united with the extracted fixed Salt out of the Caput mort and further digested together especially if the fixt Salt be made so as to dissolve in most rectified Spirit of Wine give most noble abstersive and diuretick Salts Whose virtues in my Practice I have much admired 9. Not that I deny the great blessing of the Most High in those specifical endowments he hath pleased to inrich some Vegetables and other Concretes withal who perform their work to which by a Divine Hand they are destin'd and that without any Chymical Preparation And yet some Specificks are not altogether without some previous Preparations An error in the due observation of which many times prevents or intercepts the full efficacy of the Remedy 10. There are it may be about a Score of choice Plants which well managed with a skillful hand at due seasons may by their singular virtues produce considerable effects the rest are not that we know of much use saving for ornament pleasant smells and food to Cattle What heaps of Plants by some Physicians are ordered to stuff Diet-bags withal whereas a few choice good ones might probably be more effectual Some Physicians being call'd to consult about a Patient who ordering a Diet-bag for him having put in a sufficient number of Plants yet some of them would have heap'd in more one wiser than the rest very merrily bid them put in a Hay-cock and then to be sure they would have enough And indeed it would have proved a very good Magistery for an Horse 11. As for Animals or the parts of Animals preparable by the Chymical Art for the use of Man are chiefly the Blood and Urine the first of which viz. the Blood is as an Elixir of all the parts of the body where if any Spirits Life or Vigour be it 's there the other viz the Urine is a Latex percolated through the Reins from the Blood and retains in it self much of the very same principles the Blood hath in it so that both unfermented without any previous preparation only by bare distillation yields first a Phlegm and that in a great quantity then a volatile Spirit and Oyl and volatile Salt and in the Caput mort of both is some fixt Salt somewhat resembling Sea-Salt if not really the same separable by solution from the remaining sordes But if both undergoe a previous fermentation then the volatile Spirits becomes loosened from their bonds and works themselves at liberty and that whether in close or open vessels So that then distilled yield at the very first with a gentle fire their volatile Spirits and the Phlegm after 12. So that fermentation inverts the order of the parts coming off by distillation and that whether in vinous or urinous liquors by urinous I also include the blood For take the juyce of the Grape or of any vegetable fruit whether Apples Pears Cherries or the like distill them and you shall at the first have nothing but a great quantity of phlegm and at last a small portion of the true genuine Spirit together with a fetid Oyl even as is got though with some difference of Spirit from blood and urine distilled crudely 13. But if you ferment the juyce of Grapes Apples Pears Cherries or the like then is the vinous Spirit set at liberty from the bonds of the compage of the body and in distillation with a gentle heat comes up first and the phlegm after and that which was an Oyl before is partly by the volatizing ferment transmuted into Spirit and partly by refining in the vessels after fermentation is setled to the sides thereof in form of Tartar which distill'd with a stronger fire gives amongst other distillables that fetid empyreumatick Oyl which we see it yields in plenty 14. So that I say Fermentation makes no small alteration whether in vegetable or animal juyces by setting the true genuine Spirit whether vinous or urinous at liberty from the fetters of the body thereof which juyces if neither distill'd nor fermented degenerate into acid sowre vinegarish Liquors which if not kept from the Air by close stopt vessels will very shortly contract a mouldiness and decay into vapid useless Liquors even so also the blood in its own vessels if not volatized from its connatural ferment becomes sowrish degenerates into a vinegar or rather blood in Chronical diseases and by a further impoverishment of Spirits becomes at length vapid whence death 15. And as blood and urine are Animal parts which receive also a separation of their heterogeneous parts by distillation and that differently by being fermented or not so also Harts-horn may well be accounted another whose parts are separable by the Chymical Art and if well prepared are of much efficacy I speak the rather of the Horns of that Creature because no other that I know of renews his Horns yearly as the Stag doth which being vegetable as well as animal I mean the Horns gives no small hopes of yea we know gives a good Medicine 16. This Creature when fresh Grass cometh in the Spring begins to have an efflorescence in his blood which becomes turgent with volatile active spirits and having more then can well be dispenced with in the vessels begins from a natural instinct peculiar to that Creature to attempt a new production by laying a foundation of new Horns which increasing by the yet more turgidness of the blood with those volatile Spirits i' th' conclusion part of which volatile Spirits together with some succulent parts of the blood become animated into little vermicles by an incipient putrefaction which begets a pruriency or Itching in the blood and that makes the Stag run his Horns against every thing in his way and never quiet till he hath knock't the old Horns off 17. And that is the reason Harts-horn above all other Horns is so replete with volatile Spirits which how to separate requires the help of the Chymical Art It s not by reducing it into Gelly by boyling it in water that 's not enough for in Gellies of Harts-horn such as is made usually for weak persons in Fevers Consumptions or other lingring Distempers the volatile Spirit wherein the real efficacy consists is not at all set at liberty but so closely hedg'd in with other parts in the compage that Nature can find very little benefit therefrom So that as a Gelly I look upon it as no better than any other Gelly from knuckles of Veal or the like for all flesh and horns by boyling in water are reducible into Broth and that by further boyling into Gelly Which is indeed a good Kitchin-Preparation of meat for weak stomachs but as to matter of Medicine yields very small or none 18. So that if we would share with its virtue which lodgeth in its volatile Spirit or Salt we must distill it which may be well done in a glass Retort and by degrees of fire it yields first a Phlegm then by a stronger fire a Spirit and at last an Oyl and
thereof every Plant in its kind to the great and wonderful variety which we see upon the face of the earth so that presentem refert qualibet herba Deum 6. So in like manner the invisible Divine Power hath according to his own beneplacit dispersed variety of Mineral and Metaline seeds in hidden places of the opake body of the earth whence indeed the great and manifold difference of Mineral Glebes or Earths which Mineral seeds as well as all others whether vegetable or animal are indemonstrable a priori taking at first their immediate beginings from the very bosom of the Eternal Being 7. And therefore only demonstrable to us à posteriori viz. to our common sense by appearing in a visible garb upon the Stage of the World Now these dispersed Mineral Seminaries wherewith several parcels of earth become impregnate being set at work by the primitive fiat which is the same to this day as ever in their begining to shape bodies for their ideal essences to become manifest in form to themselves a Mercurial volatile juyce and an embrionate Sulphur as the materia proxima prima to Metalization 8. With these two proximate principles the Mineral Archeal faber operates ripens the elemental crudities and in a linear process puts on a tincture and weight and at length terminates in the coagulation of a perfect Metal specificated according to the form of the innate seed for the ripening coagulating fire of the embrionate Sulphur is as the Solterrae id quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius which kills the Python viz. exiccates and maturates the radical Mercurial moisture and terminates it in a Metalick species But I digress this being more fit for a Philosophick discourse upon another subject 9. We say therefore that these Mineral Glebes have for the mostpart a Mercury and a Sulphur in solutis principiis and both dissolvable in an essurine salt for salts are the keys that unlock the Mineral Kingdom These are those Menstrual Salts which teach Minerals and Metals how to dissolve in water by breaking them in minima and thereby how to communicate their medicinal virtues for the health of mans body 10. Here the Chymistry of nature is most admirable which by its own peculiar Menstruums extracts the essential innate virtues of Mineral Glebes and that by an intrinsick invisible fire in the digesting vessels of the earth yea and by the help of Art supplying the difficulties of Nature by frequent solutions and coagulations may yet further graduate these mineral virtues into more noble Arcana's whose essential tinctures may the better penetrate the vital ferments of the Microcosm 11. But how this Sulphurious essurine Salt becomes determined and specificated according to the difference of the Mineral Glebes it meets with into this or that fossile Salt or Mineral mixture may perhaps not unaptly be represented by this following instance as suppose several colours and salts placed at a distance one from another upon a large Marble and common simple water is convey'd to each of these this water though the same to all yet as it comes to every of them it becomes differently tincted and tasted according to the colour and taste of those parcels it meets with 12. So this essurine Sulphurous Spirit meeting with variety of Mineral Earths though the same in it self to every one yet becomes altered and tinctured according to the different property of the Mineral Earth and that according to the degree of Sulphur maturating the crude Mercurial juyce Now to confirm this our Thesis we must assume these two considerations first that all the various specificated Mineral Salts as Allom Vicriol Nitre c. have aliquid commune something in common amongst themselves and secondly that thereby all these Salts become transmutable one into another 13. For the first that they have something in common among themselves besides confirmation by our previous discourse is yet further demonstrable by matter of fact upon our second consideration viz. the transmutability of one salt into another by the Chymical Art we can out of sal marine or the spirit thereof make a Vitriol of Iron or Copper and by dissolving Quicksilver in Oyl of Vitriol according to what is done in making turbith Mineral as suppose four Ounces of Oyl of Vitriol to one of Mercury after the phlegm is evaporated and distilled that there remains a white precipitate which edulcorated by washing gives a Citrine powder and being revived as by distilling it from pot-ashes it may gives the same weight of current Quicksilver as it was at first This water which is impregnate with the Vitrioline Salts by being boyled up gives a true Allom here Vitriol salts are transmuted into an allumenish salt and that without the addition of any thing but Quicksilver which is again totally separable and yet salts by the very odour of the Mercury is turn'd into an Allom. 14. And not only Oyl of Vitriol with Mercury but also Oyl of Vitriol with common sal marine gives Alumen for if you put Oyl of Vitriol as we sometimes have done upon common salt and distil it in a glass body or retort with a gentle heat you will find a very volatile spirit of salt will come over the helm which will fume exceedingly the caput mort ' or remaining salt being dissolved gives a salt exactly resembling Allom. 15. Also Allom in its Minera exposed to the air is as a Magnet to Nitre attracting and centring it upon it self and common salt is in the body of Nitre Thus you see a relation or circulation of salts one into another and all this because they have in their Centre that one common Essurine spirit of salt which according to various alterations in Mineral beds admits of different coagulations 16. In short by way of recapitulation it is thus the Essurine acid salt having in its solution got a slight touch of a Vein or Minera of Iron and passing through a Rocky Mineral Glebe of Allom of which along the shore of Scarbrough and Whithy is found great plenty becomes more specificated in an allumenous than any other salt with which the water of the Quick-spring which breaks forth at the foot of the Rock is impregnate which makes that Fountain viz. the Spaw we discourse of SECT 7. 1. HAving thus run through the essential principles of this spring which make up this body of Mineral water which is so frequently and that for the most part not without the expected success drunk for the health of mens bodies I think it not impertinent to speak somewhat of its virtues and that the rather because Dr. Wittie gave forth as I was inform'd that I endevoured to defame the Spaw in that I held it to be an allumenous Spring 2. Let him therefore and the World know that in the Essurine salt of Allom as noble medicinal virtues are to be found as in any other Mineral specificated salt whatever for this salt in its primum ens is volatile and
Spirit of Urine Alkalies mille pedes aliaeque insectae quae abster gunt secundam digestionem 16. Now come we to Hypocondriack Melancholy A Disease when deeply seated puzzles the Spaws and the best method of usual Medicines The place of its nativity is probably the Spleen whose ferment if vigorous is not only to make a separation of some impurities of the blood not separable by any other part but also as a specifical ferment to add some new and noble qualities to the blood making it more pure and spiritous by separating the feculencies thereof promoting the clarity of the Regimen of the animal Spirits that Looking-glass of the Soul which if pure and polite gives pleasure and solace to the Soul in the Body causing generous reflections and shaping perspicacious Idea's helping acuteness of fancy solidity of judgement and tenaciousness of memory 17. Whereas if the fermental elaboration of the blood in the Spleen be deficient and thereby the sordes become unseparated thence a steam ariseth which soyls the vessels and muds the animal Spirits darkens the imaginative part and with a melancholy vapour clouds the fancy Hence all the irregularities and disturbed fancies of Hypochondriack Melancholy 18. The Spleen and the regiment thereof is Vulcan's Shop where the materials lie for forging of all Idea's if the materials be good and artificially handled a sound structure of fancy may well be raised but if a wrong cast happen either through the indisposition of the materials I mean the blood or through the error of the work-man I mean the ferment the structure will prove accordingly viz. the fancy will be inverted and the Idea's thereof become preposterous 19. Now the meat and drink we commonly take together with the exorbitancies thereof have no small influence upon the Spleen and its oeconomy and consequently upon the animal Spirits and the Soul Corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat unâ Atque affigit humo Divinae particulam aurae For if a good orderly Diet be observed of wholesome food with much temperance and moderation Chronical Diseases cannot have power to exercise that tyranny they usually do nor can the irregularities of the digestions prove so irreducible as they do by excess of living in as much as all the digestions take their nutritive juyce in order one from another so as if the first prove a glutton overcharging its ferment the rest share with the excess and communicate it one to another till it hath gone the round and in the conclusion reach those Spirits whose fine texture makes them nearer the Soul by which it also becomes affected 20. The Spaw hath power to help the carrying of the dreggy parts left after the digestion of the stomach is over and thereby helps the refining of the vessels so as the nutritive juyce may not come replete with crudities to the other subsequent digestions and so subducts from the Disease by hindring the affluent cause for so far as the virtue of the Essurine Salt in the water can reach especially in the common passages towards the bladder it doth pretty well cleanse and therefore proves effectual in those Diseases native to those parts but doth scarce throughly penetrate those more abstruse recesses where the main concerns of animal Spirits and the forging of Idea's are transacted This is left for the other more penetrating Medicines to perform which perhaps one with the other may the better complete the Cure 21. The Medicaments of use in this case are such as are abstersive of a penetrating nature oppose a flatus by allaying the spurious fermentation and can dulcifie the blood and humours by all which composing the Spirits and settling every thing in order of which sort are a Tartarum vitriolatum not such a one as is vulgarly made in the Shops with Oyl of Vitriol but with the Essurine Salt of Vitriol that hath not undergone any force of fire readily dissolvable in any Vehicle which the other will not The Essential Salt of Tartar the Sal Chalybis the Spirit of Salt of Tartar the Spiritus Veneris Coral and Crabs-Eyes and probably above all the Aurum Horizontale or fixt Mercury which being a Panacea answers all Indications 22. Now come we to discourse of Womens Diseases and of the virtue of the Spaw in the Cure thereof whose Diseases proceed chiefly from obstructions in the Matrix whereby the redundant blood flows back or from a debilitude of the Womb whereby the blood becomes dreyn'd away in too great quantities whence Lypothymia's Faintings and Swoonings c. 23. As to the obstructions of the superfluous blood which should be carryed away by the vessels of the Matrix in form of the Menses We must know therefore that the Menstrua are a certain portion or efflorescence of the blood granted by God in nature for proper ends viz. both for yielding matter and corporeal bulk to the foetus or embryo in the Womb as also for nourishment of the same until it come to the birth It is I say a certain portion of the blood remaining after a full refection of the body ingendred within a Lunar Moneth and sequestred from the rest of the mass to the foresaid end this matter destined to the generation and nutrition of the foetus long foreseen of Nature which never acts in vain quoad intentionem in the female is the main drift and aim of the Menstrues 24. The manner of their generation is thus viz. The blood in the intermitting time encreaseth in its bulk in the Veins and Arteries so that one part thereof being supposed to supply the deficiency of what is daily spent by transpiration the superfluous part increaseth the mass of blood and at length stretcheth the containing vessels with its plenty whence a tungescence and plethory of the vessels 25. Then Nature not unmindful of its office endeavours at the next critical Lunar season to employ a little the turgid vessels by certain passages and Anastomoses from the vessels they run in before into the secundines or chanels of the Matrix This nisus or endevour is done two wayes viz. both by an apertion of the Anastomosis from some vessels into others as also by an innate contraction of the fibres of the sanguinary vessels by which they endevour to free themselves annuente natura from the oppressing Plethora for there is a certain contraction or compression proper to the Veins and Arteries by which the circulation of the blood and nutrition of the solid parts succeeds the better so that those vessels have a kind of connate Systole by which they compress themselves and after their wonted manner become free from the stifling plenty of blood 26. That there is a Turgescence of the vessels about the time design'd by Nature for the critical evacuation is manifest in Virgins Widows c. to whom such a compression of the veins and such an apertion of the Anastomoses of the vessels are at the critical menstrual season denyed oculare praebent
volatile Salt These separated and purified by reiterate rectification gives the pure nimble volatile Spirit or Salt of Harts-horn very proper in Fevers both to help the ferment of the stomach as also to absterse the sanguineous vessels and to carry off a spurious tainted Latex from the blood by transpiration also proper for Colical-gripings and other pains from sharp fretting humors in other parts of the body only it is not very palatable which makes some disgust it before they receive the expected benefit by it 19. But how to make this volatile Spirit or Essence of Harts-horn come over the helm before the Phlegm and that with a gentle heat whereby it may be capable of insinuating the better and more naturally into our digestions that is I say the difficulty because it wants such a copious moisture as Blood and Urine hath by which they easily ferment and give their Spirit first but this is an hard drye solid body and exposed never so long to the Air will nor resolve or ferment 20. To which purpose there is a way which now occurs to my mind though I must confess I never tryed it because it is the first time I thought of it which though conjectural yet very probable and it is thus Take the simple Gelly of Harts-horn put a competent quantity thereof in a Matrass lute it exactly set it in the heat of Horse dung or Balneo to putrefie for Twenty or Thirty days then put it a Retort or glass-body and head distill which very probably will yield its pure volatile essence with a gentle heat before the Phlegm because its volatile parts by fermentation will become extricated from the other more sluggish constitutive parts 21. As in Vegetables and Animals so likewise in Minerals the Chymical Art is no less requisite for all Mineral Salts middle Minerals or Marcasites and Metals are all either so crude lockt up or actually poysonous as that without the help of the Pyrotecknical Art in opening maturating and correcting by the fire they deny us that innate hidden virtue granted to them by God for the help of Mankind Mineral Salts unless they be distill'd or sublim'd with other additionals they communicate little of their operative virtue to us whereas by fermentation putrefaction or distillation they prove noble Solvents for Mineral and Metalline Solutions Middle Minerals as Antimony the Marcasite or Mineral stone of Vitriol Bismuth c. have such venomous properties that unless corrected by the power of fire and good Solvents they do not only deny us the noble medicinal virtue those native endowments but actually impress their virulency upon our vital principles 22. Whereas if rightly prepared by the fire and proper Solvents correcting their virulency by mortifying and separating their malignant Arsenical combustible Sulphurs and thereby setting at liberty their genuine inbred medicinable Arcana's becomes noble Medicines for all curable Diseases All which is done by fire or by that which is equivalent thereto nay sometimes more powerful than fire viz. Solvents which if rightly made are only liquid fires or Ignis Aqua by which Mineral bodies are calcin'd in humido as by an actual fire in sicco 23. Also all Metals if not wrought upon by proper Solvents are lockt up as to communicating their virtues and therefore need particular Solvents to open their bodies which if rightly done must be brought into an Oyl of the colour of the Sulphur of the Metal which are the Hematina Metallorum Paracelsi irreducible to their pristine Metalline form Whence the true Aurum Argentum potabile c. 24. Thus you see in short How necessary the Chymical Art is to the unfolding of the various Concretes whether Vegetables Animals or Minerals How by that noble separating Art we learn to take things in pieces to resolve them by a genuine natural Analysis into their native principles to separate superfluities to reunite the volatile parts with the fixt and thereby produce generous essences and all this without any great force of fire except in those bodies whose compage is more firm and bends not to gentle ways of resolution Such bodies we examine with a stronger fire till they yield and at length confess their natures 25. Now I shall answer what the Galenists are ready to object against this Art First they say Chymical Remedies are dangerous because they are hot Where in the first place they do petere principium supposing all such preparable Remedies to be hot which yet we deny according to the vulgar acceptation of heat viz. such as is actually so to the palate witness Antimonium Diaphor Bezoardicum Minerale Cinnabar of Antimony c. None of which are actually hot to the taste 26. But we will suppose with them that they are actually hot in taste and operation and let us see what inconvenience will thence follow First we find it certainly true that cold is the greatest enemy to life and to vital heat the product of life and therefore above all things care is taken against unseasonable cold Why do we wrap our bodies and make our houses as warm as we can against the injury of the cold Why have we our meat every day yea in Summer excepting those who are not able to go to the charge provided warm for our stomachs Why do we take our broths as hot as we can sup them Is it not to help the fostering and cherishing our vital heat and to preserve the digestions intire against the grand enemy of nature cold Which is not a meer negative and privative quality of heat but is a real positive Ens or actual being and therefore abhorr'd of nature which she shuns and flies as the Harbinger of Death 27. You will say then If cold be so great an enemy and so dangerous to the vital heat How comes Feverish Persons so much to desire cold things viz. cold drinks or any cold thing to hold in their hand or cold part of the bed to reach their feet to I answer That they only desire cold things through a depravation of their senses and appetite which now not being competent judges requires things at random It 's a meer juggle upon the senses and appetite being impos'd upon by the irregularities of the Fever for first the adust Alkalizate recrement re-united in the tunicles of the Stomach of a Feverish Person begets that unquenchable thirst and unsatisfied desire after cold drink which thirst that it is erroneous and deceitful appears because if great quantity of cold drinks be poured down yet the thirst remains whence through the depravation of the ferment the appetite also becomes depraved The ground of the deceitfulness of the sense of Feeling I presume proceeds from some sordes which also are impacted upon the sides of the vessels of the blood together with some Heterogeneities in the mass of blood which Nature endevouring to absterse and separate rowseth up a strong fermentation in the vessels of the blood and the more the recremental Tartar is
to conclude No flattering Encomiasticks shall usher in this work nor pedantick Rapsodists attend these lines nor need we Casta Napaearum to adorn our Water-Nymphs nor let the Reader expect our contemplation upon our Water-Works nor yet any Chronogram or Anagram to sound abroad our fame nor shall we court great Patronages to cast a favourable aspect upon it Praevalet ipsa veritas imo in aeternum praevalebit For if the substance of the Discourse and what the Piece it self offers give not matter of entertanimet for the Reader whose Genius bends that way without such previous antick Stage-Playes Or if it sound not Harmoniously in the Readers Ear without such pratling School-Boy Preludes let it be thrown by and for ever buried in Oblivion If I have writ any thing in this following Tractate Judicious Reader worth thy while it is well If thou have but as much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it is enough If it find any encouragement abroad it may probably brood again Peruse and censure not till thou hast run it through and then do as thou seest cause Farewel Thine W. S. HYDROLOGIA-CHYMICA OR The ANATOMY OF SCARBROVGH SPAW BEING Some Animadversions upon Dr. WITTIE's Discourse of SCARBROVGH SPAW Pars Prima SECT 1. HAving lately seen a Tractate Intituled Scarbrough Spaw or the Description of the Natures and Virtues of the Scarbrough Spaw Written by Dr. Wittie being the second Edition by the same Author who therein undertakes to Discourse of the Nature of that and other Mineral Waters to omit all prolixity we will examine his deposited Principles of that Mineral Spring 2. He tells us of five Ingredients of which this water partakes and hath its Virtues from which are the Constitutive principles of this Spring as he supposeth and those are Vitriol Iron Allom Nitre and Salt with these he currently passeth along through his book where he hath occasion to elucidate the Virtues of the Well and make all the five Volens nolens contribute to this Spring 3. First as for Vitriol the Doctor might have distinguished whether he understood it to be Vitridelum martis or veneris viz. the Vitrio◠of Iron or of Copper for if it be of Iron then is one of the principles viz. Iron Superfluous because the Iron would be the Metalline part of the Vitriol in as much as every Vitriol is made of an Essurine Salt dissolv'd in the Subterraneal veins of a Spring which passing along the Minera of a Metal doth lambere venam licks upon that Vein of Metal whether Iron or Copper which it partly dissolves into it self and carries it as I may say in its belly to the visible appearance of a Spring which evaporated gives a Vitriol either of Iron or Copper according as the Metal was that it passed through 4. But if the Vitriol in Scarbrough Spaw be of Copper then would the operation of the water be most what Emetick or Vomitive because the body of Copper being dissolv'd by an Essurine liquor save that of the primum ens Salium or liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus and Helmont becomes desperately Emetick and can but with very great difficulty by the Chymical Art be separated from that Essurine Salt which hath coagulated it self thereon 5. Again If it was such a Vitriol the other ingredient of Iron would by their mutual imbraces be ting'd and almost transmuted into Copper which I have found by a strong decoction of Iron in Vitriolin Water but to omit that Let us suppose that there were a Vitriol of Venus dissolved in this Spring and in so small a proportion as being mixed in a great quantity of water viz. of 3 or 4 Quarts which is the quantity Patients frequently drink as not to work frequently by Vomit but most what by Stool and that the Purgatives property was from the mixture of this Vitriol and other Ingredients named by the Doctor 6. This being granted in favour of his Ingredients or Mineral Principles then let us see what will be the sequel viz. whether or no we may not lay by as useless one of his Principles I am now discoursing of viz. Iron as an impertinent and insignificant Ingredient I mean as to the body of it 7. For if the Essurine salt dissolved in the Water-Spring meet with a Vein of Copper in the bowels of the Earth which Essurine Salt is always required for the making a Vitriol of what sort soever fretting thereon dissolves it and at the same time that acidity is coagulated upon the metalline dissolv'd parts solutio coagulatio fiunt unico instanti una edeamque res solvit ac à solventi coagulatur and so both together become dissolv'd in the solitary Spring Water in an almost indissolvable nexure then and not till then is the action of that Essurine acidity terminated so as it can act no more and though it should in the secret meanders of the Earth in its incircling perambulation meet with a Vein of Iron yet could it take nothing thence because it had already lost its sting I mean its fretting Salt had satiated it self in coro metallico in the embraces of an already espoused Metal 8. Mars cannot be dissolv'd and appear in the form of a liquor without a dissolvent but this dissolvent viz. the Essurine acidity being already satiated and turned into a Vitriol to make up one of Dr. Witties precanious Principles is not at leisure to make another of them unless we grant such an indulgence to Nature which she never was yet so kind to her self as to take I mean to dissolve Mineral or Metalline Body without an agent proper for that purpose 9. So that indeed we find a flaw in the main Timber of his Building an inconsistency of two of his chief Principles of this Mineral Water Vitriol and Iron that which makes the one disannuls the other so that certainly they are not of the Fraternity of this Spaw however we come to find them thus thrust in by head and shoulders SECT 2. 1. THe Doctor undertakes to discourse of Vitriol and first he gives us an account of the several sorts not such as he had seen but such as he saith Sect. 12. late Writers name viz. three sorts viz. Roman Vitriol or Copperas which two I do not understand to be Synonima's for Romas Vitriol is factitious and adulterated with other mixtures to make it shoot into curious figures and to heighten the colour for pleasing the Eye having great quantity of the sluggish body of Copper is it which is the main Ingredient but very languid as to Spirits wherewith natural Vitriol is more replete as by distillation of both we have found and Helmont mentioning a distillation of it saith dedit parum spiritus ignavi acidi cessavity mox infra pauca hor as omnis spiritus c. as for Copperas it is a name most proper to most sorts of natural Vitriols cupirosum i. e. cuprum erosum The second sort is Cipryan Vitriol partaking of the nature
of Brass Copper I suppose he means for Brass is an artificial Metal from Copper by the addition of lapis calaminaris The third sort he saith is found in Liguria somewhat black by which Iron may be turned into Brass or Copper called Colcotar where by the way take notice that the Mineral Salt being separated from the Vitriol either of Mars or Venus the remaining crocus or calx of both may be and is called by the name of Colcotar the one being a red colour viz. that of the Vitriol of Iron the other a yellow colour like Occar viz. that of the Vitriol of Venus when both their Mineral Salts are separated by an artificial menstruum known to us and that without any force or violence of fire both of which sorts I have by me 2. To me all natural Vitriols seem to be reducible indeed to three viz. to that of Iron Copper and Vitriolum album that of Copper admits of great variety according to the degrees of plenty and purity of the Essurine Salt which is Sulphuris embrionati partus innaturus an unripe birth of a Sulphur in fieri being far removed as Helmont saith from a Metallick nature and nearer to the primum ens which indeed gives the medicinal virtue to Vitriols I say according as Mineral Vitriols or Metallick Solutions are enriched more or less with this Essurine Salt propria sponte illi innatum so are they reckoned to be better or worse as to Medicinal use The best of which are accounted the Cyprian Hungarian or Goslarick or Dane Vitriol being pretty well saturate with plenty of this Essurine acidity 4. Natural Vitriols I said because many artificial sorts may be made among which Roman Vitriol and viride eris may be numbred which last being cristaliz'd by Solution Filtration and Evaporation may be brought to fine Cristals by the addition of Allom c. which may much resemble the Roman Vitriol SECT 3. FIrst He is pleased to reckon up four ways whereby Water may imbibe the nature and virtue of a Mineral or Metal 1. By receiving its Vapour his instance is Water standing somewhile in a brass or iron Kettle will taste of the brass or iron to which I say viz. That no metallick body as such doth or can give a Vapour to a simple elementary Water as long as the Water is homogeneal in its parts Minerals indeed being Metals in solutis principiis may whilst such give an dour for so I had rather and think more properly call it than a Vapour to Elementary Water as for instance Antimony and its Preparations viz. either the crocus metallorum or reguline part can give an emitick property to Water or Wine So natural Vitriols which are but their Metals in fieri or in primo ente reserato can communicate the like emetick odour though indeed there is some small Solution in Water 2. But take the complete perfect Metals of these Minerals and we shall find them such compact bodies as they have no Vapours nay scarce any odour to any simple Elementary Water for instance take Lead which is the Metal of its Mineral Antimony being the complete Metalline Body of that Mineral boyl Water ad aevum in it so as it be simple Water and hath not undergone the least degree of putrefaction for then begins an analytical resolution set a work from a spurious acidity and you shall find the Water to have contracted no saturnine impression at all but if the least acioity either from the Air or admixture of any acid liquor whatever impregnate this Water it shall make a Solution of the Metal and turn it self sweet more or less according to the degree of the sharpness of that acidity till at last it come to a Saccharum Saturm or Sugar of Lead After the same manner the perfect Metals perfect I mean in specie of Iron or Copper being by frequent fusions brought to their highest degree of Metallin compaction do no longer give any solution of parts odour or vapour to simple Water as they did whilst in principiis solutis viz. in their Minerals or Vitriols the which daily experience evinceth Do we not frequently boyl our Water for Broth and most of our potable Liquors in Iron Copper or Brass Vessels and that without the least taste of any of the Metals which Metalline Vessels as such may though made of Silver or Gold give no more vertue sapour or vapour than the Metals of Glass would do to the same Liquors boyled therein if any taste happens it is from some adust soods burnt to the bottom or sides of the Vessel or the like sluttish uncleanness 3. In vain therefore are all our decoctions of Silver or Gold in Water Milk or Broth the Cordial help thence expected as frivolous for all compact Metalline bodies must have proper and peculiar Menstruums to unlock them if any medicinal Arcanum be thence expected 4. The Doctor tells us That by this way of vapour the Sc rbrough Spaw partakes of Vitriol and of Iron That Vitriol may dissolve in simple Water we have before granted but that it should give a vapour to the Water I understand not To make a Body resolve it self into vapours or minute parts of the like nature with the whole is required as I apprehend either an intrinsick or extrinsick heat or fire which or these two the Vitriol of Spaw water hath the Doctor would have done well to have assign'd If he intend an intrinsick Ubi iste focus ille vulcanus ubi what Rule acts it by that it should so constantly and strongly resolve the Vitriol into minute vaporous parts which according to the nature of a vapour should take wings and quickly flie from this Fountain and yet the Carkass of Vitriol to remain for he saith nothing to the contrary but that it is actually and substantially Vitriol still if so then the vapour is Vitriol and the Vitriol a meer vapour for the way and means by which he makes the Water partake of Vitriol is by its vapour and yet this vapour is Vitriol being one of his assigned principles What to make of this or how to make it hang together really I cannot tell 5. If he understand an extrinsick heat it must surely be from the Sun which it must either resolve the Vitriol into a vapour where the spring appears subâ—dio or if its heat penetrate the Superficies of the Earth he must assign how deep its Rayes pierceth and that the Vitriol must of necessity be wrought upon at such a depth within ground which he may do well for satisfaction and strengthning his principles lest they run to ruine assign its place and manner of conversion into vapour otherwise one of his props will of necessity fall under him 6. As Vitriol how true judge so Iron he saith gives it self by a vapour to the Water which that it doth not as a compact body of that Metal we have already sufficiently asserted inasmuch as Iron being a solid body is not
remained a pale-coloured Sediment much the same with that which remains after the distillation of the Scarborough Spaw viz. an Esfurine alumenish Salt which passing thorough or by some Mineral Bed of Iron licks upon it carries some small touches thereof and also passing by some Stones in its current raiseth some small portion thereof which being wrought off by the Essurine Salt it hides it with it self in the pores of the water which is that as remains after the Salt is washt from this Sediment either simply or after calcination which hath no taste nor after the separation of the Salt is dissolvable 4. To enumerate the virtues thereof were but to repeat what I have said already concerning the Scarborough Spaw and therefore shall wave it and wish a stronger Spring with a better current were endevoured thereabout for the good of that part of the Country in respect it hath but a faint Spring and would easily be dreyned if many should drink thereat This water is as deeply saturate with Mineral Principles and as throughly impregnate with Essurine Alumenish Salt as the other of Scarborough only by reason of the restagnation of the water about the mouth of the Spring is somewhat more sluggish and unapt to give its virtue All which may be mended to the great improvement thereof if a new Spring were found out The Sweet Spaw at Knarsborough 1. I Shall not speak much of this water because the ingenuous Dr. French hath writ thereof at large only shall in short say That this water hath but a small portion of an Essurine Acidity which hath a little preyed upon the Minera of Iron got a sleight touch therefrom and therein is as a Vitriol of the Minera of Iron 2. For if Gauls be put therein it turns purple and in the conclusion Inky upon which if Oyl of Vitriol be dropt it becomes clear again and by Oyl of Tartar muddied and cleared again with Oyl of Vitriol Aqua fortis c. But if you pour Oyl of Tartar on some of the fresh water it gives a white milky separation which with Oyl of Vitriol becomes after â—bullition clear again upon which if Oyl of Tartar Spirit of Harts-horn or any volatile Saline Spirit be again poured it causeth the same white Coagulum reducible to a clarity by fresh addition of the foresaid Oyl of Vitriol Aqua fortis or the like 3. All which demonstrate That Vitrioline Solutions may undergo the same alterations by the effusion of various Liquors as Alumenish Solutions will do and that in effect as I at large shewed in the former Discourse are but the same Mineral Essurine Salt under various disguises from Mineral Beds where they become specificated into this or the other Salt from the touching upon various Mineral Glebes 4. So that in effect all Mineral Springs whether vitrioline or aluminous are the same only some waters are more strongly saturated with Mineral Salts than others in order to which we find that the Scarborough and Malton water are better fraught and more richly laden with its Minerals than this of Knarsborough which is a more poor lean water thin of Minerals and therefore greater quantities must be drunke 5. I confess I like the Air of that place much better being upon an high heathy Common than that of Scarborough especially for weak and tender bodies and in the Cure of Chronical Diseases the choiceness of the Air is of no small value nay indeed oftentimes instar omnium above all the rest For the change of the Air and the aptness and goodness thereof doth often volatize the sluggish ferment of the blood which in long continued Chronical Diseases as the Scurvy Dropsie Asthma Consumption Cachexia's c. is become flat feculent and restagnant in the vessels through the depravation of the ferment thereof which causeth the lamp of Life only to glow in the coal or Caput mort of the blood whence they commonly who are afflicted with thoses Diseases go heavily and sadly 6. Whereas when the ferment of the blood becomes restored to which change of Air doth not a little contribute that it separates the feculencies volatizeth the mass and gives wings to that which should transpire then the blood begins to circulate freely the Diseases become Cured and the lamp of Life burns with a bright flame I say the change of Air helping to volatize the blood renders it more capable of receiving some assistance by other Remedies whether the Spaw water or other Specificks 7. That this Spaw is Vitrioline and that only is demonstrable by matter of fact viz. Take a Dram of Vitriol of Iron otherwise called Salt of Steel which dissolve in a pint of Spring water of which two or three spoonfuls mixed with a glass of fresh Spring water gives the exact taste of that Spaw 8. I should advise the Drinkers of that Spaw in order to make the waters more effectual in less quantities to take Salt of Steel dissolv'd therein frequently which I am confident would add abundantly to its virtue and make it more readily answer their expectations For thereby first they need not drink such large quantities which often overchargeth the digestions stretcheth the Hypochonders and burdens nature to the prejudice of the expected future good whereas a lesser quantity acuated with an artificial Vitriol or Salt of Steel will make its way the more readily open obstructions more powerfully constringe the loose flagging membranous parts more easily and answer all indications more generally 9. Besides all which the Crocus of the Steel in that Vitriol when taken into the Stomach c. would precipitate upon which the excrementitious Salt or Tartarous recrement the great obstructer in many Diseases would be coagulated and by the peristaltick motion of the Intestines would be carryed off by siedge giving blackness to the excrements thereby sweetning the blood and hurnours 10. And therefore it is that those Mineral Springs which are the most impregnate with a natural Vitriol of Iron are not only reputed but found to be the most successful in Cures witness the two German Spaws Pawhont and Sanvenir or Savern in which though Dr. Heere 's saith That by distillation he found Rubrick Oker and a little Vitriol I mean in the Pawhom yet if we shall credit Helmont he speaks thus Distillari aliquando seriò Savenirium Pawhonteum sanè non tantum Mineralium catalogum imò nil quicquam in iis offendi prâ—â—â—â— aquam Fontanam Vitriolum ferri ab aliis aute me scriptorilue neglectum Now whether of these two is to be credited I rather think that Hen. ab Heer 's might be mistaken calling that Oker which is nothing but a sediment of the Mineral Earth of Iron dissolved by the Essurine acidity which we see is separable from Vitriol it self by a bare solution thereof in Spring or common water in the form of a yellow powder which he might easily mistake for Oker As for Rubrick I suppose it is nothing else but
volatile as not the least of it discernable in any body of Sulphur or otherwise nay though one should distil it with never so much curiosity of exactly fitting and joynting Receivers yet would nothing of a Sulphur become apparent but would be gone insensibly as happened to a solution of above a pound of thrice calcined Salt which upon the affusion of water did exactly resemble the Sulphur Well as I said which filtred and placed over the fire to evaporate before one half was gone it had lost all its embryonative Sulphur being so volatile as it took wings by the assistance of so much heat and left no footsteps of its presence 8. Thirdly I conclude that such a solution of the Sal Marine together with its embryonated Sulphur in a sabulous Spring having received that previous digestion in the intrails of the Earth as to make apparent its Embryo Sulphur may be nearer the Primum Ens Salium then a coagulated Salt and may be better taken in order to the preparation of that great Solvent the Sal circulatum And my reason is partly grounded upon a sentence of the grave and long experienced Helmont where he saith In Sulphure sunt fermenta fracedines odores sapores specifici seminum ad quasvis transmutationes that is In Sulphur are ferments hogo's smells specifick tasts of seeds fit for all transmutations so that in the bosom of Sulphurs lyeth the main wheel of all transmutation the beginnings to which are also putrefactions which those Embryo-Sulphurs may much promote For all bodies that are capable of resolution into Heterogeneities their texture is subverted by the working of ferments upon the Sulphurs of such bodies whereby they may be readily analyz'd or taken in pieces 9. Lastly That Spirits such I call the Primum Ens salium before they are coagulated upon Minerals or other bodies are but in Embryo or in their infancy as I may call it or nonage and therefore coagulable upon bodies to the impairing of their own activity by locking themselves up in the textures of bodies and so require a resolution from their coagulation before they can be brought to that purity and simplicity they were in when they found bodies to dwell in viz. before incorporation 10. Hence it is that Paracelsus giving an hint concerning the preparation of his grand Liquor Alkahest which I do not remember he calls by that name in all his Writings save De Viribus Membrorum Cap. De Hepate but by Sal circulatum Primum Ens salium c. saith à coagulatione resolvatur iterum coaguletur in formam transmutatam that is as I apprehend That seeing we can scarcely find the Primum Ens salium in its pure spirituality and naked simplicity but as it is infolded in the arms of a Mineral body and so coagulated into many shapes of Salts as Marine Vitriol Allom Nitre c. which are several bodies wherein this hidden Spirit or universal embryonative Solvent appears to our view in divers corporeal dresses putting on Proteus like new shapes according to the Mineral vestment wherewith he is cloathed requires therefore if we would have him appear unmasked to be resolv'd from his coagulation till then we cannot expect him capable of performing much in the way of a penetrating Master-Solvent but acts according to the freedom of his keepers 11. And though this Spirit or Primum Ens salium while it is in its infancy or embryo be so weak as to clasp hold of every body that comes near it and prostitute it self to every woer in many strange Mineral bodies so as to dibilitate it self before it arrive to those more mature and masculine functions of penetrating and dissolving bodies without being contaminated with their touches or debilitated and baffled by their re-action I say notwithstanding this weakness of the Spirit before coagulation yet if after the the resolution it becomes set at liberty from its bonds divorced from its first consort and then exalted and fortified in its own purity by a gradual process becomes so noble and virile a liquor as that it acts upon all Mineral Animal and Vegetable Concretes dissolving them into their Primum ens or seminal Crasis whereby their medicinal virtues are at hand and that without the least re-actions of those bodies upon this universal Solvent Liquor But to return 12. This Spaw as to medicinal use is not of much more efficacy than so much Trencher-salt dissolved in such a proportion of water answerable to that of the Sulphur-Well which both alike would much-what have the same operation only the foetid embryonate Sulphur doth somewhat provoke nature and therefore extimulate the expulsive faculty of the stomach purging either upward or which the rather downward 13. The plenty of the Salt wherewith it is strongly saturate preserves much against Putrefaction and Diseases thence proceeding viz. against worms and wormatick corrupt matter in the stomach and intestines which so much common Salt as I said dissolv'd in fair water would effect the same The blackish Salt which remains after the boyling up of the water hath no more virtue against worms for which it is frequently used than a like quantity of common Salt for it hath no specifical difference from common Salt especially when depurated by solution filtration and evaporation then it is exactly the same 14. And though there be a Marcasite or stone of Vitriol to be found about Sixscore yards from this Well which will fall in the Air in a moist place and by solution filtration and evaporation will become a transparent green Vitriol as an ingenuous Friend of mine for tryal sake made I say though this be found near it yet doth not in the least partake thereof neither in taste nor virtue Concerning the Original of Hot Springs IT is not the least amongst Chymical Enquiries to know the true original cause of heat whether in Vegetables Animals or Minerals amongst which the cause of hot Springs is not inconsiderable seeing that in them are found many medicinable virtues useful for the help of Man Where I shall proceed first to shew That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts next How Mineral Salts upon the contact of one another or of Mineral bodies are the efficient causes of heat in those Springs and thirdly How artificial Baths may be made analogical in virtue and operation to the natural and Lastly shall shew the efficacy of hot Springs and Baths whether natural or artificial As to the first That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts is evident because no Mineral or Metalline body is dissolvable or alterable in the bowels of the earth without the concourse of Salts for in the Mineral and Metalline Kingdom there are but two Agents which makes the great alterations amongst those bodies and those are Fire and Salts by Fire I mean not only the external and elementary fire by whose force Metals and Minerals become separated from their connate Heterogeneities and brought to the best but also the
World and that without having their Letters of Advice or Bills of Exchange Translated by an Interpreter out of one Language into another or of being confin'd to have one of their own Language imploy'd as their Factor And to conclude all liberal Sciences Ingenuous Arts and thriving Manufactures with Mechanical inventions would receive no small improvement by this way of communication through the help of the Universal Character and by observations in Physiological Essays from all parts abroad the Structure of a body of true Genuine Philosophy might in a little time be raised to the great use and benefit of mankind in all sorts of useful learning both speculative and practick So that thereby in a few years more might be done as to the Compleating thereof then hath been in whole Centuries of years before And here concluding this Digression I re-asume my first intended matter and further assert That THus would Physiology be advanced in every part and branch thereof becoming more facile certain and grateful by being grounded upon experiments then by any other conjectural Hypothesis though as I said it is but Scientia naturalis à posteriori being as far or more short of that intuitive knowledge which Adam had in Paradise as conjectural Hypothesis is of it yet is this very acceptable because it joyns issue with our Senses whence we now after a Preposterous manner assume most of our knowledge of natural things A considerable part of this Book of Philosophia Naturalis would be spent in the Physical or Medical Science By which we should know what concrets how us'd and by what means they become helpful for the reliefe of our infirm and diseased Bodyes in which that improvement made in the Laboratories by various preparations and trials thereof upon sick persons would be of great importance And this brings me to the third and last thing I propounded to my self to discourse of viz. to signifie the use and efficacy of Chymical remedies I mean how much more assistance nature hath by the help of Chymical Medicines in order to the cure of diseases then by the vulgar Shop-preparations and here me thinks the Cabinets of natures rarities are opened and by this noble Art we are let into the grand Mysteries and choyce Secrets of medicinal Preparations which being seperated from their terrene Faeces and corrected from their annexed virulencies penetrate into the very intimate recesses and secret Meanders of the Body helping nature at every turn both to manifest what is useful by solution incision and abstersion of the peccant Sordes as also by fortifying the vital powers and functions and that corroboration and restauration of the vital Principals No Ingenious Person can longer satisfie himself in the common practice of the Galenical Physick when he once begins to reflect upon the uncertainty of the Method and unsuccesfulness of his Curing Diseases especially when he comes to consider the reasons thereof viz. the rawness and incongruity of the dispensatory Preparations the Farraginous mixtures whereof render them less effectual then if they were more simple and puts the young practitioner to a great loss whilst the elder and therefore accounted the more experienced Physician jogs on right or wrong according to his methodical rules of Art for when he expects as wel for his credit sake as his desire of doing good some great Cures he finds nothing considerable done And this gives cause to many Industrious searching Physitians now of late to begin to throw off this Galenical yoak and fall to work themselves making some neat Preparations according to the Chymical Art for their own practice by the efficacy of which they are encouraged to proceed further to the Preparation of more noble Arcana which they must do whilst they are young other wise when they grow old they either become too lazie to begin to work or too much settled upon their Lees then they think themselves to old to enter into the Chmycal Matrix to be born Philosophers by the fire The Chymical Preparations have these following advantages of the Shop-Medicines first they are commonly much less in bulk than the other are and therefore they less offend the Patient in taking them What nauseating Potions are frequently prescribed not to say that they are in their taste inferiour to Horse-Drenches which are apt to make the stomachs of some who have taken thereof even at the sight of the next Potion to Vomit whereas a few drops of a Spagyrical Liquor given in a proper Vehicle or a Mineral Powder given in a few grains which in some Preparations hath some taste in others none operates effectually enough according to the intention of the Physician 2. Chymical Medicines if rightly prepared are less dangerous than the Galenical I shall not here vindicate the confident boastings of some quacking Pretenders to Chymistry who presume to cure all Diseases with some secret Powder Oyl or the like which when known is but a meer trifle and scarce worthy the name of a genuine Chymical Preparation and yet forsooth these Medicasters boast themselves though you shall scarce hear it from any of their Patients what great wonders they can do vilifying all others that are more modest than themselves and yet are Possessors of more noble Medicines I am not ignorant how the Galenists have designedly insinuated into the Vulgar the great danger as I said before of Chymical Medicines which hath been no small Remora to the progress of Chymical Physicians till their unwearied diligence hath with time mostwhat worn off that apprehension of danger and they now begin to observe by ocular demonstration the great efficacy together with the safety of Spagyrical Remedies For where the Galenists in their Dispensatories ends there the Chymical Physician begins both to correct what they have done by making their compositions more homogeneal and to proceed further to what they have not done witness the elaborate Chymical Animadversions on the Augustane Dispensatory by the ingenious Swelfer who undoubtedly doth correct most demonstrably the errors of the vulgar Galenical Preparations shewing very evidently their incongruous and farraginous mixtures and besides adds other dexterous Preparations both Vegetable Animal and Mineral which they have not In whose Book of Animadversions with his Mantissa Hermetica and Appendix thereto the Reader may view plainly as in a glass the errors of the received opinions of the vulgar Practice of Physick 3. The Chymical Remedies are more purified and refined from their terrene feculencies than the Galenical for in Decoctions Syrups Conserves Electuaries Lohochs and some other Shop-Preparations there are but very small separations of the terrestrial Faeces little depurations made as for Decoctions either the Menstruum which commonly is water perhaps with the addition of some Wine is not proper for extracting the virtues of the Ingredients or by too much boyling they let the volatile and therefore most effectual parts flie away so that the virtues of the Concretes are not sufficiently hereby extricated from
the evincing the truth of the simplicity of the material Elementaryness of Concrets For as it is in this so also is it in other reductions by the same solvent What becomes of the Salt Sulphur Spirit and earth If these were real Principles they would not be convertible one into another neither would they be reducible into something more simple then themselves in as much as it is essential for Principles to be Primary and to be the last in reduction What becomes of the Spirit one of the Principals of the Moderne Chymical Philosophers which whether it be Vinous got by Fermentation or Saline got by distillation yet is it really convertible into Salt witness the Offa from Spirit of Wine and Spirit of Urine the Sal Alkali made out of spirit of Wine which before was Flagrable but being chang'd into a Salt hath lost that and lastly the rectification of Volatile Urinous Spirits whether of plants or Animals until they distil or Coagulate into the very body of Salt What becomes of Sulphur or Oyl another supposed Principle for Sulphurs are convertible into Salts as I have seen in an experimental process too redious here to be related and Helmont saith Salia aromatum ex eorum oleis facta primi entis illorum vices subeunt and that Oyl of Cinnamon if united to its own Alkali by an artificial and secret circulation for the space of three months without any water wil be totally changed into a volatile Salt Also what becomes of Salt another main Principle of both antient and Modern Chymists For whether it be fixt or Volatile neither of them is an ultimate and so consequently no primary Principle in the concrete it is neither volatile nor fixt but made so by Fermentations or force of Fire for in all simple distillations of Vegetables without previous putrefaction there alwaies remains an Alkali or Salt besides the Volatile Salt which ariseth by distillation So in the actual Flagration or Calcination of Vegetables the Salt catcheth hold of the Sulphur and both become fixt together into an Alkali which Assertion viz. that part of the Sulphur in the actual force of the Fire is fixt with the Salt into an Alkali is apparent from the Saponariness of every Alkali whether of Tartar or any dried Vegetable So that Salts as they lie woven up with the Sulphur in the Texture of the Concrete are as I said neither fixt nor volatile but in the mutual imbraces of each other become pregnant with the Medicinal Vertues Odours Sapours c. proper to the Plant and from different operations of fire and ferments thereon doth proceed both the Volatility and fixity of the Salt their mutability of one into another and Separation each from other Now both these are ultimately reducible into Mercury or water which I look upon as Synonyma for Helmont saith Omze oleum distillatum in salem est mutabile in aquam per adjuncta so that into neither of them are bodies by a genuine Analysis ultimately reducible and therefore they are constitutive Principles of things Lastly what will become of earth that first Principle of the Modern Chymists and fourth of the Aristotelians And although those who contend for five Principles because Vegetables and Animals are by a common Analysis of the fire separable into so many distinguishable parts viz. an Oyl Spirit Salt Phlegm and Earth I say though they do find after the separation of the first four an other part as a feculent dross of all the rest which they call earth yet do we deny the Separation of these parts from a concret by force of fire to be any true Analysis or proper way of taking bodies in pieces And therefore it is no genuine reduction thereof into their primary Principles but onely a forcing the parts asunder by violence of fire so that being put upon the Rack if they make any confession of their first parents its onely extorsive Also the basis of Aristotle's Elements falls imo ruit totum quaternarium elementorum praeter aquam for if we strictly examine what earth is we shall find that it enters not the composition of any body as a primary constitutive Ingredient thereof and that because if we search into the great variety of Earths we may observe them all to be but fruits or products of the primitive Principle Water except hence that Arena Quellem terra virginalis which never enters into the composition of any body quoad generatonem indeed artificially it enters the composition of Glass of Brick cement c. but that is sine semine praevio And that the several sorts of Earth are various coagulations of water according to the difference of the Fracedinous seeds dispersed and implanted therein and that they are no less products of water then Mineral Salts middle Minerals Stones and Metalline Bodies are all which receive a Specifical determination from the difference of the Fermental Seeds Is I say demonstable by granting the veracity of Helmont's experiment aforesaid viz. that all these Earths Stones Marcasites Minerals c. are ultimately reducible into water by his grand Solvent the Alkahest and that without any residence or Faeces at all so that if earth were a permanent Principle it would be so as long as bodies are bodies and would alwayes remain earth after the reduction of the concrete into Elements As earth is no Element so neither doth air enter as such into the composition of Bodies and though its true that air is both useful and necessary for Vegetation and Animation without which neither do plants grow nor Animals live yet is it onely respiraculum vitae promoting in Animals both circulation and volatization of the Blood and helps every part to perform the motion proper thereunto inasmuch as we cannot go to stoole without the help thereof compressing the muscles of the Abdomen and so of Urine and the like but still it enters not the composition of any body as an Elementary Ingredient thereof Nor is any body ultimately resolvable thereinto for though there be a flatus arising usually from the Enormities of the digestions yet that is quite another thing then air And as neither earth nor air so neither fire enters the composition of any concrete for though there be heat and consequently a kind of fire in the body of Animals yet that is no other than a product of Vital Fermentation and no radical Principle and therefore Paracelsus was to be laughed at who in his Tractate De separatione Elementorum teacheth the separation of the Element of fire and out of it again a new separation of Elements For if I should with him suppose an Element of fire yet if that be further reducible it forthwith looseth both the name and nature of an Element and although he and other Hermetical Philosophers tell us of the separation of Elementum iguis de vitriolo Veneris yet by that we must onely understand the Sulphur separated from the Vitriol of Copper which Sulphur
insipid upon being expos'd to the Air again was freshly impregnated with the same Salt which he did also a third time c. with the like effect by which he gathered that that which renew'd the Terra mortua as he calls it was the Spiritus Universalis or Anima Mundi or as I said the volatile nitrous Salt which is to be found both in the Earth and the Atmosphere Which experiment though it should have been inserted in our discourse of hot Springs yet is not very impertinent in this place because after all this digging they found no bottom or beginning of the Spring it self and was the same current whether cold or hot whether saturate with that Hermetick Salt or insipid and therefore might probably by its Channel come from the Seas in the great Circulation set on work by causes aforesaid A TERNARY OF Medicines FOR Curing most DISEASES HAving in the foregoing discourses of my Hydrologia Chymica had occasion to treat of the Essential and efficient causes of many Diseases as the Palsy Apoplexy Asthma or Shortness of Breath Scurvy Dropsy Hypochondriack Melancholy Fevers c. and there onely in a cursory manner hinted the most effectual Spagyrical remedies as the Treatise it self will shew I shall here in order to the practical part comprize most of them in three Catholick Medicines whose use are of large extent and may with a little Latitude be called Universal Remedies answering the three grand Indications or Requirings of Physick Those be 1. Cathartick or solutive 2. Cordial or expelling of Wind 3. Diaphoretick or Sweating The first I call Scorbutick Pills or Pills proper against the Scurvy 2. The second is call'd Elixir Proprietatis or Cordial Elixir 3. The third I call Diaphoretick or Sweating Pills These three Preparations are compos'd of the best and most useful Vegetables The Menstruums and Salts wherewith they are extracted are graduated to the highest pitch they are well capable of viz. by Digestions Circulations and Distillations being exquisitely depurated from all Phlegms and Heterogene Faeces The very Salts and Meustrnums given alone are Midicines of no inferiour order being abstersive and aperient of the Vessels but further They also open the bodyes of Noble Vegetals and being impregnate with their additional virtues become very considerable helps to nature to proscribe what is noxious and combersome to the digestions which is the cause of flatulencies or Winds and to fortify and strengthen the vital Ferments in their functions for the health of the body The operation of these three Medicines are innocent safe and harmless as I have found them by frequent and constant experience and not onely so but also I have found them very succesful in order to the cure of diseases with which three rightly prepared I had rather chuse to manage a practice than with so many score of the vulgarly prepar'd shop-Medicines whose larg portions and Farraginous mixtures rather oppress and nauseate the digestions than give any laudable help in the proscribing that which is noxious or strengthening to the vital powers And first as to the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills which are proper against the Scurvy That being a disease which though at its full state it vitiates the ultimate digestion and whole habit of the body with its various Symptoms yet as you may see further in our discourse of Diseases the first Seminaries thereof are laid in the Stomach viz in the error of its Ferment which by some recremental Faeces being clogg'd and hindred from making a thorough digestion of the alimentary Juyce laies a foundation for the vitiating the subsequent digestions For as the Ferment becomes clogg'd and thereby weak the more Sordes are every day heap'd up in the Tunicles of the Stomach which doth still add to the debilitating the Specifical Ferment thereof towards which conduceth the plentiful drinking of Ale and that often not thoroughly fermented or wrought but thick and muddy which leaves abundance of dreggs upon the Stomach dinting and dulling the Ferment thereof Also the great use of late of Sugar both in Sweet meats Drinks and Sauces do not a little clog the Ferment and add to this disease so the eating of Salt-meat and Rye-bread by reason of an Aliennted sourish Ferment therein which not being Similar to the Acid Ferment of the Stomach begets flatulencies and leaves much Sordes especially to weak Stomachs to which disease also the plentiful feeding upon varieties of Dishes and the too often eating and drinking between meals before one part be digested and carried off an other part is freshly thrown down which sometimes makes that part of the nutritive Juyce which should have passed forth stay longer than of right it should and thereby become too much Fermented which over-acidness thereof passeth uncorrected into the second or third digestion and so vitiates the blood therewith which also in the Fabrick of the Animal Spirits vitiates that prolifique offspring whence proceed Scorbutick Palsies and Apoplexies c. And we frequently find that those who indulge their appetites too much as many do who make it most of their business to eat and drink at all times of the day as also those who foster and debauch their Stomachs with strong cawdles are the most apt to have this disease of the Scurvy and it various Symptoms creep upon them and after all this indulging of their appetites with plentiful variety of food many add to that idleness or want of exercise the want of which in the midst of plentiful feeding is the speedy way to bring this disease and that accompanied with Asthma's or shortness of breath with which we see many who are addicted to sedentary lives and yet feed high are very much troubled which I may properly call a Scorbutick Asthma Upon this account of the depravation of the Ferment of the Stomach whose error is continued down to the following digestions thereby levening it self with the whole mass of humours of the body this disease of the Scurvy with an inseparable Flatus or wind of the Stomach and blood disguiseth it self under the mask of most diseases and appears complicated therewith so that there are few diseases whose Seminals are not Identical with that of the Scurvy Therefore that which is proper for the curing or preventing the Scurvy is also proper for the curing or preventing other diseases that depend thereon whose Bases are much what the same viz. the depravation of the Stomachical Ferment In order therefore to the assistance against the prevalency of so Epidemical a disease as the Scurvy which creeps insensibly from the foresaid causes upon most men and women I compose these Scorbutick Pills whose operation is to purge gently thereby to carry off from the Stomach and other Officines of the digestions the Stagnant Recremental Sordes which are apt to settle as residences of the Food we take in and that many times for want of a penetrating volatizing Ferment which should after digestion leave no Faeces or Caput Mort
probably be successful in all the Diseases thereof also the Hypochondriack Melancholy by opening the external portals alieviating of the Spirits giving vent for the flatus and with the help of inward aperients may dulcifie the blood and humours from their feculent tartness whereby the cohobations and depurations of the blood upon its Caput mort or rejection of its feces in its passage through the Spleen may succeed the better Also may be effectual in Atrophyes Aridura Witheredness of the parts by helping a fresh fermentation of the blood which may force its passage into the otherwise deserted parts and thereby become capable of distributing an equal nourishment to all parts Likewise Baths are of efficacy in all sorts of Stiffness Pains Numbness and Lameness of the Joynts by opening the pores of the body absolving the Nerves from their obstruents dinting the acrimonious sharpness of the Latex giving current to the blood and at length reducing the nervous and membranous parts to their due and proper order and tone Also in other Diseases as Rickets in Children Ulcers Tumors and Defedations of the skin in elder People towards the effecting of which no small variety of the Chymical Apparatus or Mineral Drugs are in promptu for that purpose A short Vindication of Chymical Physick 1. THe strange uncouthness of Chymical Physick is such yea the very name of Chymistry hath been so much a stranger in these Northern parts of England that what through the Odium cast upon it by the Galenists on purpose to keep it under hatches and what through the empty fruitless boasting pretenders thereto who not being Artists were its onely disparagers By both which it hath suffered severely in the ears of the generality of People in so much that when they have heard of it they have stood amaz'd To venture the taking of any Medicine preparable thereby they durst not Why What was the matter They knew not only they had heard strange reports which frighted them Their Physicians told them They were hot things such as would burn their bowels and therefore very dangerous 2. Yea till within this ten or a dozen years this Noble Science hath undergone much ignominy or else mostwhat unknown in most parts of England yes and in Forreign Parts too unless here and there one who if he practiced by it did it privately so that he who hath bent his endevours that way to find out more effectual Remedies by the Spagyrical Art hath been lookt upon in these as a Mathematician was in former days who by the ignorant vulgar was esteemed no better than a Conjurer so that a Mathematician and a Conjurer were accounted in the vulgar Idiom Synonima's words of the same signification For if they dealt with Circles it was enough they knew no difference between a Mathematical Circle and demonstrations drawn therefrom which still was as strange to them and a Conjuring Circle like as a boy was once accused before a Magistrate for being a Fortune-Teller or Astrologer It happened he had a little book in his pocket wherein was some Schemes I suppose drawn by the help of Lillie's Introduction which no sooner did the Justice espy but crys out Circles Circles Sirrah these are dangerous things we 'll take a course with you and so ordered the boy to be carryed away By which you may surely conclude that himself was no Conjurer for he lov'd no Circles Thus poor Circles and Chymistry hath been deeply accus'd 3. It is not long since the genius of some pregnant wits began to set to work to understand and rightly prepare Chymical Remedies first Duely considering the nature of Ferments and next To search after the various Solvents and their manner of operation without which nothing very considerable is preparable in Chymical Physick so that very good improvement of late hath been made therein witness the elaborate Pieces of some ingenuous Persons 4. We shall therefore first say what the Spagyrical Art or Chymical Science is next endevour to take off the reproach or calumny laid thereon by answering the objections against it and lastly signifie the great help nature hath thereby above ordinary Shop-preparations in order to the Cure of Diseases 5. First as to what it is It is in short such a due Preparation of all Medicinal Concretes whether Animal Vegetable or Mineral as the pure balsamick lively parts becomes separated from the impure feculencies for we see that in all Concretes there is a mixture of pure and impure of gross and tenuious parts some feculent and dreggy others refin'd and depurated though indeed the mixture of these together makes up a complete body which hath its use and place in the creation yet as to Medicinable use it 's the pure nimble spiritous parts of Vegetables or Animals or the depurated fixt parts or lastly the reunion of both after purification which effects the work in assisting nature against the Malady 6. Which Preparations are performed two ways viz. either by digestion or by distillation under that of digestion is comprehended fermentation solution extraction and putrefaction and that by agile Solvents connatural with or emergent from the bodies of the Concretes themselves or by additional Menstruums all which doth macerate ferment and dissolve the texture of the body and fits it for separation by distillation The additional Menstruums for extractions are either vinous oleaginous urinous or acetous Spirits or a product from their commixtures all which do prepare towards the separation of the Crasis of the Concrete 7. All Vegetables or Animals or at least the most by bare distillation yield a Phlegm a volatile Salt an Oyl and in the Caput mort a fit Salt separable from the remaining useless Faeces but by a previous fermentation if the juyces of Vegetables they first yield a vinous Spirit then a Phlegm leaving their Tartar behind out of which by distillation with a stronger fire is got a Phlegm an acid Spirit an Oyl out of whose Faeces again is a fixt Salt separable but if the Vegetable undergo a more natural spontaneous fermentation then that which otherwise is an Oyl separates it self by distillation mostwhat in a volatile Spirit or volatile Salt All sorts of Wood or Plants by naked force of fire are distillable into an acid Spirit Phlegm Oyl and Salt as we see in burning of Wood by the bare fire the Chimneys become the Receivers to which the Soot cleaves and that again distill'd yields a Phlegm an Oyl and a volatile Salt which last by rectification becomes pure and of a lovely white colour A very penetrative Medicine useful in Diseases of the Genus nervosum also a great preservative against Putrefaction and Feavers thence ensuing But I dare not prosecute particulars least I swell the volume too much 8. But in general all Vegetable separations of the pure from the impure are made as I said by digestions and distillations the two main hinges of Chymical Preparations by which their Spirits and Essences become separated which