it in Helmonts Horizontall Gold which is made and fixed by the Liquour Alchahest There are then three waies of operation upon this volatized Alcali in order to its application to metalline Bodies First the Alcali is volatized that is regenerated by death and life and brought into a totally volatile Salt which is of great virtue of it self this distilled according to Art gives that Noble Liquour of which Helmont and Paracelsus give such noble Encomiums that wherever that spirit reacheth not no other will reach This Spirit is volatile and saline not acid and therefore more difficult to be attained by our putationers and Sciolists it dissolves all Concretes onely is coagulated upon them being dissolved into a volatile Salt which being then sublimed from the dissolved Calx doth in imperfect mettals raise their Sulphur together with it self and in perfect mettals it by oft Circulation doth the like Secondly then this Alcali thus regenerated into a volatile Salt if mixed with the Calx of either ♀ ♃ ♄ or the Metallus masculus or with the Regulus of â™ and with them distilled it doth make them volatile and each time the distilled Spirit being put upon the Caput mortuum is coagulated upon it Proceed by Cohabation til your sign appear which it behoves each Philosopher diligently to attend Coagulate then your Spirit in which is the metalline Sulphur hidden with Spirit of Wine dephlegmed extract the metalline tincture from the Salt which when the extracting spirit is drawn away remains fragrant and very sweet and is of wonderful virtue little inferiour to any glorified Sulphur by any Alchahestical operation But thirdly and that way I rather choose let your Alcalie be first of all melted with the Calx of any imperfect Mettal and then you have the Sulphur married with the Salt and by the fusion of fire somewhat opened this mixture proceed with after the way of volatizing Salt of Tartar perse and both being thus putrified and regenerated together do after in their volatizing more thoroughly unite together which for that end proceed with by cohobation so long until they be wholly volatized coagulate the Spirit then into a volatile Salt and use it either with the Salt united or extract the Sulphur which is fragrant and sweet with pure Spirit of Wine and reckon your self then Master of a medicine balsamical which you can never enough value and esteem All the secret then is to know how to make Alcalies volatile which is a Secret that will never come to the knowledge of a lazie person or a conceited Putationer it is one of Natures secret Keies to fixe and to volatize which in all her three Kingdomes she performes every day uncessantly Let many Tunnes or never so little quantitie of these fixed Salts be laid in any Field and in few months all would be transmuted into a volatile salt Hence it is that Calx and Ashes inrich grounds for Corn and yet our Philosophers now adaies have not learned to imitate Nature in her most ordinary operations The truth is they who should mind these things are idle and conceited they cannot endure the pains of Search and besides pride themselves as if all knowledge were with them alreadie and in the mean time are readie to vexe and persecute any that will not goe on in the old Road with them However Truth must and will prevail and they who for long time have contemned it shall find themselves justly at last contemned What I write I write from the treasurie of experience and I know and am assured that my Book will be a welcome Iewel to many although a goad in the side and a prick to the very heart of others yet let them fret and break their spleen they never can nor shall prevail against what I here vvrite Are not our Princes of Zoan fools Yes verily vvhile like the savage Indians they adore Glass Beads Copper Bracelets and trifling looking Glasses mean time contemning Gold and Pearls They magnifie and extoll their method of medicine in defiance of any other vvay a method at vvhich Democritus could not refrain laughing nor Heraclitus crying to see Wise men reputed given up to such professed follie and poor afflicted souls daily and hourly languishing and cheated of both monie and lives by those who pretending their care and Cure could never go beyond a Glisterpipe or an Vrinall to vvhich they adde the Butcheries of Phlebotomy Scarification Vesication and Purgation and the fooleries of Barly Broths Iulaps and Cordials of which every Confectioner is better stored then the Apothecary as usually candying and conserving vvith better Sugar Proh tempora Oh mores Yet certainly there is a remnant although but a remnant who cordially mind and seek after the better part and choose it with Mary nor shall it ever be taken from them to them as a Friend and Brother I intend and direct these Lines and they will hear and embrace my counsell And as to the rest this is all that I at present have to say unto them let them beware least being too peevishly addicted to their method they neglect and pass by the way of being better instructed and though perhaps they may think scorn to be instructed by me yet this Pride will but hereafter bring on them greater Confusion and condemnation when they shall see the Catalogue of all they have either killed or suffered to perish through Pride of Spirit disdaining to be taught But to return to our purpose from which we have a little digressed namely to the mysterie of preparing Medicines which whoever undertakes the Care of Lives and would peforme his undertaking Conscionably must attend carefully Let him therfore learn to spoil mineral Sulphurs of their peregrine and malignant virulencie and in them so prepared and corrected he shall find medicines that will command all diseases equally as the noble Helmont most excellently hath written concerning them Of this I purpose to be a little more large and plain for it is in truth the very thing that ennobles and graces a Phisician and therefore studious Reader I shall here crave thy serious attention The Kingdomes in which Nature workes here below are known according to the common division to be three the Animal the Vegetable and the Minerall In all of these she hath provided Medicines for the infirmities of mans life of which the highest in the Animall Kingdome are in the Vrine and the Ploud the highest in the Vegetall Kingdome in the fixed Salts and them volatized either by effential Oiles or otherwise as the Artists experience shall prompt him In the Minerall Kingdome the Medicinal part consists in the Sulphurs and in the Salts which are as I may say â—otum medicinalium tori the â—es of mettals being shut and homogeneal Substances and such as will yeeld to no familiarity with us but as totally estranged Essences are most streightly looked up and work not nisi Sulpâ—urum intuiâ—u with respect and reference to their Sulphurs Of this
on the head by the addition of Cephalick Simples which it doth salificate that is makes their otherwise clammy tinctures to become faline and to christallize and so by addition of any other simple Concretes different specificated Salts may be had as many and as diverse as there are sorts of Concretes to be gotten or procured But these preparations though much nobler then the Galenical Conserves or Syrups or Candied things which are done with Sugar are yet inferiour to those preparations which are made by Elixeration of Tartar with essential Oiles and Spiritualized Tinctures or brought into a Samech with pure rectified Spirit of Wine For by means of these the Salt is made not only volatile and sweet and so it becomes inoffensively abstersive and penetrative but it is also endowed with balsamick and aromatick qualities and so doth not salificate only the Tinctures ☜ that are prepared with it but also spiritualizeth them for in the Salt which is made by acid Spirits and an Alcalie although Tinctures by it are cristallized made Salt yet are they not so spiritualized as to be free from future Empyrheumes as in these other preparations they are So Sugar is cristallized and reiterately refined yet will it burne and be turned into heterogeneities foul filthie and stinking by the fire T is true that Alcalies by Acid Spirits if they being satiated are after distilled by cohobation are volatized but this Spirit which is thus gotten is acid as other Spirits distilled with a strong fire are although it be very penetrative and dissolving mettals and being by them turned into a volatile coagulated Salt be of a most admirable virtue and efficacie in Medicine yet the Salt when it is barely satiated and not distilled hath only the abstersive and medicinal intentions of the Alcaly and spirit of Nitre or Vitriol c. which is less noble than the other by many degrees so that as to application unto Vegetals that which is made by elixerated Oiles or a pure vinous spirit which is wholly Sulphur volatile is far more noble efficacious and penetrative for a medicinal use than the other the reason is evident in that they have a neerer relation to them which are this way prepared than they which are made of mineral Spirits which are as remote from Vegetables in their nature as the subjects out of which they were drawn by the operation of the fire But Alcalies and Oils essential and burning spirits are radically of kin each to other and so the Alcaly by them recovers what it lost by burning that is a seminal vital essential Balsom and so becomes not only volatile but fermental and exceeding sociable to our Nature and so an admirable mean of preparing advancing noble Vegetals those especially which are odorous balsamick and aethereal And here I shall before I pass answer two objections which captious Spirits may make the one opposing my Doctrine to noble Helmont the other opposing me to my self For the first they will object Helmonts Doctrine That volatile Spirits as of Wine Vinegar c. are fixed by means of fixt Salts whereas I affirme That the Salts by their Spirits are volatized To which I shall answer That both are true for the spirit is upon the Alcali robd of its saline parts rejecting the residue in forme of an insipid aquous flegme Thus is the Spirit as to the Saline part of it fixed in respect of what it was yet not so fixed but that by fire it will be made to distill over into a Recipient which a fixt Alcaly alone would never doe so that the Alcaly is made more Volatile and the Spirit more fixt than before And therefore Helmont speaking of this operation in his Tractate concerning the Duelech saith That a Spirit acting on a Body in a Corrosive way is in a manner fixed quodammodo fixatur being so fixed that it will abide a great heat to what it would before thus Spirit of Wine which was extremely Volatile so as to flie with the least heat becomes as to its Saline part so fixt that it will not flie but in a heat equal to the Distillation of Aqua Fortis which may and not unworthily be called a Fixation But besides there is a great mysterie in these Operations which will be more conveniently touched in the answer to the other objection which I shall therefore make that in the answer to it full satisfaction may be given to an Ingenuous Reader The Objection then is of such who would oppose me to my self First in that I say that the Spirit of Volatile Alcalies is not Acid but contradistinct to Aciditie whereas in another place I affirme of a Volatile Spirit of Tartar that it is Acid as all Spirits drawn by the fire are And Secondly That in my first Tractate intituled Natures Explication c. I writing of Alcalies Elixerated by Oiles Essential affirmed them to be the most slow for Virtue and Efficacie of all Preparations by which Alcalies are volatized whereas in this Tractate I affirme That Alcalies by Elixeration with Oiles or by reduction to a Samech by rectified Spirits are the most noble as to Vegetal preparations To which Objection in both parts of it I answer as I did to the former that both are very true only it behoves the careful Reader to consider in what respect the one and the other may be affirmed To answer then the last part of the Objection first I say still that Salt of Tartar if elixerated with an essential Oil becomes a very noble Medicament but as to its virtue as an active dissolving menstrue it is of all other the most sluggish according to Helmonts most true observation Ex salibus illa languidiora reperi quae sequebantur Sulphurum prosapiam So Spirit of Wine is nothing so dissolving a menstrue as Spirit of Vineger especially for mettalline Bodies but nothing comparable to Aqua fortis Spirit of Nitre Oil of Vitriol or the like It is one thing to be a menstrue for mettalline bodies and a far different thing to be a noble medium to volatize and exalt vegetal Tinctures which want a fermental exaltation of their Natures much more than a Corrosive sharpness to open their bodies each then are of use in their own way and kind But besides The question is concerning Alcalies edulcorated and made volatile not actually volatized and here we must yeeld the Garland to elixerated Salts especially to such which are exalted into a Samech for they have their seminal Balsamick Virtue restored to them of which the other are deprived by burning of the fire and not restored by addition of acid Corrosive Spirits which wanting it themselves cannot give what they have not These then meeting with Vegetal Tinctures become Fermental each to other and advance each other into a true essential Balsom which is of wonderful Virtue Now as concerning the aciditie of some Alcalizate Spirits and the non aciditie of others the difference therein lies in the
their highest pitch of excellency with a far inferiour degree of heat than would be required for the other this therefore I did prosecute diligently and studiously and blessed be God found my studies watchings and labors crowned with success as I have given you a can did description largely and sufficiently plain in the foregoing discourse But to return to this Elixir proprietatis it is made of Helmonts ingredients dissolved with a convenient mean and so prepared elixerated and brought to a tincture and then inseparably married with the Arcanum Samech which is of it self a thrice noble medicament Now whereas Helmont speaking of his media Via to make the Elixir proprietatis which is to be performed by bare digestion of the three Species an Ounce precisely of each well beaten and mingled together in a large Glass with a convenient heat addes That if the Species be united with a Medium the product will be of no worth He speaketh that in reference to Crollius and others description of the Elixir proprietatis according to their Phantasie one using the Medium of Spirit of Sulphur another another thing or two But my way is by a mean not Corrosive but familiar to the Vegetal Nature the noblest of all fixed Salts dulcified and made Balsamical and of a seminal Virtue by its own Volatile Spirit which is so noble that Paracelsus calls it his Circulatum minus by which the three Species are opened volatized and made Spiritual so that beside the fragrant spirit there is also the substantial tincture which is not of a contemptible virtue and all joined with such a Salt which is friendly to Nature and by reason of its Volatile Nature penetrative even to the very entrance of the fourth digestion and by reason of its Alcalizate Nature it is marvelously abstersive resolving all muccous foulness and cutting and attenuating all tough flegmatick coagulations which it finds in its passage bringing them forth by Vrine partly and partly by siege and sweat For the oyl of Thereb is of a laxative quality not on the score of a venemous resolution of the parts but as it makes the expulsive faculties mindful of their duties And here note that the extreme bitterness of the Aloes is changed into a pleasant inoffensive bitterness which by a more thorough preparation and high advancement of the medicine would be in a manner wholly extinct To proceed then to the highest pitch of this preparation take of this Elixerated Samech and by a secret Philosophical process bring it first to a spontaneous Granulation and so by degrees to a total Exsiccation and feed it with Aromatical Spirits six seven or eight times each time drieing it by the Air and moistening it by the Fire and Ferment of Nature then by a modest fire of Sand sublime it and thou shalt have both the Samech and the elixerated Oils and the glorified Tinctures together sublimed without the least Empyrrheume which will retain the pleasant fragrancy and the specifick excellencies of the Concretes and in its operation in the dose of some ten fifteen or twenty grains will shew its true and highest Crasis But the elixerated Samech is a noble medicine as I said and fragrant and admirable in its effects against very many diseases and so needs not unless for extraordinary occasions be brought to that pass as actually to be sublimed it is sufficient that it is sublimable and volatile to produce stupendious effects the other highest preparation being exceeding tedious this other being not the work of a few daies nor of very few Weeks so that to doe it as it ought to be will require a Patient and discreet Artist And this process of the Elixir proprietatis take as a rule for preparing any tincture whether of Hellebore black or white with which use spirit aromatized with Cardamom and Coriander Seeds or Colocynthida with which use what Aromatick Spirit best pleaseth you but for the commixture of Species take my Composition Hellebore is eminently splenetical and Cephalical with it prepare Asarum roots and Zalap sometimes it and Opium which I call Elixir Ladani Cephalicum Spleneticum For an Hepatick Enula Campane roots with Rhabarb and Horse-Rhadish For a Stomachick Saffron Rosemary flowers and Snake Root For an eminent Diaphoretick Snake root Saffron and Opium For an eminent Diuretick Satyrion out of which is Paracelsus and Helmonts Aroph which take in a Parenthesis Rhabarb and Saffron Against a Costive temper Colocynthis Aloe and Balsome of Peru Against a Cough and Fluxe Opium Caranna and Gummi Gutta and so you may vary according as Reason shall direct you preparing all after the manner of the foretaught Elixir proprietatis As for the Alcoolization of Alcalies with Spirit of Vrine purely rectified and its mixture or combination with a Vinous Spirit in this operation I might soon run out into a large discourse but I shall reserve that to that part of my Pyrotechny triumphing which treats of the mysteries of the Microcosme Onely in the next and last Chapter I shall touch a little of the Spirit of Vrine reduced to a volatile Salt and sweet by which Helmonts Ens Veneris is made that thou Ingenious Reader maist not want so noble a Remedy as that is of so great and excellent use concerning which thou maist read satisfactorily in Helmonts Tractate intituled Futler and in my next concluding Chapter I shall speak of its use and virtue so much as is necessary for the information and instruction of a studious and diligent young Artist or Tyro I had determined to have concluded this treatise in this Chapter and so to have added a little for a close of the manner of using and applying those remedies whose ground and manner of making I have before sufficiently discovered but a Cordial and Intimate Friend who had read and perused what I had written while it was yet in my hands having lent it to him for that end he was pleased upon the perusal to send me an ingenious and friendly letter with several important Queries to which he requested me on the score of our mutual friendship to give him satisfactory and publick answer which I judging it an equal request and so indeed in effect a command thought I could not handsomely deny or refuse and therefore what I intended to have added to this more briefly because it must there fall in more largely and fully I thought good rather to omit it here and to send the Reader thither for his further satisfaction THE CONCLVSION Of this TREATISE Being an Answer to a Friends Letter containing some important Queries c. SIR YOur kind and very learned Letter I received perused and in it am sensible of the obligation that lies upon me toward you for your Cordial love in it expressed to me How I have or could deserve it I sea not and how to be able to requite it I am out of hopes Yet gratefulness compells me to acknowledge what inability denies me to recompence and
round and refuse the lower steps resolving not to step one step unless he may at first reach the uppermost of all so mad is he who would devote himself to the studie of true Medicine and yet will account nothing worth his inquirie except it be the Masterie of Hermes or this peerless Key the Liquour Alchahest From which preposterous practise that I may seriously dehort thee whoever thou art a studious Beginner in the Discoverie of and inquitie after Natures secrets consider with me that all the works of Nature are concatenate or linked together in such admirable order that one doth subornately and successively discover another God in his wisdome providing for the necessity and conveniency of unworthie mankind making one thing to be a Key unto another and each subordinate discovery a help unto a higher Now that all things in the World are made for the sake and use of man is confirmed by several places of Scripture and appeares by experience each day affording Testimonies of the same From Hunger man is secured by a plentifull provision of food both meat and drink from cold by cloths and fire from diseases by medicines Nor hath God adjourned the cure of the sick unto the time of the attainment of the highest Arcana since very few there are in an Age that have this skill although I beleeve it to be chiefly the fault of our neglect that so few do know what Legacies out Heavenly Father hath left us in the Creatures for in simple Concretes may be found the perfect Cure of most not to say all diseases were we but as diligent as we ought in the inquirie and search after them But because the number of Herbs is almost infinite as to our knowledge the virtues of them known to very few and those which are known are more precise in operation and efficacie so that a practise upon simples would be very tedious and difficult therfore there are some simples that with an casie preparation work admirable effects as to instance in one Salt to Wit Nitre by which slightly prepared how many diseases may be cured and by its Spirit many more and more difficult For verily although many Concretes are as nature hath formed them of singular virtue yet the difficulty of practising by them may appear by instance As suppose a man who is troubled with Nephritical pains would be cured or at least eased by such a way of practise for several intentions several Herbs are gathered as Virga Aurea Becapunga Althaea Malva Sem. Dauci c. These by infusion are composed into a drink and by it ease is found yet if a Phisician should have many such Patients they would require a large stock of these simples which if gathered out of season are of little or no virtue and therfore must be provided in due time and because these diseases will not be confined to such seasons of the year in which these herbs are in their greatest virtue they must be therefore gathered seasonably dried carefully and kept safely else their virtue before use may be either notably impaired or quite lost now to have sufficient quantitie of all herbs which are commended for all the sorts of diseases to which mans frail Bodie is subject seasonably gathered carefully dried and safely kept is a task I fear too shamefully neglected by the Doctours of our Age who commit all this Care to the Apothecaries in which they are so supinely negligent that it is a shame to consider But besides this trouble herbs or seeds or flowers or roots though never so seasonably gathered or maturely dried or carefully kept yet in short time are liable to a spontaneous loss of Virtue which is when gone irrepatable which inconvenience to remedie many inventions are used but to very little purpose However the Medicinal apparatus for such a practise is so great that a man may at easier rates remove a Ship of great Burden from Port to Port then transplant a well furnished Apothecaries Shop from Town to Town so that all the remedie that is left a Phisician in this Case unless he will be so tied to a place as not to be able to leave it is to expect Apothecaries furnished wherever he goes and for his own part to attend onely the Goosquill practise which is the Trade of all our modern Doctors by which way he may as confidently assure himself or his befooled Patients of good success as that Mountebank could who copying out thousands of Receits for several distempers of which he knew not one put his patients to draw each one his Chance at adventure out of a Bag with this short praier God send thee good luck Moreover who sees not that notwithstanding the large provision God hath made for the cure of diseases by the means of simple Medicaments that scarce a certain cure of one maladie in ten hath yet been found out in the common way of practise and If I should say not one in so many I should do them no wrong Therefore hath the necessity of mankind put men upon the search of a more accurate preparation of Simples to the end that Nature being helped by Art through her Administration and its Cooperation Medicaments may be prepared which may effect that which before was sought for in several Simples and without success because of either ignorance of their absolute Virtue or negligence in their gathering or keeping or indiscretion in their Application or Administration Now this is done many waies and according to the several waies of handling of them Medicines may be made of various Virtues and excellencie Bare decoction which is the height of the Galenicalaribes Therapeucie is a slovenly ignorant biundering dotage the unsufficiency of which kind of preparation of Vegetables sundrie successive Ages have restified and many sick people to the loss of both their expectation and monies and not rarely of their lives have experimented Which insufficiencie several studious Sons of Art observing have with all possible diligence attended the preparation of Simples and this for the taking away of their superfluous faeces the maturating of their Crudities the extinction of their virulencie and malignitie and advancing of the hidden Spirit which is aethereal to its transcendent degree of putitie To these in testimony of their being sent from God for the pulling down of the old ruinous way of the blind Philosophie of the Heathens were given certain Diplomata or Evidences of their mission by the miraculous Testimony of powerful Arcanas commanding credit in their Doctrine so new as to repute and so Diametrically opposed to the good old way so stiled and beleeved of the Ancients which without such commanding Arguments would never lose the repute they had by long prescription gained in the World By this means the Ingenuous sort being awakened all of them seeing their own Nakednesse some triflingly sought only for sgleaves to hide the same others being convinced thoroughly of the insufficiencie of Vulgar Medicines seriously
or specifick in prosecuting of which division we came to the distinction of the Keies which are in the art by them to unlock to prepare and perfect Bodies in order and with an eye unto Medicine This method brought us to discourse of the Liquor Alchahest the great universal dissolver of all bodies without the least loss of virtue or diminution of its weight I shall now come to the other inferiour Keies and Medicines of a lower ranke than those preparable by that Art and forementioned Liquour The Subordinate Liquour then to the great Dissolver is the Spirit of Volatile Alcalies of which I shall speak here but briefly reserving a more full and clear manifestation of them to an Intire Tractate on that Subject intituled De Mysteriis Alcalium which I purpose shortly shall see the light Alcalies are Bodies of excellent virtue according to Helmont who saith of them That fixed Alcalies being brought to volatilitie equal the virtue of the great Arcana For being endowed with an incisive or resolving Virtue they do penetrate even to the Limen of the fourth digestion and resolve whatever praenatural coagulation they find in the Veins and in a word their Spirit is of so exquisite a penetrative Nature that where they reach not no other thing in the World will be found to reach A noble commendation and in which he is not false in the least and therefore I shall insist on this subject with what fulness I may not to prejudice that other Treatise on this peculiar Subject which I even now mentioned and which I intend shortly shall come abroad into the World The Generation of them and the Philosophicall speculation about their fixity and possibility to be made volatile I shal leave here untouched as best befitting an intire Philosophicall Tractate of the same Alcalies then through Arts craft and Natures help may be made volatile and by them excellent Medicaments may be prepared such to wit by which all Medicines absolutely required to the Cure of any disease may be prepared The excellent virtue and use of Alcalies appears from their applicableness to Sulphurs both minerall and vegetable In it any Sulphur is extracted out of any mean minerall or inferiour mettall insomuch that Lead onely by mediation of fixed Salts will suffer its Elements of Sulphur and ☿ to be dissolved and will become a running Argent vive the Sulphurous and Saline parts being imbibed in the Alcalies by mean of which also they may by art be volatized Yea even by bare boiling in a strong Lixivium of Tartar may the Sulphur of â™ be obteined separated from the ☿ or Regulus as by fusion the same is attained more opened and dissolved Hence it is that if â™ be melted with an Alcalie of Tartar and Salt the Salts which imbibe the Sulphur being liquefied either in water or in a moist place of themselves the Sulphur of the â™ runnes down and is invisibly conteined in the Lixivium of the Salts which because it will colour the hands of such as touch it with a Golden Colour by reason of its invisibly conteined Sulphur which by precipitation with an acid liquor may be made to appear together with an intollerable stink in a red form is by the Tyrocynists named Sulphur Antimonii Auratum Diaphoreticum a trivial toy as by them used but which may be exalted to a most admirable Virtue Which that it may be done let these Salts impregnated with Sulphur be dissolved until they be red like bloud and separated from all their terrene feces then by Art reduce the whole mass of Salts with the Sulphur to a volatilitie in which process there will be a very unsavory stink which will of its own accord pass away and you shall have of your red lixivium a sweet mass without odour as white as Snow This snow is a Panacaea of â™ purging certainly without vomit or nauseousnesse even in the weakest Bodies and without griping and is a cure for many and those Chronical Diseases But to proceed to a further exaltation of its virtue Take this snow and according to the right Art of distillation proceed with it to wit mixing it with Potters Earth dried and by degrees of fire distil it untill all come over which by Cohobation is obteined leaving behind only a damned black insipid Earth the Spirit being tincted and fragrant to colour resembling a potable liquour of Gold being of a deep tincture of which five or six drops daily administred will not fail even in the most deplorable cases that may be imagined Thus if Colchotar of Vitriol be perfectly washed from its Salt and dried and then boiled up with an equal part of Salt of Tartar liquefied and then both in a Crucible melted and poured out you shall find that the Colchotar will suffer all its Sulphur almost to be imbibed in the Lixivium This then by mortification and regeneration bring to volatility and distil it as was said of the Sulphur of â™ and you shall have a Liquour of a yellowish green tincture and fragrant In this Liquour dissolve Argent vive and you shall find in this Dissolution the Argent vive embraced by the Sulphur in the Liquour conteined and so fixed that in the fire both will give a reall mettall but being dulcified with Spirit of Wine without reduction to a mettall become a true succedaneous Medicine to Helmonts Horizontall Gold made by mean of the Sulphur of Vitriol of Venus brought into an Oile by the Liquour Alchaâ—est The same way may be used in the Sulphurs of ♄ and ♃ yea in the Sulphur of the metallus masculus which operations are not easily learned from either Helmont or Paracelsus Although Paracelsus in many places gives cleer light to this very thing but especially where he saith Sunt praeterea essentiae vini cineratae quae aurum solvunt c. si in circulum dentur ourum reducunt c. By which he means the Salt of Tartar which is of Wine and reputed by him the best of the Wine as having more of the essence of it then any other part of the Wine this Cinerated or brought to ashes as is done to get the Salt of it and after circulated that is volatized till which time it cannot be circulated it reduceth Gold c. Nor is Helmont obscure as to this particular where he saith That if the spirit of volatile Salt of Tartar dissolve either Luna ☿ Cornu-cervi Crabs-eies or any other simple it will cure not only the Fever but most if not all Chronick Diseases Now â™ corroded by any Liquor and not fixed is an unsafe medicine and by this Philosopher in many places condemned as not fit for an honest man to use This Liquor then in dissolving it gives it a fixation sufficient to make it a very noble Medicine but being united with a volatile Sulphur as I taught before it then gives it a metalline fixitie after the same manner though in a subordinate degree of nobleness with the fixation of
Subject and of the dignitie of mineral and metalline Medicines above and beyond either Animall or Vegetall Helmont hath discoursed sufficiently nor will I repeat what he hath delivered which would be to cloy not to edifie the Reader But Sulphurs of themselves are either shut up too closely to be unlocked by the Archeus of our stomach and so do not give their desired help nor yeeld their true virtue if taken in their own Nature or many of them besides this being virulent and malignant in their crude Simplicitie they therefore require to be opened that both their hidden virtue may be discovered and their mixed virulencie and malignitie may by preparation be Corrected 1. Of which the great and most solemn way is by the Liquour Alchahest and to it the succedaneous way by volatile Alcalies of which I have given some brief touches by way of Essay in the former part of this Chapter I shall a little further illustrate and amplifie what there I begun and so draw to a Conclusion of this Chapter 2. In the operation on Mettals this Liquour may very well supplie the room of the Great Solvent and in defect of it may serve a Sonne of Art to make his dissolutions of most or all Concretes and the Volatization of the Sulphurs of Inferiour mettals and minerals 3. As for the supreme mettals viz Gold and Silver and their Compeer in Homogeneitie to wit ☿ I should be injurious to the truth if I should not Confess that in the preparation of these this succedaneous Key comes far short of the dignitie of the Liquour Alchahest and yet its effects here in these Bodies are such as may deserve the commendation of a noble dissolvent and not a vulgar Corrosive 4. For let Gold or Silver be herein dissolved the solvent by acting on them in a dissolutive way is it self coagulated into a volatile Salt which when the Flegm ingendred by this coagulation and the Liquours spending its virtue in dissolving Bodies is evapoured ☞ will in a cool place cristallize 5. This volatile Salt sublime 3 or 4 times from the Calx of the dissolved Gold and you shall find that besides the virtues of ☉ with which it will be endowed it will carry up with it a volatile tincture of the ☉ leaving the Residue very pale 6. Yea and by an Art not difficult to an Artist expert in Pyrotechny the Elements of the Gold will be dissolved and made separable each from other even as in the Operation by the Alchahest with this eminent difference that this Liquour by this dissolution doth each time loose its activitie being coagulated as oft as it is applyed to action and so rejecting a Flegme is every operation diminished in quantitie which the Liquour Alchahest doth not suffer So then as for the glorified sweet Snlphurs of ☉ and Luna a man that can command these Alcalies volatile may by their Spirit attain them without the liquour Alchahest although that doth the work sooner and with more ease and without loss of its own virtue in lieu of which this Spirit is far sooner and with much more ease attainable and he that knows the Secret of making of it may make as much of it as he list But as concerning ☿ that by this Art may be prepared to most incredible uses as to Medicine if to wit first the Sulphur of â™ or of Vitriol of ♀ or of the metallus masculus which is Augurellus his Sulphur Glaure according to Helmont be volatized with the Spirit of volatile Salt of Tartar and both make one Liquour together in this Liquour let Argent Vive be dissolved and draw away the Phlegme till it be drie put on more of the Spirit and resolve it so oft untill it will coagulate no more of the Spirit but that it come off strong as it was put on thus is the Mercurie in these solutions embraced by the spiritualized Sulphur inhabiting the Spirit and so embraced that each will not leave other but upon as difficult terms as the ☿ of a metalline Bodie would be separated from its Sulphur and may be reduced by an easie Art into a metalline Bodie but with greater discretion and no less ease and abundantly greater benefit to poor sick Creatures may it be made into a most noble Medicine very sweet and of wonderful virtue for the Salt of the coagulated spirit is left together with the Coagulate of the ☿ and the Spirit of Sulphur and of all thus joined becoms a sweet precipitate in the dose of four or sixe or eight grains not oft repeated curing all acute and very many if not most or all Chronicall Discases But were no more to be attained by it but that it makes the Sulphurs of ♠♀ ♃ ♄ or Zink c. volatile it is enough to make it of value to a Conscionable Phisician and studious Artist For these Mineral remedies work beyond what any man who hath not tried by experience would beleeve of which Helmont is a sufficient and a very cleer witness I exhort saith he young Artists that by all means they learn to spoil Sulphurs of their exotick and virulent qualities under custodie of which is hid the Vitall Fire composing the Archeus to pleasant ease and quietness for there are some Sulphurs which being prepared and perfected the whole Armie of Diseases will be conquered by them c. Which I more confidently expect from and have sound more eminently performed in the Sulphur of Venus of â™ and especially in the Sulphur Claure of Augurellus c. The preparation by that noble Author in that place chiefly intended is Alchahestical to which this may justly pass as a most noble and unparalleld Succedaneâ—m The preparation also of the Metallus masculus its Sulphur in defect of the great dissolvent may hence be attained for this volatile salt doth embrace and in distillation brings over together with its self that Sulphur in form of a high tincted mettalline Oil which then coagulated on a fixt Bodie the mettalline tincture may be extracted with pure Spirit of Wine the Salt of the Spirit of Tartar being left behind as being not dissolvable in pure rectified Spirit of Wine and is then reduced into that ☿ all Succus or Liquour by Paracelsus called Vinum Vitae ☜ of which Helmont gives so large a commendation and so noble a Character I know the next question will be how may this Liquour be attained to which I answer with Helmont That it is not sufficient to turn over Books but Coals and Glasses must be bought and night after night must be spent So Helmont did so I have done and still continue to do and so thou must doe whoever wouldest attain these Secrets I have done my part taught the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the thing and so have started a game for any one that is curious to hunt but for the thing it self and the practical skill it is Gods blessing onely and each mans particular Endeavours that must
that is imbibed with a Spirit till between them and the Alcaly a neutral Salt be produced an insipid Flegme being only rejected with this join the corrected Tincture of any Vegeral and digest both together till they cristallize in the form of a Tincted Salt having the Crasis of the Concrete Yea and the Alcali it self by mixture with acid Spirits as of Vitriol of Salt of Nitre Sulphur or the like yeelds noble abstersive and diuretick medicines that with the Spirit of Vitriol being known commonly by the name of Tartarum vitriolatum if made truly that is of pure Salt of Tartar calcined perse by a Potters fire and good spirit of Vitriol poured on so long till the coullition cease then dried it becomes a pleasant sweet medicine very white in the dose of 10 15 or 20 gr repeatted each morning cleansing the Stomack resolving powerfully obstructions in the Mesaraicks and is profitably given as an abstersive in severs dgues jaundite scorbâ—te worms in children as also against cold crudities in the stomack causing indigestion many like cases With Spirit of Nitre a like Salt is attained but of an easier fusion tasting of a nitrous cool tast and is an excellent abstersive in burning and putrid Fevers gravel heat of Vrine sharpness in the Stomach usually called Heart-burning heat in the Back and Kidneys heat in the Stomach causing a hot and harsh breath and many other defects that are seated in the first and second digestions And so with Spirit of Sulphur Salt c. very noble preparations may be made but much more noble if the purified tinctures of noble Vegetals their malignity being first corrected be united with this Salt in a due proportion the Salt being liquesied in a convenient Liquour digest then the Salt and Tincture til both become very cleer for at first mixing they will be muddy and precipitating a light Faecula will at last be very cleer decant this cleer Liquour that is tincted and in a slow fire draw away the moisture till the known sign appear and in a cool place it will christallize into a pure Salt tincted with the true tincture of the Vegetal retaining its tast odour and virtue Thus out of Hellebore black or white Opium or any other Simple that will yeeld a tincture in Spirit of Wine a Salt may be made which then is called by the name of the Vegetal with which it is joined as Salt of Hellebore of Opium of Zalap c. which Salts besides the abstersive virtue of the Salt have a superadded Specification according to the intention of the Concrete by which a sedulous and industrious Physician may with Gods blessing cute many and those deplorable diseases But this way of making Salts is inferiour to other preparations to which I shall come in order especially such as are made with Vineger its spirit to wit which becomes what it is only by extinction of the vinous Balsome and so the acidity which moderate caused fermentation by being over exalted destroies the same and makes the body of the Wine become Pontique corrosive and ungrateful to Nature only moderately used it whets the appetite and so excitatively promotes digestion of gross meats as Beef especially cold and fat or of raw crude meats as Sallets c Yea and the spirits of Nitre Salt Vitriol c. being distilled by a violent fire although they become corrosive and abstersive yet they have in them no seminal balsamick virtue nor in their corrosive nature are they altogether excusable from offence to the Stomack for although their acidity asswage thirst yet this aciditie differs much from the aciditie of the Stomack which is fermental and therfore it behoves it to be changed by it into its own nature which how difficult it is let Philosophers judge for the aciditie of the Stomack to satiate the Lixiviateness of an Alealy is no hard matter if the Alcaly do not overpower it with too much quantitie since the antipathie between an Alcalizateness and all acidities is so apparent to the eye so that the superfluous aciditie of the stomack may satiate a convensent dose of an Alcali which it shall receive in without trouble or detriment to it self and may do this daily with very good success where the aciditie of the Stomack is too abundant and the Alcaly thus satiate becomes mild and so tempering it self with the residue of the acid Chyle may pass to the second digestion where it is clethed with a Saline habit but for an aciditie to work upon an aciditie is as improbable as for one Alcaly to work on another and for the stomachical aciditie to endure a mineral aciditie unsatiated were to imagine that Nature had no discretion This for a caution to those who are too tampering with acid especially corrosive spirits let them be sure to give them at such a time when there are Faeces abstergendae in primis vasibus as about the mouth of the Stomack the root of the tongue the throat c. and then give them in a competent dose and lastly continue them not too long unless in a very discreet dose Hence it was that the wise and noble Helmont in his Tractate concerning the Tree of Life tells a memorable story of one that he advised to use the true cleer limpid spirit of Sulphur not that tincted base adulterated spirit perfidiously made and villanously exposed to sale to the ignorant Apothecaries by our apostate rascal Chemists which swarm now almost every where and to take before each meaor at each meal in his first drink two drops of that Spirit and charged him not to be too overventurous to exceed that dose as well knowing that such a dose daily was enough by its aciditie to cleanse the accidental Sordes adhering to the stomack which hindred digestion and by its Sulphurous Gas to keep the meat and drink taken in from putrefactive corruption by which means the Patient being careful to follow this grave advice lived to a very great age to wit forty years after this aduice given being then fiftie eight years old and which was very remarkable in all that forty yeers was never troubled with the least Feverishness although once by fall on the Ice he broke his Legge let the studious Reader consider the example so as to profit by it Consider then seriously your intention and so apply your remedies which if they be not as you would have them you must by Art make them so or confess your self to be no Philosophers All acidities as acidities are corrosive and fretting more or less witness Crabseies in the least acid white or Rhenish Wine but no acidity in the world out of the Stomack is comparably the same with the stomachical aciditie which is a peerless Creature variated in every several Species of Animalls and is an unseparable Companion of the life Now most acidities nay all that have nothing of Venemous qualities admixed help the digestion in as much as they are abstersive and resolving
its flegm in the first place this vvhen it hath dissolved any vegetable concrete and made it volatile vvill suffer the same by a gentle heat of Baineum Mariae to be all separated from it self and to ascend in its various colours leaving this dissolving Liquour in the bottome of the Cucurbit no vvhit vveakned in virtue nor diminished in quantity Thus is it an immortal Ens that is vvhose virtue is not exantlated by reiterated acting upon concretes but retaining its vigour unaltered it is of povver to resolve bodies perpetually being subject to Casualty but not to mutability saue onely by its compeer and is therefore vvorthily esteemed by those vvho knovv it as an unparalelled mysterie CAP. XII Of the Medicines which are preparable by this Liquour c. FRom vvhat hath been discovered concerning this Liquours vvonderful Nature it may easily be imagined vvhat a Key this is into Physick and Philosophie to such as are masters of the same I need not to illustrate this urge the admirable medicinal virtue that is in Metals and Mineral Bodies in Jems Pearls and Animal and Vegetable stones for it doth resolve also Vegetals into their first liquid matter distinguishing in them all their heterogeneities by several colours and distinct places one above another in vvhich resolution there alvvaies seats it self in a distinct place a small Liquour eminently distinguishable from the rest in Colour in vvhich the Crasis of the vvhole Herb tree or seed doth reside In vvhich retrogradation of the Concrete by this vvay of dissolution there is no loss of virtue but an exalting of the same by many degrees only vvhatever virulencie is in the Crude concrete by this operation is vvholly extinct vvith a preservation notvvithstanding of all specifick virtues apparent in the Concrete in its simplicitie These preparations I doubt not but you vvill in your mind highly commend and vvish vvith your self that you could make the like and to say Truth they are eminent and very desirable but Velle suum cuique est nec voto vivitur uno If you vvish the thing and be vvise vvish also the means of attaining it and that is vvith industrie set about it so shal you be able to resolve al Herbs into their principles liquid vvithout sediment of vvhich part vvill be unctuous and fat especially in Trees Gums Seeds and many Roots and part aqueous in vvhich the volatile Salt of the Concrete vvill appear to the tast the Liquour vvith its ovvn Oil you may circulate into an essential Salt vvhich is indeed the first Ens of the Concrete but if you vvould have things done in a lesser time make your dissolutions in a stronger heat and distil over your Liquour vvith the dissolved Bodie in a due fire so vvill the Oiliness be vvholly turned into a saline Spirit vvhich in a distillation by Bath vvill come over in various Colours the Crasis separating it self from the Flegme both by colour tast and smell as also by its time of coming over the Helme distinguishable and your Liquour left behind at bottom as much in quantity and as effectual in virtue as before Thus out of Hellebore may be made a noble specifick against the Gout the Hypocondriack melancholly Calentures and Delitias in Fevers out of Colocynthida an excellent Febrifuge and out of Myrrh Aloes and Saffron an excellent Antihectical medicine as also against Lypothymy's Deliquia's Convulsions Palsies c. In a vvord get this Liquour and the most rich excellencie of vegetables shall be at your command Of vvhich Helmont commends the first Ens of the Cedar for long life and next to it the Elixir proprietatis provided it be prepared by dissolution in a gentle heat like to the heat of the Sun in the Spring and after that digested in a like heat till the Oil and Water be united into an essential Salt I should advise all Vegetables to be prepared in the like Nature if you desire to have their eminent Virtue vvithout losing those peculiar excellencies vvhich depend on the vita ultima of the Concrete othervvise a speedier preparation makes the Medicine no less effectual for curing diseases though less povverful as to long life Yet although the blessing of long life may be found in the vegetable familie by means of this Liquour in vvhich respect these concretes deserve an high estimation yet is there nothing comparably of such medicinal efficacie in these preparations as is in metalline extracts vvhich perform that in cure vvhich to all vegetable means is impossible Of these I purpose to speak but briefly reserving a more thorough discoverie of them to better times for to deal ingenuously I have travelled in these searches as Israel did to the promised land through a Wilderness of Difficulties straits and crosses all caused through Gods permission by the malice of Sathan and the envie of unreasonable men insomuch that from the first time that I was so happy as to see my labour in these searches crowned with success to this very day I never had conveniency of reiterating these operations but have lived contented that if ever God pleased to make me so happy as to be this way serviceable to mankind he would grant me opportunitie which hitherto I have wanted and at present injoy not if otherwise blessed be his name who having bestowed on me talents and finding me unworthie hath made me unserviceable to others and unprofitable to my self In this Liquour many things I have seen many things I know by Analogy and am confirmed of them by what I have read and meditated and it may suffice any ingenuous man that what I write I know to be true by experimental ocular demonstration then which no testimony on earth can be more certain Come we then from the Vegetable to the mineral kingdom in which our Liquour doth approve it self and may justly be esteemed the Phisitians crown and the Philosophers Diadem by means of which all diseases though never so deplorable may be overcome and cut down as hay or weeds with a Sith in the hand of a Mower And here we might take a survey of what it effects on mettals then on minerals and lastly on Salts Stones Pearls Corals c. All which we could represent as in a smal map or Landskip but that we are unwilling to have this small Treatise swell into a voluminous bulk The King of mettals Gold of Nature most fixed that endures without the least diminution the most exquisite trials of Vulcan yet if Calcined into fine Atomes or laminated into thin leaves it be put into this Liquour and digested in a glass well closed in a heat such as is the heat of a boiling Bath in a few daies the Gold will be dissolved in the Liquour without any sediment the Liquor then being distilled from it leaves it in the form of a Salt fusible which cohobated often with the same Liquour is made volatile and comes over in two Colours white and red the red is the Hematine Tincture and
give that studie therefore and take pains and together with prayer to God join constant labour in the Fire thus with Gods blessing will you find what I by the same means have found CAP. III. Of volatile Salts of Herbes and their Virtue HAving run through the Discoverie of Alcalies fo far as to give a short view of their virtue in reference to minerall dissolutions let us now come to discover their use and serviceableness in application to Vegetables their Preparation Correction Purification and Exaltation in Virtue For Vegetables are of most admirable and excellent efficacie although subordinate to Minerals yet so noble in virtue that Paracelsus glories and not in vain of most excellent and several cures performable by one Herb duely prepared as to instance in Wormwood by which he affirmes That he knows perfectly to cure many and those deplorable Diseases O the Care and love of the Almighty for poor mortal man but fie upon the pride and Arrogancie of our Lordlike Doctours who like Tantalus are pined for thirst in the midst of a River and tormented with hunger yet having so many goodly Apples readie to bob them on the Nose but let not their Pride and Sloath seduce any Son of Art to choose with them their wretched lazie and unconscionable life which makes them a by word to every Porter which they are not at all moved at so long as they can get monie although with the ruine of families and lives Of this preparation of Herbs the noble Helmont speaketh in his â—harmacapolium and dispensatorium modernum where he gives counsel by way of Legacie to such who have not tasted the Virtue of the Circulatum majus that is the Alchahest how they should prepare simples which are of great virtue not by Castrating of them or clogging them with other simples by beating all up together into a Miscellanie nor yet by bare decoction by which the Virtue of Odoriferous Vegetals is diminished and the gummositie of others liquified which hath the same defects with the Crude Herbes But by superaddition of a Ferment for the extraction of the hidden Virtue by suspending their Virulencie by substitution of one qualitie for another or by composition of due ingredients stirring up new qualities such as were not in the Concretes simplicitie Which Counsel if well attended and followed it would in short time ruine those Shambles of Butcherie unto thousands of poor mortals the Apothecaries shops which have been more fatal unto mankind than ever was the sword by means of which multitudes have died through the absolute virulencie of their medicines so called but real poison not corrected but Ironically and many more for want of due help which in their Slops is not to be found To correct them is impossible they have grown up so long a time that they seem to have made prescription upon Nature for their future settlement I shall not therefore wash a Blackmore in labouring to reclaim them but instruct the ingenuous and industrious in better preparations For the virulencie of some Simples cannot be corrected nor the defects as crudities c. of others taken away by beating into powders which they call species when mingled nor boiling with Sugar into Tablets nor by Candying or Conserving with Sugar or Honey but by bringing into a volatile sacharine essentiall Salt not sacharine in tast but so called from its resemblance of Sugar-Candie which is done by the superinduction of a ferment this may be attained First then let the industrious Artist know that by means of the fixt Salt of any Herb any volatile Oil may be transmuted together with the Alcali into a volatile essentiall Salt which is of a wonderful penetrative virtue for being saline it mixeth with the urinary principles and passeth along with the Vrine and Excrements resolving by the way al that it finds to adhere obstinately to the Vessels in the waies through which it passeth and being Balsamicall by reason of the â—ils which are salificated in it it reacheth as far as any medicine of what Virtue soever Moreover being of Vegetall and not of Minerall principalls it insinuates it self even into the constitutive principles of our Body and reacheth the fountain of Animal Life which is denied to any Apothecaries Drugges For whatever reacheth to the Balsame of Life must be Salt since Bloud the seat thereof is saline the Vrine also which is an Excrement separated from the Bloud is likewise saline so is our sweat and so the very tears of the eyes nor can any thing be admitted beyond the limits of the first digestion but it must be of this Nature All Herbs the refore and Vegetables in the Stomach are either digested or not if digested they loose what they were being made chile and so become altogether of a new Nature by this formal transmutation by vvhich if they were before medicinal they are spoiled of all that virtue before they come to be admitted to the second and if they may retain a few qualities of the Magnum oportet yet these are too feeble to extirpate a disease setled in any Vessel of the second much less of the third digestion But if what is taken in be not digested it is then cast out at the draught if by reason of its gummousness or indigestableness it will not yeeld to be macerated by the ferment of the Stomach or if it have a mixed virulencie it is rejected either by vomit if the Venome be violent and apparent or by siege if the venome be gummous and not so easily found and a little more gentle or both waies if the Venome be of a gummous and very fermental virtue these never cure but by accident as I fully discovered in my Natures Explication c. and shal not therefore here repeat Vain therefore is the intention of cure that is pretended by these waies and absurd are those Idle promises of Syrups to reach and to heal the Lungs when as the Liver that is much neerer canot be reached either by Syrups or Decoctions what ever the Galenists perswade their deluded Patients But Salts being of another Nature suffer not in a digestible way by the ferment of the Stomach but retaining their virtue passe on to the Mesenterial and Mesaraick veins and so resolve in their passage whatever preternatural they find and so become abstersive diuretick and diaphoretick This is manifest in Sea-salt which passing the digestion of the Stomach and of the Duodenum is received into the Mesaraick veins and goeth along with the semidigested bloud or cruor until the urinary separation in which it lies formally the same as it was when it was taken in and is from thence separated in its intire substance form and virtue But Alcalies in the Stomach are satiated as to the lixiviate qualities with the aciditie of the Stomach and produce a neuter neither acid nor lixiviate but saline of another nature and so pass on to the urinary digestion where they become urinous but increase a fixt
Salt in the urine different from what it was at its first talâ—ing But if they be first volatized by an inseparable union vvith essentiall Oiles till both become one Salt this then passeth through all the digestions in which any coagulation may be made preternaturally and beside the intent of the Archeus Which it resolves and dispels partly by urine and partly by sweat for being essential and volatile it hath access where Aclalies in their own solitarie nature could find no admission For a cleer ocular demoastration of what hath been said concerning the vomitive and purgative qualities which are apparent in some vegetables to convince them to be and to proceed from a venemous principle I shall instance in a few and those most obvious preparations Let Helle bore black or white or the juice of Wild Cncumers or any of the most severely churlish Vegetals be prepared with any fixt Alcalizate Salt and they loose both the vomitive and purgative qualitie and become Diuretick and Diaphoretick in such sort as a double or treble Dose may be taken of them after this preparation without disturbance of which half so much before would have proved deadly I would know of any Galenist if or no the virtue of such simples consist in the vomitive or purgative facultie and if so what is become of it by this easie preparation There is no evasion of the demonstration the matter of fact an easie experiment will convince the reason it is that I now crave of them Perhaps they will think to answer with their old Cavil to wit that Chemistry torturing things by the Fire doth by long preparation exantlate the noble Virtues of Simples and so impose on the credulous Vulgar with a Castration of them instead of exalting their Virtue I grant that decoctions and long digestions do alter things exceedingly so the Root Cassava well known in the Indies being raw is a mortal poison to man or beast as many have experimented to the killing of their swine and poultrey but being compleatly baked it makes very pleasant and wholsome Bread and is eaten by many thousands so Asarum Roots raw either in Powder or Infusion cause very violent Vomits which by boiling in water only for half an hour become excellently Diuretick and are an approved Remedie for slow lingring Fevers So experience teacheth that in the commonly called extract of Rhabarb the extraction of an ounce will not purge so much as one drachme given in powder the reason of which if any shall ascribe to the vanishing of the virtue in the fire I shall confure that Assertion by an undoubted proof made by the fire For let the infusion of the Rhabarbe be made in a Retort to which let a Receiver be fastned that not a drop of moisture exhale out of the Retort which is not catcht in the Recipient and let fresh liquour be put on as that is decanted till the tincture cease and the remainder become as insipid as the Powder of a rotten post and of as little efficacie let the moisture then be distilled off till it come to a Rob and this with so gentle a heat as to cause not the least danger of an Empyrheume of this Rob or extract give as much as may be judged by proportion extracted out of two drachmes of Rhabarbe dissolved in its due proportion of the water distilled from it and to please the Experimenter the better let an equal part of the remaining powder after the extraction be given with it and these two drathmes will not purge nigh so much as half a dragme that was never extracted but only pulverized and taken crude by which it is evident that without diminishing the Substance one grain the purgative qualitie may be diminished notably only by bare boiling over the Fire without any empyrheume contracted in decoction yea and the water distilling off if it be cohobated again and again by returning of it when half is distilled over the Emetick and Cathartick qualities in no long time may be wholly overcome but by addition of the Liquour of an Alcalizate Salt this is done in half an hours time by decoction ☞ Now whither is this virtue vanished that it is gone If it be answered That this is the propertie of the fire Nova product a facere this Answer I shall wipe away as easily as it is given for we will use no fire at all that is Culinary and yet find the same effect â— Therefore let any Vegetall be taken subtilly pulverized and searced and mixe it with an Alcali e.g. Salt of Tartar adde of White wine or any other Liquour as much as will make it to the consistence of Dow or a Pultis so let it stand that the Alcalizate Salt may penetrate the powders Center and as it dries moisten it again or keep it in a Gally-glass comprest and covered that it may not drie and in six weeks time at most the vomitive or purgative qualitie will be wholly extinct yet without loss of either the tast or Colour or smell more then if it had been moistned with fair Water nor quite so much for such an humectation only would have superinduced a Fermentation which by the Alcali is hindred so then the Specifick qualities remain in this last operation witness the tast and the smell rather exalted then perverted but the vomitive and laxative qualities are extinct and consequently justly concluded to be none of the virtue of the Simples but distinct from substance and specifick qualities which remain intire with the loss of the former And here ingenuous Reader observe the rottenness of the Calenical structure who in Herbs of excellent virtue only look to the vomitive or laxative venome which may well be compared to the slaming sword in the hand of the Cherub that guards the passage to the tree of life So this face of Venome oft hides most noble and admirable endowments in many simples by reason of which Poisonous outside they cannot get admittance into the more retired closets of Nature over which so strict a watch is kept that the Archeus will be inraged the Stomach suffer Convulsions and all the Nerves by an irradiating Deuteropathia and the whole Microcosme put into an Hurly Burly rather then it will admit the venome of Hellebore to enter the Mesaraick or Mesentexial veins but it ejects all with a loarhing and detestation but the excellent crasis of which Hellebore may deservedly boast is not to be obteined nay scarce perceived in this boisterous disturbing operation thereof as it appears given in its crudity or if any of its splenetick and Cephalick benignitie chance to appear amid these tumults it is but as the Sun shews a glimmering of its beams through the dark veil of a thick black cloud or a mistie fog But this veil being taken away then appear the true noble and specifick virtues of it and consequently of any other churlish Vegetable which the Galenists by reason of their misty method cannot endure to behold
their Medicines is the gummous terrestrictie vvhich accompanies all Vegetals vvhich they take no care to macerate and overcome before the Stomach be cumbred vvith them This Gummousness I before shevved by ocular demonstration in all those mock preparations commonly called Extracts vvhich is most evident in the Resina Zalappae Scammonii c. I dispute not vvith vvhat the extraction be made vvith vvhether vvith Water or vvith a distilled Phlegme or Devv of Vitriol or any other distilled Water or vvith Spirit of Wine though that is of all the forenamed the best yet none of these distinguish the gummous viscous parts from the pure subtle and saline parts and so the Stomack either finds a burden vvithout benefit or at least the benefit so clogged with its burden that the Archeus reaps not the due efficacie of the Medicine For as I touched before the Stomack will not let any gummous viscous Substance pass the Pilorus and Duodenum into the Mesaraicks nor will the Archeus of the second Digestion suffer such abuse but it must be either concocted into Chile and so received into the oeconomie of Vital principles and by consequence no longer a Medicine or if it be either too refractory or too malignant to undergoe thatstomachical maceration it is proscribed among Excrements the Crasis like the Nut never appearing in its effects being clogged and made ineffectual by the gummositie which as a shell keeps in its benignirie from diffusing its self For the appetite of the Stomack craves nothing but meat and drink and by consequence whatever it finds too gross for drink and unapt for food it rejects to the Excrements without further examination Most absurd then is that of many Doctors who prescribe Medicinal Herbes in Cock or Chicken Broth or in Jellie made of knuckles of Veal not considering that meat and Medicine are two different and distinct things and while thus they think to beguile Nature by medicated broths they pervert the digestion and verefie the Proverb in their Patients causing them Medicè id est miserè vivere For the Archeus finding in the stomack broth or Jellies which are the usual fit objects for its Ferment to work upon for nutriment sake begins to attempt the Digestion till finding the Fucus it rejects all in effect crying out with the Sonnes of the Prophets O Medice mors est in jusculo and being often so deluded and its ferment wearied in vain it becomes after more warie abhorring all meats for the sake of those which have so often imposed upon it And if any of this Chyle in which is an unnatural exotick qualitie come to the second Digestion what fermentations exorbitancies obstructions and disturbances it produces few who have run through a Calenical method for some Chronical Disease but can tell to their Cost and can read this Lecture in themselves with a Probatum est upon their own Bodie Lastly We accuse and condemne the venemous malignitie of many Simples which they most ignorantly call Medicaments as Scammony Elaterium Aaron Asarum Colocynthida with many others which it would be tedious to recount I easily grant and admit that under the mask of Virulency most noble virtues for most part are hid although it is no necessarie consequence that alwaies it should be so yet the Medicinal virtue confists not either in the Emetick or Laxative sacultie of a Simple which it works Qua Venenum but the Specifick excellency is far more secretly hid and not to be commanded but by a true and Philosophick preparation Let Fools admire those qualities as medicinal which abate by Decoction and by compleat Decoction are wholly taken away We know that they are but so many Venomes and are Concomitant accidonts of the Cruditie and Cummous viscosity of such Virulent Concretes of which in the first Ens are no footsteps to be found I yeild moreover that there are many Simples not intended by Nature for Meat that are of excellent Virtue as they are some Diaphoretick as Carduus Camomile Flowers Rosemary Sage Wormwood c. others excellently Diuretick as Virga Aurea Becapunga Pimpernell and many others which have a Volatile Alcalizate Salt and are so far forth cleansing yet they have also the imperfection of Cruditie and the Clog of a Cummous viscosity which if they were removed what excellent Remedies would they afford which are so efficacious as Nature hath produced them I shall shut up this Chapter with a seriousexhortation both to those who profess and those who stand in need of the Art of Medicine If the blind lead the blind it is hazardous least both fall into the ditch I have heard with blushing the vain promises of many Doctours and those men of no mean repute how they will decant on Obstructions Inflamations and preternatural heat of the Liver which they will promise to wash as a Laundresse foul linnen with their abstersives and deoppilate with their apperitive medicines which alas never reach farther then the ordinarie passage of Excrements unless such which have a volatile Alcaly which doe really oft times much good if duly applied but much less then otherwise they would if rightly prepared which preparation the following Chapter will more largely discover A Corollary Appendix concerning several Noble Specifick Remedies preparable by Pyrotechny and Succedaneous to the Grand Arcana IN the foregoing Chapter Candid Reader I did generally discourse of the Application of Alcalies unto Vegetables for their Correction maturation and preparation whereby they become admirable means in the hand of a careful Paisician for the effecting with Gods blessing the Cure of all kinds of diseases although not every disease of each Kind This in the foregoing Chapter we did more generally and did there give an account of the crude imperfections which accompany all Vegetals of the gummous terrestriety which is mixed in all Vulgar infusions extractions or decoctions of milder Vegetal Simples and of the malignant poison of other more furious Herbes which render their Remedies against diseases at best lame and imperfect often Dangerous and Desperate We shewed how that nothing may be admitted to the second and consequently to the third digestion that is of a Corporeous substance till it be macerated by the ferment of the first and whatever is so digested becomes alimentary chile and no longer a Medicine and if any exotick qualities render it unfit for Nutriment the Archeus who is Gods Vicegerent and quickly perceives it rejects it into the draught where when it receivs the stercoreous Ferment of the Bowels it excites a fermental Gas Pontique and Griping causing wringing of the Bowels and Wind with loose Stools by mistake called a Purging being indeed onely a Venemous Impression on the bowels I shewed that how excellent Virtues soever a Simple may have yet that Crasis is shut up in the Gummousness as a Nut in the Shell unless it be a Volatile Alcalizateness which is apparent in many Simples which yet is at the best clogged with the Viscous faeculencie to which
which species are ignorantly confounded more ignorantly applied and many poor Souls pay the price of their lives on the score of this perverse blindness The more is the shame The more is the pitty The Lord in his due time amend it Come we then and I presume not without the Readerslonging expectation to the manner of preparing Medicaments truly and Philosophically such I mean which require not the Liquour Alchahest for that were to tantalize and not instruct the Reader Our Art of preparation is no other than a practical Commentarie on Helmonts Legacie to such who are not yet so farre honoured by God as to tast the virtue and efficacy of the Circu latum majus which is the impatible great dissolving Liquor My advice is saith he not to castrate those Simples which are of excellent and great vertues but by Art to make them better and to advance them by suspending their virulency by extracting their hidden qualities by changing offensive qualities into others which is done by superinducing a ferntent or by addition of some noble powerfull Medium by which this may be effected For the illustrating of which let me mind the Reader of what I handled more fully before namely that both the crudity and the venome are wasted in decoction by little and little until in the end they become wholly extinct as the Circles in water made by the falling of a stone do by little and little vanish away and at last disappear wholly But this we advised not as the best way of preparation partly because it left the gummous vifcosity unconquered which is not to be mastered but by a ferment that volatizeth it or else it is to be separated by a proper agent which is of efficacy sufficient for that purpose but especially because the fire doth by little and little weaken the specifick Crasis of what Vegetable concrete is decocted by it Therefore the most desirable and truly Philosophicall way to perform this is by the addition of an Agent which is penetrative and fermentall that so it may without any altering sensible heat ☞ by a secret circulation perform that triumphingly and perfectly which bare decoction doth lamely and imperfectly Such a mean is diligently to be sought for and highly to be prized when found such a mean is to be found in the Commonwealth of Alcalies then which next to the Grand Dissolvent Nature hath not afforded a more excellent subject that can more accurately performe what the Artist seeks if it fall into the hands of a mental man and not of a Bungling Sciolist I gave a hint even now in the last foregoing Chapter that Alcalies would at once both ripen the crudities separate the gummousness and correct the Venome where I did but as it were Ex ungue Leonem measure Hercules by his foot guess at the Valour of Apollo by his strangling the serpent while he was yet an Infant in his Cradle I intended it not as a measure of the Virtue of Alcalies but as an essay of what might be expected from them if by an industrious and prudent Artist they be governed to their ripe Age if in their Infancie they do so much what may for the future be expected from them For an ocular proof of what before I touched see first the Cruditie by Alcalies maturated and ripened It cannot be denied but that crudity is the cause of corruption in any corruptible thing which is so predominant in Vegetals that if moist they being compressed will in few hours begin to heat a previous sign of ensuing putrefaction if drie in the open Air they lose their virtue in a few years some in a few months if moistned they soon Corrupt Rot Stink breed Wormes c. This Cruditie is but in part taken away by solitary Decoction for boiled Meat or Herbs or Seeds will grow Sower corrupt and Stink with standing for a time although not so soon as raw or unboiled But by means of an Alcaly this cruditie is tataken away that as Myrrhe and other Aromatick Spices used for the embalming of Carcases in Egypt preserved them from Corruption usual to all dead bodies of men or Beasts for many yeers yea for many Ages so Alcalies preserve Vegetals rindx both from Ferment and Corruption True the species so confected have still a continuall internall maturative motion whereby they aspire daily to more and more perfection till they come to an essential Salt which terminates this their motion but this without any transmutative Fermentation or putrefactive Corruption so that Vegetables thus confected are in a daily Motion to perfection but it is retaining their formal specifick pristine Virtues only advanced and graduated not perverted or extinct as it falls out in all Transmutations Secondly the separating of the gummous terrestriety may be most evident in this example Dissolve Opium in cleer Water or in Spirit of Wine that makes no difference here decant it or filter it exquisitely that it be very cleer and transparent then add to it equal part of a strong Lixivium of Tartar and straight with a strong urinous sent you shall see a separation not of a small inconsiderable quantitie but a large quantity of a Resinous Curd as it is in the mixing of Wine with warme Milk let it stand in a simpering heat till this Coagulum be got together then filter it again and you shall find a resinous or rather gummous Substance like unto Aloes for Colour and breaking bitter and stupefying and so it is in all other Concretes as Wormwood Rue Carduus c. onely let the solution and infusion be as full of the Simple as the moisture will dissolve This is to be found also in the ordinary elixation of malt with us called Wort and briefly in the decocted liquour of all Coucretes in them especially which are of an eminent tast can any man desire a more plain proof and demonstration Thirdly As to the Venome of Vegetals I said sufficient in the former Chapter namely that there is no Vegetable so furious so Venemons ☜ and deadly but if decocted with a convenient proportion of an Alcaly added to the moisture it is wholly corrected as to the malignitie although in some a few offenfive Symptomes may remain yet such which Age will wholly by degrees blot out and overcome And here methinks I see some Tyrocynist triumphing with Archimedes I have found I have found to whom I shall a little address my speech with truth and caution First then I say for the incouragement of all young conscionable practitioners that this sleight trivial preparation exceeds the whole confused stock of preparations which adorn the Galenists method and that by many degrees for by this means both the Crudities are overmastered the gummositle separated and the venome extinguished that so they of viscous and malignantly poisonous become digested saline and friendly to Nature and to the Archeus of the Stomaek and therefore until a better way discover it self I shall
confidently advise this as a safe way to all beginners who seek truth more then compliance with any man whatsoever But withall let such credit me who will not knowingly deceive them that this precocious way of preparation doth not fully answer the Artists desire nay contrariwise it in many respects falls short of it for Alcalyes and Concrete Vegetables although in Decoction they easily mixe yet they do not so soon unite radically that is enter each others Center or profunditie which I shall make plain to the eies by an easie demonstration For let Opium or Aloes or any other Concrete be Elixated by mean of Alcaly and filtred never so accurately and then put into a Bottle you shall find the sides of the Glass and the Bottome fouled with a Viscous Gumminess and residence in a few weeks a most evident sign that the gummosity was not totally mastered and severed by that speedy way of Elixation Adde to this that the Alcaly to the tast retains its former lixiviateness which it will not lose till after a long time each working on the other at last both will cristallize in form of a Neuter Salt far different from the sharp lixiviate tast of the first Alcaly and till then you must expect some troublesome Symptomes accompanying these preparations which are to be attributed partly to Alcaly whose corrosive lixiviateness is hostile to the Stomack in some degree partly to the Concrete whose Vita ultima not being wholly mastered by this trivial preparation no marvel if some offensive qualities which are the Tribuli and Spinae in Vegetal concretes appear in their application to Medicine Which inconveniencies Art considering and finding a tedious digestion the only remedie of them studiously sought out a way of abbreviating this irkesome time for its expectation and by ingenuous waies performed it For Liquid things attain their maturitie by long process of time witness the making and ripening of Generous Wines and strong Beer and they require also an excitation of an acid Ferment which causeth a working Ebullition which ceasing a more secret still Ferment works invisibly and imperceptibly perfectly maturating what the working boiling Ferment did but begin and did onely in part and so after a long time the Wines become generous sparkling lively and Balsamical But Alcalies are absolutely repugnant to all acidities and so no such fermentation is to be expected in them and thence it is that Liquours prepared by means of them attain their highest Energie in a farre more tedious time unlesse by Arts Industrie that time be shortned And truly this is the mysterie of true Pyrotechny to redeem time then which man hath not a more pretious Iewel which to perform is not easie for a Conceited putationer or a perverse Sciolist Consider then Nature in her daily operations how by the vicissitudes of Heat and Cold Night and Day Moisture and Driness she brings the hardest Iron and Steel the lasting Brass the durable Marble to a spontaneous corruption by means of the Air and Fire of Nature which is the fermental virtue Consider how Ferments are proper to their own places and where a close ☞ and where an open digegestion is required for a true Son of Art must know the due use of both Air and Fire Dryness and Moisture Cold and Heat this is true Spagyrie other curiosities are but idle Rapsodies Alcalies therefore are to be corrected themselves that they may correct other vegetable Simples and to be exalted in their own Natures that so they may draw all other Tinctures to their own excellencie For in their Simple fixed Nature they are of a Caustick fierie Lixiviate qualitie which must be taken away and the seminal balsamick virtue which they want must be superadded and their fixed corporietie overcome that they may become Volatile And here is to be observed that there is a great difference between Alcalies volatile and volatized as there is between distillable or sublimable and distilled or sublimed the one is in a capacitie of being volatized the other actually so Alcalies distilled or made a Spirit are advanced to the highest pitch of excellencie to which by nature they are ordeined and of this Spirit is that of Helmont to be understood That whereever it will not reach nothing in the World can reach This Spirit is attainable by diverse means by some more by some less in virtue and efficacie Studie to attain this Spirit next to the Great Solvent if you would be master of noble medicaments Now Alcalies are volatized two waies by Alcoolization and by Elixeration Pardon me Kind Reader if I use the known Terms of Art without which no Art is and which cannot be put into plain English without a tedious Periphrasis Alcoolization is a feeding or imbibing or circulating a fixt Alcaly with a volatile Spirit till both be made one a neutrall production arising between them distinct from each Parent And of this head there are three distinct kind of Spirits Acetous Vrinous and Vinous which give the Alcaly Alcoolizated three distinct appellations Arcanum Ponticitatis Arcanum microcosmi and Arcanum Samech Elixeration is performed by Oils essential and Tinctures until of both one Elixir or Volatile Salt be made of which are so many Species as there are diversities of Essentiall and Distilled Oils Of these I shall here onely give a brief essay reserving a more full handling of them to a more convenient place Of all the mentioned manners of operation that which is done by an acetous Alcool is the most facile for such a contrarietie there is between an Alcaly and an acid Spirit that they meet not without a tumultuous ebullition which by degrees ceaseth and when the Spirit put on causeth no ebullition it is a sign the Alcaly is satiated By mean of these Spirits the fixt Alcali loseth its fiery corrosiveness and is made volatile which an expert distiller shall find totally performed by reiterate cohobation which may rather be called imbibition for that Alcaly which would no more of the spirit but all ebullition at mixing thereof ceased yet if it be mingled with burntclay and distilled in the manner of Spirit of Salt or Nitre till all that will distil over be drawn of the Caput mortuum imbibe then with a new Alcool which will take in new spirits this do while it is a second time satiated and distill it then with a very strong fire at last repeat this operation till all the Salt be brought over with the spirit which will be then a most noble Spirit Alcalizate This may be done with Spirit of Vitriol of Nitre of Salt of Vinegar c. or in short with any acid Spirit and the Spirit thus attained may be called Acetum forte Acetum Radicis c. As Paracelsus often names it But as concerning many excellent preparations that may be made by Alcalies they need not for them to be actually distilled for that is a more tedious work it is sufficient that they be only made volatile
some foeces Which affect and afflict that is obstruct and hinder the activity of the first Organs whether as to the appetible or digestible facultie Of acidities also are various kinds some which spontaneously are changed by being dried as the render leaves of Grapes young Grapes c. others by digestion as the juice of Lemmons and Orenges others by a light operation on a proper object as Whitewine on Crabseies and therefore experience hath taught us to cat Lemmons and drink White-wine with Sugar on which acting in the pepantick digestion of the Stomack they become cooling abstersive and diuretick But the aciditie of Vineger being a product out of Wine over eager or fretted is of a more resisting Nature to the Stomack by how much it is estranged from Wine that is a refresher of the same and therefore if made in Syrup with Sugar in no large dose in some causeth vomit yet for strong constitutions with strong meats as roast Beef or boild Souse c. it is a wholsome sauce by some acuated with mustardseed where note that so much gross meat or green herbes which are raw and crude are eaten with it as will imploy its whole aciditie in fretting them and preparing them for the stomachical Ferment which then the Stomack digests together with the meat as being afterward no more acid and so no way resisting its fermental aciditie But as for Mineral acidities and other products of the fire of Reverberation and which are as burning as Fire as to wit the Spirits of Vitriol Sulphur Sea-salt Nitre Salt-gem c. those which are minetal want not their deserved suspition of Arsenical malignitie and so are to be used cautiously with discretion else invenomed Sulphur and Vitriol with an Arsenical commixture will not onely frustrate the expected hope of help from their Spirits but also hurt the Patient to the Physicians just and deserved Confusion Now as for the acid spirits of Nitre or Seasalt of all others they are the most cleer from suspition of their danger as to virulencie let him that useth them attend both the dose and the times of repeating the Dose that would use them honestly and commendably And so much concerning the abstersive nature of acid Spirits with some necessary Cautions concerning their use Now we shall adde a little as to Alcalies in their Corrosive lixiviate Nature that from the view of Both as they are alone and of themselves we may make a third Neutral product yet partaking the abstersive Nature of either parent Alcalies we say then are of an abstersive Nature as saline but hostile to the Stomack as lixiviate or calcineous the reason is obvious to a weak eye because of the contrarictie pardon my expression which is evident between lixiviate and acid qualities which if both be in an high degree they resist even to an actual flagration as appears in slacking of quick Lime and also in the mixture of strong Oil of Vitriol with a well calcined Salt of Tartar however the least perceptible aciditie cannot meet with the least actual or potential lixiviate Alcaly but there is straight a tumultuous resistance made of each to other as is apparent in any Alcalizate Salt and Vinegar or in the least soure Vineger or Wine and powder'd Crabseies nor is there any end of this contest till either the acid or lixiviate qualitie or both be mortified that is satiated and so extinguished unless the two opposite substances so meet that one overpowers the other and then it forceth the other to submit to it self Hence it follows that where the ferment of the stomack is only strong enough which ferment to be an aciditie we have before shewed more than once there it must needs debilitate the appetible and digestive faculties both of them while they are taken and this debilitation in a very weak Stomack may prove an extinction for a time which is an effect not commendable nor desireable Hence it follows that onely where a superfluous acor is in the stomack there the application of Alcalies in their proper Nature is excusable otherwise it must make an alienation at least if nor a pessumdation of the appetite and digestion which are both excited and performed by aciditie to which an Alcaly in its Nature is contradistinct So then although we deny not that both Alcalies and acid Spirits are abstersive and commendable medicaments in their proper place applied in due cases with due caution and deliberate judgement both as to time and dose yet because there are many cases in which both of them may be improper and do actual hurt the one in reference to its corrosive aciditie the other to its lixiviate Caustick hostilitie we affirme and lay down for undeniable these few positions concerning them First That the virtue that is in these forementioned Salts or Spirits consists not in the Corrosive or Caustick qualities but that these are onely impressions of the fire on the Subjects and may be taken away without doing the Spirits or Salts any harme Secondly That the operations they performe which are Medicinal and for the opening obstructions they performe far more powerfully when dulcified than while retaining their Ponticitie Thirdly That both the Acidities and the Alcalies being the products of extreme fire have neither of them any seminal Crasis in them but act the volatile aciditie as a mineral acetousness not attained but by the extreme fire of Reverberation the fixt lixiviate Salt as it is a Salt and purified by the violent action of the Fire Fourthly Then these being joined together produce a mild temperate Salt cooling cleansing and opening obstructions in the Stomack Pylorus and Mesaraicks Fiftly That being dulcified such a dose may be given of them without any offence nay rather with much refreshment to the Patient of which a third part in the pristine Nature of each could nor be given without offence at least if not danger Sixtly I shall adde that what ever Tincture of any Vegetable being first prepared corrected and purified is joined with this Salt and duly digested and ordered with it it will christallize together with it into a pure Salt having the odour tast and smell the virtues also and efficacie of the added Concrete To conclude then this Subject let me give the Reader a tast of what benefit he may reap by these preparations He shal have mineral and acid Spirits dulcified Corrosive Salts made mild that so being friendly to Nature they may have entrance to the Stomack Pylorus and Mefaraicks where becoming Diuretick they resolve and bring away all obstructions or Coagulations which they can Master and what they cannot singly performe by addition of several Species which according to their kindes are made one Salt together with them it may be performed For the forenamed Salts as they are singly dulcified have no seminal or proper determination of their virtue but are indefinitely abstersive and deoppilative in the waies through which they pass which virtue is determinated to operate