tartar which Monsieur Ferrier made me whereof I spake before But me thinks that all this is but little compared to the attraction of air which was made by the body of a certain Nunne at Rome whereof Petrus Servius Urban the Eighth's Physitian makes mention in a book which he hath published touching the marvailous accidents which he observed in his time Had I not such a vouchy I durst not produce this History although the Nunne her self did cnnfirm it unto me and that a good number of Doctors of the faculty of Physick at Rome did assure me of the truth thereof There was a Nunne that by excesse of fasting of watchings and mental orisons was so heated in her body that she seemed to be all on fire and her bones dryed up and calcind This heat then this internal fire drawing the air so powerfully this air did incorporate within her body as it useth to do in salt of Tartar and the passages being all open it got to those parts where there is most serosity which is the bladder and thence she rendred it in water among her urine and that in an incredible quantity for she voided during some weeks more than two hundred pounds of water every four and twenty hours With this notable example I will put an end to the experiments I have urged to prove and explicate the attraction which is made of air by hot and ignited bodies which are of the nature of fire My sixth Principle shall be that when fire or some hot body attracts the air and that which is within the air if it happens that within that air there be found some dispersed atoms of the same nature with the body which draws them the attraction of such atoms is made more powerfully then if they were bodies of a different nature and these atoms do stay stick and mingle with more willingesse with the body which draws them The reason hereof is the resemblance and Sympathy they have one with the other If I should not explicate wherein this resemblance consisted I should expose my self to the same censure and blame as that which I taxed at the beginning of my Discourse touching those who speak but lightly and vulgarly of the Powder of Sympathy and such marvails of nature But when I shal have cleared that which I contend for by such a resemblance and conveniency I hope then you will rest satisfied I could make you see that there are many sorts of resemblances which cause an union between bodies but I will content my self to speak here onely three signall ones The first resemblance shall be touching weight whereby bodies of the same degree of heavinesse do assemble together the reason whereof is evident for if one body were more light it would ocupy a higher situation than the heavier body as on the contrary if a body were more weighty it would descend lower than that which is lesse heavy but both having the same degree of heavinesse they keep company together in equilibrio as one may see by experience in this gentile example which some curious spirits use to produce for to make us understand how the four elements are situated one above the other according to their weight and heavinesse They use to put in a viall the spirit of wine tincturd with red to represent the fire the spirit of turpentine tinctured with blew for the air the spirit of water tinctured with green to represent the element of water And to represent the earth the Powder of some solid mettal enamelld you see them one upon the other without mixing and if you shake them together by a violent agitation you shall see a Chaos such a confusion that it will seem ther 's no particular atomes that belong to any of those bodies they are so huddled pell mell altogether But cease this agitation and you shall see presently every one of these four substances go to its naturall place calling again and labouring to unite all their atoms in one distinct masse that you shall see no mixture at all The second resemblance of bodies which draw one another and unite is among them which are of the same degree of rarity and density The nature and effect of Quantity is to reduce to unity all things which it finds if there interpose not some other stronger power as the differing substantiall forme which doth multiply it do not hinder And the reason of that is evident for the essence of Quantity is a divisibility or capacity to be divided which is as much to say as to make it Many whence it may be inferred that Quantity it self is not many therefore she is of her self and in her own nature a continued extension seeing then that the nature of Quantity in general tends to unity and continuity the first differences of Quantity which are rarity and density must produce the same effect of unity and continuity in those bodies which convene in the same degree with them For proof whereof we find that water doth unite and incorporate it self strongly and easily with water oil with oil the spirit of wine with spirit of wine but water and oil can hardly unite nor mercury with the spirit of wine and other bodies of differing density and tenuity The third resemblance of bodies which unites and keeps them strongly together is that of Figure I will not serve my self here with the ingenious conceit of a great personage who holds that the continuity of bodies results from some small hookings or claspings which keeps them together and are differing in bodies of a differing nature But not to extend my self two diffusively in every particularity I will say in grosse as an apparent thing that every kind of body affects a particular figure We see it plainly in the several sorts of salt peele and stamp them separately dissolve coagulate and change them as long as you please they come again alwayes to their own natural figure after every dissolution and coagulation The ordinary salt doth form it self alwayes in cubes of foursquare faces salt-peter in formes of six faces Armoniac salt in Hexagons of six points as the snow doth which is sexangulary Whereunto Mr. Davison attributes the pentagonary figure of every one of those stones which were found in the bladder of Monsieur Peletier to the number of fourscore for the same immediate efficient cause which is the bladder had imprinted its action both within the stones and the salt of the urine The Distillators observe that if they powre upon the dead head of some distillation the water which was distilled it imbibes it and re-unites incontinently whereas if one would powre any other water of an heterogeneous body it swims on the top and incorporates with much difficulty The reason is that the distill'd water which seems to be an homogeneous body yet t is composed of small bodies of discrepant figures as the Chymists do plainly demonstrate and these atomes being chaced by the action of fire out of their own
it would call back that which was gone out before and was ready to fall and would make it thrust on and return to its former pace and enter again into the pot to mingle again with the water which lyes therein You see then this mystery which at first was surprizing displayed and made as familiar and natural as to see a stone fall down from the air T is true that to make a demonstration thereof by an exact and compleat rigor we must adde other circumstances which we have done in another Discourse wherein I expressely treated of this subject But that which I now say is sufficient to give a tincture how this so notable an attraction is made The other attraction which comes by fire which draws unto it the ambient air with the smal bodies therein is made thus The Fire acting according to its own nature which to push on a continual river or exhalation of its parts from the center to the circumference and out of its source carrieth away with it the air which adjoyned and sticking to it on all sides as the water of a river trains along with it the earth of thae channel or bed through which it glides For the air being humid and the fire drye they cannot do lesse than embrace and hug one another But there must a new air come from the places circumjacent to fill the room of that which is carried away by the fire otherwise there would a vacuity happen which nature abhors This new air remains not long in the place which it comes to fill but the fire who is in a continual carreer and emanation of his parts carries it presently with him and draws the new air and so there is a perpetual and constant current of the air as long as the action of fire continues We dayly see the experience hereof for if one makes a good fire in ones Chamber it draws the air from the door and windows which chough one would shut yet there be crevices and holes for the air to enter and coming near them one shall hear a kind of whisling noise which the air makes in pressing to enter and t is the same cause that produceth the sound of the Organ and flute and he who would stand between the crevices and the fire he should find such an impetuosity of that artificial wind that he would be ready to freeze while he is ready to burn the tother side next the fire And a candle of wax being held in this current of the wind would melt by her flame blown against the wax and waste away in a very short time whereas if that candle stood in a calm place that her flame might burn upward it would last much longer But if there be no passage whereby the air may enter into the Chamber the one part then of the vapor of the wood which should have converted to flame and so mounted up the funnel of the chimney descends downward against its nature for to supply the defect of air within the said Chamber and fills it with smoak but at last the fire choaks and extinguisheth for want of air Whence it come to passe that the Chymists have reason to say that the air is the life of the fire as well as other animals But if one puts a bason or vessel of water before the fire upon the hearth there will be no smoke in the Chamber although it be so close shut that the air cannot enter for the fire attracts parts of the water which is a liquid substance and easie to move out of its place which aquatic parts rarifie themselves into air and thereby perform the functions of the air This is more evidently seen if the Chamber be little for then the air which is there penned in is sooner raised up and carried away And by reason of this attraction they use to make great fires where there are hushould-stuff of men that died of the Pestilence to disinfect them For by this inondation of air which is drawn the fire doth as it were sweep the walls the planks with other places of the Chamber and takes away those little putrified sharp corrosive and venemous bodies which were the infections that adhered unto it drawing them into the fire where they are partly burnt and partly sent up into the chimney accompanied with the atoms of the fire and the smoke It is for this reason that the great Hippocrates which groped so far into the secrets of Nature disinfected and freed from the plague a whole Province or entire Region by causing them to make great fires every where Now this manner of attraction is made not onely by a simple fire but by that which partakes of it viz. by the heated substances and that which is the reason and cause of the one is also the cause of the other For the spirits or ignited parts evaporating from such a substance or hot body carry away with them the adjacent air which ought necessarily to be nourished by some other air or by some matter which keeps the place of the air as we have spoken of the bason and tub of water put before the fire to hinder smoke It is upon this foundation that Physitians do ordain the hot application of Pigeons or young dogs or some other hot animals to the soles of the feet or the handwrists or the stomacks or navills of their patients to extract out of their bodies the wind or ill vapors which infect them and in time of contagion or universal infection of the air pigeons cats dogs with other hot animals use to be killed which make continually a great transpiration of evaporation of spirits because the air by those attractions it makes taking the room of the spirits which issue forth of evaporation the pestiferous atoms which are scattered in the air and accompany it use to stick to their feathers skins or furres And for the same reason we see that bread coming hot from the Oven draws unto it the must of the cask which spoiles the wine if they put it hot upon the bung And that onions such hot bodies which perpetually exhale unto them the fiery parts which appears by the strength of their smell are quickly taken with infectious airs if they be exposed unto them which is one of the signes to know whether the whole masse of the air be universally infected And one might reduce to this head the great attraction of air which is made by calcind bodies and particularly by tartar all ignited by the violent action of the fire upon it which is heaped together and bodified among his salt for I have observed that it attracts unto it nine times more air than it weighs it self For if one should expose to the air a pound of salt of tartar well calcind and burnt it will afford you ten pound of good oyl of tartar drawing unto it and so bodifying the circumjacent air and that wherewith t is mingled as it befell that oyl of
before that of all the rest so we took that course and went happily as far as the Syrtes of Lybia but there our land briezes failed us and for seven and thirty dayes we had no other but a few gentle Zephirs which came from the West whither we were steering our course We were constrained to keep at anchor all that time with a great deal of apprehensions of fear that the wind might come from the North accompanyed with a tempest for if that had happened we had been all lost because our anchors had not been able to hold among those moving sands for under water they are of the same nature as they are upon dry land and so we might be in danger to be shipwrackt upon that coast But God Almighty who hath been pleased I should have the honour to wait upon you this day did deliver me from that danger And at the end of seven and thirty dayes we observed the course of the clouds very high which came from South-east at first but slowly but by degrees faster and faster insomuch that in the compasse of two dayes the wind which was forming it self a great way off in Ethiopia came in a tempest to the place where we rid at anchor and lead us to the place whither we intended to go but the force of it was broken before coming so long a distance Out of this Discourse we may infer and conclude that every where wheresoever there is any wind there be also some small bodies or atoms which are drawn from the bodiess which lye in the bodies whence they come by the virtue of the Sun and of Light and that in effect this wind is nothing else but the said atomes agitated and thrust on by a kind of impettiosity and so the winds do partake of the qualities whence they come as if they come from the South they are hot if from the North they are cold if from the Earth alone they are dry if from the Marine or Sea-side they are humid and moist if from places which produce aromatical substances they are odcriferous wholsom and pleasing As they say who come from Arabia Faelix which produceth Spices Perfumes and Gommes of sweet savour or that which comes from Fontenay and vaugirard at Paris in the season of Roses which is all perfumed as on the contrary those winds that come from stinking places as from the sulphureous soil of Pozzuolo do smell ill as also those that come from infected places bring the contagion along with them My third Principle shall be that the Air is ful throughout with small bodies or atomes or rather that which we call our air is no other than a mixture or confusion of such atomes wherein the aereal parts do predominate It is well known that in nature there cannot be actually found any pure element without being blended with others for the outward fire and the light acting one way and the internal fire of every body pushing on another way causeth this marvailous mixture of all things in all things Within that huge extent where we place the air there is sufficient space and liberty enough to make such a mixture which Experience as well as Reason doth confirm I have seen little Vipers as soon as they came from the eggs where they were ingendred being not yet an inch long which having conserved them in a large gourd covered with paper tyed round about that they might not get out but little holes being made with pins that the air might enter they encreased in substance and bignesse so prodigiously in six eight or ten months that it is incredible and more sensibly during the season of the equinoxes then when the air is fuller of those aethereal and balsamical atomes which gave them their balsamick virtue which they drew for their nouriture Hence it came that the Cosmopelites had reason to say Est in aere occultus vitae cibus There is a hidden food of life in the air These small Vipers had but the air onely for their sustenance neverthelesse by this thin viand they came in less than a year to a foot long and proportionably big and heavy Vitriol Saltpeter and some other substances do augment in the same manner onely by attraction of air I remember that upon some occasion seventeen or eighteen years ago I had occasion to use a pound of oil of tartar it was at Paris where I had then no Operatory Then I desired Monsieur Ferrier a man universally known by all such that are curious to make me some for he had none then ready made but did it expressely for me and for the calcination of tartar twenty pound may be as easily made as two without encrease of charge therefore he took occasion hereby to make a quantity for his own use When he brought it me the oil did smell so strong of the Rose that I complained that he should mingle it with that water in regard I had desired him to do it purely by exposing it to the humid air for I verily thought that he had dissolved the salt of tartar in rose-Rose-water he swore unto me that he had not mingled it with any liquor but that he had left the tartar calcind within his Cellar to dissove of it self It was then in the season of Roses therefore it seems that the air being then full of the atomes which come from the Roses and being changed into water by the powerful attraction of the salt of tartar their smell became very sensible in the place where they were gathered as the beams of the Sun do burn being crowded together in a burning glasse There happened also another marvailous thing touching this oyl of tartar which may serve to prove a proposition which we have not yet touched but not to interrupt the course of the story I will tell it you by way of advance It was that as the season of Roses was passed the smell of the Rose did vanish away from the said oil of tartar so that in three or four moneths it was quite gone But we were much surprized when the next year the said odor of Roses returned as strong as ever it did and so went away again towards winter which course it still observes Which made Monsieur Ferrier to keep it as a singular rarity and the last Summer I found the effect in his house We have in London an unlucky and troublesome confirmation of this doctrine for the air useth to be full of such atomes The material then whereof they make fire in that great City is commonly of pit coal which is brought from Newcastle or Scotland This cole hath in it a great quantity of volatil salt very sharp which being carried on by the smoak useth to dissipate it self and fill the air wherewith it doth so incorporate that although we do not see it yet we find the effects for it spoiles beds Tapistries and other houshold stuffs that are of any beautiful fair colour for the fuliginous air
mediation of the Sun beams and of the light use to issue forth out of all bodies that are composed of Elements who throng the air and are carried a marvailous distance from the place and bodies where they have their origen and source the proof and explication of which things hath been the aime of my discourse hitherunto Now my Lords I must if you please make you see how these small bodies that so fill and compose the air are oftentimes drawn to a road altogether differing from that which their universal causes should make them hold and it shall be our fifth principle One may remark within the course and aeconomy of nature sundry sorts of attractions as that of succion or sucching whereby I have seen a ball of lead at the bottom of a long steel exactly wrought follow the air which one sucked out of the mouth of a Canon with that impetuosity and strength that it broke his teeth The attraction of water or wine that is done by the instrument Scyphon is like to this for by means of that one liquor is made to passe from one vessel into another without changing any way the colour or rising of the lees There is another sort of attraction which is called magnetical whereby the loadstone draws the iron Another electrick when the Iett-stone draws unto it straws There is another of the Flame when the smoke of a candle put out draws the flame of that which burns hard by and makes it descend to light that which is out There is another of Filtration when one humid body mounts upon a dry body or when the contrary is done Lastly when the fire or some hot body draws the air and that which is mixed therewith We will treat here of the two first species of attraction I have sufficiently spoken of the rest in another place Filtration may seem to him who hath not attentively considered it nor examined by what circumstances so hidden a secret of nature comes to passe and to a person of a mean and limited understanding to be done by some occult virtue or property and will perswade himself that within the Filtre or strayning instrument there is some secret Sympathy which makes water to mount up contrary to its natural motion But he who will examine the business as it ought to be observing all that is done without omitting any circumstance he will find there is nothing more natural and that it is impossible it should be otherwise And we must make the same judgement of all the profound mysteries and hidden'st mysteries of nature if one would take the pains to discover them and search into them with judgement Behold then how Filtration is made they use to put a long toung of cloth or cotten or spongy matter within an earthen pot of water or other liquor and let hanging upon the brim of the pot a good part of the cloth and one shall see the water presently mount up and passe above the brink of the vessel and drop at the lower end of the piece of cloth upon the ground or within some vessel and the Gardners make use of this method to water their plants and flowers in Summer by soft degrees As also the Apothecaries and Chymists to separate their liquors from their dregs and residences To comprehend the reason why the water ascends in that manner let us neerly observe all that is done That part of the cloth which is within the water becomes wetted to wit it receives and imbibes the water through its spongy and dry parts at first This cloth swells in receiving the water so two bodies joyned together require more room than one of them would by it self Let us consider this swelling and augmented extension in the last thread of them which touch the water viz. that on the superficies which to be distinguished from the rest let it be marked at the two ends as by a line as with A. B. and the thread which immediately follows and is above it let it be C. D. and the following E. F. then with G. H. and so to the end of the toung I say then that the thread A. B. dilating it self and swelling by means of the water which enters twixt it fibres or strings approacheth by little and little to C. D. which is yet dry because it toucheth not the water but when A. B. is grown so grosse and swelling by reason of the water which enters that it fills all the vacuity and all the distance which lies twixt it and C. D. as also that it presseth against C. D. by reason of its extension which is greater than the space was betwixt them both then it wets C. D. because the thread A. B. being compressed the exterior part of the water which was in it coming to be pushed on upon C. D. seeks there a place and entreth within the threeds and wets them in the same manner as at first the exterior and highest part became wet C. D. being so wetted it shall dilate it self as A. B. did and consequently pressing against E. F. it cannot chuse but work the same effect in it which before it had received by the swelling and dilatation of A. B. and so by gentle degrees every thread wets its neighbour untill the very last thread of cloth toung And it is not to be feared that the continuity of the water will break ascending this scale of chords or that it will recoyl backwards for those little ladders so easy to be mounted render the ascent the more easie and the woolly fibres of every thread seem to reach their hands to help them up at every pace and so the facility of getting up contremont joyned with the fluidness of the water and the nature of quantity which tends alwayes to the uniting of substances and of bodies which it clothes when there occures no other predominant cause to break and divide it causeth that the water keeps it self in one piece and passeth above the brink of the pot After that its voyage is made more easie for it goes after its natural panching alwayes downwards And if the end of the cloth hangs lower without the pot then the surface of the water within the pot the water spills on the earth or some vessel placed beneath as we see that a heavier chord being hung upon a pully the longest and heaviest falls upon the ground and carrieth away the shortest and lightest making it passe above the pully But if the outward end of the cloth which is without the pot were horizontal with the surface of the water and did hang no lower then it the water would be immoveable as the two sides of a balance when there 's equal weight in both the scales And if one would powre out the water that is in the pot in such sort that the superficies did grow lower than the end of the cloth In that case the ascending water becoming more heavy than the descendant on the other side without the pot
execution of a Criminal who had his neck broken according to the laws of France whereof the took such an affrightment that made so deep a print upon her imagination that presently she fell in labour of her child and before they could carry her to her lodging but she was brought to bed before her time of a child who had his head severed from his body both the parts yet shedding fresh bloud besides that which was abundantly shed in the womb as if the headsman had done an execution also upon the tender young body within the matrix of the mother These three Examples and many others truely alleadged which I could produce although they mainifestly prove the strength of the imagination would engage me too far if I should undertake to clear the causes and unwrap the difficulties which would be found greater then in any of those instances wherewith I have entertained you because that those spirits had the power to cause such essential changes and fearful effects upon bodies that were already brought to their shapes of perfection and it may be well believed that in some of them there was a transmutation of one species to another the introduction of a new informing form in the subject-matter totally differing from that which had been introduced at first at least if that which most Naturalists tell us at the animation of the Embryo in the womb be true but this digression hath been already too long Est modus in Rebus sunt certi denique fines Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere Rectum To return then to the great channel and thread of our Discourse the examples and experiments which I have already insisted upon in confirmation of the reasons which I have alleadged do clearly demonstrate that the bodies which draw the atomes dispersed in the air attract unto themselves with a greater power and energy such as are of their own nature then other heterogeneous and strange atomes As wine doth the vinal spirits The oyl of tartar fermented by the levain of Roses draws the volatil spirits of the rose The flesh of deer or vemson buried in crust attracts the spirits of those beasts and so all the other whereof I have spoken The History of the Tarantula in the kingdom of Naples is very famous you know how the venome of this animall ascending by the hurt that the party hath received being pricked therewith towards the head and the heart doth excite in their Imagination an impetuous desire to hear some melodious aires and most commonly they are delighted with differing aires Therefore when they listen to an aire that pleaseth them they begin to dance incessantly and thereby they fall a sweating in abundance in such sort that this sweat makes a great part of the venom to evaporate besides the sound of the musick doth raise a movement and causeth an agitation among the aerean and vaporous spirits which are in the brain and about the heart and diffused up and down through the whole body proportionably according to the nature and cadence of such musick as when Timotheus transported Alexander the Great with such a vehemency to such and such passions as he pleased In the like manner also when it happens that one Lute doth sound it makes the strings of the other to shake by the motions and tremblings which it causeth in the air though it be not touched otherwise at all We find also oftentimes that the sounds which are no other thing than the motions of the air cause the like movement in the water as the sharp sound which is caused by rubbing hard with ones finger the brim of a glasse full of water doth excite a noise a turning and boundings in the water of certain drops as if the water did dance according to the cadence of the sound The harmonious sounds also of bells in those Countries where they use to be rung to particular tunes doth make the like impressions upon the superficies of the rivers that are nigh the steeple specially in the night time when there is no other movement which stops or choakes the other supervenient one For the air being contiguous or rather continuous with the water and the water being susceptible of movement there 's the like motion caused in the fluid parts of the water as began in the air and the same contact which is betwixt the agitated air and the water which is by this meanes also moved happens also to be betwixt the agitated air and the vaprous spirits which are in those bodies who have been bit by the Tarantula which spirits by consequence are moved by the agitated air that is to say by the sound and that the more efficaciously that this agitation or sound is proportioned to the nature and temperature of the party hurt And this intern agitation of the spirits and vapours helps them to discharge the vapourous venom of the Tarantula which is mixt among all their humours In the like manner that standing puddle waters and corrupted aires being putrified by long repose and the mixture of other noisome substances are refin'd and purifi'd by motion but winter approaching which devoures these bealts people are freed from this malady but at the returne of that season when they used to be pricked the mischief comes again and they must dance again as they did the year before The reason is that the heat of summer doth stir and raise up the venom of the beast whereby it becomes as malignant and furious as it was before And the poison being heated and evaporating it self and dispersing in the air the levain of the same poyson which remaines in the bodies of them who have been hurt drawes it unto it self whereby such a fermentation is wrought which infects the other humours whence a kind of smoake issuing and mounting to the braines of these poor sick bodies doth use to produce such strange effects It is also well known that where there are great dogs or mastiffs as in England if any be bitten perchance by any of these dogs they commonly use to kill them though they be not mad for fear that the levain of the canine choler which remaines within the body of the party bit draw unto it the malignant spirits of the same dog which might come to distemper the spirits of the party And this is not onely practised in England where there are such dangerous dogs but also in France according to the report of father Cheron provinciall of the Carmelites in this Countrey in his examen de la Theologie mystique newly imprinted and which I have lately read I will say nothing of artificiall noses that are made of the flesh of other men for to remedy the deformity of those who by an extream excesse of cold have lost their own which new noses do putrifie as soon as those persons out of whose substance they were taken come to die as if that small parcell of flesh engrafted upon the face did live by the spirits
scaldings use to happen as also in the best plaisters to stanch the bloud and incarnate the hurt But they who well know how to draw the sweet oyl of vitrioll which is the pure volatil part thereof know also that in the whole closet of nature there is no balm like this oyl For this balm or sweet oyl doth heale in a very short time all kind of hurts which are not mortall it cures and consolidates the broken veines of the breast as far as the ulcers of the lungs which is an incurable malady without this balm Now 't is the volatill part of the Vitriol which is transported by the Sun the great Distiller of nature and which by that meanes doth dilate it self in the air and that the wound or part which received the laesion drawes and incorporates with the bloud together with its humours and spirits And that being true we cannot expect a greater effect of the volatil vitriol but that it should shut the veines stanch the bloud and so in a short compasse of time heal the wound The method nd primitive manner how to make use of this sympatheticall remedy was to take onely some vitrioll and that of the common sort as it came from the Druggists without any preparation or addition at all and to make it dissolve in fountain water or rather in raine water in such a proportion that putting therein a knife or some polished iron it should come out changed into the colour of copper And within this water they used to put in a clowt or rag of cloth embrued with the bloud of the party hurt the rag being dry but if it was yet fresh and moist with the reaking bloud there was no need but to powder it with the small powder of the same vitrioll in such sort that the powder might incorporate it self imbibe the bloud remaining yet humid keep both the one the other in a temperate heat place viz. the powder in ones pocket the water which admits not of this comodity within a chamber where the heat should be temperate everytime that one should put new water of vitriol with fresh powder new cloth or other bloudied stuff the patient should feel new easement as if the wound had bin then dreft with some soveraign medicament And for this reason they use to reiterate this manner of dressing both evening and morning But now the most part of those who serve themselves with the Powder of Sympathy do endeavour to have Vitriol of Rome or of Cypres then they calcine it at the whitenesse of the Sun And besides some use to adde the Gomme of Tragagantha it being easy to adde unto things already invented Touching my self I have seen such great and admirable effects of Vitriol it self of eighteen pence the pound as of that Powder which is used to be prepared now at a greater price yet notwithstanding I do not blame the present practise on the contrary I commend it for it is founded upon reason First it seems that the purest and best sort of Vitriol doth produce the best operation Secondly it seems also that the moderate calcining thereof at the rayes of the Sun doth take away the superfluous humidity of the Vitriol and this calcination doth not touch any part but that which is good as if one should boyle broth so cleer that it would come to be gelly which certainly would render it more nourishing Thirdly it seems that the exposing which is made of the Vitriol to the Sun to receive calcination renders its spirits more fitly disposed to be transported through the air by the Sun when need requires For it ought not to doubted be but that some part of the aetherean fire of the Solar rayes doth incorporate with the Vitriol as t is plainly discovered by calcining Antimony by a burning glasse for it much augments the weight of it almost half in half now some particles of the Solar beams mingling with the Vitriol in this case the luminous part of that substance is also calcind together and so is made apt and disposed to be carryed in the air by a semblable light and Solar rayes As we see that to make the toung of a pump to draw the water the easier from the bottom of a well one doth use to cast a little water from above upon it Now the light carrying with it so easily the substance that is so connatural to it it carries also with it the same time with the same facility that which goes incorporated with it Fourthly these Solar rayes being embodied with the Vitriol are in a posture to communicate unto it a more excellent vertue than it hath of it self as we find that Antimony calcind in the Sun becomes whereas it was ranck poison before a most soverain and balsamical medicament and a most excellent corroborative of nature Fifthly the Gomme of Tragagantha having a glutinous faculty and being for the rest very innocent may contribute something towards the consolidation of the wound My Lords I could adde unto what is spoken many most important considerations touching the form and essence of Vitriol whereof the substance is so noble and the origen so admirable that one may avouch with good reason that it is one of the most excellent bodies which nature hath produced The Chymists do assure us that it is no other then a corporification of the universal spirit which animates and perfects all that hath existence in this sublunary World which is drawn in that abundance by a Lover so appropriated by means whereof I my self have in a short time by exposing it only unto the open air made an attraction of a celestial Vitriol ten times more in weight which was of a marvailous purenesse and vertue a priviledge which hath not been given but to it and to pure virgin salt-peter But to anatomise as we ought the nature of this transcendent undividual which neverthelesse in some fashion may be said to be universal and fundamental to all bodies it would require a Discourse far more ample then I have yet made But as I perceive I have allready entertained you so long a time it would prove a very great indiscretion to trench further upon your goodnesse who have hitherto listned unto me with so much attention and patience if I should go about to enter into any new matter and embark my self for a further voyage Wherefore remitting divers matters to some other time when you shall please to morder me coming now again to the generall consideration of this Sympatheticall cure I will put a Period to this Discourse after that I shall have told you two or three words which will not be of small importance for the confirmation of all which hath been alleadged by me hitherunto I have deduced unto you the admirable causes of the operations and strange effects of the Powder of Sympathy from their first root These fundamentall causes are so enchained one within the other that it