive and put it into a Bolthead pour upon it four ounces of Spirit of Wine well rectified upon salt of Tartar stop well your Bolthead and let it infuse cold six or seven hours the Sublimate will dissolve but if any sediment remains at bottom decant the liquor from it and pouring upon the sediment a little more Spirit of Wine infuse it as before to finish the solution mix your solutions and keep them in a Viol well stopt This is an Oil of Mercury milder than the former it is good in Venereal Shancres especially when there is any fear of a Gangrene you may use it with pledgets like the former Remarks Spirit of Wine well rectified can dissolve sublimate corrosive but it is not able to dissolve Quick-silver nor even Mercurius dulcis the reason of which is that the Sublimate being a Mercury extremely rarified and already as it were suspended by acids the Spirit of Wine insinuates into it by little and little and dissolves its parts but Quick-silver and Mercurius dulcis consisting of parts too close and compact the Spirit of Wine which is a rarified Sulphur cannot give shakes strong enough to disjoyn or separate them This liquor is milder than the former because Spirit of Wine which is a Sulphur does so blunt the acid edges of Sublimate Corrosive that they cannot act with that strength they did when they were at liberty Other Precipitates of Mercury These preparations are only Sublimate Corrosive dissolved and precipitated into powders of different colours Mix 7 or 8 ounces of Sublimate Corrosive powdered in a glass or marble Mortar with 16 or 18 ounces of warm water stir them about for half an hour then let the liquor settle and pour it off by Inclination filter it and divide it into three parts to be put into so many Viols Pour into one of these Viols some drops of the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium there falls immediately a red Precipitate Drop into another of these Viols some volatile spirit of Sal Armoniack and you have a white Precipitate Pour into the last of these Viols about a spoonful of Lime-water you have a yellow water that is called Phagaedenick-water or a water for Ulcers because it is good to cleanse and heal Ulcers the Chirurgeons do frequently use it especially in Hospitals if you let the liquor settle it will let fall a yellow precipitate To obtain these three Precipitates you have only to pour off the clear water by Inclination wash them and dry them apart Red precipitate may be used like that I described before but it is not so strong it is the truest red precipitate of any The white precipitate has the same virtues as the other Yellow precipitate may be used in Pomatums for the Itch half a drachm or a drachm of it is to be mixed with an ounce of Pomatum The Sublimate which remains at the bottom of the Mortar being dried may be used in Pomatums for the Itch like yellow precipitate Remarks Sublimate being a Mercury loaded with acids common water is able to dissolve some of it because these acids do rarefie it and make a kind of salt of it but because there are not acids enough in it to dissolve all the Mercury the most compact part of it remains at bottom the liquor is filtrated to clear and purifie it the more it is as clear and transparent as Fountain water If by way of Curiosity you should drop into the Viol of red precipitate that I now described some spirit of Sal Armoniack and would shake the liquor a little it would presently turn white and your precipitate would be white but if instead of spirit of Sal Armoniack you would use spirit of Vitriol an Ebullition would rise in it and the red liquor would become clear and transparent as common water Because the Oil of Tartar is an alkali salt dissolved it breaks the edges of the acid which held up the Mercury imperceptible and serv'd as Finns to make it swim in the water so that this Mercury having nothing left to bear it up must needs precipitate by its own weight The same thing happens when spirit of Sal Armoniack is thrown upon the other part of the solution of sublimate Corrosive For this spirit being in like manner an alkali produces the same effect as the Oil of Tartar But although alkali's do all agree in this that they break and destroy acids nevertheless there is always some difference in their action And this evidently appears in those differently coloured precipitates for this diversity can be attributed only to this that they having in several manners wrought upon acids do dispose and modifie the parts of the precipitated body so as they may be capable of making different Refractions of Light These precipitates are no longer poisons though they come from sublimate Corrosive and there 's the same reason for it as there is for the precipitations for seeing that which gave the Corrosion was an acid when this acid is destroyed by such powerful alkali's as are spirit of Sal Armoniack and Oil of Tartar that which remains must become sweet When spirit of Vitriol is thrown upon the liquor of red precipitate there rises an Ebullition because the acid does penetrate the alkali salt of the Oil of Tartar and this alkali being destroyed the acid dissolves
much more force for they penetrate and divide every particle and do render them imperceptible and uncapable of receiving a more exact dissolution Now in this penetration as in the solution of Mercury there happens a great effervescency for which reason I advise to pour the spirit of Niter by little and little for fear the matter should rise above the vessel This effervescency doth proceed from the resistance that the edges of the spirits do meet with when they enter into the pores of the Antimony for so soon as the dissolution is ended there is no further Ebullition Afterwards the humidity is evaporated and new spirit of Niter poured twice more on the fixt mass as I have said after which the Butter of Antimony that was so great a Caustick and Emetick becomes one of the mildest medicins we have and near approaching the preparation of Antimony that is called Diaphoretick This great change may well make us wonder at it and it is hard to conceive how an acid Corrosive spirit such as spirit of Niter should be able to to sweeten a matter that became Caustick only for being impregnated with acid spirits To give this difficulty some solution it may be said that the Butter of Antimony became Caustick for that the acids which it contained did but superficially adhere and were so adapted that the motion of the Antimonial parts did serve them for a vehicle to distribute their keenness as they did but that after the solution the acids being in great quantity do fix the Antimony and not only destroy its aptitude to motion but do so sheath or lock themselves in the pliant sulphureous parts of this mixt that they lose thereby all their corrosion In the evaporation abundance of the sulphurs which were in the Butter of Antimony are lost This powder is called Bezoar Mineral because it causes Sweat like the Bezoar stone You must know that these preparations are nothing but so many transformations of the Regulus of Antimony made by acid spirits or by fire so that by Fusion or by the means of some reductive salt they may be recovered into Regulus again by destroying those salts which kept them under this form Caustick Oil of Antimony This preparation is a portion of Antimony dissolved in the acid spirits of salt and vitriol Put into a glass retort six ounces of Antimony finely powdered pour upon it four ounces of good spirit of salt and the same quantity of the Caustick Oil of Vitriol shake and mingle them all together and stopping the retort set it in sand with the nose upwards give it a small digesting fire for four and twenty hours then turn the nose downward and when you have unstopt it fit to it a glass receiver lute the junctures with a wet bladder make a little fire gradually to the second degree and there will distil a whitish liquor increase it a little at last and continue it until nothing more comes forth into the receiver Let the vessels cool and unlute them keep what you find in the receiver well stopt in a bottle It is an Escharotick liquor and will serve to open Venereal Shancres to eat proud flesh to cleanse old ulcers to use in carious bones and in the gangrene Remarks The Retort must be big enough for at least half to remain empty that the vapours may find room enough for their rarefactio 〈…〉 I put the whole in digestion four and twenty hours that the acids may have time to open the Antimony If I should add unto this mixture eight or ten ounces of spirit of Niter the Antimony would dissolve with a great ebullition because those three sorts of acid spirits would together make an Aqua Regalis with which Antimony is easily dissolved but there is no need of making so exact a dissolution for this operation This liquor is improperly called oil for it is nothing but a solution of Antimony by acid spirits It differs from the Icy Oil of Antimony only in this that it contains more phlegm for the acids of sublimate corrosive have no aqueous moisture to dilute them as there is in the acids we do here use With this Oil may be made the powder of Algarot after the same manner as with the Butter but only then it would not be so white This liquor might be likewise used for the making Bezoar Mineral Spirit of Niter being poured upon it there rises an ebullition as when it is poured on Butter of Antimony This Oil of Antimony is not so Escharotick as the butter because it contains more phlegm It is also more easie to use by reason of its liquidity Another Oil of Antimony This preparation is a solution of some parts of Antimony by the acid spirit and oil of Sugar Take equal parts of Antimtny and Sugar Candy powder them and mix them put this mixture into a glass retort large â—â—â—ugh for the matter to fill but a third part or it set your retort in sand and fit a receiver to it give a gentle fire for the first hours to distil off a phlegmatick water and when red drops begin to come forth fling away that which is fall'n into the receiver then refitting it lute the conjunctions and make the fire a little stronger but manage it prudently for otherwise the matter will rarefie and run into the receiver in substance so that you 'l be forced to begin the Operation anew continue the fire until nothing more comes forth and when the vessels are cold take and keep what you find in the receiver This liquor is Oil of Antimony It is proper to cleanse Ulcers with and for Tettars and Itchings which infect the skin If it proves too sharp you may temper and qualifie it with the water of honey Remarks The Sugar contains an essential acid salt and an oil which being mixed with a portion of the sulphurs of Antimony do make an oily liquor The sweet taste of Sugar does proceed from a natural mixture of this acid with the oil for if you separate these two substances one from the other neither of the two will prove at all sweet The Oil all alone is insipid upon the tongue because it makes little or no impression on the nerve that serves for tasting but when the acid is intirely mixed with it the edges of this acid do serve for a vehicle to the oil to make it penetrate and tickle superficially the nerve whereby the sense of tasting is produced The acids therefore being alone do become incisive and prick the tongue by their edges but when they are dulled and blunted by the ramous parts of the Oil then they have another sort of determination and can no longer pierce the nerve of tasting but with a great deal of tenderness and gentleness CHAP. X. Of Arsenick ARsenick is a Mineral Body consisting of much Sulphur and some Caustick salts There are three sorts of it the White that keeps the name of Arsenick the Yellow called Auripigmentum or Yellow
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
gentle sand-heat It is esteemed better than t'other to be taken inwardly because it is less Corrosive being corrected by the Spirit of Wine the dose is from four to twelve drops in some liquor appropriate to the disease Remarks The Potters earth is mixed with the Salt to divide it into particles that the fire may the more easily be able to rarefie it for the parts which Salt consists of are so strictly united that the utmost force of fire is not able to disengage them until they are separated by some Intermedium The preparation that I give unto Salt before it is put into the Retort is longer than the common sort but I have observed that the Spirit comes forth with less difficulty when the matter is prepared according to this form You must leave a vacuity in the Retort and fit to it a large Receiver for giving liberty to the spirit to circulate before it dissolves otherwise it would break them both Likewise the fire must be encreased by little and little because the first Spirits do break out with a mighty violence when they are driven too hard Some ways of drawing the Spirit of Salt without addition have been much sought after but that is not yet well discovered It is true indeed Monsieur Seignette an Apothecary of Rochell among other excellent discoveries that he hath made on Salts to the knowledge of which he hath particularly applied himself brought me hither a sea-salt in the year 1672 that we distilled without addition of any thing else by a very moderate fire and in two hours time we drew three ounces and a half of very good Spirit out of six ounces of salt that we put into the Retort After this we broke the Retort and having powdered the Salt that remained in it to the weight of two ounces and a half we exposed it to the air in a pan for a fortnight and we found it reimpregnated with Spirits we distilled it once more and with the same ease as before we drew half its weight in Spirit of the same force as the former The matter remaining in the Retort being again exposed to the air recovered new Spirits Monsieur Seignette did assure me that he had thus drawn Spirit from the same matter nine several times which is a thing worth our admiration and shews us very well that the air contains a spirit which forms divers things according to the different disposition of the subjects that it enters into This salt is particular to him that shewed it me and he prepares it himself some way that he is unwilling to discover Since I writ of Monsieur Seignette's particular way of drawing spirit of salt some have Printed that if common salt well decrepitated and kept a good while over the fire were exposed to the air for some dayes and distilled without addition of any thing to it it would yield a spirit much like that I have spoken of and in full as great a quantity But if we examine the sharp liquor which is drawn this way we shall find it of so weak a nature that it may more reasonably be called phlegm than spirit and the salt remains entire in the Retort whereas M. Seignette's spirit of salt is full as strong as common spirit of salt and has the very same qualities nay I conceive it somewhat better as not having so great an impression from fire as the other Again some say it does not deserve the name of spirit of sea-salt nor ought this preparation to be look't upon as any great mystery because the same incorporation and augmentation happens to divers other salts exposed to the air after drawing off their spirit I grant this augmentation proceeds from the spirit of the air and I conceive it is the same spirit which produces all manner of things according to the Matrixes or different pores of the earth it uses to meet with as I have explicated in my Remarks upon the Principles But because this spirit of the air has met with pores in our matter ready disposed to make a salt much like unto common salt and a spirit is drawn from it much like unto that which is drawn from common salt I see no reason to doubt why this spirit should not be a true spirit of salt all the difference is this the salt I now speak of is not so throughly united to its earthy part as common salt is and therefore its spirits do separate with more ease for they are drawn without addition of any thing else and with a gentle fire whereas those of common salt are so fixt that they can't be driven out without mixing a great deal of earth in order to separate all its parts and without a very great fire As for the augmentation which happens to many other bodies exposed to the air after their spirits are drawn off I don't question the matter of fact nor that these same substances do return into what they were before by impregnating again with spirits of the air in some considerable time but it is rarely found that any of them do yield so strong spirits and so easily as our salt and herein lies the mystery It is observable that the acids which are drawn by so violent a fire do very much differ from those that are made naturally such as the Vinegars of Beer Wine Cider the acid of Citron c. The Spirit of salt among others hath some particular difference from the rest because it will precipitate that which Aqua fortis hath dissolved This acid according as may be judged by its effects is compounded of stronger and more weighty points than the rest but they are not so sharp and piercing And this is the reason that it jogs so effectually those of Aqua fortis loaded with some bodies they have dissolved and that shaking them about it makes them let go their hold Some have writ that this precipitation must not be imputed either to the weight or the strength no more than to the agitation which spirit of salt may have given to the Aqua fortis or to matters dissolved but rather to the conjunction of the acidity of this spirit with the volatile and sulphureous alkali of Aqua fortis or Spirit of Niter which does by that means constrain this last to abandon the metal which it had dissolved But this is the way to explicate as they say one obscure thing by another that is much more obscure for what likelihood is there that the volatile spirit of Aqua fortis is an alkali and pray how comes it to remain in so great a motion with the fixed acid spirit of this same water without destroying or losing its nature this is a thing that can never be conceived very easily But furthermore supposing this spirit were an alkali it would be still necessary to explicate mechanically for what reason this alkali does quit the body of the metal to betake itself to the Spirit of salt for to say meerly
that by the conjunction of these two spirits the Aqua fortis is compelled to abandon the metal that it had dissolved is nothing at all to the clearing of the question unless a man will needs give an intelligence to these spirits Wherefore we must still have recourse to the agitation and jostles for the true reason It is also remarkable that the effervescency which happens when Spirit of Salt is cast into the solution of some bodies by Aqua fortis is different from that which happens when some alkali is cast into it the former being much more gentle than the latter The Spirit of Salt dissolves leaf gold which Aqua fortis is not able to do When this Spirit is dulcified it is mixed with Spirit of Wine which being a Sulphur doth take off the edges of the acid and in part hinders their motion whence it comes to pass that this Spirit is milder by this addition than if water had been used instead of Spirit of Wine The Spirit of Salt may be made with Salt Decrepitated after the same manner CHAP. XVI Of Niter or Salt-peter IT is probable that the Niter of the antients was either the Aegyptian Natron or a salt that is found in the earth in a gray compact mass or else the natural Borax or the salt which is drawn from the water of the river Nilus and many other rivers And it may be that all these salts are divers kinds of their Niter but the Niter of the moderns is nothing else but Salt-peter and this is that of which I intend to speak Niter is a Salt impregnated with abundance of Spirits out of the air which do render it volatile it is taken from among the stones and earths of old ruined buildings Some of it is likewise to be found in Cellars and several other moist places because the air doth condense it in those places and easily unites with the stones Salt-peter is also sometimes made by the Urine of Animals falling upon stones and earths Nay some have thought that all Salt-peter comes from that cause whereas we see every day that some of it is taken out of places where there never came any Urine at all This salt is half volatile and half like unto Sal Gemme as I shall prove hereafter The great and violent flame which happens so soon as Salt-peter is flung upon the coals and the red vapours which it uses to yield when reduced into a spirit have induced the Chymists generally to believe that this salt is inflammable and consequently fully loaded with Sulphur because Sulphur is the only Principle that flames but if they had suspended their judgments herein until they had got more experience on this Subject they would not only have known that Salt-peter is not at all inflammable in its nature but they would e'en have doubted whether or no any Sulphur does enter into the natural composition of this salt for if Salt-peter were inflammable of it self like Sulphur it would burn where there is no Sulphur for example in a Crucible heated red-hot in the fire but it will never flame therein use what quantity of it you please and let the fire be never so great It is true indeeed if you throw Salt-peter upon kindled coals it makes a great flame but this is only through the sulphureous Fuliginosities of the coals which are violently raised and rarefied by the volatile nature of Niter as I shall prove in the Operation upon fixt Niter As for any Sulphur that is thought to be contained in Salt-peter it can't be demonstrated by any Operation whatever for the red vapours that come from it are no more inflammable than the Niter when they are not mixt with some Sulphureous matter and it is far more probable that this salt contains no Sulphur if we consider its cleanness transparency acidity and cooling quality which have no manner of affinity with the effects of Sulphur which are commonly to make a body opake to take off acidity and to heat Purification of Salt-peter To purifie Salt-peter is to deprive it of part of its fixt salt and of a little bituminous earth which it contains Dissolve ten or twelve pounds of Salt-peter in a sufficient quantity of water let the dissolution settle and filtrate it then evaporate it in a glass or earthen vessel to the diminution of half or until there begins to appear a little skin upon it then remove your vessel into a cool place stirring it as little as may be and leave it there till the morrow you 'l find Crystals which you must separate from the liquor evaporate this liquor again to a skin and set the vessel in a cool place to get new Crystals repeat the evaporations and Crystallizations until you have drawn all your Salt-peter Note that in the last Crystallizations you 'l have a Salt altogether like unto sea-salt or Sal Gemme keep it apart it may serve to season meat with The first Crystals are the pure Salt-peter You may if you please dissolve and purifie Salt-peter several other times in water observing every time what I said before for to render it more white and purifie it from its Sea-salt Salt-peter purified is a great aperitive it cools the body by fixing the humours that are in too much motion and drives them by Urine It is given in Feavers in Gonorrheas and many other diseases the dose is from ten grains to a drachm in Broth or some appropriate liquor Remarks The first Purification that is given to Salt-peter is this the stones and earths that contain it are grosly powdered they are boiled in a great deal of water to dissolve the Salt-peter the dissolution is filtred and then poured upon ashes to make a Lixivium after it hath been poured upon the ashes several times it is evaporated and Crystallized The salt of the ashes which does mix with the Salt-peter increases its fixt part but that which is made without ashes is the better to make Aqua fortis with The earth from whence Salt-peter hath been drawn being set in the open air and stirred about from time to time doth re-impregnate with a kind of Salt The long Crystals that we see Salt-peter shoot into do proceed from its volatile part for that which is Crystallized last is fixt like sea-salt and looks just like it Salt-peter can never be purified so well but it will still contain a salt like unto Sal Gemme or sea-salt but in less quantity than before When Salt-peter is boiled a long time in water and over a great fire some part of the Spirits do fly away and there remains at last nothing but a salt like unto sea-salt or Sal Gemme which serves to prove that Salt-peter is only a Sal Gemme fuller of Spirits than the other as I said speaking of the Principles When you would Crystallize a Salt you must dissolve it in a convenient proportion of water for if there should be too much the salt would be weakned too much and
of Niter being more volatile than oil of Vitriol causes a greater effervescency In order therefore to explicate this ebullition two things must be considered First that spirit of Niter contains a great many fiery parts lock't up in its acidity but which do still retain some evident motion for it is they that make the spirit of Niter to Fume as it does The second is that spirit of Niter is more Inflammable than salt-peter when mixed with any sulphureous body and the reason thereof is that it is more rarefied than salt-peter Thus when this acid spirit is mixt with spirit of Wine which is a sulphur very much exalted and very susceptible of motion the volatile part of the spirit of Niter joyns itself to this sulphur and the mixture becomes very ready to take flame likewise after this mixture the fiery bodies that were in spirit of Niter do by striving to mount upwards put the liquor into so great a motion that it e'en almost flames and would without all question quite flame if there were not some phlegm always mixed with these spirits let them be drawn never so pure which serves to allay the activity of the fiery particles so that there must needs follow a very great ebullition This effervescency therefore proceeds from this that spirit of wine and spirit of Niter which are as it were a salt-peter and sulphur highly exalted have been almost kindled into a flame by the fiery bodies that were in spirit of Niter and that which further proves this conception is a noise or kind of detonation during the effervescency which is much like that which happens when sulphur and salt-peter are burnt together But because there may be some difficulty in conceiving what is meant by little fiery bodies I do understand by them a subtile matter which having been put into a very rapid motion does still retain the aptitude of moving with impetuosity even when it is inclosed in grosser matters and when it finds some bodies which by their texture or figure are apt to be put into motion it drives them about so strongly that their parts rubbing violently the one against the other heat is thereby produced Now the sulphureous parts of spirit of Wine and the volatile acids of spirit of Niter being mixed and being very aptly disposed for motion of themselves they must needs be easily put into it by these fiery bodies insomuch that their parts often rubbing or striking the one against the other they must cause a heat after the same manner as when a stone is strook hard against a piece of Iron a heat and fire do follow The great diminution of the liquor proceeds from the evaporation of the more volatile parts of the Spirits of Wine and Niter through the neck of the Bolt-head during the ebullition That which remains is a well sweetned spirit of Niter for not only its edges are very much blunted in the ebullition but the spirit of Wine being a sulphur does unite and imbody with those that remain so that they have no longer any Corrosive quality Aqua Fortis This preparation is a mixture of the Spirits of Niter and Vitriol drawn by fire to dissolve metals Powder and mix Salt-peter purified Vitriol Calcined white as I shall shew hereafter and Potters earth or clay dried of each two and thirty ounces put this mixture into an earthen Retort or glass one luted whose third part is to remain empty place your Retort in a close Reverberatory Furnace and fitting to it a capacious Receiver Lute well the junctures then begin by giving a little fire to warm gently the Retort and encrease it by little and little but when you perceive the Spirits to come forth into the Receiver in red clouds continue it for fifteen or sixteen hours in the same degree then drive it to the last extremity until there do appear white clouds instead of red Then let the vessels cool and unlute them you 'l find in the Receiver an Aqua fortis which you must keep in an earthen bottle well stopt It serves for the dissolution of metals Remarks I do use to Calcine the Vitriol to a whiteness that the Aqua fortis may not be weakned with an insipid water The mixture of Vitriol and Salt-peter has quickly some smell of Aqua fortis because Vitriol contains a great deal of Sulphur which easily insinuates into the volatile part of Salt-peter and exalts some little of it which causes the smell it is this Sulphur in Vitriol which by volatilizing the red spirit of Niter makes it come forth faster and with a less fire than when Salt-peter is distilled with Clay alone The greatest Corrosion of Aqua fortis proceeds from the Niter for the Vitriol doth yield but very weak Spirits in comparison with the other I do acknowledge indeed that the Oil of Vitriol is exceeding Corrosive but eighteen or twenty hours are not able to drive that out for it doth not use to come until after three days continual distillation The Vitriol then and the Clay do serve here only for a matter to separate the Salt-peter that it may by the means of fire the better rarefie into Spirits Although there does not enter into this preparation so much terrestrial matter as there does into that of Spirit of Niter nevertheless it proves very well because the Sulphurs of Vitriol do help the Spirits to rise If you would keep on the fire five days and nights together the Receiver would be still full of clouds because the Vitriol would yield some Spirits during all that time Sometimes Alom and Arsenick are added to the composition of Aqua fortis but the description which I have given you is the best of all There remains in the Retort a red mass which may be used like Colcothar for an Astringent This mass may be obtained without breaking the Retort Fixation of Salt-peter into an Alkali Salt by the means of Coals This operation is a Salt-peter rendred porous by Calcination and by the ashes of coals which are mixed with it Melt sixteen ounces of Salt-peter in a strong and large Crucible among burning coals throw into it a spoonful of coals grosly powdered and there will rise a flame and detonation which being over throw so much more and continue to do so until the matter flames no longer but remains fixt in the bottom of the Crucible then pour it into a warm mortar and when it is cold powder it and dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of water filtrate the dissolution through brown paper and evaporate all the water in an earthen pan in sand there will remain a very white salt which you must keep in a Viol well stopt This Salt hath a taste like to that of Salt of Tartar and they differ but little in virtue it opens Obstructions and works by Urine and sometimes by Stool the dose is from sixteen to thirty grains in some convenient liquor It may be used to assist in drawing forth the
the same virtue as Sal Armoniack but are given in a little less dose as from four to fifteen grains Remarks This operation is performed to the end the Sal Armoniack may be volatilized by checking some part of its fixt salt by the addition of Salt decrepitated thus these Flowers are a little more active than the Sal Armoniack though they are both compounded of the same Salts Iron or Steel powdered may be used instead of Sea-salt as Schroder describes it and then the Flowers do become of a Yellow colour because the Salts do take the Tincture of Mars And these last Flowers are a little more penetrating than the others Aqua Regalis This water is a solution of Sal Armoniack in Spirit of Niter Powder four ounces of Sal Armoniack and put them into a matrass or other glass vessel of a good bigness pour upon it sixteen ounces of Spirit of Niter place the vessel in sand a little warm until the Sal Armoniack is all dissolved then pour the dissolution into a bottle and stop it with wax this is Aqua Regalis you will have seventeen ounces of it Remarks This water is called Regalis or Royal because it dissolves Gold which is the King of metals It is likewise called Aqua Stygia or Chrysulca The vessel in which it is made must be of a sufficient bigness because in the dissolution the Spirits do rarefie with so great violence that they would break it if they had not room to circulate in when a great deal of this water is preparing at a time you must take care to remove the vessel from the fire so soon as the dissolution begins Aqua Regalis may be likewise made with equal quantities of Salt-peter and Sal Gemme by mixing these Salts with thrice as much Potters-earth powdered and the distillation of it is made after the same manner as I shewed to draw the Spirit of Niter It is somewhat difficult to conceive how Aqua Regalis is able to dissolve Gold which is a most solid Metal and cannot dissolve Silver which is a much less solid body Some Chymists endeavouring to resolve this difficulty have said that Gold being a Metal fuller of Sulphur than Silver did therefore require a sulphureous dissolvent such as Aqua Regalis compounded of the volatile sulphureous salts of Sal Armoniack but this explication destroys itself for if Gold did contain more Sulphurs than Silver it would consequently be less weighty for Sulphur is one of the lightest Principles in Chymistry I know the Alchymists will tell me that their Sulphur is quite of a different nature from the common sort and that they do conceive in Gold a Fixt and consequently a heavy sulphur But besides that a fixt sulphur is a thing meerly imaginary it can never be so heavy as the other principles which they pretend to be in Gold and which they are forced to think as fixed as the Sulphur Moreover if we examine what happens in the composition of the dissolvent of Gold it will be no difficult matter to contradict this opinion for we see that as soon as ever the Spirit of Niter begins to work upon the Sal Armoniack the acid salt joyns with it and quits the volatile salts which finding themselves disingaged from the bodies that held them in a manner fixed do rise up with violence but because these salts which are alkalies do meet in their passage with some acids of the Spirit of Niter the great effervescency happens which is always wont at the meeting of alkali salts and acids This effervescency being over our Aqua Regalis remains in the vessel it is properly nothing else but an acid sea-salt dissolved in Spirit of Niter the volatile salts being either exalted or destroyed by Acids and that which confirms this opinion is that Aqua Regalis is as well made with sea-salt in which there are no volatiles at all as with Sal Armoniack according as I have said It is not then by discourses of this nature that this Phanomenon can be clearly explicated I am apt to believe with more likelihood that if Aqua Regalis be not able to dissolve Silver the reason of it is because the edges of the Spirit of Niter being magnified by the addition of Salt do slide over the pores of Silver not being capable to enter into them by reason of the disproportion of their figures whereas they easily enter into Gold whose pores are larger to make their divisions On the contrary if the Spirit of Niter dissolves Silver it is because its points are very subtle and fitly proportioned to enter into the small pores of this metal and by their motion to divide its parts These same points may likewise enter into the large pores of Gold but they are too small and pliable to act upon this body There 's need of stronger and keener knives which by filling its pores more advantageously may have force enough to divide it I do easily foresee it will be objected that Gold being heavier than Silver should have lesser pores and not greater because the weight of a body doth only consist in the proximity of parts but it is easie to solve this difficulty by considering each metal with a good Microscope for the pores of Gold are seen to be much larger than those of Silver though indeed there are much fewer and that will explicate very well why Gold is heavier than Silver though its pores are greater for seeing they are at a good distance the one from the other there 's a very compact matter as it were intercepted which causes all the weight but the pores of Silver being very near one another and of a much greater number do intercept less solid matter and consequently it must be lighter I 'le use a familiar example to make my self more plainly understood If you take two vessels of the same size and bigness and fill one with small hail-shot and the other with large bullets that which holds the bullets will be much heavier than that which is full of shot and yet notwithstanding the vacuities between the bullets are much larger than those between the shot According to this Hypothesis reason may be likewise given why Gold is cut in pieces more easily than Silver for the greater the pores of a body are the easier entrance will a pair of Sheers meet with Gold spreads under the hammer more than Silver because having larger pores the hammer makes a greater impression into it and dilates the parts the more easily It is objected that if there be any heavy matter as it were intercepted between the pores of Gold it must needs precipitate of itself after the action of Aqua Regalis upon this metal which is a thing that does not happen I answer that if the parts of Gold are heavy the dissolvent nevertheless is a gross body and very well proportioned to hold up those heavy parts and to hinder them from precipitating Others have opposed this explication and have
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
to an agreeable acidity That which remains in the body is the most acid part of the Vitriol and is improperly called Oil. It may be used like the acid Spirit for continued Feavers and other distempers that are accompanied with a violent heat This Oil is likewise used for the dissolution of metals You 'l find in the Retort a Colcothar which hath the same virtues with that I spoke of before Remarks To make the Spirit of Vitriol you must take green English Vitriol such as being rubbed upon Iron doth not at all change colour which shews it doth not partake of Copper as the German does that looks a little blueish and is more acrimonious You must Calcine it as I have said to the end it being deprived of the greatest part of its Phlegm the distillation may be dispatched the sooner A third part of the Retort is left empty that the Spirits may have room to rarefie in when they come forth There distils also a great deal of Phlegm into the Receiver and all of it is known to have come when there drops no more Those who don't care for the sulphurcous spirit do let it come forth and mix together with the Phlegm before the junctures are luted but you must be sure to govern the fire discreetly at that time for these Spirits come with a great deal of violence and use to break the Retort when they are driven too furiously When they are out you must augment the fire to the last degree of all for the acid Spirit will not part with its earth until it is forced by an extraordinary heat If you distil eight pounds of white Vitriol at sixteen ounces to the pound you 'l draw off seventeen ounces of Phlegm and two and twenty ounces and a half both of the Sulphureous and the Acid spirit of Vitriol Of these two and twenty ounces and a half there will be five ounces of Sulphureous spirit You 'l find in the Retort five pounds five ounces of Colcothar Use all the care you can possible to preserve all the liquors which come from Vitriol yet it will be impossible for you to hinder it from losing some through the junctures during the distillation If you should use German instead of English Vitriol you 'd draw off a little more spirit than the quantity I have named but it would have some smell of Aqua fortis and the matter which remains in the Retort would be of a brown colour drawing towards black This colour proceeds from sulphureous Fuliginosities which rise more from this Vitriol than the other because it partakes of Copper for this Sooty vapour finding no vent to get out at falls down again upon the matter and blackens it The Furnace in which this operation is performed must be very thick that the heat of the fire being none of it lost through the Pores may the better act upon the Retort These Spirits do rarefie into white vapours in the Receiver which must be provided large enough to give them free liberty to circulate in before they condense into a liquor at bottom The fire is usually continued four or five days together but if after that you should change the Receiver and continue the fire three or four days longer there would come forth an Oil of Vitriol congealed and caustick which is nothing but the more fixt part of the Sprit of Vitriol And this Congelation hath given this liquor the name of Oil of Vitriol though improperly Vitriol contains earth enough wherefore none is added to it as is necessarily done in the distillation of Niter Acid Spirits are Salts become fluid by the force of fire which hath disingaged them from their more terrestrious part and they may be revived again by pouring them upon some Alkali for example the Spirit of Vitriol remaining some time upon Iron doth reincorporate into Vitriol and the Spirit of Niter poured upon Salt of Tartar makes a Salt-peter There is one thing happens about the Oil of Vitriol when it is very strong which is strange indeed it is that if you mix it with its Acid Spirit or with water or else with an Ethereal Oil such as the Oil of Turpentine this mixture grows hot to that degree that sometimes it breaks the Viol it was put into and often it produces a considerable Ebullition I could quickly give an account of this heat and Ebullition if I would suppose an Alkali to be in the Oil of Vitriol as those do who pretend to explicate every thing that happens by the notions of acid and alkali but not comprehending how an alkali should be able to remain so long a time with so strong an acid as is the Oil of Vitriol without being destroyed I had rather give a reason that seems to me abundantly more probable I conceive therefore that if water or Spirit of Vitriol or the Ethereal Oil of Turpentine do come to heat the Oil of Vitriol it is by setting in motion a great many fiery particles which the Oil of Vitriol had drawn with it in the distillation for these little fiery bodies being environ'd with salts that are exceeding heavy and hard to rarefie they drive about with vehemence whatsoever stands in their way and when they have caused an Ebullition and find they can't get out at the top of the Viol they break it to pieces with the bussle they make at bottom and on the sides Perhaps it will be said I do here suppose gratis that the Oil of Vitriol does contain fiery particles but if we consider the great violence of fire and the time that is spent in drawing this acid it will be no such hard matter to grant me this supposition Besides it will be hard to explicate the great and burning Corrosion of Oil of Vitriol without admitting these fiery parts for the Vitriol contains nothing in it self of this Caustick nature it is true indeed that it contains Phlegm Sulphur and Earth but it is a thing impossible but this acid should discover it self more than it does if it were as Corrosive in the Vitriol as it is in the Oil. Once it hapned to me that putting into my Furnace a Retort whose two thirds were filled with German Vitriol dried in order to draw off its Spirits I distilled first of all the Phlegm and sulphureous spirit which I took out of the Receiver I then fitted it again to the Retort and by a great fire continued three days and three nights I distilled off the acid Spirit as we are used to do When the vessels were cold I admired to find in my Receiver nothing but a mass of Salt or Congealed Oil of Vitriol This Salt was so exceeding Caustick and burning that if I offer'd to touch the smallest part of it with my finger I presently felt an insufferable scalding and was fain to put my hand immediately into water it continued to fume still and when a little of it was thrown into water it made the same hissing noise as a
likewise fixes the stone the more and makes it fitter to keep It is one of the best Remedies I ever met with for stopping Gonorrheas when it is a proper time to stop them by Injections Salt of Vitriol This Operation is the more fixed Salt of Vitriol that remains after distillation Take two or three pounds of the Colcothar that remains in the Retort after distillation of Vitriol let it infuse in eight or ten pints of warm water for ten or twelve hours boil it a little while and then let it settle separate the water by Inclination and pour new water upon the matter proceed as before and mixing your Impregnations evaporate all the moisture in a sand-heat in a glass or earthen vessel there will remain a salt at bottom It is used as the Gilla Vitrioli to give a Vomit the dose is from ten to thirty grains Remarks This salt is that part of the Vitriol that the fire is not able to rarefie into Spirit Some Authors say that it Vomits just after the same manner as Gilla Vitrioli taken in a smaller dose but I have observed that its effect was much less and on the contrary there was need of giving it in a larger dose than the Gilla to procure a Vomit for having given of it several times a drachm at a dose the person had no Inclination at all to Vomit and truly I am apt to believe that a fixt salt of Vitriol divested of its Sulphur doth rather tend to precipitate downwards than mount upwards for Vomiting is caused by Saline Sulphurs which prick the Fibers of the Stomach whence follows a Convulsion to this part That which remains indissoluble is called Caput Mortuum it is used for Astringents If you expose it to the Air for a year or a year and half it returns into Vitriol again CHAP. XIX Of Roche-Alom and of its Purification ROche-Alom is a very Styptick Mineral Salt found in the veins of the earth in many places of Europe it is taken up in great transparent pieces the best is that which is reddish for the white contains fewer Spirits Alom is purified after the same manner as Vitriol it is used to cleanse the teeth it is a good Diuretick a drachm of it is dissolved in a quart of water and a glass of it is given now and then Many things are likewise called by the name of Alom as the Saccharinum which resembles Sugar it is nothing but a mixture of Roche-Alom Rose-water and the white of an Egg. Plume-Alom which some call Lapis Amianthus is a kind of Talk Distillation of Alom Put five pounds of Roche-Alom into a glass or earthen body and fitting to it a head with its Receiver distil in sand as much as will rise you will have a Phlegm of Alom that is used for distempers of the eyes for Quinsies and to cleanse wounds unlute the vessels break the body and powder the white mass that remains in it put it into an earthen Retort half empty place your Retort in a Reverberatory furnace and fitting to it a large Receiver lute the junctures close and light a very small fire the first three hours only to warm the Retort afterwards increase it every hour to the utmost violence and these Spirits will come forth and fill the Receiver with white Clouds continue the fire in this condition three days together then let the vessels cool you 'l find in the Receiver an acid Spirit which you may rectifie by distilling it in a glass Alembick in sand in order to make it the clearer This acid is more disagreeable than that of Vitriol it is used in Juleps for continued Feavers and Tertian Agues the dose is from four to eight drops it is likewise good to cure the Aphtha or little Chancres in the mouth Break the Retort and you 'l find in it a white mass very much rarefied and light it is called Burnt Alom or Calcined Alom it is used for to eat carnous excrescences or proud flesh Remarks The Distillation of Alom must be performed like that of Vitriol that is to say without addition of earth because these Salts do contain enough themselves The Body into which you put your Alom must be sure to be large enough because it rarefies extreamly The Phlegm is known to be all come forth when there distils no more for these Spirits being very weighty do require a greater heat than that of sand to raise them Some have written that Alom yields but very little acid yet if they take the pains to keep a strong fire under it for three days together they 'l find that this Spirit does not give place in strength or quantity to that of Vitriol Nor are we at all obliged to distinguish as they would have us the Acrimonious Corrosive salt of Alom from its acid seeing that there is nothing either Acrimonious or Corosive in this Mineral salt which will not turn into an acid Spirit when it is strongly urged by fire If a Drachm of Alom be dissolved in six ounces of this Phlegm you make an excellent Alom water to cleanse wounds and ulcers with The mass that remains in the Cucurbite or Dephlegmated Alom is more Escarotick than that which hath lost its Spirits Chirurgeons are wont to Calcine Alom in a Frying pan but the Iron dulls the greatest part of its vertue as absorbing its Spirits wherein consists the corrosion of Alom the Retort must be filled but half full because there happen Ebullitions which do require room CHAP. XX. Of Sulphur SVlphur is a kind of Bitumen that is found in many places in Italy and Spain There is brought among us both a Natural and an Artificial the Natural is greyish and called Sulphur Vivum the other is Yellow and is nothing but the Natural melted purified from its grosser earth and formed into Rowls which we do commonly use Some think that Sulphur is a Vitriol sublimed in the earth because these mixts are very often found near one another that there is a great deal of Sulphur in the mass of Mineral Vitriol and that the acid Spirits which are drawn from them both are wholly alike Flower of Sulphur This preparation is an exaltation of Sulphur Put about half a pound of Sulphur grosly powdered into a glass body place it in a small open fire and cover it with a pot or another Cucurbite turned upside down one that is unglazed so as that the neck of the one may enter into the neck of the other Change the upper Cucurbite every half hour fitting another in its place add likewise new Sulphur gather your Flowers which you find stuck in the Cucurbite and continue to do thus until you have got as much as you desire Then put out the fire and let the vessels cool there will remain at bottom only a little light insignificant earth The Flower of Sulphur is used in Diseases of the Lungs and Breast the dose is from ten to thirty grains in Lozenges or in Electuary It
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
dropsie it is good to stop diarrhea's and dysenteries with it may be dropt into the Tincture of Roses instead of other acid Spirits Some do think it good for diseases of the breast the dose is eight or ten drops or to an agreeable acidity in some proper liquor That which remains in the body after the rectification is a foetid oil which may be outwardly used to cleanse old ulcers Remarks The Spirit of common Sugar is made without addition of any thing in the preparation it is an acid Spirit but is not so strong nor has so great virtues as that which I have now described It is thought good for diseases of the breast by reason of the Sugar which indeed is good for them but so strong an acid is apt to give a Cough The body must be big enough in order to give room to the vapours to circulate in as they do rise A very little Oil of Sugar can be drawn in this operation for that which remains after the rectification is not a pure oil but a remainder of the Spirit tinged with some drops of oil insomuch that it would be very hard to get one drachm of pure Oil. CHAP. XII Of Wine WIne is nothing else but the Muste or juice of ripe Grapes whose Spirituous parts are set at liberty in the Fermentation This Wine is more or less gross according as it abounds more or less with Tartar In the making of White-wine the Muste of white Grapes is left to Ferment all alone but Claret must Ferment with the Faeces of the Grapes whence it comes to pass that the Red is loaded with more Tartar than the White and remains longer in the body after it is drunk The wines of hot Countrys do commonly more abound with Tartar than others by reason of the abundance of Salts which they attract from the earth Muscat and Spanish Wines do not endure a Fermentation until good part of the Phlegm is evaporated either by the heat of the Sun or by fire and this is the reason they become so glutinous as they do almost like Syrup Lastly there may be made as many different Wines as there can be different Fermentations to the Muste Now let us consider what it is that happens in these Fermentations Muste is a sweet liquor that sends no vapours to the head to Intoxicate though one drinks never so much If you distil it there will rise first of all good store of Insipid water after that a fetid Oil with a few weak Spirits which are nothing but an Essential Salt dissolved and lastly there will remain a terrestrious mass out of which may be drawn some quantity of fixt salt by making a Lixivium as we draw other alkali salts but among all these substances we find none of those Spirits that use to make Brandy and yet nevertheless when Muste hath Fermented for some time it turns into Wine from whence you may draw a considerable quantity of Inflammable Spirits Now to explicate this effect you must know that Muste doth contain a great deal of Essential Salt this Salt like a volatile making an effort in the Fermentation to deliver it self from the oily parts with which it was before incumbred does open and divide them until by its subtile and keen points it hath rarified them into Spirit this effort of the salt does cause the Ebullition which happens to wine and which at the same time does help to purifie it for it separates the grosser parts of the wine in form of a scum of which some part does stick to and petrifie on the sides of the vessel and another part precipitates to the bottom the first is called Tartar the last the Lees of wine The inflammable Spirit of Wine then is nothing but an Oil exalted by Salts and this is an indubitable proof of what I establish that there was nothing but oil in the Muste which was capable of taking fire these same salts also being a little freed from the cover they were wrapt in are they that change the wallowish sweetness of Muste into an agreeable Tartness such as we perceive in our French Wines It is likewise remarkable that a sufficient quantity of Phlegm is requisite for the better separation of the Salts in their Fermentation and an Exaltation of the Oil for otherwise several changes are apt to happen for example when Muscat and Spanish wine are made a great deal of Phlegm is separated from them for the Muscat Grape is left to dry in the Sun upon the Branches before it is gathered to put into the press and some part of the liquor of the Muste with which Spanish wine is made is Evaporated before it is suffered to Ferment which is the cause that the Salts not having liberty to expatiate and to rarifie the Oil as much as they would do if they had room do make but an imperfect Fermentation The Oil being thus half exalted hath still strength enough to hinder the Tartness of the salt and therefore only tickling the Nerves of the tongue makes us perceive in these liquors a sweet taste And this is also the reason why fewer Spirits are drawn from Muscat and Spanish wines than from French wines for whereas the Spirit of Wine doth consist in a rarified Oil there must needs be fewer Spirits in those than in French wines But much more of a gross Oil is drawn by distillation from those half fermented Wines If on the contrary the Muste should be loaded with too much phlegm as it happens often enough there follows another imperfect Fermentation because the Salts being too much weakned by it are not able sufficiently to cut and exalt the parts of Oil whence it comes to pass that these Wines are subject to turn aigre or to sowre The Wines of Languedoc and Provence being extreamly loaded with Tartar are grosser than the Wines of Burgundy and Champaigne because their Spirits are incumbred with abundance of Salt and Earth Wherefore the goodness of Wine may be said to proceed from a convenient proportion of phlegm and Tartar It is objected to this last discourse that the Tartareous part being in a natural way separated from the Wine should in no wise diminish the quantity nor the strength of the Spirituous and inflammable part But when I asserted that the Spirits of divers Wines are extreamly loaded with Tartar I did not mean that Tartar which petrifies at the sides of the vessels for that is at quiet and does not hinder the Exaltation of Spirits but I intended a Tartar that still remains mixt in the Wine after the Fermentation and which according as it abounds more or less does render the Wines more or less thick and gross It is easy to see this Tartar I speak of if you Evaporate the aqueous part of Wine for it will remain at bottom in form of Lees. Nevertheless there is no need of establishing two sorts of Tartar in one kind of Wine for the former is only the more
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
into a Bolus with some liquid substance or else you may boil them in some liquor but you must take the liquor very hot otherwise the Crystals will fall to the bottom of the cup you drink out of If you should boil these Crystals in common water or in broth and then let it stand to be cold they will return into the same form they were in before both at the bottom and on the sides of the vessel but the liquor will remain a little sharp through the solution of some part of the salt of Tartar into it I see no reason so much to wonder as some do why Tartar will not dissolve in cold water for although it does contain a great deal of salt this salt is involved in Earth and Oil which must needs hinder the dissolution and there is no need of having recourse for an explication of this to a proportionable Union of Volatile salts and acids Soluble Tartar Powder and mix together eight ounces of Crystals of Tartar and four ounces of the fixt salt of Tartar put this mixture into a glazed earthen pot and pouring upon it three pints of common water boil the matter gently for half an hour then letting it cool filtrate and evaporate the liquor until it is dry and there will remain at bottom eleven ounces six drachms of a white salt keep it in a Viol it is both a good Aperitive and Laxative it is good for Cachexies Dropsies and all diseases that proceed from Obstructions the dose is from ten grains to two scruples in broth or some proper liquor Remarks This Operation is nothing but a dissolution that the Salt of Tartar has made of Cream of Tartar so that it can dissolve in cold water which it could not do alone the Cream of Tartar also being an acid insinuates into the pores of the Alkali salt and sweetens it If you boil Cream of Tartar in water and put into it some salt of Tartar there will happen an Effervescency between them but if you mix these two ingredients together in cold water there will be no Effervescency the reason of which is that the acid Spirits of Cream of Tartar being involved in other principles can have no active power to open the Alkali unless they be actuated by fire I use to filter the dissolution in order to separate some terrestrious part of the Cream of Tartar which could not dissolve this salt comes near in virtue to Tartar vitriolated some do call it a Vegetable salt Chalybeated or Martial Crystals of Tartar This Preparation is a Crystal of Tartar impregnated with the more soluble part of Iron Powder and mix a pound of good white Tartar and three ounces of Rust of Iron boil this mixture in an Iron pot with five or six quarts of water for half an hour or so much time as is requisite to dissolve the Tartar pass the liquor hot through a warm cloth then let it settle in an Iron or earthen pot ten or twelve hours it will shoot into brown Crystals at the sides and bottom of the pot pour off the liquor by Inclination and gather the Crystals then evaporate about half the liquor in the same pot let the remainder settle and take out the Crystals as before continue these Evaporations and Crystallizations until you have drawn all your Tartar dry the Crystals in the Sun and so keep them They are a good remedy for Obstructions of the Liver Mesentery Spleen they are given in Cachexies and for Melancholy and the Quartan Ague the dose is from fifteen grains to two Scruples in broth or some other liquor proper to the distemper Remarks This Preparation is boil'd but little that the Tartar may dissolve only the more Saline part of Iron the liquor is made to pass through a cloth to free it from the Impurities of the Tartar and Iron which could not dissolve but you must pass it very hot for if it were a little cool the Tartar would Coagulate in the cloth and so none of the liquor would pass Instead of Crystallizing the dissolved Tartar you may evaporate all the liquor and so obtain a brown powder which has the same virtues as the Crystals When you would exhibite this Chalybeated Crystal of Tartar you must make it just boil in the liquor you give it in for otherwise it will not dissolve and you must be sure to give it as hot as they can take it for fear it should Crystallize at the bottom of the Cup. Soluble Tartar Chalybeated Put into an earthen pan or glass vessel four ounces of Soluble Tartar and sixteen ounces of Tincture of Mars prepared according to the description that I have given set the vessel in sand and with a small fire evaporate the liquor until there remains a black powder shut it in a viol well stopt and keep it you 'l have eight ounces This Martial Tartar has the same virtues as the Tincture of Tartar it is good to remove all Obstructions wherefore it is very properly used in Cachexies Dropsies retention of the Menses in Nephritick Colicks and in difficulties of Urine the dose is from ten grains to half a drachm in broth or some proper liquor or else made into Lozenges Remarks This Preparation of Chalybeate or Martial Tartar is not only more convenient for use than the former in that it dissolves or mixes in a cold liquor but has much more virtue in it for the Tincture of Mars contains only the more saline part of Tartar Soluble Emetick Tartar This Preparation is a soluble Tartar impregnated with some portion of Glass of Antimony which renders it Emetick Put into a glass vessel four ounces of Crystals of Tartar powdered pour upon it Spirit of Vrine until it be two fingers above the matter there will happen a small ebullition because the Cream of Tartar will dissolve in the Spirit of Vrine when the dissolution is finished add to it an ounce of the glass of Antimony finely powdered and eight or ten ounces of water boil it all in a sand-heat seven or eight hours and take care to put more hot water into the vessel as the liquor consumes after that filtrate and evaporate gently in sand all the liquor and there will remain three ounces of a greyish powder drawing towards white keep it in a Viol well stopt It is an Emetick that works with little violence the dose is from four to fifteen grains in broth Remarks The Ebullition which happens in this Operation proceeds from the Cream of Tartars meeting with the Volatile and Alkali Salt of Urine for the Acid of Tartar piercing the Salt of Urine divides its parts and gives vent to igneous bodies which were contained in it and which now finding themselves free do break forth in great haste Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack may be used instead of that of Vrine but then there will be no sensible Ebullition the reason of which is because the salt of this Spirit is not an Alkali so open
Salt may bruise the Crude Tartar and wrapping it up in paper may Calcine it until it turns into a white mass after which they may draw the salt by a Lixivium as I said before I do commonly draw this way four ounces of very white and well purified salt of Tartar from each pound of red Tartar a little more may be drawn from white Tartar but it is no better than the other I have observed that when water is thrown upon the mass of Tartar newly Calcined it heats much like unslack'd Lime when wetted the reason of which is the same that I have given to explicate the Ebullition of Quick-lime in water all the difference is this that Tartar Calcined containing a great deal of Salt does more easily imbibe water than Quick-lime Some do Calcine salt of Tartar with a little sulphur to hinder it from dissolving so easily by the air and to render it the whiter but this is no good practice because the acid Spirit of sulphur destroys some part of the Alkali and this does come to happen by reason that the pores of this Salt by being thus Calcined are not so open as they were and the air therefore cannot so easily melt it If you would make Salt of Tartar and other Alkali fixt salts very white indeed you must Calcine them all alone in a great fire until they become white and then purifie them by Dissolution Filtration and Coagulation As for their proneness to dissolve this is natural to Alkali salts and cannot be taken from them but by destroying their nature Nor can I approve the addition of any quantity of Niter to the Calcination of Tartar as some do because the volatile parts of Niter being exalted the fixt do remain and by their acidity do diminish the virtue of Salt of Tartar Although the Salt of Tartar be tolerably white after the first purification yet if you do calcine threescore and four ounces of it and filtrate it as I have said you will draw still abundance of earthy matter and if in curiosity you should dry this earth you would find three ounces and a half of it Alkali salts are Aperitive in that they dissolve those slimy humors which caused Obstructions and it is for the same reason that Salt of Tartar does correct Senna and hinders it from griping for the substance of Senna being viscous this does rarefie it and make it work the quicker it may also serve to dissolve some viscous phlegm that sticks in the guts which as it is going off causes griping pains The liquor or Oil made per Deliquium is only a Salt of Tartar dissolved by the moisture of the Cellar If you would make it quickly you must dissolve the Salt of Tartar in as much Rain water well filtrated as is needful to turn it into a liquor It may be used like the former it cures Tettars and discusses Tumors because being an Alkali it sweetens the keen Salts which fomented these distempers When Salt of Tartar or its liquor is dissolved in water newly distilled from some green plant the water will turn green and the greener the plant is from which the water was distilled this salt does make the water so much the greener The water of Night-shade turns greener with it than Balm-water Balm-water greener than Eye-bright-water and so of the rest The reason of this effect proceeds from this that the Alkali salt of Tartar does rarefie and make appear many little parts of the plant which did rise with the water in the distillation and did not till then appear But the water must be sure to be distilled with a fire sufficiently great for if it should have been distilled in a Balneum or such like heat there would not appear the least shew of green though an Alkali salt were mixed with it Cherry-water Rose-water and many other distilled waters of fruits or flowers do give no colour by the addition of Salt of Tartar Tincture of Salt of Tartar This Operation is an exaltation of some parts of Salt of Tartar in Spirit of wine Melt in a good Crucible twenty ounces of Salt of Tartar in great fire and when it is in Fusion cover it with a Tile and put coals round it blow about it so as to raise a greater heat than if you were melting Gold continue this degree of fire about six hours or until your Salt of Tartar is of a red marble colour which you may know by thrusting the end of a Spatula into the Crucible for when it is drawn out you may look upon a little matter that is stuck to it then take out the Crucible with a pair of tongs and turn it upside down into a warm mortar the matter will coagulate in a little time powder it presently and put it into a matrass warmed before-hand pour upon it Spirit of wine Tartarized until it swims four fingers above the matter stop the matrass with another to make a double-vessel lute the junctures close with a wet bladder set your matrass in Sand and heat it with a gradual fire to make the Spirit of wine boil seven or eight hours during which time it will assume a red colour After that let the vessels cool and unlute them separate by Inclination this most fragrant Tincture and keep it in a Viol well stopt You may pour more Spirit of Wine on the remaining Salt of Tartar and proceed as before as long as it will draw out any Tincture The Tincture of the Salt of Tartar is an excellent Aperitive it purifies the bloud and resists malignity of humors It is used in the Scurvy the dose is from ten to thirty drops in some convenient liquor Remarks You must place the Crucible in the furnace upon a Tile for fear lest the wind which comes through the doors of the Ash-hole and fire-room might be apt to cool the bottom and hinder the Fusion of the Salt The Salt of Tartar having been a good while melted in the Crucible does flame when thrown upon lighted coals as easily as Salt-peter does This effect proceeds only from this that the fire has attenuated and volatilized the parts of this fixt salt so as to render them fit to exalt with the sulphur of coals Many have writ that it is sufficient to Calcine the Salt of Tartar two hours in a violent fire or until the Salt of Tartar becomes blewish but after having tried several times to make the Tincture according to this description I could never be able to do it it is true the Spirit of Wine will be a little Tinctured but it comes not near that which is necessary to call it the Tincture of Salt of Tartar for it should be red like wine and to make it so it is requisite to Calcine it as I have said and good store of it should be put into the Crucible because it diminishes exceedingly You must likewise take care to use Spirit of wine well rectified for if there should be any phlegm
three sorts of it the Black the White and the Yellow The Inhabitants of those Countries do keep this Opium for their own use and do send us only the Meconium which is nothing else but the Juyce of these same Poppy-heads drawn by expression and then thickned and wrapt up in leaves to transport the better It is this Drug that we improperly call Opium and always use for want of the true but being more impure than the true it hath not the same activity and strength A Meconium may be made after the same manner with the heads of those Poppies that grow in Italy Languedoc and Provence but it will prove much weaker than the former The Opium which comes from Thebes or else from Grand-Cairo is accounted the best you must choose it Black Inflammable bitter to the taste and a little acrimonious its smell must be disagreeable and stupefactive Extract of Opium called Laudanum This Operation is the purer part of Opium drawn in water and Spirit of wine and reduced to the consistence of an extract Cut into slices four ounces of good Opium and put it into a bolt-head pour upon it a quart of Rain-water well filtred stop the bolt-head and setting it in sand give your fire by degrees then increase it to make the liquor boil for two hours strain it warm and pour it into a bottle Take the Opium which remains undissolved in the Rain-water dry it in an earthen pan over a small fire and putting it into a Matrass pour upon it Spirit of wine to the height of four fingers stop the Matrass and digest the matter twelve hours in hot Ashes afterwards strain the liquor and there will remain a glutinous earth which is to be flung away Evaporate both these dissolutions of Opium separately in earthen or glass vessels in a Sand-heat to the consistence of honey then mix them and finish the drying this mixture with a very gentle heat to give it the consistence of Pills or a solid Extract It is the most certain Soporifick that we have in Physick it allays all pains which proceed from too great an activity of the humors it is good for the Tooth-ach applied to the tooth or else to the Temple-artery in a plaister it is used for to stop spitting of bloud the bloudy-flux the flux of the menses and hemorrhoids for the colick for hot defluxions on the eyes and to quiet all sorts of griping pains the dose of it is from half a grain to three in some convenient Conserve or else dissolved in a Julep Remarks Opium is compounded of a Spirituous part and a gross terrestrious Rosine the Spirituous part may be easily dissolv'd in water but the Resinous requires a more convenient Menstruum such as Spirit of Wine You must dry the Opium after the first dissolution least the Spirit of Wine be too much weakned by the watry part that remains which would hinder the solution from being done so well as it should be Distilled Vinegar dissolves Opium but the acids may diminish its virtue by destroying or fixing its volatile part which serves for a vehicle to the other Spirit of wine alone might be used to dissolve both parts of the Opium but it might be feared it would carry away with it the volatile part in the Evaporation All that is in the Opium is preserved by my description for the Resinous part dissolved in the Spirit of Wine cannot evaporate with it because it is the heavier and the other part which I call Volatile in comparison with the first is mixt with a little Rosine that keeps it back while the water evaporates The truth of this I have found by experience and any body else may try as well as I have done by distilling these liqours Lastly it is hard to use any greater precaution than this for the preservation of all the pure parts of Opium and fewer Menstruums can be used that are more convenient If in curiosity you weigh the glutinous earth after it is dried you will find it to be half an ounce Almost all Authors have appointed to torrifie Opium before it be dissolved to the end a certain malignity which they say is in it may be evaporated but that which they call malignity is nothing but the Spirits or Sulphurs that are most volatile whereof I spoke but now so that by the Torrefaction they deprive it of its more active part They do further add to the Extract commonly drawn with Spirit of Wine Coral Pearl Treacle Extract of Saffron Cordial Confections Hysterical ingredients and other things which may resist a cold malignity in the fourth degree which they pretend to be in Opium But experience convinces us that it is not so dangerous when given in the foresaid dose so that there is no need at all of losing its volatile part by Torrefaction nor of mixing it with other ingredients which may hinder its operation or retard its effect It belongs to the Physician when he thinks fit to give it to judge whether there be any need of an Hysterick or Cordial which he may appoint to be mixed upon the spot I shall not stay to examine here whether Opium is cold or hot they who have made the Anatomy of this mixt do know very well that it is almost all of it Sulphur I shall endeavour to explicate its effects the most sensibly I can according to the Rules of Chymistry The virtue of Opium consists in causing sleep and that by calming the motion of the Spirits for since watchfulness does proceed from the motion of the Spirits which by rarifying the humors in the little passages of the Brain do augment their Circulation it may surely be said with probability enough that sleep is caused by some condensation of the humors which happens from a repose of the Spirits in the Brain According to this Principle then there must be contained in Opium and all other Soporificks a certain substance that inviscates the Spirits and hinders them for some time from Circulating so fast as they did before Let us examine now whether any such thing can probably be found in Opium by the Analysis I have made of it first of all I have observed a Spirituous part but after that hath been drawn out by means of Rain-water there remains a gummous and terrestrious matter and this is the substance that I find so proper to produce this effect For nothing in Physick is so fit to thicken the bloud and other humors as things that are Mucilaginous Milk and the Emulsions which are drawn from divers seeds the Water-Lily Lettice nay and all temperate Aliments do frequently incline to sleep because they are impregnated with a gummous substance which mixing in the bloud does serve to agglutinate the Spirits and to moderate the quickness of their motion this now being supposed it is easie to conceive how Opium makes one sleep seeing it is loaded with Mucilaginous parts which may be conveighed into the vessels But without doubt
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
is from Florida it hath been transplanted among us but our Countrey not being hot enough that which grows here is not so strong as the Tabaco that is brought out of America Tabaco either chewed or smoked now and then makes a great discharge of humors from the Head but if it be used too immoderately it is apt to cause several Diseases such as the Palsie and Apoplexy It is beaten and applied to tumors to discuss them it being full of Spirits which do rarifie them and open the pores It is likewise infused in common water and Tettars and other Itchings of the Skin are washed with this Infusion but you must have a care that the water be not too much charged with it for fear of giving a vomit Tabaco kills Serpents Vipers Lizards and such like Animals if you open a hole in their flesh and thrust a little bit into it or if you should smoke them with it Distillation of Tabaco Put into a Glass-Cucurbite eight ounces of good Tabaco cut small pour upon it about an equal weight of Phlegm of Vitriol cover the Cucurbite with its head and digest the matter in sand for a day fit to it a Receiver and distil about five ounces of liquor in a small fire keep it in a viol It is a powerful vomit the dose is from two drachms to six in some proper liquor it is likewise good for Tettars and the Itch being rubbed lightly with it Put that which remains in the Cucurbite into an earthen Retort or Glass one luted place it in a Furnace and fit to it a great Receiver and luting close the joints begin with a small fire to raise all the phlegm augment it by little and little and the Spirits will come forth confusedly with a black Oil continue the fire until there comes no more then let the vessels cool and unlute them pour that which you find in the Receiver into a Tunnel lined with brown paper the watry part will pass through while the black and fetid Oil remains in the filter keep it in a viol a drachm of it may be mixed with two ounces of Hogs-grease it is a good Remedy for the itch and for Tettars An Alkali salt may be drawn from the Coals that remain in the Retort after the same manner as the Salt of Guaiacum This salt is a Sudorifick the dose is from four grains to ten in some convenient liquor Remarks Tabaco is full of such piercing sulphurs and volatile salts that so soon as ever it is in the stomach it falls a pricking the Fibers and moving to vomit The Oil of Tabaco is so great a vomit that if one should but hold ones Nose a little over the Viol in which it is kept it would make one vomit One day I made a small Incision in the skin of a dog's thigh and thrusting in a little tent dipt in the Oil of Tabaco the dog immediately purged both upwards and downwards with a great deal of violence The fixt salt of Tabaco may be made as I have said but if you would have any quantity of it you must join a great deal of other Tabaco with it for receiving so little matter out of the Retort it would be hard to get a drachm of Salt CHAP. XIX Extractum Panchymagogum THIS Extract is a farrago of the purer substances of divers purgative and cordial medicines Take an ounce and a half of the Pulp of Coloquintida one ounce of the Pulvis Diarrhodon Abbatis so much good Agarick and two ounces of black Hellebore powder them all grosly and put them into a matrass pour upon it rain-water distilled four fingers above the mixture Stop the matrass close and set it in digestion in hot sand or in horse dung three or four days and shake the vessel ever now and then After this pass your infusion through a cloth pour upon the residence a like quantity of the same liquor let it infuse as before then strain and express it strongly mix your infusions and let them settle until they become clear decant them and evaporate the liquor in an earthen pan in a sand-heat with a little fire to the consistence of a Syrop then mix with them half an ounce of Rosine of Scammony and two ounces of Extract of Aloes evaporate the whole to the consistence of an Extract It purges all the humors well the dose is from one scruple to two in Pills Remarks The flesh or pulp of Coloquintida is nothing but the apple it self cleansed from its Seeds It purges the Brain the best is that which is whitest and lightest The powder Diarrhodon Abbatis is Cordial and resists the malignity of humors it takes its name from the Rose which is its Basis The Agarick is a Rosinous Mushrom that grows on the Larix the best is the whiter lighter and most friable it is used for to purge the brain The root of black Hellebore is a very strong purger of Melancholy wherefore it is given to Hypochondriacal persons and even to the Maniacal it gives a vomit when taken alone but with this mixture it fixes downwards the white is a poison taken inwardly it is never used but for sneezing powders Scammony is a very Purgative resinous juyce the best is most friable and which being powdered hath a grey colour drawing towards white its Rosine is drawn from it as that of Jalap Aloes is said to purge Choler I have spoken of its virtues sufficiently already when I described its Extract Spirit of Wine is commonly used to make this Extract and it may seem to be so much the purer being drawn by this dissolvent rather than by a watry Menstruum for spirit of wine dissolves only the more Balsamick and purer part of mixt bodies but nevertheless I chuse rather to prefer the use of Dew or else Rain-water nay and even common water before Spirit of wine for several reasons First because in the evaporation of the liquidity of the Extract drawn by Spirit of wine a great many of the more subtile parts are lost which this dissolvent had volatilized And indeed it cannot be denied but some useful parts will evaporate let us use what dissolvent we please but it is plain there is no such great loss when watry menstruums are used as when Spirit of wine Now we should always prefer such menstruums as are best able to preserve the virtue of the mixt whose Extract we intend to draw The second is because Spirit of wine does always leave some impression of heat and acrimony in the Extracts it draws which the liquors that I use do not do The third is because Spirit of wine is not so convenient a menstruum to dissolve the salts which the Ingredients we use are full of and it is in this salt that their greatest virtue does consist Wherefore we ought to chuse such dissolvents as can best preserve the virtue of mixt bodies and such as are familiar to our nature We must use Spirit of wine to extract
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
doubtless that is the reason why it is the whiter If you distil twelve ounces of Hair you will obtain eight ounces of liquor and volatile salt There will remain in the Retort three ounces and a half of a black matter very spongy and earthy from which no fixed salt can be drawn And by Rectification you will raise into the Head an ounce and seven drachms of a very fine volatile salt separate by a filter three ounces of a black and very fetid oil and by distillation of that which is filtrated you 'l have two ounces of Spirit and nine drachms of phlegm All Volatile salts have much resemblance in their figure smell and taste but that of Vipers is accounted the most active and proper against Poisons those of Harts-horn and Mans Skull are thought to be better than others for the Epilepsie that of mans bloud to purifie the bloud and so of the rest When you Rectifie the Spirit of Vipers or man's Skull or Harts-horn or hair in order to purifie them from their phlegm if you should let the liquor continue distilling longer than is fitting the phlegm will rise after the Spirit but then it separates from the Spirit as water separates from oil the Spirit will be uppermost and a little troubled and whitish but if you keep these two liquors together for a month the whole will mix together and there will be no longer any separation of them at all These effects do happen from this that the Spirit in rising does carry with it some small quantity of Oil which was dissolved in the liquor by reason of salts that it contains This Oil is very volatile it rises with the Spirit and by rendring the Spirit a little oily it hinders at first the phlegm from mixing with it It is likewise this little quantity of oil which makes the Spirit look a little troubled and whitish but when the Spirit and phlegm are kept a good while together they mix and the whole appears like a homogeneous liquor because there being but little oil in the Spirit the phlegm insensibly enters into and incorporates with it wherefore you must take care to separate the Spirit from the phlegm so soon as ever you take the Receiver from the nose of the head in case you have suffered the liquor to distil too long What I have now spoken of does not happen in the Rectification of the Spirit of Ivory and without doubt the reason is that the Ivory does not contain so much Oil as the other parts of Animals Some do prepare a Sudorifick water with Vipers after this manner They do put the Vipers alive into a great earthen body they fit to it a head with its Receiver they lute the joints and distil in a Balneum all that will rise from it but you must take care that the head be well fastned to the body for when the Vipers begin to be heated they leap and fling about with so much violence that they would otherwise throw it down and get out of their stove And then the Artist must have a care of himself and not be too bold for these creatures being irritated would fling about on every side and a bite of theirs at that time would be twice as dangerous as at another This water which rises whilest the Vipers are in their greatest fury is Sudorifick because some Volatile salts have risen and mixed with it You may give of it from a drachm to half an ounce in some proper liquor But to avoid the forementioned danger you might cut the Vipers in pieces before you put them into the body and because these pieces of them do retain life a long time the water will be little the worse for their not being intire When you have drawn as much water from them as you can by the heat of a Balneum you must put the remainder of the Vipers into a Retort and distil it as I have shewn before you will thereby have the Volatile salt the Spirit and the Oyl CHAP. II. Distillation of Vrine and its Volatile Salt THIS Operation is a separation of the Spirit the Volatile Salt and the Oil of Vrine from the phlegm and the earth which it contains Take ten or twelve quarts of Vrine newly made by sound young men evaporate it in an earthen or glass Cucurbite in a Sand-heat until it remains in the consistence of Honey then fit a head with its Receiver and luting the junctures close continue a small fire to distil the rest of the phlegm after which encrease it by little and little and the Spirits will rise in Clouds carrying with them a little Oil and after that the Volatile salt which will stick to the head like Butter-flies continue the fire until there comes no more then unlute the Vessels and separating the Volatile salt put it into a bolt-head pour likewise into it the Spirit that is in the Receiver and fit a blind-head to the bolt-head lute the junctures with a wet bladder and setting your bolt-head in Sand sublime with a small fire all the Volatile salt as I have shewed concerning that of Vipers separate this Salt and keep it in a Viol well stopt It is a good Remedy for Quartan Agues and Malignant Feavers it opens all Obstructions and works both by Vrine and Sweat the dose is from six to sixteen grains in some convenient liquor filtrate that which remains in the bolt-head the Spirit will pass through the Filter whilst a small quantity of black and extraordinary stinking Oil remains which is good to discuss cold Tumors and to give to Hysterical women to smell to You may distil the Spirit in a Sand-heat to separate it from a thick matter that remains at bottom it hath the same virtues as the Salt it is given from eight to twenty drops in some proper vehicle Two drachms of it are mixed with two ounces of Spirit of Wine to rub Paralytical parts with it is likewise used for cold pains and for the Sciatica If the Mass that remains in the Cucurbite should be Calcined and a Lixivium made of it with water a very small quantity of fixt Alkali salt might be gotten from evaporating the water and it hath the same virtues as other Alkali salts Remarks The Vrine of young men is to be prefer'd before others because it contains more Salt It must be newly made and evaporated with a gentle fire that the Fermentation or too much heat may not cause the Volatile Salts to rise with the phlegm The Spirit is only a Volatile salt dissolved in a little phlegm this Volatile salt works more by Vrine than any of the rest but its smell is more offensive This Remedy must never be given in Broth for Broth being to be taken hot the heat evaporates some of the volatile salts before it can well be taken A Volatile salt may be drawn from Vrine after setting it some months Fermenting in a Vessel close stopt and then a third part of the Liquor