imploys it most And among those that resolve the Phaenomena of Nature into the Mechanical Powers of Things or the various Figures Sizes and Motions of the parts of Matter I meet with some as the Epicureans who tell us They cannot frame a Notion of an Incorporeal Substance or Spirit nor conceive how if the Soul were such it could act upon the Body And yet others that seem no less speculative seriously and solemnly professe That they can conceive a clear and distinct Notion of a Spirit which they believe the humane Soul that regulates at least if not produces divers Motions of the Body to be denying on the other side That it can be clearly conceiv'd either that any thing that is onely material can think or that there can possibly be any Vacuum that is Place without any Body in the Universe both which the Epicureans profess themselves not onely to conceive as Possible but to believe as True And thus much Pyrophilus it may suffice to have said in relation to those who would reject God from having any thing to do either in the Production or Government of the World upon this ground that they if you will believe them can explicate the Original and Phaenomena of it without him but 't is not all nor the greatest part of the Favorers of the Atomical Philosophy that presume so much of themselves and derogate so much from God To say therefore something to the more moderate and judicious of that Perswasion we will candidly propose on their behalf the most plausible Objection we can foresee against the Truth we have been all this while pleading for They may then thus argue against us That though the Atomists cannot sufficiently demonstrate from what Natural Causes every particular Effect proceeds and satisfactorily explicate after what determinate manner each particular Phaenomenon is produc'd yet it may suffice to take away the necessity of having recourse to a Deity that they can make out in general That all the things that appear in the World may and must be perform'd by meerly corporeal Agents or if you please That all Natures Phaenomena may be produc'd by the parcels of the great Mass of Universal Matter variously shap'd connected and mov'd As a Man that sees a screw'd Gun shot off though he may not be able to describe the number bigness shape and coaptation of all the Pieces of the Lock Stock and Barrel yet he may readily conceive that the Effects of the Gun how wonderful soever they may seem may be perform'd by certain pieces of Steel or Iâ—on and some parcels of Wood of Gun powder and of Lead all fashion'd and put together according to the exigency of the Engine and will not doubt but that they are produc'd by the power of some such Mechanical Contrivance of things purely Corporeal without the assistance of spiritual or supernatural Agents In answer to this Objection I must first profess to you That I make a great doubt whether there be not some Phaenomena in Nature which the Atomists cannot satisfactorily explain by any Figuration Motion or Connection of material Particles whatsoever For some Faculties and Operations of the reasonable Soul in Man are of so peculiar and transcendent a kinde that as I have not yet found them solidly explicated by corporeal Principles so I expect not to see them in haste made out by such And if a spiritual Substance be admitted to enter the Composition of a Man and to act by and upon his Body besides that one of the chief and fundamental Doctrines of the Epicureans namely That there is nothing in the Universe but Corpus and Inane will thereby be subverted it will appear that an Incorporeal and Intelligent Being may work upon Matter which would argue at least a possibility that there may be a spiritual Deity and that he may intermeddle with and have an influence upon the Operations of things Corporeal But to insist no longer on this let us give a further and direct Answer to the propos'd Objection by representing That although as things are now established in the World an Atomist were able to explain the Phaenomena we meet with by supposing the parts of Matter to be of such Sizes and such Shapes and to be mov'd after such a manner as is agreeable to the Nature of the particular Phaenomenon to be thereby exhibited yet it would not thence necessarily follow That at the fiâ—st production of the World there was no need of a most powerful and intelligent Being to dispose that Chaos or confus'd heap of numberless Atoms into the World to establish the universal and conspiring Harmonie of things and especially to connect those Atoms into those various seminal Contextures upon which most of the more abstruse Operations and elaborate Productions of Nature appear to depend For many things may be perform'd by Matter variously figur'd and mov'd which yet would never be perform'd by it if it had been still left to it self without being at first at least fashion'd after such a manner and put into such a Motion by an Intelligent Agent As the Quill that a Philosopher writes with being dipt in Ink and then mov'd after such and such a manner upon White Paper all which are Corporeal things may very well trace an excellent and rational Discourse but the Quill would never have been mov'd after the requisite manner upon the Paper had not its motion been guided and regulated by the Understanding of the Writer Or rather yet once more to resume our former Example of the Strasbourgh Clock though a skilful Artist admitted to examine and consider it both without and within may very well discern that such Wheels Springs Weights and other Pieces of which the Engine consists being set together in such a coaptâ—tion are sufficient to produce such and such Motions and such other Effects as that Clock is celebrated for yet the more he discerns the aptness and sufficiency of the parts to produce the Effects emergent from them the less he will be apt to suspect that so curious an Engine was produc'd by any casual concurrence of the Parts it consists of and not rather by the skill of an intelligent and ingenious Contriver or that the Wheels and other parts were of this or that Size or this or that determinate Shape for any other reason then because it pleas'd the Artificer to make them so though the reason that mov'd the Artificer to employ such Figures and Quantities sooner then others may well be suppos'd to have been that the Nature of his Design made him think them very proper and commodious for its accomplishment if not better then any other suited to the several Exigencies of it If an Epicurean should be told that a Man after having been for some days really dead became alive again I think it will not be doubted but that he would reject such a Relation as impossible and therefore too manifestly false to be believed by any Man in his Wits And yet
Entireness Plumpness and Freshness as if it were but newly dead And that which concurs to make me hope that some nobler wâ—y may be yet found out for the preservation of dead Bodies is that I am not convinc'd that nothing can powerfully resist Putrefaction in such Bodies but things that are either saline and corrosive or else hot nor that the Embalming Substances cannot be effectually apply'd without ripping open the Body to be preserv'd by them For Josephus Acosta a sober Writer relates That in certain American Mountains Men and the Beasts they ride on sometimes are kill'd with the Winds which yet preserve them from putrefaction without any other help So insensible a quantity of Matter such as it may be may without Incision made into the Body both pervade it and as it were Embalm it I know also a very experienc'd and sober Gentleman who is much talk'd off for curing of Cancers in Womens Breasts by the outward Application of an Indolent Powder some of which he also gave me but I have not yet had the opportunity to make tryal of it And I shall anon tell you that I have seen a Liquor which without being at all either acid or caustick is in some Bodies far moâ—e effectual against Putrefaction then any of the corrosive Spirits of Nitre Vitriol Salt c. and then any of the other saline Liquors that are yet in use We have also try'd a way of preserving Flesh with Musk whose effects seem'd not despicable to us but must not here be insisted on Nor were it amiss that diligent Tryal were made what use might be made of Spirit of Wine for the Preservation of a humane Body For this Liquor being very limpid and not greasy leaves a clear prospect of the Bodies immers'd in it and though it do not fret them as Brine and other sharp things commonly employ'd to preserve Flesh are wont to do yet it hath a notable Balsamick Faculty and powerfully resists Putrefaction not onely in living Bodies in which though but outwardly apply'd it hath been found of late one of the potentest Remedies against Gangrens but also in dead ones And I remember that I have sometimes preserv'd in it some very soft parts of a Body for many Moneths and perhaps I might had done it for divers Years had I had opportunity without finding that the consistence or shape was lost much less that they were either putrifi'd or dry'd up We have also by mixing with it Spirit of Wine very long preserv'd a good quantity of Blood so sweet and fluid that 't was wondered at by those that saw the Experiment Nay we have for curiosity sake with this Spirit preserv'd from further stinking a portion of Fish so stale that it shin'd very vividly in the dark in which Experiment we also aim'd at discovering whether this resplendent quality of the decaying Fish would be either cherish'd or impair'd by the Spirit of Wine whose operations in this tryal we elsewhere inform you of and it would be no very difficult matter for us to improve by some easie way this Balsamical Virtue of Spirit of Wine in case you shâ—ll think it worth while But not to anticipate what I may more properly mention to you elsewhere I shall at present say no more touching the Conservation of Bodies since probably by all these and some other Particulars we may be induc'd to hope so well of humane Industry as not to dispair that in time some such way of preserving the Bodies of Men and other Animals will be found out as may very much Facilitate and Advance too Anatomicall Knowledg Neither is it only by advancing This that the Naturalist may promote the Physiologicall Part of Physick for since the Body consists not only of firme and consistent Parts as the Bones Muscles Heart Liver c. but of fluid ones as the Blood Serum Gall and other Juices And since consequently to the compleat Knowledge of the use of all the Parts we should investigate not only the Structure of the Solid ones but the Nature of the Fluid ones the Naturalist may do much more then hath yet been done towards the perfecting of this Kowledge not only by better explicating what it is in generall makes Bodies either Consistent or Fluid but by examining particularly and especially in a Pyrotechnicall way the Nature of the severall Juices of the Body and by illustrating the Alterations that those Juices and the Aliments they are made of receive in the Stomach Heart Liver Kidneys and other Viscera For although a humane Body being the most admirable Corporeall Piece of Woâ—kmanship of the Omniscient Architect it is scarce to be hop'd but that even among the things that happen ordinarily and regularly in it there will be many which we shall scarce be able to reach with our Understanding much lesse to imitate with our Hands Yet paradventure if Chymicall Experiments and Mechanicall Contrivances were industriously and judiciously associated by a Naturalist profoundly skill'd in both and who would make it his Businesse to explain the Phaenomena of a Humane Body not only many more of them then at first one would think might be made more intelligible then as yet they have been but diverse of them especially those relating to the motions of the Limbs and Blood might be by artificiall Engines consisting as the Patterne not only of Solid but Liquid and Spirituous Parts not ill represented to our very Senses since a humane Body it selfe seems to be but an Engine wherein almost if not more then almost all the Actions common to Men with other Animals are perform'd Mechanically But of the difference of these living Engines from others I may elsewhere have a fitter opportunity to discourse to You. For at present Pyro I have employ'd so much of the little time my Occasions will allow me to spend upon the Treatise I am now writing in making out to you the Usefulnesse of Naturall Philosophy to the Physiologicall Part of Physick that I must not only not prosecute this Subject but must both hasten to mention and to mention the more cursorily its serviceablenesse to the four remaining Parts of the Physitians Art ESSAY II. Offering some Particulars relating to the Pathologicall Part of Physick AND to say something in the next place of Pathology that the Naturalists knowledge may assist the Physitian to discover the nature and causes of severall Diseases may appear by the light of this Consideration that though divers Paracelsians taught as they tell us by their Master do but erroniously suppose that Man is so properly a Microcosme that of all the sorts of Creatures whereof the Macrocosme or Universe is made up he really consists yet certaine it is that there are many Productions Operations and Changes of things which being as well to be met with in the great as in the little world and diverse of them disclosing their natures more discernably in the former then in the latter the knowledge of the nature of
from the grosser and clogging parts in most Mixts then they are by the vulgar ways of Distillation wherein the Concrete is not open'd by previous Fermentation And these nobler parts being incorporated with our Aliments are with them received freely and without resistance carryed into the mass of the Blood and therewith by circulation conveyed to the whole Body where their Operation is requisite And I remember that discoursing one day with an eminently learned and experienced Physitian of the Antinephritical virtue of our common wilde Carret-seed fermented in small Ale he smilingly told me that he found its efficacy but too great For having prescrib'd it to some of his rich Patients who were wont frequently to have recourse to him in their Nephritical distempers after the use of this drink for a pretty while he seldom heard of them any more And for your encouragement Pyrophilus to make tryals of this nature we will adde That though the Seed it self be not over-well tasted yet being fermented in a due proportion with the Liquor we used an Ounce and half of the Seed to a Gallon of the Ale the Drink compos'd of both tasted pleasantly almost like Lemmon beer And that you may the less wonder at the efficacy of fermented Liquors it is worth considering what virtue is ascribed to the bare decoction of that Herb which the French and we call Thé or Té which is much magnified here and as far as my little experience in my self and others of which more hereafter reaches not altogether without cause But among the Chineses and the Japonians it is the common Drink of Persons of Quality by whom it is so highly prais'd that the experienced Tulpius in the new Edition of his Observations tells us That one pound of the Japonical T'chia as the Natives call it is not unfrequently sold for one hundred pounds of Silver which is not to be wondred at if they justly ascribe to it that in those Countrys Men are not subject to the Stone or the Gout and if but one half of the Virtues he there attributes to it be for the most part to be found in it I might when I told you of the variety of Materials not used among us have added one strange Drink which a Chyrurgion that a while since lived at in the East Indies told me he saw much used thereabouts They make it of the raw Flesh of Goats Capons and the like which together with Rice and Molossos or black course Suger they put into a quantity of Water and distil it in an Alimbick till the Liquor be stronger then Brandy as they call common weak Spirit of Wine or of Lees of Vinous Liquors And this Rack as the extravagant Liquor is call'd is often drunk in hot weather and found very comfortable those that use it prizing it much as supposing it draws a nutritive and cherishing virtue from the Flesh as indeed if any quantity of the nobler parts of that do concur to the constituting of the Liquor it may probably be at least to divers Bodies very wholsome in that Country where they finde strong Drinks necessary to recruit their Spirits exhausted by the excessive heat of the Climate As I remember the experienced Bontius in his Medicina Indorum tells us That the Merchants travelling through the scorching Deserts of Arabia Persia or Turkey finde it best to quench their thirst by a draught of the Spirit of Wine or else of the strongest Persian or Spanish Wine And of the great use if not necessity of either Brandy or such other strong and Spirituous Drinks in the hot Climats of the Indies divers intelligent Persons of our own Country have upon their own experience sufficiently satisfied us Nor Pyrophilus is Natural Philosophy able onely to improve our Drinks but the rest of our Aliments also For not to mention that Experience hath assur'd us that by skilfully contriv'd Ovens wherein the heat plays every way about the Bread without yet suffering any of the smoke or steams of the Fire to come at it and wherein what degree of heat you please may be continu'd from first to last better Bread may be bak'd then in our common Ovens where the Bread rests upon the Harth and the heat is continually decaying Not to mention this I say Physiologie can inable us to confer a very grateful taste on very many of the things we eat barely by a skilful and moderate untying and exciting the formerly clogg'd Spirits and other sapid parts contain'd in them It can teach us to make better Bread then is commonly eaten And by discovering to us a better Art of Cookry then Apitius and his Successors have left us and by substituting innocently sapid things instead of those unwholsome ones their deliciousness endears to Men It can teach us to gratifie Mens Palates without offending their healths in preserving of fresh Meats Fruits c. beyond their wonted seasons of duration the Naturalists skill may perform much more then you will readily believe And yet to incline you not to be too diffident in this particular let me inform you That much hath been already perform'd as to the preservation of Aliments even by those that have not troubled themselves to make Philosophical enquiries after the Causes and Remedies of Putrefaction in Bodies but onely have been taught by obvious and daily Observations that the Air doth much contribute to the corruption of some Bodies and the exclusion of Air to the hindring it I remember the inquisitive and learned Mr. Borreel assur'd me some while since That he had in his Country Holland eaten Bisket that was yet good after it had been carryed from Amsterdam to the East Indies and brought back thence again in which Voyage between two and three Years are wont to be spent And to confirm my conjecture of the way of preserving this Bread so long He told me that the curious Merchant whose it was used no other Art then the stowing his Bisket well baked in Casks exactly calk'd and besides carefully lin'd with Tin for the more perfect exclusion of the Air. Adding That to the same end the Biskets were so placed as to leave as little room as possibly might be in the Cask which also was not opened but in case of absolute necessity and then presently and carefully closed again I may elsewhere tell you of an eminent Naturalist a Friend of yours and mine that hath a strange way of preserving Fruits whereby even Goof-berries have been kept for many Moneths without the addition of Sugar Salt or other tangible Bodies but all that I dare yet tell you is That he assures me his Secret consists in a new and artificial way of keeping them from the Air. But it seems more difficult as well as more useful to be able to preserve Meat long without Salt for 't is sufficiently known to Navigators how frequently in long Voyages the Scurvy and other Diseases are contracted by the want of fresh Meat
I have seen great variety of them that have been digg'd sometimes within the compass of a little spot of Ground and the differences of divers of them both as to colour taste consistence and other Qualities have been too great not to make me suspect they were of very differing natures And the true Bolus Armenus and the Terra Lemnia which is now brought us from the Island that gives it that name mark'd with a Seal which makes many call it Terra sigillata though that name be for the same reason apply'd to the Terra Silesiaca and other Medical Earths have been so esteemed both by Ancient and Modern Physitians as well against Malignant Diseases and the Plague it self as against divers other Distempers that 't is the more strange that since the greatest part of those two Earths that are now brought into our Countrys have not as the more skilful complain the true marks of the genuine Earths whose names they bear Physitians have not been more careful to try whether their own Countrys could not furnish them with the like or as good especially in regard some of the few attempts of that nature that have of late times been made may give them much incouragement For not to believe the boasts of the Silesian Johannes Montanus who passeth for the Inventor of the Terra Sigillata Silesiaca Strigoniensis in the Writing he published of the vertues of it That 't is Gold prepared and transmuted by provident Nature into an admirable Medicine I finde that Learned Physitians prefer it before the Lemnian Earth that is now brought from Turky And the experienced Sennertus gives it this commendation Experimentis saith he multis jam probatum est ejus infignes â—sse vires contra pestem febres malignas venenatorum animalium morsus diarrhocan dysenteriam What he adds that the Chymists name it Axungia solis brings into my minde what I shall hereafter have occasion to mention more particularly to you that I had once brought me a certain Earth by a Gentleman that digg'd it up in this or some neighboring Country which though it seem'd but a Mineral Earth did really afford to a very expert tryer of Metals of my acquaintance a not despicable proportion of Gold They have also found in Hungary an Earth which they call Bolus Tockaviensis which is affirmed by Crato in Sennertus to melt in the Mouth like Butter and to have all the other proofs of the true Bolus Armenus and therefore is by that Judicious Physitian preferred before the Modern Bolearmony even that which was brought out of Turky to the Emperor himself and he relates not onely its having succeeded very well against Catarrhs but his having experimentally found it of great efficacy in the Plague that reign'd in his time at Vienna To which I shall adde That a very Learned and Successful English Doctor now dead did some Years since during a great Plague that then rag'd in the City where he liv'd finde a vein of red Earth not very far from that Town and prescrib'd it with very good success in Pestilential Feavers as I was inform'd by an Ingenious Friend of his that us'd to administâ—r it and shew'd me the place where he digg'd it I remember also the experienc'd Chymist Johannes Agricola in his Notes upon what Poppius delivers of Terra Sigillata after having much commended the Terra Silesiaca in divers Diseases and equall'd it to the best of Turky where he had travelled relates one strange thing of it with many Circumstances and in a way as if he spoke upon his own tryal namely That the Spirit of Terra Sigillata by which I think he means the Strigoniensis doth though slowly dissolve Gold as well as an Aq. Regis and that into a red Solution whence in two or three days the Gold will fall of it self into a very fine and subtil Powder And the same Author tells us That he hath seen another Earth digg'd at the Rheinstran not far from Westerwaldt which was more inclinable to white then to yellow which is preferable to the Silesian and gives more Salt then it and dissolves Silver better then other Menstruums since as he saith the Silver may thereby be easily made potable and be prepar'd into a very useful Medicine for the Diseases of the Head And for my part I do not much wonder at the efficacy of these Earths when I consider that divers of them are probably imbu'd as well as dy'd with Mineral Fumes or tincted with Mineral Juices wherein Metals or Minerals may lie as the Chymists speak in solutis principiis in which form having never endured the Fire many of their usefullest parts are more loose and volatile and divers of their Vertues less lock'd up and more dispos'd to be communicative of themselves then they are wont to be in a more fixed or coagulated state or when they have lost many of their finer parts by the violence of the Fire Besides there are several Mineral Bodies which though perhaps they may not be of themselves fit for the Physitians use may by addition of some other convenient Body or by sequestration of the more noxious parts or by some such other Chymical Preparation as may alter the Texture of such Minerals be rendred fit to encrease the Materia Medica As I have known that by a preparation of Arsenick with Salt Peter whereby some of the more volatile and noxious parts are driven away and the remaining Body somewhat fixed and corrected by the Alcali of the Nitre it hath by a farther dulcification with Spirit of Wine or Vinegar been prepared into a kinde of Balsamum fuliginis which wonderfully cured a Physitian of my acquaintance as he himself confess'd to me of dangerous Venereal Ulcers divers of which penetrated even to the Meatus Urinarius which had reduc'd him to great extremity And though Bismutum have not that I know till very lately been used unless outwardly and especially for a Cosmetick hereafter to be taught you yet the Industrious Chymist Samuel Closseus by calcination and addition of Spirâ—t of Vinegar and Cremor Tartari makes two Medicines of it which he highly extols in the Dropsie and to reserve for another place what I have tryed upon Tin-glass a very expert Chymist of my acquaintance doth by preparing it with common Sublimate carry'd up by which I remember it hath afforded a very prettily figur'd Body make it into a white Powder like Mercurius vitae which he assures me he findes in the Dose of a few Grains to purge very gently without being at all as Mercurius vitae is wont to prove violently enough emetick 2. But the Naturalist may adde to the Materia Medica not onely by investigating the Qualities of unheeded Bodies but also by gaining admittance for divers that though well enough known are foreborn to be us'd upon the account of their being of a Poisonous nature for by digestion with powerful Menstruums and some other skilful ways of Preparation the
consequently the weight that presses the lowermost parts close together is considerable But further in divers operations where an actual Fire is requisite it may be hop'd that Knowing Men may discover waies of saving much of the Fire and making Skill perform a great part of the wonted office of heat To obtain the Spirit of fresh Urine you must Distil away near nine parts of ten which will be but Flegm before the Spirit or Volatile Salt will and that scarce without a pretty strong heat regularly rise And there are several Chymist's that to this day make use of no better way of Distiling Urine But he that knows how Putrefaction opens many Bodies may easily save himself the expence of so much Fire For if you let Urine stand well stop'd for eight or ten Weeks the Saline and Spirituous parts will so extricate themselves that the Spirits that before staied behind the Flegm will now even with the gentlest heat rise up first and leave the Flegm behind And on this occasion I shall teach you what I do not know to have been mention'd by any Writer namely That even of fresh Urine without Digestion or Putrefaction I can by a very cheap and easie way make a subtle and penetrant Spirit ascend first even in a gentle heat And I am wont to do it only by pouring Urine how fresh soever upon Quick-lime till it swim some Fingers breadth above it and then distilling it assoon as I please But I did not find upon many trials that this Spirit though even without Rectification very strong and subtle would Coagulate Spirit of Wine like that of putrified and fermented Urine though perhaps for divers other purposes it may be more powerful And here I shall advertise You that whereas I just now took notice that there was a pretty strong Fire requisite to force up the Salt of unfermented Urine out of that part which after the abstraction of the Phlegm remains of the consistance of Honey trial hath inform'd me That the volatile Salt may out of the thick Liquor be obtain'd better and more pure with ease and with a scarce credibly smal heat barely by tempering the Urinous extract with a convenient quantity of good Wood Ashes whereby for a reason elswhere to be consider'd the volatile part of the Salt of Urine is so free'd from the grosser Substance that with strange facility it will ascend fine and white to the top of very tall Glasses But of the differing Preparation of Urine more perhaps elswhere I now proceed to tell you that I think it not unlikely that even Bodies which are more gross and sluggish may by the affusion of such Menstruums as humane Industrie may find out be far more easily either volatiliz'd or unlockt then common Chymists are wont to think For I know a Liquor not very rare among Chymist's by whose help I have often enough distill'd Spirit of Nitre whose distillation requires much about the same violence of Fire with that of Aqua-Fortis even in a moderate heâ—t of Sand and without a naked Fire This Spirit may easily enough be brought over even in a Head and Body and for a Wager I could obtain a little of it without any Fire or outward heat at all And I remember also That having once digested a certain Menstruum for a very short time upon crude Antimony and abstracted it in a very gentle heat of Sand the Liquor not only brought over some of the Antimony in the form of red Flowers swiming in it and united other parts of the Mineral with it self in the transparent Liquor but the gentle heat raised to the top of the Retort divers little Masses of a substance that were very transparent like Amber which were inflammable and smelt and burnt blew just like common Sulphur And yet the Menstruum which was easily again recoverable from the Antimony was no strong Corrosive tasting before it was pour'd on not much unlike good Vinager But besides all the wayes above mentioned of saving the Chymist either Time or Fire or Labour I dispair noâ— that divers others yet unthought on will be in time found out by the Industry of skilful Men taking notice of the nature of things and applying them to Chymical uses as we see that by Amalgamations with Mercury the calcination of Gold and Silver may be much easyer perform'd then by a long violence of Fire And if it be true what Helmont and Paracelsus tell us of their immortal Liquor Alkahest Medicines far nobler and otherwise more difficult to make then those hitherto in use among the Chymist's may be Prepar'd with greater ease and expedition and with far less expense of Fire then the nature of the Mettals and other Concretes to be open'd by it would let a vulgar Chymist suspect However I see no great cause to doubt that there may be Menstruum's found that will much facilitate difficult Operations since not to mention again the Liquor I lately told you would work such a change on Nitre and I might have added on some other compact Bodies 't is very like there may be Menstruum's found that will not be so spoyl'd by a single Operation made with them as our vulgar saline Spirits are wont to be For I have try'd that a Menstruum made by the bare distillation of good Verdigrease will not only draw as I have formerly told you a Tincture of Glass of Antimony or perform some other like Operation for once but being drawn off from the dissolved body or the extraction will again serve more then once for the like Operation upon fresh Materials The fifth and last way Pyrophilus that I intend to mention of lessening Chymical expenses is That the Naturalists may probably find out wayes of preserving some Chymical Medicins either longer or better then those wayes that are usual But of this preservation of Bodies being like as I formerly intimated to have elsewhere further occasion to Treat I shall now only say That the purified Juyces liquid Extracts Robs and other soft Medicaments made of Plants may be Conserv'd far cheaper aswel as better then with Sugar which clogs most Mens Stomacks and otherwise disagrees with many Constitutions in case Helmont say true where he tells us That for a small piece of Money he can for I know not how long preserve whole Barrels of Liquor And a way he intimates of fuming liquors with Sulphur I have allready told you is a very good way of keeping them uncorrupted provided that though he prescribes it not they be six or seven several times seldomer or oftner according to the quantity or nature of the Liquor well impregnated with that embalming Smoak to which purpose it is convenient to have two Vessels to poure from one to the other that whil'st the Liquor is shaking in the one the other may be well fill'd with Smoak whereto I shall only subjoyn this secret which a friend of mine practises in preserving the fumigated Juyces of Herbs as I elswhere
Sizâ—s and Figures of little Bodies imagine they understand the account upon which some Medicines are Purgative others Emetick c. And some Purgative in some Bodies Vomitive in other and both Purgative and Vomitive in most but because they never attentively enquire into it But which is the next thing I have to represent if we duely make use of those fertile and comprehensive Principles of Philosophy the Motions Shapes Magnitudes and Textures of the Minute parts of Matter it will not perhaps be more difficult to shew at least in general that Specificks may have such Operations as are by the judicious and experienc'd ascrib'd to them then it will be for those that acquiesce in the vulgar Principles of Philosophy and Physick to render the true Reasons of the most obvious and familiar operations of Medicines And though the same Objection that is urg'd to prove That a Specifick cannot befriend the Kidnies for Example or the Throat rather then any other parts of the Body lies against the noxiousness of Poysons to this or that determinate part Yet experience manifests that some Poysons do respect some particular part of the Body without equally if at all sensibly offending the rest as we see that Cantharides in a certain Dose are noxious to the Kidnies and Bladder Quicksilver to the Throat and the glanduls thereabouts Strammoneum to the Brain and Opium to the Animal Spirits and Genus Nervosum And if You call to mind what we have formerly deduc'd to make it out That a Humane Body is an Engine and that Medicines operate in it as finding it so we need not think it so strange that there being many Strainers if I may so call them of differing Textures such as the Liver Spleen and Kidnies and perhaps divers local Ferments residing in particular parts and a Mass of Blood continually streaming through all the parts of the Body a Medicine may be quickly by the Blood carried from any one part to any other and the Blood or any Humour mingl'd with it may be as easily carried to the Medicine in what parts soever it be and the Remedy thus admitted into the Masse of Blood may in its passage through the Strainers be so alter'd either by leaving some of its parts there or by having them alter'd by the abovemention'd Ferments or by being associated with some other Corpuscles it may meet within its passage whereby the Size or Figure or Motion of its small parts may be chang'd or in a word it may by some of those many other waies which might if this ESSAY were not too Prolix already be propos'd and deduc'd receive so great an Alteration in reference either to some or other of the Strainers or other firmer parts of the Body or to the distemper'd Blood or some other fluid and peccant matter that it needs not seem impossible That by that time the Medicine crumbl'd as it were into Minute Corpuscles arrives at the part or humour to be wrought upon it may have a notable Operation there I mean Part as well as Humour because the Motion Size or Shape of the Medicinal Corpuscles in the Blood though not by sense distinguishable from the rest of the Liquor they help to compose may be so conveniently qualify'd as to shape bulk and motion as to restore the Strainers to their right Tone or Texture as well as the Blood to its free and Natural course by resolving and carrying away with them such tenacious matter as stuff'd or choak'd up the slender passages of the Strainer or at least Straitned its pores or vitiated their Figure And the same Sanative Corpuscles may perchance be also fitted to stick to and thereby to strengthen such Fibres of the Strainers or such other firmer parts of the Body as may need congruous Corpuscles to fill up their little unsupply'd Câ—vities Meats that are Salt and Taâ—tareous whilst they are whirled about in the Mass of Blood may by the other part of thâ—t Vital Liquor be so diluted and kept asunder so as noâ— to be offensive to any part When they come to be separated by the Parenchyma of the Kidnies from the sweetâ—r parts of the Blood that did before temper and allay them they easily by their Saline pungency offend the tender Ureters and Membranous Bladders of those that are troubl'd with the Stone or Strangurie And perchance 't is upon some such account that Cantharides are more noxious to the Bladder then to other parts of the Body And as Sâ—lt meat thus growes peculiarly offensive to the Reins and Bladder so a Specifick dispos'd to be dissolv'd after a peculiar manner may in the Body either preserve or acquire as to its Minute parts a friendly congruity to the Pores of the Kidnies Liver or other Strainers equally when distemper'd as I formerly observ'd to You that New-milk sweetned with Sugar-candy though it be not wont sensibly to affect â—ny other pâ—rt of the Body nor would have sensibly affected the Kidnies themselveâ— had they not been dâ—sorder'd yet after the tâ—oublesome operation of Cantharides it haâ— a very friendly effect upon the distemper'd Parts Thus a Specifick for one Disease may be resolved in the Body into Minute particles of â—uch Figure and Motion that being fit to stick to other Corpuscles of peccant matter which by their vehement agitation or other offensive qualities diâ—compose the Body and make it Feavouriâ—h may allay their vehement Motion and by altering them as to bigness and shape give them new and innocent qualities instead of those noxious ones they had before Another Specifick may dissolve the Gross and Slimy Humours that obstruct the narrow passages of the Veins as I have observ'd that Spirit of Harts-horn whâ—ch powerfully opens other obstructions and resolves stuffing Phlegm in the Lungs will also though more slowly resolve prepar'd Flowers of Sulphur crude Copper and divers other Bodies and also it may by mortifying the Acid Spirit that oftentimes causes coagulations in the Blood restore that Vital Liquor to its Fluidity and free Circulation and thereby remove divers formidable Diseases which seem to proceed from the Coagulation or Ropinesse of the Blood and on the other side the Minute parts of some Specificks against a contrary Disease may somewhat thicken and fix the two thin and agitated parts of the Blood or of some peccant matter in it by associating themselves therewith as the nimble parts of puâ—e Spirits of Wine and those of high rectify'd Spirit of Urine will concoagulate into Corpuscles bigger and far less Agile And the same Spirit of Wine it self with another Liquor I make will presently concoagulate into a kind of soft but not fluid Substance Nor is it so hard to conceâ—ve that a Specifick may work upon a determinate Part or Humour and let the others alone as if you put for instance an Egge into strong Vinegar the Liquor will operate upon and dissolve all the hard shell and yet leave the tender skin untouch'd And if you cast Coral into
double Oyl the one more light and pure which swims upon the Spirit the other more muddy adust and ponderous which sinks to the bottom of it The use of these Oyls hath by reason of their Fetidness been by most Authors absolutely rejected and even those few that do not altogether reject them forbid their inward use and allow them to be but externally employed But considering Pyrophilus how much of the efficacy both of Plants and Animals is observed to reside in their oleaginous part it seem'd not improbable to me that these Oyls might deserve a better usage then either to be wholly thrown away or confin'd to outward services and therefore having not long since given a Friend of mine some pure yellow Oyl of Man's Blood dissolved in Spirit of Wine to try upon a Patient of his sick of a Hectick Feaver in which Disease I had seen the Spirit of Blood very successful within a few days he brought me woâ—d of the unexpected recovery of his Patient to whom he administred our Medicine that I may not conceal from you that Circumstance in Balsamus Samech made with spirit of Vinegar instead of spirit of Wine the remaining part of this yellow mingled Oyl I keep yet by me to make further tryals with it And that such Oyls may not be lost I have been attempting for I am yet upon my tryals several ways to make them serviceable Some of them that are of a more pure and defecated nature I have which is not unworthy your noting found capable of readily uniting with Spirit of Wine with which they may be allayed at pleasure In others I have separated the finer and more volatile part by drawing them over with a very gentle heat in a Retort half full of Water which will carry over the lighter part of the Oyl with it into the Receiver wherein the Oyl will swim upon it and may be afterwards sever'd from it by a Separating Glass or any other convenient way but I fear that this method though it finely clarifie Oyls may rob them of the best part of the Efficacy they may perchance derive from the latent admixtion of somewhat of the volatile Salt at the bottom of the Retort there will remain a dark and thick substance whose nature I have not yet had opportunity to enquire into Out of some Oyls drawn from unprepared Materials which would not dissolve in spirit of Wine I have by digestion with spirit of Wine drawn much of the scent and taste the spirit probably imbibing some of the finer parts of the Oyl or else associating to it self some volatile salt that yet lay lurking in it For sometimes I have observed Oyls after long keeping to let fall a volatile salt undiscerned in them before Having also sometimes mingled the heavier and lighter Oyls of the same Body with dephlegmated spirit of Wine and in a low Retort drawn over what will rise in a very gentle heat inferiour to that of a Balneum I have found the Spirit of Wine to carry over with it so many of the more subtle and active parts of the Oyl that it was more richly impregnated therewith then you will be apt to expect But of what use this oleaginous Spirit may be in Physick I have not yet had time to consult Experience which I hope will ere long teach me better ways of improving the rejected Oyls we have been speaking of then are those almost obvious ones hitherto mentioned wherein I am very far from acquiescing especially since I cannot but suspect that such active Parts of such Concretes would be found very capable of a great Improvement if we were as skilful to give it them 7. The Terrestrial Substance that remains after the Liquors are drawn of if the Blood have been duely prepared affords but so inconsiderable a quantity of fix'd Salt that unless the Caput mortuum be exceeding copious the Alkali will hardly be worth extracting Besides that if it could be obtain'd in a not despicable quantity I should what ever is pretended very much doubt whether it would be endowed with very extraordinary Vertues the violence of the Fire usually depriving fix'd Salts of the specifick Qualities of their Concretes and even in the first Salt of Serpents themselves I have not discerned other Then the wonted Properties of Alkalizate Salts 8. Because you may sometimes not have the leisure to wait six Weeks for the Preparation of Blood and because oftentimes the occasion of using the Medicines we have been describing may be so hasty and urgent that unless some speedy course to relieve them be taken before the Physick can be prepared the Patients will be dead I think it not amiss Pyrophilus to advertise You That though without any previous Preparation of Blood you should immediately distil it provided an orderly gradation of heat be carefully observed it will yield you a reddish Spirit and besides an Oyl or two a volatile Salt which being rectified are so little inferiour in any Properties discernable by the smell or taste to the Salt and Spirit of predigested Blood that 't is very probable their Efficacy will emulate though not altogether equal that of the more laboriously prepared 9. And because it is difficult to get the Blood of healthy Men and perhaps not so safe to use that of unsound Persons and because many have a strong Aversion and some an Insuperable though groundless abhorrency from Medicines made of Mans Blood I have thought it not amiss to try whether that of some other Animals prepared the same way might not afford us as hopeful Medicines And because the Blood of Deer is chiefly and perhaps not causlely commended by Authors we have handled it according to the foregoing Process and thereby obtained of it a Spirit and Salt and Oyl whose penetrancy and other resemblances makes us hope that they may prove good Succedanea in the defect of those Analogous Remedies drawn from humane Materials which we have been treating of And to this let me Pyrophilus on this occasion annex this Advertisement That though in these Papers and what I have further written of Preparations of this nature I name not any great number of Concretes as having drawn their volatile Salts and Spirits yet I have endeavored in these Discourses to give You in the Instances I insist on so much variety of Examples that either by the Processes therein set down or by Analogy to them You may I suppose be directed with the help of a few tryals to obtain the volatile Salts and Spirits of most Concretes that belong to the Animal Kingdom and that are capable of affording any For by the method we prescribe a little vary according to the exigencies of particular Bodies to be distill'd we have drawn the Spirits Salts and Oyls of Sheeps-blood Eels Vipers c. the latter of which yield a Salt and Liquor which in Italy by divers Learned Men is superlatively extoll'd against Obstructions foulness of the Blood and I know not how
Rerum c. The Contemplation of Nature though it maketh not a â—hysitian yet it fits him to learn Physick FINIS The INDEX to the Second Part. The Second Part Of the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy SECT I. Of its Usefulness to PHYSICK ESSAY I. Containing some Particulars tending to shew the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy to the Physiological part of Physick The advantage of the Knowledg of Nature towards the increasing the Power of Man and its Use as to Health of the Body and Goods of Fortune pag. 3 That in Man's Knowledg of the Nature of Creatures consists his Empire over them 4 That the Discovery of America is owed to the Knowledg of the Loâ—d stones Polarity 5 That the Martial affairs all over the World were altered by the Knowledg of the Nature of Brimstone and Saltpeter ib How prejudicial the mistake of that Aphorism that if teeming Women be let bloud they will miscarry hath been to Femal Patients 6 The interest of this Knowledg to the Happiness and Life â—f Man 7 The enumeration of those Arts to which this Knowledg is profitable ib. The Method or way intended for the ensuing Discourse 8 The Division of Physick into five parts 9 How the Physiological part of Physick is advantaged by the Knowledg of Natural Philosophy ib. That the Anatomical Doctrine of Man's body recâ—ives light from Experiments made on other Creatures ib. Proved by divers Instances as of the finding the Lâ—cteals and Lymphae-ducts first in Bruit Bodies 10 The Experiment of taking out the Spleen in Dogs ib. The same thing done by Fioravanti in a Woman 11 The Respiration of Frogs divers Hours sometimes Daies under water without suffocation ib. What use Aristotle and Galen made of the Dissections of Bruits 11 12 The Anatomy of Man counted now in Muscovy for inhumane and the use of Skeletons for Witchcraft 12 The Use of the comparison of the parts of Humane Body with those of Beasts ib. Illustrated by divers particular Observations 13 Divers Motions and Actions of Frogs after their Hearts were cut out 14 Observations of the motion of a Chicken 's Heart after the Head and other parts were cut off 14 Of the Vivacity of dissected Vipers 16. and Tortoises 17 Whether there be a necessity of the unceasing influence of the Brain to Sense and Motion 17 That the Silkworm-butterfly is capable of Procreation after the loss of its Head 17 That the Redness of the Bloud is not to be ascribed to the Liver proved by the inspection of the Liver of Chickens unhatcht 18 That the loss of a Limb in all Animals is not irreparable ib. That notwithstanding the great Solution and Digestion of Meat in the Stomachs of Fishes no sensible Acidity is found there 19 Experiments concerning the Solution of Meats and their change of Colours by acid Menstruums 20 VVaies of Artificial Drying and preservation of Plants and Insects 22. and more bulky Bodies 23 Particularly the Schemes of divers parts of Humane Body 24 Of the preservation of an Embryo divers Years by Embalming it with Oyl of Spike 25 Instances of men in the American Mountains kill'd and afterwards preserv'd from putrefaction only by the VVind ib. Of the use of Spirit of VVine for the preservation of Bodies from putrefaction 26 That the Examination of the Juices of Humane Bodies by the Art of Chymistry may illustrate their Use and Nature 27 That the Actions which are common to Men with other Animals being perform'd Mechanically the Skill of Mechanicks must be of Use to Physiology· 28 ESSAY II. Offering some Particulars relating to the Pathological Part of Physick That the Naturalists Knowledg may assist the Physitian to discover the Nature and Causes of Diseases 29. Prov'd by generall Reason 30 By particular Instance of the Cause of the Stone in the Kidnies 31 The cause of that Disease illustrated by the Petrifaction of VVood Cheese Moss VVater c. 32 The Origin of Helmont's Offa alba and Paracelsus his Duelech by the mixture of Spirit of VVine and Spirit of Urine and example of the Generation of the Stone 33 That a terrestrious Substance may lurk undiscern'd in limpid Liquors 34 The Vse of Chymistry in explaining the Nature of and aberrations in our Digestions 35 prov'd by a Catalogue of considerable Observations 36 The Salt and Sulphur have more influence in the causation of Diseases then the first Qualities of Heat Cold c. 37 Observations mad upon the Liquor that distends the Abdomen in the Dropsy 38 Observations on the Calculus Humanus 39 Of the changes that may reasonably be thought to happen to our aliments within the Body 43. Illustrated by the Example of Juices out of the Body 42 43 Difference between vulgar and true Chymistry 44 The Use of the Knowledg of Fermentation 44 Of Periodical Effervences in the Blood without Fermentation 44 45 Of the use of Zoology to the Knowledg of Diseases 46 Helmont's Error refuted that the Stone is a Disease peculiar to Man 47 That the Venom of Vipers or Adders consists chiefly in the Rage and Fury wherewith they bite and not in any part of the Body that hath at all times a mortal property 57 A certain Cure for the Biting of Vipers 59 Of external Application of Poisons and letting them into the Veins of Beasts 60 61 Postcript Experiments of conveying Liquid Poisons immediately into the Mass of Blood 62 63 64 65 ESSAY III. Containing some Particulars relating to the Semiotical Part of Physick That the Improvement of the Therapeutical would alter the Prognosticks in the Semeiotical part of Physick 66. An Instance to that purpose in the Peruvian Bark 67 68 and in Riverius's Febrisugum and a New Cure of the Kings Evill 69 That though no Disease should be incurable yet every Disease is not curable in every Patient 70 That the Hope of doing greater Cures then ordinary hath engaged Artists to make profitable Trials 71 Examples of some unexpected and strange Cures 72 73 Examples of the Cures of Cancers 74 An Example of a Cure of one that was born with a Cataract in the Eye 75. and other Examples of Cataracts strangely cured ib. Examples of the Cure of the Dropsie and Gout 76 77 Examples of the Cure of the Stone 78. The use of Persicaria for that Cure 79. Instances in other Medicines for the same Disease 80. The Use and Success of Millepedes 81. The Argument concerning the Incurableness of â—he Stone answered 82. That there may be a Liquor able to dissolve the Stone that may not be corrosive to any other part 83 84 Examples of those who could digest Metals and Glass 85 86 87 The Descriptions of a Menstruum prepar'd from common Bread able to draw Tinctures from pretious Stones Minerals c. 88 Helmont's Arguments from the Providence of God censured 90 The Argument that Paracelsus outliv'd not the 47th Year of his Age answered 90 The efficacy of Paracelsus his Laudanum 91 Butler's great Remedies 92 93 94 ESSAY IV.
disponat disposuerituè ac simul beatitudinem immortalitatemque possideat And having interposed some Lines to prove that the Providence of God is not consistent with his Felicity he addes Quare opinandum est tum cum Mundus procreatus est factos fuisse eos circumplexus convolventium se Atomorum ut nata fuerit haec necessitas quâ circuitus tales obierint And elsewhere in the same Epistle Infiniti says he sunt mundi alii similes isti alii vero dissimiles Quippe Atomi cum sint infinitae ut non multo ante demonstratum est per infinitatem spatiorum alibi aliae ac procul ab hoc ad fabrefactionem Mundorum infinitorum variè concurrunt And least this Epicurean Explication of the Worlds Original should seem to owe all its unsatisfactoriness to its obscure brevity we shall not scruple to give you that elegant Paraphrase and Exposition of it which Lucretius has delivered in his 5th Book De Rerum Natura Sed quibus ille modis conjectus materiai Fundarit Coelum ac Terram Pontique profunda Solis Lunai cursus ex ordine ponam Nam certe neque conciliis primordia rerum Ordine se quaeque atque sagaci mente locarunt Nec quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profectò Sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum Ex infinito jam tempore percita plagis Ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri Omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertentare Quaecunque inter se possent congressa creare Propterea fit ut magnum volgata per aeuum Omnigenos coetus motus experiundo Tandem conveniant ea quae conjuncta repentè Magnarum rerum fiant exordia soepè Terrai maris coeli generisque animantum The Hypothesis express'd in these Verses which please our Author so well that he has almost the same Lines in several other places of his Poem he prosecutes and applies to some particular parts of the Universe in the same 5th Book But whilst he thus refuseth to allow God an Interest in the Worlds production his Hypothesis requires that we should allow him several things which he doth assume not prove As First That Matter is Eternal 2. That from Eternity it was actually divided and that into such insensibly small parts as may deserve the name of Atoms whereas it may be suppos'd that Matter though Eternal was at first one coherent Mass it belonging to Matter to be divisible but not so of necessity to be actually divided 3. That the number of these Atoms is really infinite 4. That these Atoms have an inane Infinitum as the Epicureans speak to move in 5. That these Atoms are endowed with an almost infinite variety of determinate Figures some being round others cubical others hooked others conical c. whereas not to mention before-hand what we may elsewhere object besides against this Assumption he shews not why nor how this Atome câ—me to be Spherical rather then Conical and another Hooked rather then Pyramidal But these Assumptions I insist not on because of two others much more considerable which our Author is fain to take for granted in his Hypothesis For 6ly He supposes his Eternal Atoms to have from Eternity been their own Movers whereas it is plain that Motion is no way necessary to the Essence of Matter which seems to consist in extension For Matter is no less Matter when it rests then when it is in motion and we daily see many parcels of Matter pass from the state of motion to that of rest and from this to that communicating their motion to Matter that lay still before and thereby loosing it themselves Nor has any Man that I know satisfactorily made out how Matter can move it self And indeed in the Bodies which we here below converse withal we scarce finde that any thing is mov'd but by something else and even in these motions of Animals that seem spontaneous the Will or Appetite doth not produce the motion of the Animal but guide and determine that of the Spirits which by the Nerves move the Muscles and so the whole Body as may appear by the weariness and unweildiness of Animals when by much motion the Spirits are spent And accordingly I finde that Anaxagoras though he believed as Aristotle did after him that Matter was Eternal yet he discern'd that the notion of Matter not necessarily including motion there was a necessity of taking in a Mens as he stiles God to set this sluggish Matter a moving And I remember Aristotle himself in one place of his Metaphysicks disputing against some of the antienter Philosophers askes Quonamque modo movebuntur si nulla erit actu causa non enim ipsa materia seipsam movebit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rerum opifex Virtus But though elsewhere I have met with Passages of his near of kin to this yet he seems not to express his Opinion uniformly and clearly enough to engage me to define it or make a Weapon of it And therefore I shall rather proceed to take notice That according to the Epicurean Hypothesis not onely the motion but the determination of that motion is supposed For Epicurus will have his Atoms move downwards and that not in paralel Lines lest they should never meet to constitute the World but according to Lines somewhat inclining towards one another so that there must be not onely motion but gravity in Atoms before there be any Centre of gravity for them to move towards and they must move rather downwards then upwards or side-ways and in such Lines as nothing is produc'd capable of confining them to Which are Assumptions so bold and precarious that I finde some even of his Admirers to be asham'd of them Which will save me the labor of arguing against them and allow me to take notice in the 7th place That this Epicurean Doctrine supposes that a sufficient number of Atoms and their motion downwards being granted there will need nothing but their fortuitous concourse in their fall to give a Being to all those Bodys that make up the World Indeed that the various coalitions of Atoms or at least small Particles of Matter might have constituted the World had not been perhaps a very absurd Opinion for a Philosopher if he had as Reason requires suppos'd that the great Mass of lazy Matter was Created by God at the Beginning and by Him put into a swift and various motion whereby it was actually divided into small Parts of several Sizes and Figures whose motion and crossings of each other were so guided by God as to constitute by their occursions and coalitions the great inanimate parts of the Universe and the seminal Principles of animated Concretions And therefore I wonder not much that the Milesian Thales the first of the Grecian Philosophers as Cicero informs us that inquir'd into these matters should hold that Opinion which Tully expresses in these Words Aquam dixit esse initium rerum Deum autem eam Mentem
of Diseases This is made by the mixture of exquisitely dephlegm'd Spirit of fermented humane Urine with as exactly rectâ—fied Spirit of Wine for upon the confusion of those two volatile Liquors in a just proportion they will both of them as after Lullius Experience hath inform'd us suddenly coagulate into a white Mass which Helmont calls Offa alba and by which he endeavors to declare the procreation of the Duelech for supposing himself to have found in humane Urine a potential Aqua vitae or Vinous Spirit capable of being excited by a putrid Ferment and coagulable by the volatile Salt of the same Urine if there were any volatil Earth lurking in the Liquors That being apprehended by the uniting Spirits and coagulated with them both he supposeth there may emerge from the union of those three Bodies such an anomalous Concretion as he after Paracelsus calls Duelech And thâ—t a subtile Terrestrious Substance may lurk undiscerned even in limpid Liquors may appear not onely in Wine which rejects and fastens to the sides of the conteining Vessel a Tartar abounding in Terrestrious Feculency and in common Urine of healthy Men which though clear at its first emission into the Urinal does after a little rest there let fall an Hypostasis or Sediment which if distill'd before fermentation leaves in the bottom of the Cucurbite an Earthy Substance and commonly some Gravel but even in rectified Spirit of Urine it self I have had opportunity to observe That after very long keeping there hath spontaneously precipitated a Feculency copious enough in proportion to the Liquor that afforded it Nay in an other parcel of Spirit of Urine that hath been kept much longer then that already mention'd we observ'd the other day that not onely there was a Terrestrial residence fallen to the bottom of the Glass but to the sides of it as far as the Liquor reach'd there adhered a great multitude of small Concretions which as far as appeared by looking on them through the Crystal Viol to whose insides they were fastened were no other then little grains of Gravel such as are often found sticking to the sides of Urinals employed by calculous persons To which we might adde an Experiment of ours whereby we are wont almost in a moment by barely mixing together a couple of Liquors both of them distill'd and transparent and yet not both of them salin'd to thick them very notably and permanently insomuch that they seem not to precipitate each other yet having once for curiosity sake distill'd them with a prety strong Fire I obtain'd a great quantity as I remember a fourth of the whole mixture of a blackish Mass that was not onely coagulated and dry but even brittle But of the coagulation of distill'd Liquors such as even Chymists themselves are not wont to look upon as at all dispos'd to coagulation I may elsewhere have a better opportunity to entertain you and therefore I shall forbear to do it now And by this way Pyrophilus doth Helmont if I understand him aright attempt to make out the generation of the Stone in humane Bodys In which Theory though some difficulties do yet keep me from acquiescing yet besides that perhaps what you will meet with by and by about the distillation of the Duelech may make you the less wonder at this explication Besides this I say granting that none of the enumerated ways of Petrescency if I may so speak deserves to be look'd upon as satisfactory yet to give so much as an account not very absurd of a Disease so anomalous and abstruse and hitherto so unluckily explicated by Physitians is perhaps more difficult then it were to give at least a plausible account of divers other Distempers And possibly it may be safely enough affirmed That not onely Physiology in its full extent but that Hand-maid to it which is call'd Chymistry may not a little contribute to clear up the nature of both of the digestions and of those deficiencies or aberrations in them which produce a great part of Diseases especially if we allow what as well Physitians as Spagyrists agree in whether warily enough or not I shall not now dispute viz. That whatever is separable from Bodies by the Fire was as a Constituent Element or Principle pre-existent in them Perhaps I need not minde you Pyrophilus that 't is usual with the meerly Galenical Doctors themselves to explicate the nature of Catarrhs by comparing the Stomach to a seething Pot and the Head to an Alembick where the ascending Vapors being by the coldness of the Brain condens'd into a Liquor sometimes distil upon the Lungs and sometimes fall upon other weakned parts in which explication though for divers reasons I cannot acquiesce yet it may suffice to shew you how little scruple many Learned Men not like to be partial in the Case would make of employing Chymical Operations to illustrate the Doctrine of Diseases And indeed since the Liquors contain'd in the Body abound divers of them with saline or sulphureous parts he that hath been by Chymistry taught the nature of the several sorts of Salts and Sulphurs and both beheld and considered their various actions one upon another and upon other Bodies seems to have a considerable help to discourse groundedly of the Changes and Operations of the humors and other Juices contein'd in the Body which he hath not that hath never had Vulcan for his Instructer He that findes that there may be acid Juices in the Stomach and elsewhere as is frequently evident in the sharp Liquors which many Stomachs cast up and that there are also Sulphureous Salts in the Body as is apparent in Blood and Urine which abound with such He that knows that the Serum that swims upon the Blood out of the Body is by a gentle heat immediatly coagulable into a thick whitish Substance not unlike a Custard and that Chymically analiz'd Blood yields store of volatile and sulphureous but as far as our tryals have hitherto inform'd us no acid saltness He that knows that these animal Salts and Spirits may be so powerful that we have been able with Spirit of Urine or of Harts-horn to make a red Solution of Flowers of Sulphur and that with Spirit of Urine though drawn without violence of Fire we have as we elsewhere more particularly declare dissolved both in a very gentle heat and in a very short time the un-open'd Body of crude Copper so as to make thereof a Solution of a rich deep and ev'n opacous Blew And that we have done almost the like with unrectified Spirit of Mans Blood He that hath as we have done examin'd by Fire especially produc'd by the help of a Burning-glass that limpid Liquor that is to be found in the Limphatick Vessels and hath taken notice of that odde consistence smell crackling and other qualities discernable in it by heat He that observes how acid Liquors loose their acidity by working upon some Bodies as when Spirit of Viniger grows almost insipid upon
in the bodies of Beasts we have been inclin'd to think partly by the having Chymically analyz'd as they phrase it the blood of divers Bruits as Sheep Deer c. and found its Phlegme Spirit Salt and Oyle very like that of humane bloud and partly by our having observ'd in the bodies of severall Bruits not excepting Fishes Wormes Imposthumes and the like some of which seem'd manifestly to spring from such causes as are wont to produce resembling distempers in men and if the acute Helmont had been a more diligent dissector of Beasts he would perchance have escaped the Error he after others run into and into which his Authority hath tempted others to run when he affirm'd that the Stone was a disease peculiar to men for that in the bodies of Beasts especially very Old ones Stones are sometimes to be found not only severall Butchers have assur'd me but you may gather partly from that taken out of an Oxe's Gall which I have formerly mention'd which was about the bignesse of a Wallnut but principally from what I elsewhere deliver'd on purpose to disprove that fond assertion and greater leasure may upon another occasion invite us to mention some pathologicall Observations made in diseased Beasts by which were we not willing to hasten we might now perhaps much confirme what we have propos'd touching the possibility of illustrating by such Observations the nature of some of the Diseases incidenâ— to humane bodies And here we may also consider that there are diverse Explications of particular Diseases or troublesome Accidents propos'd by Physitians especially since the Discoâ—ery of the Bloods Circulation wherein the Compression Obstruction or Irritation of some Nerve or the Distension of some Veine by too much Bloud or some Hinderance of the free Passage of the Bloud through this or that particular Vessell is assign'd for the cause of this or that Disease or Symptome Now in diverse of these cases the Liberty lately mention'd that a skilfull Dissector may take in Beasts to open the Body or Limbs to make Ligatures strong or weak on the vessells or other inward parts as occasion shall require to leave them there as long as he pleaseth to prick or apply sharp liquors to any nervous or membranous part and whenever he thinkes convenient to dissect the Animall again to observe what change his Experiment hath produc'd there such a Liberty I say which is not to be taken in humane bodies may in some cases either confirme or confute the Theories proposd and so put an end to diveâ—se Pathologicall Controversies and perhaps too occasion the Discovery of the true and genuine causes of the Phaenomena disputed of or of others really as abstruse To this let me adde that there is a whole classis of diseases to be met with in Physitians Books which proceed not originally from any internal distemper of the Patient but are produced by some exterior Poyson and are therefore wont to be call'd by Doctors Morbi à veneno orti to the more acurate knowledge of divers of which Diseases Experiments made on Bruits may not a little conduce For though I deny not that some things may be Poysons to Man thâ—t are not so to some Beasts and on the contrary as we have more then once given to a Dog without much harming him such a quantity of Opium as would probably have suffic'd to have kill'd several Men yet the greater number of Poysons being such both to Man and Bruits the liberty of exhibiting them when and in what manner we please to these which we dare not do to him allows us great opportunities of observing their manner of operation and investigating their Nature as our selves have tryed and that sometimes with unexpected events as when lately a Cat ran mad so that her Keeper was fain to kill her upon a large dose of Opium which we caus'd to be given her And on this occasion I shall not scruple to transcribe an Observation out of a Discourse I some years since writ to a Friend about the tuâ—ning Poysons into Medicines because that Treatise I am like for certain reasons to suppress The words as I there finde them are these Before I take leave of Vipers or Adders as some will have those that here in England commonly pass for Vipers it will not be impertinent to tell you That it may be justly doubted whether they be to be reckon'd amongst poysonous Creatures in such a sense as those other venomous Creatures who have in them a constant and if I may so speak gross and tangible Poyson for it may be suppos'd that the venom of Vipers consists chiefly in the rage and fury wherewith they bite and not in any part of the Body which hath at all times a mortal property Thus the madness of a Dog makes his teeth Poysonous which before were not so And Authors of good repute supply us with instances of hurts in themselves free from danger that have been made fatal by a Venom created by the fierceness of the inraged though not otherwise poysonous Creatures that inflicted them And Baccius if I mistake not in his Treatise De Venenis tells us a memorable Story whereof he affirms himself to have been an eye-witness of a Man who was kill'd within three days by a slight hurt received in his left hand from an inraged Dung-hill Cock And that no parts of the Viper have any constant inherent Poyson in them I have been induced to suspect upon this Experiment That dissecting some live Vipers there came in accidentally a strange Dog to whom I gave the Head Tail and Gall which are the parts supposed to contain the Poyson of one of them and the Head and Gall of another wrapt up in meat after which I locked the little Dog up in my own Chamber and watched him but fouÌ„d not that he was sick or offered to vomit at all but onely lap'd up greâ—dily some drink which he espyd in the Room nor was he alone very jocund for divers hours that I kept him in but liked his entertainment so well that he would afterwards when he met me in the Street leave those that kept him to fawn on and follow me And having since related this Experiment to an inquisitive Friend of mine he assured me That to satisfie himself further in this particular he gave to a Dog a dozen Heads and Galls of Vipers without finding them to produce in him any mischievous symptome To which I shall adde That the old Man you know that makes Viper Wine does it as himself tells me by leaving the whole Vipers if they be not very great perhaps for some moneths without taking out the Galls or separating any other part from them in the Wine till it hath dissolved as much of them as it can And though it may seem somewhat improper whil'st we are discoursing of Poysons to insist on a remedy against them yet the mention of Vipers recalling into my minde a memorable Experiment which I tryed
of the chief Ingredients may be rather impaired then improved As we see that crude Mercury crude Nitre and crude Salt may be either of them safely enough taken into the Body in a good quantity whereas of sublimate consisting of those three Ingredients a few Grains may be rank Poyson As for those fam'd Compositions of Mithridate Treacle and the like though I cannot well for the mention'd Reasons commend the skill of those that first devised them and though I think that when one or two Simples may answer the same Indications they may for the same Reasons be more safely employed Yet I would by no means discommend the use of those Mixtures because long experience hath manifested them to be good Medicines in several cases But 't is one thing to employ one of these Compositions when tryal hath evinced it to be a lucky one and another thing to think it fit to rely on a huddle of Ingredients before any tryal hath manifested what kinde of Compound they will constitute And in a word though I had not the respect I have for Matthiolus and other famous Doctors that devised the Compositions whereinto Ingredients are thrown by scores if not by hundreds yet however I should not reject an effectual Remedy because I thought that it proved so rather by chance then any skill in the Contriver And I think a wise Man may use a Remedy that scarce any but a Fool would have devis'd Another thing upon whose account the Naturalist whom we here suppose an expert Chymist may assist a Physitian to lessen the expensiveness of his Prescriptions is by shewing That in very many Compositions several of the Ingredients and oftentimes the most chargeable whether they be proper or no foâ— the Disease are unfit for the way of management prescrib'd and consequently ought to be left out I need not tell you that since Chymistry began to flourish amongst us very many of the Medicines prepared in Apothecaries Shops and commonly the most chargeable are distill'd Waters Spirits and other Liquors And he that shall survey the Books and Bills of Physitians shall finde that very few perhaps excepted the most usual Prescription is to take such and such Ingredients for the most part numerous enough and pouring on them either Water or Wine if any Liquor at all to distil them in Balneo rarely in Ashes or Sand. But I confess I have not without wonder and something of indignation seen in the Prescriptions of Physitians otherwise eminently Learned Men and even in the publick Dispensatories I know not how many things ordered to be distill'd with others in Balneo which in that degree of heat will yield either nothing at all as the fragments of Precious Stones Leaves of Gold prepar'd Pearl c. Or if they do yield any thing for that hath not been yet that I know of evinced do probably yield but a little nauseous Phlegm or at least some few loose parts far less efficacious then those that require a stronger heat to drive them up such are Sugar Raysins and other sweet Fruit Bread Harts-horn Flesh prepar'd by Coction c. which though wont to be thrown away with the Caput Mortuum oftentimes there retain their pristine Texture aâ—d Nature or at least are almost as much more considerable then that which they yielded in Distillation as a boyl'd Capon is then the Liquor that sticks to the Cover of the Pot. And though as to some of these Ingredients it may be thought that they may yield even in Balneo some of their useful parts yet this can with any probability be suppos'd but of some of such Ingredients And even as to them it is but suppos'd that they may yield Something in so milde a heat and how that Something will be qualified is but presum'd at least by the Analogy of the Experiments vulgarly made there seems so small cause to exspect that these more fix'd Ingredients will adde half so much to the vertue of the Medicines as they will to the cost especially since though it could be prov'd or were probable that fix'd Substances may communicate their vertues to Wine or Water yet it would not follow that those impregnated Liquors distilled in Balneo will carry those vertues with them over the Helm All which I have more largely prov'd in another Discourse where I shew both that the nobler parts of many Ingredients wont to be distill'd in Balneo do commonly remain in the Caput Mortuum and that 't is very unsafe to conclude always the Vertues of distill'd Liquors from those of the Concrets that afforded them But there is another way of putting unfit Ingredients into Medicines by confounding those in one Composition which though perhaps they might apart be properly enough employed do when mixed destroy or lock up the Vertues of one another and of this fault even famous Chymists themselves are but too often guilty I know not how many Processes I have met with wherein saline Substances of contrary natures are prescrib'd to be mingled as if because they were all of them saline they must be fit to be associated whereas 't is evident to any Man â—hat considers as well as employs the Operations of Chymistry that there are scarce any Bodies in the World betwixt which there is a greater contrariety then betwixt acid Salts and as well those that the Chymists call volatile as the Spirits and Salts of Harts-horn Blood Flesh and the like as those others which are made of Incineration as Salt of Tartar and of all burnt Vegetables So that oftentimes it happens that by an unskilful Mixture two good Ingredients are spoil'd as when Vinegar Juice of Lemmons Juice of Barberies and the like are prescrib'd to be distill'd with other Ingredients whereof the Salt of Wormwood or some other Plant makes one for then the acid and alcalizate Salts working upon one another grow more fix'd and yield in Balneo but a Flegm and so Spirit or Urine which is highly volatile and Spirit of Salt which is also a distill'd Liquor being mingled together will by their mutual Operation constitute a new thing which in such a heat as that of a Bath will yield a Flegm leaving behinde the nobler and active Parts concoagulated into a far more fix'd Substance much of the nature of Sal Armoniack And indeed where Salts especially active ones are made Ingredients of Mixtures unless they be skilfully and judiciously compounded it often happens that they spoil one another and degenerate into a new thing if they do not also spoil the whole Composition and of divers useful Ingredients compose one bad Medicine CHAP. V. ANother way by which the Naturalist skill'd in Chymistry may help to lessen the chargeableness of Cures is by shewing that as to divers costly Ingredients wont to be employ'd in Physick there hath not yet been sufficient proof given of their having any Medical Vertues at all or that at least as they are wont to be exhibited either crude or but
slightly prepared in Juleps Electuaries c. there is not any sufficient evidence to perswade us that their efficacy is as much greater then that of many cheap Ingredients as their price is I am not altogether of their minde that absolutely reject the internal use of Leaf-Gold Rubies Sapphyrs Emerauds and other Gems as things that are unconquerable by the heat of the Stomack For as there are rich Patients that may without much inconvenience go to the price of the dearest Medicines so I think the Stomack acts not on Medicines barely upon the account of its heat but is endow'd with a subtle dissolvent whence so ever it hath it by which it may perform divers things not to be done by so languid a heat And I have with Liquors of differing sorts easily drawn from Vegetable Substances and perhaps unrectified sometimes dissolv'd and sometimes drawn Tinctures from Gems and that in the cold But though for these and other Considerations I do not yet acquiess in their Reasons that laugh at the administration of crude Gems c. as ridiculous yet neither am I altogether of their Adversary's minde For though I deny not that the Glass of Antimony which looketh like a kinde of Gem or Ruby will easily enough impart to Liquors an emetick Quality yet I know too there is great odds betwixt Ruby's and other Gems which will endure violent Fires and remain undissolved in divers strongly corrosive Liquors and the Glass of Antimony which is a Body so far less compact and fix'd that Spirit of Vinegar it self will work upon it and a strong Fire will in no long time dissipate it into smoke But that which I chiefly consider on this occasion is That 't is one thing to make it probable that 't is possible Gold Ruby's Sapphyrs c. may be wrought upon by a humane Stomack and another thing to shew both that they are wont to be so and that they are actually endow'd with those particular and specifick Vertues that are ascrib'd to them Nay and over and above that these Vertues are such and so eminent that they considerably surpass those of cheaper Simples And I think that in Prescriptions made for the poorer sort of Patients a Physitian may well substitue cheaper Ingredients in the place of these precious ones whose Vertues are not half so unquestionable as their Dearness What strange Excellency there may be in the Aurum Potabile made by a true Adeptus or by a Possessor of the Liquor Alcahest I shall not now dispute not knowing what powerful and radical Dissolvents the profound skill of such Men if any such there be may furnish them with to open the Body of Gold But as for the attempts and practices of the generality of Chymical Physitians to make Gold potable besides that their attempts to make their Solutions volatile succeed so seldom that even Learned Physitians and Chymists have pronounced the thing it self unfeasible I confess I should much doubt whether such a potable Gold would have the prodigious Vertues its Encomiasts ascribe to it and expect from it For I finde not that those I have yet met with deliver these strange things upon particular Experiments duly made but partly upon the Authority of Chymical Books many of which were never written by those whose Names they bear And others I fear commend Aurum Potabile prepared after another-guess manner then that we are now speaking of partly upon a presumption that if it be made volatile it must be strangely unlock'd and exalted to a meer Spiritual Nature and partly upon rational Conjectures as they think them drawn from the nobleness and preciousness of Gold But for my part though I have long since bethought my self of a way whereby I can in a short time and a moderate Fire make my Menstruum bring over cruâ—e Gold in quantity sufficient to make the Liquor look at the first or second Distillation of a high golden colour yet finding that I could by an easie Art quickly recover out of this volatile Liquor a corporal and malleable Gold I dare not brag that my Tincture as an Alchymist would call it must needs do strange feats because there is so noble a Mettal brought over in it And if this or other preparations of Aurum Potabile prove good Medicines it would be further enquired whether the Vertues may not in great part be rather attributed to the Menstruum then the Gold that requiring a very subtile Liquor to volatilize it or to the association of the Corpuscles of the Gold with the saline Particles of the Menstruum into a new Concrete differing enough from Gold though never so well open'd And as for the nobleness and pretiousness of this Metal That depends upon the Estimation of Men whence in America the Indians that abounded with it had not such a great value for it And in divers Countries at this day it is postponed to Iron or to Copper and hath rather a Political if I may so speak then a Natural Vertue Nor will it follow that because it is the fixedst and pretiousest of Metals that therefore it must be an admirable Medicine For we see that Diamonds though they be the hardest of Bodies and very fix'd ones and in much greater esteem caeteris paribus then Gold are yet so far from being accounted highly Medicinal that they are commonly though perhaps not so deservedly reckon'd among Poysons But I see I have digress'd That which I chiefly aim'd at being to inculcate that whether Gold and Gems and the like pretious Ingredients may be good Medicines or no 't were a good work to substitute cheap ones for the poorer sort of Patients and that Physitians are much to blame who prize Simples as Drugsters do according as they are brought from remote Countries and are hard to be come by and cannot imagine that what doth not cost much Money in the Shops can do much good in the Body as if God had made Provision onely for the Rich or those People that have Commerce with China or the India's whereas indeed it may oftentimes happen that what the Chymists call their Caput Mortuum and perhaps throw away as an useless Terra Damnata may have as great Vertues as those nobler Parts as they call them which they have extracted from it and a despâ—sed Simple nay even an Excrement or an Infect may in some cases prove nobler Remedies then those that Men call and think very noble Bodies not to say then I know not how many Extracts and Quintescences I shall not trouble you with many Instances to prove this Doctrine having more fully discoursed of it in one part of another Treatise But yet some Instances I suppose you will here expect and therefore I shall present you with a few of those that at present come into my minde When the Distillation of Aqua fortis is finished the Caput Mortuum as deserving that name is wont by common Distillers to be thrown away and I have seen
whole heaps of it thrown by as useless by those that make Aqua fortis in quantity to sell it And yet this despised Substance doth in common Water it self yield a Salt which being onely depurated by frequent Solutions and Filtrations is that famous Panacca Duplicata or Arcanum Duplicatum which that great Virtuoso and knowing Chymist The Duke of Holstein whose name it also beareth thought worth purchasing at the rate of Five hundred Dollars and of which the Princes experienced Physitian thus writes to the Industrious Schroder Mille experimentis salis hujus Efficaciam Aula nostra comprobavit in melancholicis affectibus febribus quibuscunque continuis intermittentibus calculo scorbutâ— c. Quin somnuÌ„ conciliasse praesertim in Melancholicis non semel notavimus Dosis à scrup 1. ad scrup 2. Libras aliquod quotannis absumimus And another very skilful Physitian that frequented that Excellent Princes Court confirm'd to me the same Medicin's diuretick and deoppilative Vertues But upon my own Experience I can say little of it having casually lost a great quantity I caus'd to be prepar'd to make tryal with before I had opportunity to employ it But whereas in the Caput Mortuum of Aqua fortis there remains pretty store of easily soluble Salt In the Caput Mortuum of Vitriol when not onely all the Oyl is forc'd away by the Fire but all the fix'd Salt is exactly separated by Water There seems to remain nothing but a worthless Terra Damnata And yet 't is of this thâ—t as I shall teach you ere long I make those Colcotharine Flowers which are possibly a nobler Medicine then either the Oyl the Spirit or the Salt of Vitriol As for the Bezoar-stone which is so often prescrib'd by Physitians and so dearly paid for by Patients the experienc'd Bontius a very competent Witness in this case and whose account of the manner of its generation agrees the best of any I have seen with that I receiv'd from an Intelligent Person that was employ'd into Persia by the late King hath in one place a Passage concerning it and elsewhere writes such things of the Stone cut out of a Mans Bladder though that whil'st crude be despisâ—d as a thing vile and useless in Physick as may be justly applicable to our present purpose Caeterum saith he speaking of the Bezoar-stone quantum ad hyperbolicas hujus lapidis virtutes facultates portentosas non tantos in eo mille experientiis edoctus inveni And elsewhere speaking of those contemptible and excrementitious Stones that are found in humane Bladders Nil pooro saith he de his lapidibus addo ne videar eos elevare lithotomos monere ut vel cum periculo plures mortales secent Hoc certe compertum habeo lapidem in vesica hominis repertum urinam sudores probe ciere quod tempore ingentis illius pestis quae Anno 1624 1625 Leydam patriam meam reliquas Hollandiae Civitates miserandum in modum vastabat in penuriâ— lapidis Besoartici nos exhibuisse memini sudorificum ausiâ—â— dicere melius excellentius invenisse c. Soot is generally look'd upon as so vile a thing that we are fain to hire Men to carry it away and yet as I elsewhere shew that 't is a Body of no ignoble Nature so I must here tell you that 't is no unuseful one in Physick And not to mention that Riverius commends it crude to the quantity of a Drachme in Plurisies I have try'd with the Spirit of it well drawn some things that make me look upon it as a considerable Liquor And I know by their own confessions that some Medicines even of eminent Physitians that pass under other Names have the Spirit of Soot for their principal Ingredient I knew a not unlearned Emperick who was exceedingly cry'd up for the Cures he did especially in difficult Distempers of the Brain by a certain Remedy which he call'd sometimes his Aurum Potabile and sometimes his Panacaea and having obtain'd from this Man in exchange of a Chymical Secret of mine he was greedy of the way of making this so celebrated Medicine I found that the main thing in it was the Spirit of Soot drawn after a somewhat unusual but not excellent manner in which Spirit Flowers of Sulphur were by a certain way brought to be dissolv'd and swim in little drops that look'd of a golden colour You will easily grant Pyrophilus that there are not any Medicines to be taken into the Body more cheap and contemptible then the Excrements of Men and Horses and then Insects And yet that even these want not considerable Medical Vertues we elsewhere shew And not to meddle with such nasty things as the grosser sort of humane Excrements though they outwardly apply'd either in Powder or otherwise do sometimes perform strange things the Juice of Horse-dung especially of Stone-horses being strongly express'd after the Dung hath been awhile steeped in Ale or some other convenient Liquor to facilitate the obtaining the Juice and to afford it a Vehicle doth oftentimes so powerfully relieve those that are troubled with the stoppage of Urine with Winde Stitches and even with Obstructions of the Spleen and Liver that You Pyrophilus and I know a great Lady who though very neat and very curious of her Health and wont to have the attendance of the skilfullest Physitians scruples not upon occasion to use as I have known her do in Silver Vessels this homely Remedy and prefer it to divers rich Cordials and even to what some Chymists are pleas'd to call Essences or Elixirs And with the same Remedy very many poor People were cur'd of the Plague it self when it lately swept away so many thousands in Ireland and the Doctors with the Patients as I was assur'd by a Person who cur'd so many as to invite men to secure themselves that assistance by refusing the Party the liberty to leave the Town But to adde that upon the by this Person in exchange of a Secret of mine confess'd to me That the Arcanum which had cur'd such numbers and to which the Juice of Horse-dung was a Succedaneum was onely a good Dose of the Powder of fully ripe Ivy-berries which did usually as also the Horse-dung work plentifully by Sweat and which I presently remembred to be one of those few things that Helmont commends against the Plague The Medical Vertues of Man's Urine both inwardly given and outwardly apply'd would require rather a whole Book then a part of an Essay to enumerate and insist on But referring you to what an industrious Chymist hath already collected touching that subject I shall now onely adde That I knew ancient Gentlewoman who being almost hopeless to recover of divers Chronical Distempers and some too of these abstruse enough was at length advised instead of more costly Physick to make her Morning-draughts of her own Water by the use of which she strangely recovered and is for ought I know
long and equal as a thing of much greater moment both as to Physick and Philosophy then Chymists are wont to think the powerful effects of constant and temporate heats being as yet known to few save those that have made tryal of them And with Lamp Furnaces well ordered divers things may be done in imitation of nature some friends of mine having as several of them assure me in such Furnaces brought Hens egges to manifest Animation That also Furnaces may be so built as to save much of the Laborants wonted attendance on them may appeare by the obvious invention of Athanors or Furnaces with Towers wherein the Fire is for many Hours perhaps for twenty-foure or forty-eight supply'd with a competent proportion of Coales without being able to burne much faster then it should And that in many cases the labour of Blowing may be well spar'd and the annoyance of Mineral fumes in great pâ—rt avoyded by an easie contrivance is evident by those Furnaces which are blown by the help of a Pipe drawing the Air as they commonly speak either at the top as in Glaubers fourth Furnace or at the bottom as for want of room upwards I have sometimes tryed To which may be added that the casting of the Matters â—o be prepar'd upon quick Coals as Glauber prescribes in that which he calls his first Furnace is in some cases a cheap and expeditious way of preparing some Minerals though his method of making Spirit of Salt in that Furnace would not succeed according to his promise with me and some of my acquaintance And there are other more commodious Contrivances by casting some things upon the naked Fire which invites me to expect That there will be several good Expedients of employing the Fire to Chymical operations that are not yet made use of nor perhaps so much as dream'd of And as Furnaces so the Vessels that more immedâ—ately contain the Thing to be prepar'd are questionless capable of being made more durable and of being better contriv'd then commonly they are Good use may be made of those Earthen Retoâ—ts that are commonly call'd Glauber's second Furnaces in case they be made of Earth that will well endure strong Fires and in case there be a better way to keep in the Fumes then that he proposes of melted Lead which I hâ—ve therefore often declin'd for another as having found it lyable to such inconveniences as I elsewhere declare But for Materials that are cheap and to be distill'd in quantity as Woods Harts-horn c. the way is not to be despis'd and is as we may elsewhere have occasion to shew capable of improvement though in many cases this kinde of Vessel is inferior to those tubulated Retorts that were of old in use and mentioned by Basilius Valentinus and from which Glauber probably desum'd that which we have been speaking of The utility of the way of sealing Glasses hermetically and of the Invention that now begins to be in request of stopping the Bottles that contain corrosive and subtle Liquors with Glass-stopples ground fit to their Necks instead of Corks together with some other things not now to be mention'd keep me that I scarce doubt but that if we could prevail with the Glass-men and the Potters to make Vessels of Glass and Earth exactly according to directions many things in Chymistry might be done better and cheaper then they now are and some things might be then done that with the forms of Vessels now in use cannot be done at all And if that be true which we finde related in Pliny and with some other Circumstances in Dion Cassius of a more ingenious then fortunate Man who about his time was put to death for having made malleable Glass as the truth of that Story if granted would shew the retriving that Invention a thing not to be despair'd of So he that could now Chymistry is so cultivated finde again the way of making Glass malleable would be in my Opinion a very great Benefactor to Man-kinde and would enable the Virtuosi as well as the Chymists to make several Experiments which at present are scarce practicable And some Chymists would perhaps think this attempt more hopeful if I tell them first that I remember Raymund Lully expresly reckons it among three or four of the principal Vertues he ascribes to the Philosophers Stone that it makes Glass malleable and then that an expert Chymist seriously affirm'd to me that he met with an Adeptus who among other strange things shew'd him a piece of Glass which the Relator found would endure and yield to the Hammer But what my own Opinion is concerning this matter and what are the uncommon Inducements I have to be of it I must not here declare And on this occasion I remember I have seen an Instrument of Tin or Pewter for the drawing of Spirit of Wine which you know is one of the chargeablest things that belong to Chymistry so contriv'd that whereas in the ordinary way much time and many rectifications are requisite to dephlegm Spirit of Wine one distillation in this Vessel will bring it over from Wine it self so pure and flegmless as to burn all away And I remember that the ancient French Chymist in whose Laboratory I first saw one of these Instruments told me That 't was invented not by any great Alchymist or Mathematician but by a needy Parisian Chyrurgion And now I speak of Spirit of Wine I shall adde That as the charges of Chymistry would be very much lessned if such ardent Spirits could be had in plenty and cheap so I think it not improbable that in divers places there may be found by Persons well skil'd in the Nature of Fermentation other Vegetable Substances far cheaper then Wine from which an inflammable and saline Sulphureous Spirit of the like vertue for dissolving resinous Bodies drawing Tinctures c. may be copiously obtain'd For not only 't is known that Sydar Perry and other Juyces of Fruits will afford such a Spirit and that most Graineâ— not very unctuous as Barley Wheat c. will do the like but other Berries that grow wild as those of Elder will yield a Vinous Liquor And in the Barbada's they make a kind of Wine even of Roots I mean their Mobby which they make of Potatos as I have also for curiosity sake made Bread of the same Roots nay even from some sorts of Leaves such a Liquor may be obtain'd For I have observed Roses well fermented to yield a good Spirit very strongly tasted as well as inflammable And as to the Preparing of pure Spirit of Wine it self I know wayes and one of them cheap that may exceedingly shorten the time and pains of dephlegming it but that being to be done otherwise then by any peculiar contrivance of Furnaces or Glasses I reserve it for a fitter place in one of the following Essays And as more expedient and thrifty wayes then the vulgar ones of making Chymicall Furnaces and Vessels may be devis'd so
speaks upon his own experience That he had a Ring made of a Metalline substance by him called Electrum which by his description seems to be a mixture of all the Mettals joyn'd together under certain Constellations which was of far greater Vertue then this of Helmont For hoc loco sayes he non possum non indicare admirandas quasdam vires virtutesque electri nostri quas fieri his nostris oculis vidimus adeoque cum bona veritatis conscientia proferre attestarique possumus Vidimus enim hujus generis annulos quos qui induit hunc nec spasmus convulsit nec Paralysis corripuit nec dolor ullus torsit similiter nec apoplexia nec epilepsia invasit Et si annulus hujusmodi Epileptici digito annulari etiam in paroxysmo saevissimo insertus fuit remittente ilico paeroxismo aeger à lapsu ilico resurrexit c. But to take notice of some other outward Remedies To our present Theme belongs that noble Cure performed by the Famous and experienced Fabritius ab Aquapeâ—dente who tells us That he Cured a man of a Scirrhus Lienis and a Dropsy by the long use of Sponges moistned with strong common Lime Water and then expressed and worne upon the Spleen notwithstanding the Muscles of the Abdomen and all the other parts that ly betwixt the applyed Spong and the part affected And to this we may adde the strange Cures mention'd by Kircherus and confirmed to me by a Learned Eye witness to be frequently performed of very dangerous Diseases in that Cave neer Rome where the Patients being exposed stark naked and tyed Hand and Foot upon Beds of Straw and being by the Sulphureous vapour of the place and sometimes their own fear cast into a sweat are lick'd well by a great number of peculiar kind of Serpents that inhabit that Grotta Moreover We oftentimes see Agues Cured by Amulets and Applications to the Wrists And I my self was about two Years since strangely Cured of a violent Quotidian which all the wonted Method of Physick had not so much as abated by applying to my Wrists a mixture of two handfuls of Bay-Salt two handfuls of the freshest English Hops and a quarter of a Pound of blew Currants very diligently beaten into a brittle Mass without the addition of any thing moist and so spread upon Linen Cloth and tyed about the Wrists And with the same Remedies which yet we have observed sometimes to fail have divers others been cured both of Quotidian and Tertian Agues Nay an Eminent Physitian gave me lately thanks for the great Effects he had found of it even in continual Feavers And here Pyrophilus I shall not scruple to acquaint You with my having sometimes wished That Physitians had been a little moâ—e curious to make Observations and Tryals of the distinct Operations of various Bodies outwardly applyed For I consider that in some of them the subtle Corpuscles which seem to insinuate themselves into the Pores of the Body and into the Mass of Blood with little or no alteration have much the like Operations with the Body whence they exhale taken in at the Mouth As we see in some Preparations of Sulphur which have like Vertues inwardly given and outwardly applyed and more manifestly in Cantharides which I have found by external application to work strangly upon the Bladder as that they excoriated it when taken into the Body yet more manifestly in Quick-silver which by inunction may be made as well to Salivate as if it were swallow'd down And an eminent Physitian lately complain'd to me That washing a Childs scabby Head with a Decoction of Tobacco to kill and dry up the Scabs the Boy was made thereby both sick and drunk And Learned Men assure us That by some Catharticks outwardly applyed those may be purg'd that will not swallow Physick But other Medicines there are which before they get into the Mass of Blood are much alter'd either in straining through the Flesh and Membranes of the Body or in the Digestions they pass through in the Stomack and elsewhere And these may have very differing Effects inwardly given and outwardly applyed as in the formerly mention'd instance of Hops Currans and Salt neither any of the Ingredients inwardly given nor the mixture hath been that I know of noted for any Febrifugal Vertues So likewise Turpentine and Soot that inwardly taken are good for quite other Diseases as Plurisies and Obstructions of the Kidneys outwardly applyed are the main Ingredients of Pericarpiums extoll'd against Agues And Mille-folium or Yarrow besides the Vertues it hath inwardly against Diseases of quite other Natures being worn in a little Bag upon the tip of the Stomack was as Himself confess'd to me the Secret against Agues of a great Lord who was very curious of Receipts and would sometimes purchase them at very great Rates And a very famous Physitian of my acquaintance did since inform me That he had used it with strange success I know also a very happy Physitian who assures me That he hath very often cured both in himself and others the Chilblains when they come to be broken by barely strowing on the sore parts the fine powder of Quinces thinly slic'd and dryed And who knows what unexpected Operations divers other Bodies may have when outwardly applyed if various Trials of that Nature were skilfully made especially since we see that for reasons elsewhere to be considered some Bodies seem to have quite contrary Operations when outwardly applyed and inwardly taken For we see that Spirit of Wine does in several cases allay the inflammation of the external parts which given inwardly would quickly inflame the body And our often commended Piso speaking of a choise Remedy for those Distempers of the Eyes that used to trouble Men in Brasil addes Idem quoque praestat manipahera ex radice Mandihoca quae licet pota venenosa habeatur as we formerly noted out of his and other Testimonies oculis tamen prodest visumque emendat And if the Simples to be outwardly applied be skilfully prepar'd That may much vary and improve their operations As we see that Vitriol which is made of Copper or Iron corroded by and Coagulated with Acid Salts hath outwardly divers Vertues which crude Copper has not either outwardly or inwardly And Gold Dâ—ssolved in Aqua Râ—gis and precipitated vvith Oyle of Tartar is invvardly as far as I can discover gently Purgative yet the same Aurum fulminans being calcin'd vvith tvvice or thrice it 's weight of Flovvers of Brimstone till the Flores be burnt away is known to be much commended by Chymists and others for a Diaphoretick But though as to any outward Vertues of the same Powder Physitians and Chymists are wont to be silent yet probably it may have very great ones as well as quite differing from those it has being taken at the Mouth For I know a Person that being grievously tormented with exulcerated Haemorrhoides a very expert Chymist of my acquaintance not
Sister then she was that took the Medicine And the same Author tells us of one Dr Pfeil an eminent Physitian who was wont when he had a mind to be Purged to goe into some Apothecaries shop where Electuaries electively purging were preparing to which having a while smelt they would by their Odour after his return home work with him six or seven times as if he had swallowed the Medicine it self And Henricus ab Heer in the twenty ninth of his formly commended Observations tells us Of a Woman that not only was wont to be copiously purg'd by drinking Bief-broth but having by a fall broken her Leg us'd no other Cathartick then the bare Odor of that sort of Broth. And very Observable to our purpose is the operation of the Air all along the ridg of the high mountaine in Peru called Pariacaca of which the Learned Jesuite Joseph Acosta relates That though he went as well prepared as he could to withstand the Operations usually produc'd in Travails by that piercing Air yet when he approached to the top of the Mountain he was notwithstanding all his Provision surpriz'd with such fits and pangs of striving and casting as he thought he should cast up his Heart too having after meat Phlegme and Choler both yellow and green in the end with over striving cast up Blood and continued thus sick for three or four houres 'till he had passed into a more temperate Air then that of the top of the Mountain which runn's about 500 Leagues and has every where though not equâ—lly this discomposing property having operated upon some of his companions as well downwards as upwards A greater proof of the power of Steams upon the Body may be taken from the propagation of Infectious Diseases which being conveyed by insensible Effluvia from a sick into a healthy Body are able to disorder the whole Oeconomy of it and act those sad Tragedies which Physitians do so often unsuccesfully indeavour to hinder But you will cease to doubt that Corpuscles though so small as to be below the sense should be able to performe great matters upon humane Bodies if you consider what alterations may be therein produced by the bare actions of the parts upon one another This may appear by the effects of several Passions of the mind which are often excited by the bare if attentive thoughts of absent things In obstinate grief and Melancholy there is that alteration made in the disposition of the Heart and perhaps some other parts by whâ—ch the Blood is to Circulate that the lively motion of that liquor is thereby disturbed and obstructions and other not easily remov'd distempers are occasion'd The bare remembrance of a loathsome Potion does oftentimes produce in me and I doubt not but the like thought may have the like Operation in many others a Horror attended with a very sensible Commotion of divers parts of my Body especially with a kind of convulsive motion in or about the Stomack And what power the Passions have to alter and determine the course of the Blood may appear yet more manifestly in modest and bashful persons especially Women when meerly upon the remembrance or thought of an unchast or undecent thing mentioned before them the motion of the Blood will be so determin'd as to passe suddenly and plentifully enough into the Cheeks and sometimes other parts to make them immediatly wear that livery of Vertue as an Old Philosopher styl'd it which we call a Blush And even by joy if great and sudden I not long since saw in persons of both Sexes not only the Cheeks and Forehead but it left as to the Lady even the Neck and Shoulders Died of that Colour And that Passions may not only alter the Motion of the Juyces of the Body but likewise make some separation and evacuation of them may appear in grief which is wont especially in Women to make all the Commotions requisite to weeping whereby oftentimes a considerable quantity of Briny Liquor is excluded at the Eyes under the forme of Tears by which divers especially Hysterical Persons are wont to find themselves much refreshed though with some it fares otherwise in teeming Women Also that vehement desire we call Longing may well be supposed to produce great alterations in the Body of the Mother which leaves such strange and lasting impressions upon that of the Infant since 't is the Mother only and not at all the Infant that conceives those importunate desires CHAP. XIV THere are many Instances to be met with in Physitians Books to shew that Imagination is able so to alter the Imagining person's Body as to work such a disposition in the Spirits Blood and Humors of it as to produce the determinate Disease that is excessively feared And I remember that soon after the last Fair Lady R. Died of the Small Pox I chanced to meet one of her Sisters with her Mask on amongst some other Persons of High Quality and wondring to see her sit Maskt in such Company her Husband who was present told me That his Wife having been happily brought to Bed some while before her Sister fell sick he had carefully kept the knowledg of her sicknesse from his Wife least the kindnesse that was betwixt them two might prejudice her in the condition she was in but that after a while a Lady unawares making mention in her hearing of her Sisters sickness she immediatly fancied That she should have it too and accordingly fell sick of that disfiguring Disease whose Marks obliged her for a while to weare a Mask Nor is it in Women only but even in Men that conceit may produce such real and lasting effects For many authentick Histories record examples of those in whom excessive Grief or Fear has made such a change in the Colour of their Hair in a Night as Nature would otherwise have scarce made in divers Years And I remember that being about four or six Years since in the County of Cork there was an Irish Captain a man of middle Age and Stature who coming with some of his followers to render himself to your Uncle Broghill who then commanded the English Forces in those parts upon a publick profer of pardon to the Irish that would then lay down Arms he was casually in a suspicious Place met with by a party of the English and intercepted And my Brother being then absent upon a designe he was so apprehensive of being put to Death by the inferiour officers before your Uncles returne that that Anxiety of mind quickly changed the Colour of his Hair after a peculiar manner of which I being then at that Castle of your Unkles whereunto he was brought had quickly notice given me and had the Curiosity to examine this Captain and found that the Hair of his Hâ—ad had not as in the instances I had met with in Histories uniformely changed its Colour but that here and there certain peculiar Tufts and locks of it whose Bases might be about an
recovered without any inward Medicine by being barely pinch'd in several places I that have endured great and dangerous Sicknesses have scarce ever found any so violent for the time as that which the bare motion and smell of a Ship and Sea Air hath put me into especially in rough weather till I was somewhat accustomed to Navigation and yet this violent and weakning Sickness as it was not produced by any peccant Humor in the Body so it was quickly removed by the Air and Quiet of the Shore without the help of Physick And the like may be observed more suddenly in the newly mentioned Instances of those in whom as the bare agitation of a Coach will produce such violent Fits of Vomiting and such Faintness that I have known some of them apprehend they should presently die so the bare cessation of that discomposing motion soon relieved them We see in our Stables what operation the currying of them carefully hath upon our Horses And Helmont somewhere tells us That himself as I remember could by the Milk of an Ass tell whether she had been that day diligently curryed or no and so considerable an alteration in Milk should me thinks strongly argue that a great one in the Blood or other Juice of which the Blood is elaborated and consequently in divers of the principal parts of the Body must have preceded it But to prefer our consideration from the Bodies of Beasts to those of Men 't is remarkable what Piso confesseth the illiterate Brasilian Empericks are able to perform with Frictions even as unskilfully as they order them Mira equidem saith he tum tuendae sanitatis ergo cum in plerisque morbis sanandis fâ—ictione unctione frequenti incolae praestant illam in frigidioribus chronicis hanc in acutioribus adhibentes Quae remedia lubenter advenae imitantur ut par est ex legibus artis haec plura medendi Empiricorum genera moderantur And as Galen himself highly extols a skilful Application of Cupping-glasses in the Colick so in Brasil they finde that the like Remedy is strangely successful For Cholera sicca saith our candid Piso in another place eisdem fere Remediis of which he had been speaking curatur maxime si regioni hepatis corneae cucurbitulae applicentur De quibus merito hoc testor quod Galenus de suis cucurbitulis quas in Colico affectu incantamenti instar operari tradidit We shall adde for further confirmation that notwithstanding all the horrid Symptomes that are wont to ensue upon the biting of that Poysonous Spider the Tarantula that lasting and formidable Disease which often mocks all other Remedies is by nothing so successfully oppos'd as by Musick Some determinate tune or other which proves suitable to the particular Nature of the Patients Body or that of the Poyson producing there such a motion or determination of some former motion of the Spirits or the Humors or both as by conducting the Spirits into the Neâ—ves and Muscles inservient to the motion of the Limbs doth make the Patient leap and dance till he have put himself into a Sweat that breaths out much of the virulent Matter which hath been probably fitted for expulsion by some change wrought in its Texture or Motion or those of the Blood by the Musick For if Sweat and Exercise as such were all that relieved him why might not Sudorificks or leâ—ping without Musick excuse the Need of Fidlers which yet is so great that Kircher informs us That the Apulian Magistrates are wont to give Stipends at the publick charge to such to relieve the Poor by their playing And not onely He hath a memorable Story of Robertus Pantarus a Tarantine Nobleman whose Disease being not known to proceed from the biting of a Spider could by no Remedies be cured he was at length even upon the point of death suddenly relâ—ev'd and by degrees restored to perfect health by the use of Musick But Epiphanius Ferdinandus in hâ—s accurate Observations concerning those bitten with the Tarantula together with Mathiolus and other Authors beâ—r witness thereunto by resembling Narratives Now that a Sound not barely as a sound but as so modified may powerfully operate upon the Blood and Spirits I who am very Musically given have divers times observ'd in my self upon the heaâ—ing of certain Notes And it might be made probable both by that which we have formerly said of the effect of skreaking upon the Teeth and Gums and by the Dancing Fit into which not every Musical Sound though never so loud but some determinate Tune is wont to put the bitten Patienâ— But it mâ—y be more manifestly prov'd by the following testimony of our inquisitive Jesuite wherein he affirms That the Spiders themselves may as well as those they have bitten be made to Dance by Tunes suited to their peculiar Constitutions And this I the less wonder at because Epiphanius Ferdinandus himself not onely tells us of a Man of 94 Years of age and so weak that he could not go unless supported by his Staff who did upon the hearing of Musick after he was bitten immediately tall a dancing and capering like a Kid and affirms That the Tarantula's themselves may be brought to leap and dance at the sound of Lutes small Drums Bagpipes Fiddles c. but challenges those that believe him not to come and try promising them an Ocular Conviction and adds what is very memorable and pleasant That not onely Men in whom much may be ascribed to fancy but other Animals being bitten may likewise by Musick be reduc'd to leap or dance for he saith He saw a Wasp which being bitten by a Tarantula whil'st a Lutanist chanc'd to be by the Musician playing on his Instrument gave them the sport of seeing both the Wasp and Spider begin to dance annexing That a bitten Cock did do the like CHAP. XVI I Might also Pyrophilus confirm what I told you when I said That Sickness may produce such an alteration in the Fabrick of the Body as to make it capable to be very much affected as well for the better as for the worse by such things that would not scarce at all affect it if it were sound from the consideration of those many and strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Peculiarities to be met with in some Persons in Sickness and in Health For though many of these differences between healthy Men are not likely to be greater then may be observ'd between the same Man when well and himself as the Oeconomy of his Body may be dis-compos'd by some Distemper yet we often see that some Persons have the Engine of their Body so fram'd that it is wonderfully disordered by such things as either work not at all on others or work otherwise on them as it is common enough for Men to be hugely disturb'd and some of them to fall into Fits of trembling or swooning upon the sight or hearing of a Cat. And to such an
most advisable to substitute the Wood Ashes which in the Receipt it self towards the close of it are appointed for a Succedaneum To the One Hundred and Twentieth Page Where the Vertues of the Pilulae Lunares are toucht at THe great benefit that has redounded to many patients from the use of the Silver Pils here briefly mention'd and commended invites me to communicate as a considerable thing the preparation of them of which I do not pretend to be the Inventer having divers years since learnt it by discoursing with a very Ancient and experienc'd Chymist whose name that I do not mention will perhaps seem somewhat strange to those Readers that have observ'd me not to be backward in acknowledging my Benefactors in point of Experiments and therefore I hold it not amiss to take this opportunity of declaring once for all that t were oftentimes more prejudicial then grateful to one that makes an advantage by the Practise of Physick to annex in his life time his name to some of his Receipts or Processes because that when a Man has once got a repute for having a Specifick in any particular Disease or Case his Patients and their Friends will hardly forbear to apply themselves to him for that Medicine though the same Medicine but not known to be the same should be made use of by a stranger or divulged in a Printed Book Most Patients being not apt to rely upon Medicines that come onely that way recommended whereas if it were known that the Printed Receipt is the self same which the Physitian employs not only other Physitians would quickly make as much advantage of it as he but many Patients would think themselves by that discovery dispens'd with in point of good husbandry from going to any Physitian at all as knowing before hand the best prescription they are like to receive from him The Process of the Pilulae Lunares is this Take of the best refined Silver as much as You please dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of cleans'd spirit of Nitre or Aquafortis then evaporating away the superfluous moysture let the rest shoot into thin Chrystals these you may in some open mouth'd Glass place in sand and keep in such a degree of Heat that by the help of very frequently stirring them the greatest part of the more loose and stinking Spirits of the Menstruum may be driven away and yet the remaining Chrystals not be brought to Flow These Chrystals of Silver you must counterpoise with an equal weight of Chrystals of Nitre and first dissolving each of them apart in distill'd Rain-water You must afterwards mingle the Solutions and abstract or steam away the superfluous moysture till the remaining Mass be dry which you must keep in an open Glass expos'd to such a temperate heat of Sand that the Matter may not melt which you must be very careful of and that yet the adhering corrosive Spirits of the Menstruum might be driven away And to both these ends You must from time to time stir the Mass that new parts of it may be expos'd to the Heat and new ones to the Air till you cannot descry in the remaining white Powder any offensive scent of the Spirit of Nitre or of the Aqua-Fortis And lastly You must take the Crum of good White-bread made with a little moysture into a stiff Past and exactly mingle with the newly mention'd Magistery or Powder as much of this Past as is necessary to give it the consistence of a Mass of Pills which you may thence form at pleasure and preserve in a well stopp'd Glass for use NB. First the Silver employ'd in this Operation ought to be very pure and more exquisitely refin'd then much of that is wont to be which here in England is bought for fine Silver for if the Copper wherewith Silver-Coyns are wont to be alloy'd be not carefully separated upon the Cupel it may being turn'd by the Acid Menstruum into a kind of Vitriol when it is taken into the Body either provoke Vomits or otherwise discompose it 2ly The Spirit of Nitre or which in our case comes almost to one the Aqua-fortis that is us'd about this Medicine ought to be clear'd as our Refiners phrase it before the Silver be put in for as I elsewhere Note in Salt Peter there is oftentimes an undiscerned Mixture of Sea-salt whose Spirit coming over in Distillation with that of the Nitre is apt to precipitate the Silver which the Spirit of Nitre has dissolv'd This I take to be the Reason of that practise of the best Refiners to purifie their Aqua-fortis by casting in some small piece of Silver that they may afterwards securely put into it greater Quantities of the same Mettal to be dissolv'd For the Saline Spirits fall to the bottome together with the corroded Silver which they precipitate as long as there is any of these Saline Spirits left in the Menstruum which after this may be decanted clear and though you had put a little more Silver then needed to it it neither does harm nor is lost the Aqua fortis preserving none unprecipitated but what there were no more Sâ—line Spirits to work upon so that the superfluous Silver put in is already dissolv'd to Your hand 3dly The dry Mixture obtain'd from the Solutions of Chrystals of Nitre and Chrystals of Silver must be often stirr'd and kept longer in the Sand before all the offensive Spirits will be driven away then till Experience had inform'd me I did imagine Fourthly If the Chrystals of Silver be considerably Blew or Green 't is a sign the Silver was not sufficiently purg'd from Copper else the Mixture we have been speaking of will look of a White good enough And possibly 't was by reason of the not being careful to take sufficiently Refin'd Silver and of the not knowing how to improve the Chrystals of Silver by the addition of those of Nitre and especially how to free them from the stinking and Corrosive Spirits of Aqua-fortis that it is come to pass that though there be in some Chymical Writers Processes not very unlike this yet the Chrystals of Silver have been censur'd and laid aside as not alwaies safe even by those who otherwise much magnifie the Efficacy of those they us'd Fifthly When You are about to make up this Mixture with the Crum of Bread into a Mass and so into Pills 't will not be amiss to dispatch that work at once for usually it leaves an ugly Blackness on the Fingers that cannot under divers daies be gotten off Sixthly In taking of the Pills care must be had that they be sufficiently lapp'd up either in a Wafer wetted with Milk or the Pulp of a Roasted Apple or some such thing that they may not touch the Palat or the Throat because of the extreme and disgusting bitterness which is to be met with in the Chrystals of Silver and which is not the least thing that with nicer Persons does Blemish these Pills Seventhly The Dose is somewhat
one ounce of White Vitriol four ounces Boyl the Camphire and the Vitriol together in a little Black Earthen Pot till they become thin stirring them together till they become hard in setling then Bruise them in a Mortar to Powder and Beat the Bole-Armoniack it self to Powder and then mingle them together and keep the Powder in a Bladder till such time You use it then take a pottle of Running Water and set it on the Fire till it begin to Seeth then take it from the Fire and put in three good Spoonfuls of the Powder into that Water whilst it is hot and after put the Water and Powder into a Glasse and shake it twice a day to make the Water strong But before You use it let it be well setled and very Clear and apply it as hot as the Patient can well suffer it and lay a clean Linnen Cloath four double to the Sore it being wet in that Water and bind it fast with a Rowler to keep it warm do it Morning and Evening till it be whole This Water must be put into an Oyster-shel not in a Sawcer when you dress the Sore for the Pewter will suck it up Remember You put three as good Spoonfuls of the Powder as you can presse into the Spoon Take heed no one Drink of this Water for it is Poyson To make it stronger beat an ounce of Alom to Powder and mingle it with the other Powders Take of Bole-armoniack half an ounce White Vitriol one ounce of Camphire 2 ounces make them all into Powder then take a Pottle of Smiths-water and as much Spring-water and mingling them set thew upon the Fire assoon as it begins to Seeth put in the Powder very softly stirring it all the while assoon as the Powder is in take it off the Fire and dresse the wound with it twice a day laying a Cloath folded four times and wetted in the Water it being very Hot and so apply'd to the Wound N B. This is the Receipt Verbatim as I find it among my old Papers but I am not sure that among those I cannot now come by there may not be something concerning a way of making a small pliable Tent that may accommodate it self to the crooked Figure of the Cavity of many Fistula's For methinks I remember that the Chirurgion prescrib'd the conveying his Medicine by the means of such a flexible tent a great way into the cavity if not to the bottom of the Fistula which was thereby to be cleansed To the One Hundred fifty first Page VVhere Soot is mentioned SOot Pyrophilus is a Production of the Fire whose Nature is almost as Singular as is the manner of its being produc'd for it is if I may so call it a kind of volatile Extract of the Wood it proceeds from made instead of a Menstruum by the Fire which hastily dissipating the parts of the Body it acts on hath time enough to sever it into smaller Particles but not leisure and aptitude to reduce it into such differing substâ—nces as pass for Chymical or Peripatetick Elements but hastily carries up the more volatile pâ—rts which being not yet sufficiently free'd from the more fixt ones take them up along with them in their sudden flight and so the Aqueous Spirituous Saline Oleaginous and Terrestrial parts ascending confusedly together do fasten themselves to the sides of the Chimney in that loose and irregular Form of Concretion which we call Sooâ— An enquiry into whose Nature as it may be consider'd in the Survey of the distinctions of Salts must be elsewhere look'd for Our mentioning it at present being only to take occasion to tell You that as ill scented and despis'd a Body as it is Hartman one of the most experienc'd and hâ—ppy of Chymical Writers scruples not to reckon the Spirit and Oyle of it among the Noblest Confortantia such as prepar'd Pearl Coral Ambergreese and other eminent Cherishers of Nature His preparation is for substance this Take of the best Soot such as adheres to the lower part of the Chimney and shines almost like Jet what quantity you please and with it fill up to the Neck a very well coated Glass Retort or an Earthen one and luting on a capacious Receiver distil the matter in an open fire intended by degrees whereby you will drive over the Phlegm the whitish Spirits and the Oyl first of a Yellow Colour and then of a Red separate the Phlegme and for a while digest the Spirit and Oyle together on which afterwards put half the quantity of Spirit of Wine and Distil them several times whereby you will obtain together with the Spirit of Wine the Spirit of Soot and also a very depurated Oyl smelling like Camphire Out of the Calcin'd Caput mortuum after the common way extract a Salt which Hartman commends as a most excellent curer of exulcerated Cancers This Salt saith He is drawn with Vinegar in which Liquor in a Cold moist place it is again Dissolv'd and therewith the Cancerous Ulcers being once or twice anointed the venenosity will be visibly drawn out like a Vapour and then the foremention'd Oyl being lightly sprinkl'd upon the place will breed on it a kind of Crust like a skin which Spontaneously coming off in five or six Days will by its falling off argue the Consolidation of the Ulcer What this so extoll'd Remedy will perform I know not having never made trial of it nor thinking it very likely that a bare Alcalizate Salt should have such Specifick Vertues nor is it requisite I should insist on it being here to discourse to You of the distill'd Liquors of Soot in prosecution of which design let me tell You that Hartman prescribes the administring of the Spirit from six to ten Grains of the Oyl from two to three drops in Wine or any other convenient Vehicle and concerning the Oyl he adds That if three Drops of it be given in Vinegar to an almost gasping Man he will be thereby wonderfully refesh'd and as it were reviv'd to which he annexeth this Prognostick that if the Remedy produceth Copious Sweats it will recover the Taker but if not he will Die That this spirit of Soot describ'd by Hartman may be a very good Medicine I am very apt to think but because 't is not a meer spirit of Soot but a mixt one of Spirit of Wine and spirit of Soot we have rather chosen to proceed with the Soot of Wood without addition both as to the distillation of it and the ordering of the Distill'd Liquors after the manners to be mention'd ere long when we shall acquaint You with our preparations of Blood and Harts-horn which if You please to apply to Soot You may save Your self and me the labour of Repetitions Yet it may be not amiss to advertise You here of two things the one that if You employ very good and fat Soot and fill up the Retort with it to the Neck You must be very careful to encrease the Fire
many Diseases proceeding from these two general Causes And though I dare not deny that divers of those Praises may be well enough deserv'd by the Remedies to which they are ascribed yet I am not apt to think them much superior to the generality of volatile Salts And even the Spirit and Salt of Sheeps-blood it self did by their penetrancy of taste and fugitiveness in gentle heats promise little else Efficacy then those others so much celebrated Medicines 10. Nor is it onely by being administred it self that one of this sulphureous and subtle kinde of Spirits may become a good Remedy but also by its being made a Menstruum to prepare other Bodies For it will extract Tinctures out of several sulphureous and resinous Concretes whose finer parts by being associated with so piercing a Vehicle may probably gain a more intimate admission into the Body and have their Vertues conveyed further then otherwise they would reach And a Learned Doctor to whom I recommended such kinde of Remedies confessed to me That by the bare extractions of appropriated Vegetables themselves with Spirit of Urine he perform'd no small matter But one difficulty You may meet with in drawing the Tincture of Minerals and other very compact Bodies even with good Spirit of Urine for that I account to be the cheapest of these volatile Menstruum and the most easie to be obtain'd in good quantities For we have found but with a little heat the more fugitive Particles to ascend to the upper parts of the Glass and there fasten themselves in the form of a Salt by whose recess the debilitated Liquor was disabled from drawing the Tincture so powerfully as was expected wherefore we were reduc'd to make our Extractions in short neck'd Glass-Eggs or Vials exquisitely stop'd which may also be plac'd stooping in the Sand and when we perceiv'd much to be lodg'd in the necks of the Vessels by barely inverting them the hot Liquor soon reimbib'd the Salt and was fit to be plac'd again in Sand so that notwithstanding this difficulty we were able by this means in no long time to impregnate the Spirit of Urine or of Haâ—ts horn for I do not perfectly remember which it was with the Tincture of Flowers of Sulphur which may probably prove a noble Medâ—cine in divers affections of the Lungs since in them these volatile Liquors alone have been found very effectual And I remember I have sometimes made a much shorter and more odde Preparation which at any time You may command of Crude Sulphur whereby in not many hours I have by the means of Salts brought over such a sulphureous Liquor or Tincture as even in the Receiver was of a red Colour as well as of a strongly sulphureous Scent To the Page 164 165 c. where Ens Veneris is treated of BUt before I enter upon Particulars I think it will not be amiss to tell You how this Preparation first occur'd to Us because by that Information Your happyer Genius may peradventure hereafter be prompted to improve this Remedy or to devise one more approaching to the Nature and Excellency of that which we endeavor'd but with very imperfect success to light on or equal by our Ens Veneris I must then tell You that an Industrious Chymist of our Acquaintance and I chancing to Read one day together that odde Treatise of Helmont which he calls Butler when we had attentively perus'd what he delivers of the Nature as well as scarce credible Vertues of the Lapis Butleri he there mentions we fell into very serious Thoughts what might be the matter of so admirable a Medicine and the hopefullest manner of preparing that matter And having freely propos'd to one another our Conjectures and examin'd them by what is deliver'd by Helmont concerning the Preparation of Butlers Stone or some emulous Remedy we at length concurr'd in concluding that either the Lapis Butleri as our Author calls it or at least some Medicine of an approaching Efficacy might if Helmont did not mis-inform us be prepar'd by destroying as far as we could by calcination the body of Copper and then subliming it with Sal Armoniack And because the Body of Venus seems lesse lock'd up in good Vitriol then in its metalline form we concluded that it was best to calcine rather the Vitriol then the Copper it self and having freed the Colcothar from its separable Salts so to force it up with Sal Armoniack But the Person I discours'd with seeming somewhat diffident of this Process by his unwillingness to attempt it I desir'd and easily perswaded him at least to put himself to the trouble of trying it with the requisites to the work which I undertook to provide being at that time unable to prosecute it my self for want of a fit furnace in the Place where I then chanc'd to lodge And though at first we did not hit upon the best and most compendious way yet during the Sublimation he being suddenly surpris'd as both himself and his Domesticks two daies after told me with a fit of sickness attended with very horrid and seemingly Pestilential Symptomes was reduc'd to take some of this Medicine out of the Vessels before the due time and upon the use of it found as he told me an almost immediate Cessation of those dreadfull symptoms bâ—t not of the Palenesse they had produc'd This first prosperous Experiment emboldned us to give our Remedy the Title of Primum ens Veneris which for brevities sake is wont to be call'd Ens Veneris though I am far from thinking that it is the admirable Medicine to which Helmont gives that name at least if his Ens Veneris did really deserve half the praises by him ascrib'd to it But such as Ours is I shall now as time and my yet incompleat Trials will permit acquaint you with that Process of it which among some others we are most wont to employ as the most easie simple and genuine Take then of the best Hungarian or if you cannot procure that of the best Dantzick or other good Venereal Vitriol what quantity you please Calcine it in a strong fire till it be of a dark Red Dulcifie it by such frequent affusions of hot Water that at length the Water that hath pass'd through it appear full as tastless as when it was pour'd on it Let this thus exquisitely dulcified Colcothar when it is thorowly dry be very diligently ground with about an equal weight of good Sal Armoniack and let this mixture be put into a Glass Retort and either in as strong a heat as can conveniently be given in Sand or els in a naked fire force up as much of it as you can to the Top or Neck of the Retort and this Sublimation being ended out of the broken Retort laying the Caput Mortuum aside take all the Sublimate and grind it well again that if in any part the Sal Armoniack appear sublim'd by it self it may be reincorporated with the Colcothar Resublime this Mixture
Wine the latter of which may possibly in divers cases rather impair then improve the vertue of the former For Spirit of Harts-horn by reason of its opening and resolving as well as Cordial Vertues is safely and successfully given in Feavers wherein it is not observed to inflame the Blood whereas Spirit of Wine in such cases is counted dangerous And this brings into my thoughts a very questionable Preparation of the Experienc'd and Ingenious Hartman who much extolls for the Worms in the Stomach Spirit of Harts-horn in general but especially that which he is pleased to call Essensificated that is as himself expounds it with which its own fix'd Salt extracted with some convenient Water and its volatile duely depurated have been dissolved and united For first The fix'd Salt of Harts-horn hath been perhaps never yet prepared by any Man and if Harts-horn doth yield a fix'd Salt as I dare not absolutely deny but that out of many Pounds a few Grains may be extracted it may well be doubted whether that Salt be endowed with specifical Vertues And next The Spirit of Harts-horn if it be well dephlegm'd will not for ought I could ever finde dissolve its own Salt unless assisted by the External warmth of the Ambient Air Insomuch that I usually keep the Spirit and Salt in the same Vial where they remain unmix'd and the Spirit that will dissolve any of its owne Salt I account not sufficiently dephlegm'd but to have yet an Aqueous alloy whereby the Salt is imbibed And I remember that having once exquisitely rectified some Spirit of Harts-horne and closed it up in a Viall after divers months it let fall a considerable quantity of Volatile Salt so far was it from being able without the help of some peculiar way to have dissolved more had I cast more into it I deny not that the Spirit of Harts-horn may by the mediation of heat be brought to take in some of the Salt of the same Body but of what use this violent Impregnation of the liquor can be unlesse it be quickly administred I do not yet understand having often seen the Spirit let fall againe in the cold the volatile Salt it had dissolved by the assistance of heat And having thus Pyrophilus laid before you the difficulties we have met with in the above-mentioned waies of making of Spirit of Harts-horne proposed by Authors neither of which we would yet have you altogether reject I must acquaint you with our having attempted a fourth way which when the matter to be distilled is not very much I choose rather to practise then any of the other as hitherto seeming more safe and free from inconveniences Take then for Instance two pounds of Harts horne broken on an Anvill into pieces each of about the bignesse of ones finger for if it be rasped there is danger that it should emit its fumes too plentifully at once and put it into a strong glasse Retort uncoated big enough to containe at least twice as much matter Set this in Sand and fit to it a pretty large and strong either single or double Receiver then give a slow fire for three foure or six houres to send away first the Phlegme and more fugitive parts of the Spirit then encreasing the fire but warily and gradually for divers houres drive over the Spirit which is wont to drop downe somewhat tincted and the more volatile parts of the Salt and at length intend your fire till the bottom of the Retort be glowing hot and heap also at last quick coals upon the sand round about the Retort to give as it were a fire of Suppression and so force over the more sluggish remaining parts of the Salt and with it the Oyl all which are to be afterwards proceeded with according to the Directions given concerning the Spirit Salt and Oyl of Mans Blood which having bin sufficiently insisted on before will not I suppose need to be repeated now Only it may not be impertinent to advertise you 1. That we have more then once had the bottom of the Retort melted yet not broken the melted glasse being supported by the substrated sand 2. That sometimes in Filtration some of the thinner parts of the Oyl have unperceivedly passed through the paper with the Spirit and Salt and have not been discovered but by Rectification wherein I have almost admired to see the Oyl with a gentle heat of a Lamp ascend to the top of a very tall head and body touching which circumstance it may yet be further enquired whether it proceed barely from the volatilnesse of the Oyl it selfe or also from its being carryed up by the Salt and Spirit wherewith it was associated 3. That by this way of distillation we usually have out of a pound of Harts-horne between foure and five ounces seldome or never so little as foure and often nearer five of volatile Salt Spiritâ— Oyl and Flegme of the last of which if the Harts-horne be not recent there will be no great quantity and when we distill'd two pound of the matter at a time we found the operation to succeed altogether as well and to yeeld us a fully proportionable quantity of Liquor The vertues of the Spirit and Salt of Harts-horne which differ not much in Dose or Efficacie are probably very great in divers distempers wherein we have yet made no tryall of them For they are considerable in resisting Putrefaction comforting nature opening Obstructions mortifying the the Acidities it meets with in the blood and by rendring that volatile promoting its Circulation we have knowne considerable effects of it in Feavers Plurisies Obstructions of the Mesentery and Spleen and chiefly which perhaps you will think strange in Coughs and Distempers of the braine and nervous parts in so much that I have by Gods blessing sometimes stopt very violent but not inveterate Coughs with this medicine in a few houres And prescribing it to one who was almost daily assaulted with Epilepticall fits a few Doses of it did in a pretty while at first make his fits come but seldome and after not at all But whether he be perfectly cured not having heard of him of late nor having had oportunity to make further tryall of the medicine in that disease I am not certain Wee prescribed it likewise not long since to a Person who had long lain both distracted and almost bed-rid and was in a short time strangely reliev'd by the use of it though not perfectly cur'd perhaps because the Patient tooke but little of the medicine we being then not well stored with it and on some that have been by Feavers rendred stupid it hath had very eminent Operations but for a further account of its vertues I must referre you to the particular Narratives I may when wee meet give you by word of mouth and till then it may suffice to tell you that it workes chiefly by Sweat and somewhat by Urine without being observed to leave behind it such heat as divers Sudorificks are
in the Receiver a very strong and yellowish Spirit so exceedingly penetrant and stinking that 't was not easie to hold ones nose to the open mouth of the Vial wherin 't was kept without danger of being struck downe or for a while disabled to take breath by the plenty and violence of the exhaling Spirits But the Liquor forced over by this method though exceeding vigorous as to its Qualities was inconsiderable as to its Quantity and therefore wee now chuse to vary a little this way of proceeding and and let the Quick-lime ly abroad in the open Air but protected from all other moisture except that of the Aire for divers dayes in which time the imbib'd humidity of the ambient Air would in some degrees slake it and make it somewhat brittler then it was before and the Lime thus prepared being mingled with Salt-Armoniack and distilled in all circumstances after the former manner afforded us a Liquor so copious and yet so strong that we hitherto acquiesce in this way of distilling this wild Salt as the best we have yet met with But note that we used towards the latter end to encrease the fire to that degree by heaping up Coales on the upper part of the Retort that the mixture in the Retort hath been brought to flow Note also that though even the Spirit thus drawne persevered long in the forme of a Liquor yet yesterday coming to looke upon a Viall of it which we reserved to try what effect time would have on it we found that about a fourth or fifth part of it had spontaneously coagulated it selfe into exactly figured graines of a Chrystalline Salt the Liquor swimming above it retaining neverthelesse a very strange subtlety Which Observation concording with divers others makes mee apt to doubt whether or no this so celebrated Spirit of Salt-Armoniack be really much if at all other then the resolved Salt of Urine and Sâ—ot of which that body consists of somewhat subtiliated by the fire and freed from the clogging Society of the Sea-salt to which they were formerly associated and united though I confesse it seemeth not improbable by the great Energy which may be observed in this Spirit when it is dextrously drawne that the entire Concrete and the Quick-lime may afford it something that it could not receive from either of the Ingredients whence the Mixture did result as we see in Aqua Regiâ— which dissolves crude gold though neither the Salt-Armoniack nor the Peter nor the Vitrioll alone affords by the usuall wayes Spirit capable of producing that effect The great vertues and uses of Salt-Armoniack especially in Physick I cannot now stay to treat of but you will find them largely enough set downe by Glauber whose Encomiums neverthelesse must not be all adopted by mee who in this place mention the Spirit of Sal-Armoniack but as a Medicine that is neer of kin and may serve for a Succedaneum to the Spirits of Harts-horne Urine Blood c. But although the last mentioned way Pyrophilus be the least imperfect one we have hitherto met with of distilling Salt-Armoniack yet because you may sometimes need a Spirituous liquor impregnated with the activest parts of that noble concrete when you want either Retorts to distill in or Furnaces capable of giving strong fires I dare not omit to inform you that we have sometimes drawne over such a liquor of Salt-Armoniack after the following manner Dissolve pure Salt-Armoniack in a small quantity of faire water then in a Cucurbit put such a quantity of strong Quick-lime powder'd as may fill up a fifth or sixth part of the vessell and water it very well by degrees with the former Solution of the Salt-Armoniack and immediately clap an Alembick on the Cucurbit and fasten a Receiver to the Alembick closing the joynts very acurately and from this mixture by the gentle heat of a Bath or a Lamp you may obtaine a Liquor that smels much like Spirit of Urine and seemes to be much of the same nature and this volatile liquor being once or twice rectified per se with a very mild heat growes exceeding fugitive and penetrant and workes by Sweat and a little perhaps by Urine and I remember that when I first made it having been induced by some Analogicall Experiments I had formerly made to give it to one that had a patient troubled with an extreamly violent Cough I had an account quickly brought me that he not slowly but wonderfully mended upon the very first or second Dose and indeed the tryalls that have hitherto been made of it make mee hope that it will prove little inferiour in efficacy to the other above mentioned more costly Spirits scarce any of which being preparable by so safe and compendious a way if this Medicine emulate them in vertue the Easinesse of the preparation wherein little time needs be spent and lesse danger of breaking vessels incurr'd will much endear it to me But Pyrophilus because I would assist You to make variety of Experiments about Volatile Salts and because diverse tryals may be more conveniently made when the Saline Corpuscles are in a dry form then when they are in that of a Liquor I will take this occasion to mention to You a way by whose Intervention a change on the fixt body employ'd about the newly mentioned Experiment hath sometimes afforded mee store of volatile Salt This way was only to mingle exquisitly a quantity of Sal-Armoniack with about thrice its weight of strong Wood-ashes For the Spirit that we this way drave out of a Retort plac'd in Sand did quickly in the Receiver Coagulate into a Salt and this Method was again experimented with like successe And the Salt thus made we found so extreamly subtile and volatile that it seem'd to be much of the same Nature with that of Urine and if it be indeed as probably 't is onely the Volatile Salts of the Urine and perhaps also of the Soot whereof the Sal-Armoniack consists this may passe for a more compendious way of obtaining such Salts then others that are hitherto wont to be practis'd amongst Chymists But I will not undertake that this way of obtaining rather Salt then Spirit shall constantly succeed Yet if you find it do not I shall not perchance refuse You a better way But if you could devise a Method which possibly is not unattainable of bringing over into a Spirit not the bare Urinous and fuliginous Ingredients of Sal-Armoniack but the whole Body it may be you would have a Menstruum that would make good if not surpass even Renanus's and Glaubers Elogies of the Spirit of Sal-Armoniack The affinity betwixt Volatile Salts and Sulphurs doth Pyrophilus as well as your Curiosity invite me to acquaint you with some of the Trials we have made about the Preparations of Sulphureous Fetid Liquors which I am the more inclined to do because though I find mention made of some of them in Chymical Books yet they are there delivered with so little Incouragement amongst
many other processes of which it appears not that the prescribers made trial that when I had distilled some of those Sulphurs divers expert Chymists were very desirous to have a sight of them to satisfy themselves that such Liquors could be so prepared The way of making the common Balsam or Ruby of Sulphur is too well known to need to be long insisted on Onely because there is some little variety used by several in the preparation it will not perhaps be amiss to inform you that we are wont to make it by mixing about three parts of Oyl of Turpentine with two of good Flower of Brimstone and setting them in a strong Urinal slightly stopt in an heat of Sand only great enough to make the Liquor with a little crackling noise whencesoever that proceeds work upon the Sulphur till it be all perfectly resolved into a Bloud-red Balsam which will be performed in six eight or ten Houâ—es according to the quantity of the Ingredients to be unite 〈◊〉 this Balsam which is indeed in some cases no despicable Remedie is by vulgar Chymists according to their custome very highly extolled and sometimes employed in Distempers and Constitutions wherein instead of performing the wonders by them expected its Heat doth more harm then its drying and Balsamick properties do good but yet apparent it will be by what we shall say anon that by this preparation the Body of the Sulphur is somewhat opened and therefore as we said in some cases the Ruby of Sulphur may prove no ineffectual Remedie which may probably be improved if it be prepared by bare Digestion in a very gentle heat by which course we have prosperously prepar'd it though not in so short a time when we made it not in order to some other Medicine To Volatilize the Sulphur thus Resolved we took the Balsam made the former way in a few Houres and putting it in a Retort either with or without fair Water which is supposed to help to carry up the superfluous Oyl we placed the Vessel in a Sand Furnace and with a gentle heat drawing off as much of the Oyl of Turpentine as would in that heat come over we shifted the Receiver and carefully luted on the new one and lastly giving Fire by degrees we forced over a Liquor of a deep and darkish Red extreamly penetrant but of a smell so sulphureous and diffusive of it self that it was scarce to be restrained by Corks and was by great odds stronger then that of the Rubie before distillation The like Experiment we tryed in a Glasse head and body placed in Sand and through that way likewise we obtained a Volatile Balsam of Sulphur yet we found it too inconvenient to be equallable wâ—th the former what long Digestions of this Liquor will do to take away or lessen its Empyreumatical and oâ—â—ensive Odour we have not yet been by experience satisfieâ— no more then of its medical Vertues though probably the â—reat penetrancy of the Liquor considered they will not be languid Authors also prescribe the making a volatile Balsam of Sulphur by driving over after the above mentioned manner a Solution of Flower of Brimstone in Linseed Oyl and this Remedy they highly extoll but though it may probably prove a good Medicine yet since they commend it but by conjecture and not upon Experience I see no great reason why it should be preferable to the other for we find that express'd Oyles are much more apt to receive an offensive Empyreuma then Oyl of Turpentine which being much more volatile then they requires nothing neer so violent a heat to make it ascend and unless it be found that the Sulphureous particles are able to mitigate the corrosive ones the distilled Liquor of an express'd Oyl may prove noxious in the Body For by purposely for trials sake distilling Oyl Olive by it self though not in a naked Fire we obtained a Liqâ—or of that exceeding sharpness that it would takes inwardly probably corrode or fret either the Stomach or some other of the internal Parts There is another way of preparing a Sulphureous Balsam to which Penotus no ignoble Chymist ascribes such stupendous Vertues that though I have not yet made trial of it in Diseases yet I dare not leave it altogether unmentioned the process being briefly but this Take good Balsam of Sulphur made with Spirit or Oyl of Turpentine and having freed it from its superfluous Oyliness pour on it well deplegm'd Spirit of Wine and therewith draw by affusion of new Spirit as often as need requires a sufficient quantity of a Red Tincture which by filtration and abstraction in Balneo must be reduced to a Balsamick consistence this Liquor you may if you please by degrees of Fire drive through a Retort placed in Sand and thereby obtain a volatile Balsam of very great penetrancy and probably of no small efficacy but the Trial I have made of this process gives me occasion to advertise You 1. That unlesse your Balsam be reduced to a stiffe thicknese and almost to drinesse it self the Operation will hardly succeed we having fruitlesly digested for some months Spirit of Wine upon Balsam whose consistence was somewhat too Liquid 2. That as soon as the Spirit of Wine is sufficiently Tincted it ought to be Decanted and succeeded by new left by too long digestion instead of heightning its Tincture it let fall that which it hath already acquired 3. That upon a very slow abstraction of most of the Tincted Spirit in a digesting furnace we once found the remaining Liquor not to be in the forme of a Balsam but to consist partly of Spirit of Wine and partly of a seeming distinct Oyl whereinto the Sulphureous Tincture was reduced The Balsam of Sulphur thus made without Distillation seems likely to be an innocenter and nobler Medicine then the common Ruby of Sulphur made with a hot and ill scented Oyl of Turpentine and by this preparation may also appeare the truth of what we formerly said when we told you that the body of the Sulphur was opened by Solution in Oleaginous Liquors for out of the common thickned Balsam as you may be informed by this processe well Rectified Spirit of Wine will in a short time extract a blood red Tincture whereas by long digestion of Spirit of Wine alone upon pure but undissolved flowres of Brimstone we could not discerne any change of colour in the Menstruum though I dare not deny the possibility of what some Authors affirme who write that Spirit of Wine very excellently Dephlegm'd will in time of it selfe draw a Tincture from flowers of Sulphur which Tincture they yet pretend not to make of a higher then a Lemmon colour And by the way let mee tell you that our red tincture formerly mentioned is if it be well made so strong of the Sulphur that probably it would make a very penetrant and effectuall outward remedy in Aches and divers other cold distempers of the nervous parts for it hath been already found
Your Curiosity to know my thoughts of the Urinous and Sulphureous Remedies it hath hitherto made me treat of were it not that there yet remaines something to be said without which all that hath been said will scarce signify very much towards the effectuall recommending of those medicines to Your esteem and practise For I do not ignore Pyrophilus that not only the Generality of the Galenicall Physitians but divers of the more eminent and judicious of the Chymists themselves have been pleas'd to condemne the internall use of Liquors driven through a Retort by the violence of fire upon the scores of their being offensively Empyreumaticall and Stinking among which sort of Liquors I cannot expect that our Spirits of Blood Harts-horne c. will escape the being reckon'd But forasmuch as the prosperous Effects I have had oportunity to see of divers Remedies of that Nature have given mee for them rather an esteem then either a detestation or contempt I suppose it may prove no unseasonable piece of Justice to the Spirit of Blood and the other Noble though fetid Remedies I have been setting you down nor no unserviceable piece of Charity to Men if in this place and once for all I spend some lines in endeavouring to rescue these criminated Medicines from the great Prejudice they suffer under and from a reputation which whilst it renders them more odious then even their smell can do is likely to make men deny themselves the benefit of them I might here on this Occasion call in Question whether not only Galenists but even many Chymists themselves be not somewhat more afraid then they need be of what they call Empyreuma But I will suspend a while that Question and at present confess to You that I have sometimes doubted whether or no that stink which is generally call'd by the newly mention'd name do alwayes and necessarily proceed from the Impressions of a violent fire For to make a pure Spirit and Salt of Urine there needs nothing but to let it in a well stopt vessel putrifie for a competent time as we elsewhere teach in a Dunghill or any resembling warmth and that it selfe perhaps is not necessary to its Putrefaction and then to draw off an eight or tenth part of the Liquor that first ascends by the gentle heat of a Bath By which or by the yet milder warmth of a Lamp-furnace it may be sufficiently rectified and brought to yield besides the Spirit good store of Salt And since the Spirit thus made differs so little in Smell or Tast from those of Blood and Harts-horne that most mens Noses are not criticall enough to distinguish them and We have sometimes taken pleasure to make Chymists themselves to mistake the one of those Liquors for the other It seems worth considering whether or no the fetid and urinous Tast and Smell which in these Spirits is said to be Empyreumaticall and to proceed from the Adustion of the fire be not the Genuine Tast and Odour of the Spirituous and Saline particles of the mixed Bodies themselves which they would manifest if they were copiously extricated to speakin the Kings language separated from the other Principles or Ingredients associated into one Body though without the violence of the Fire For to distill the Spirit of putrified Urine wherein the like Smell and Tast are eminent there needs as we said no greater heat then that of a Lamp-furnace or of Hors-dung since in the latter of these only Urine too long kept and but negligently stopt hath been observ'd to have lost its volatile Salt and Spirit before it was taken out of the Hors-dung And such a Hâ—at seems not great enough to impress an Empyrema upon such a Liquor For we see thâ—t most things distâ—ll'd in the gâ—eater heat of a Bath are commended by Physitians and Chymists for their beeing free from Empyreume And what Activity may be acquired by the subtle parts of a mixed Body by the convening if I may so speak of such Spirituous Particles disengag'd from those other parts which clogg'd or imprison'd them without any Empyreumaticall Impression from any violent externall Heat may appear by the Chymicall Oyles of Spices For though though they be usually drawn by Chymists and Apothecaries by the help of Water in Limbecks and though they have by us been drawn after another manner which we may elswhere teach You with a much gentler heat sometimes not not exceeding that of an ordinary Balneum yet these well Dephlegm'd Liquors retaining so well the Genuine Taste and Smell of the Concretes they were drawn from that they pass unaccus'd of Empyreume are some of them much stronger and hotter then the Spirit or Salt of Mans Blood or of Harts-horn As may appear especially by the Oyl of Cinnamon which if pure is more penetrant and fretting then any thing but tryall could easily have perswaded mee And lest you should object that the Fire doth considerably contribute to the strength of these Liquors otherwise then by disengaging the Particles they consist of from the unactive parts of the Concrete and assembling them together I must advertise You that I have observ'd little less Heat Penetrancy then in diverse of these in some Liquors separated without the assistance of Distillation As for Instance in the purer sort of the true Peruvian Balsam and in another kind of natural Balsam almost of an Amber colour which belonged to an Eastern Prince who carried it up and down with him as a Jewel whose Domesticks at his death sold it whereby I came to procure some of it and found cause to wonder at its strength both upon the tongue and in its Operation But granting Pyrophilus that the Volatile Remedies treated of in these Papers may have their offensive Smell and Taste imputed to the Fire yet perhaps Physitians would more slowly and more tenderly censure the Rememedies in question for their Empyreumaticall stink if they did but consider that they themselves scruple not to use to name those among many others Senna and Scammony though the former be wont to gripe the Guts and the latter have an Acrimony Heat and Mordacity so unkind to to the Bowels that a few grains exceeded in the Dose turnes it into poyson because the ill Qualities of these Medicines may by proper Correctives be somewhat mitigated and the Good they doe doth more then countervaile the Inconveniencies that attend the use of them For the very same Considerations Pyrophilus will be applicable to the excuse of those fetid Medicines for which we Apologize For though the Empyreuma or Impression of the fire for which they are rejected be the Quality whose absence from them were very desirable yet may that Empyreuma by dextrous Preparations be in some measure corrected insomuch that I have known highly rectified Spirits of Urine by being digested for divers months in an exquisitely stopt Glasse brought to be of a Scent which to mee seem'd scarce at all stinking and to others even pleasant and the