Nutriment in Men and other things and without Water Nature operates not See Hippoc. Chym. chap. 19. For confirmation of my Assertion let us hear the Noble Cosmopolita Nature says he knows how to produce fruits in the Earth out of Water and from the Air to supply them with life Which is as much as to say unless lus sifter i. e. Alcaly were in water which this Spirit loves it would not subsist of it self because it cannot be alone as Hippocrates informes us and by consequence it would produce nothing but return into its own Soyl and Countrey Hence it is that Hippocrates again says De Naturâ pueri many things do happen out of a few because all things produced on the Earth do Extract a more copious vertue from the Earth than they brought with them from their Parents or Originals 'T is the same thing which Câ—smopolita said before for the generation of Alcaly to which he adds Water coagulated by the force of Vogetable Sulphur into Herbs where it is to be observed That unless this Spirit or Sulphur call it as you please did find something in Water which it loved assuredly it would never enter into it and would coagulate nothing for if Water by the force of Vegetable Sulphur be coagulated into Herbs the same Water by the vertue of Mineral Sulphur must be coagulated into Minerals and in like manner the same water by the help of Animal Sulphur into Animals whence of necessity it must be Nutritive if it ought to undergo Coagulation elsewhere So that Common Water is that Catholick and Universal Wine which Animals A Catholick Wine Vegetables and Minerals do drink each of them after their own peculiar manner And therefore to deny that Alcaly is in Water is to fight against the gravest Authors against Reason and against Experience And they which in like sort deny Water to nourish gain nothing but universal Scorn for their labour but let us hear Hippocrates speaking in his First Book of Diet against those who deny water to Nourish and to be Coagulated by the vertue of Sulphur into Minerals Vegetables and Animals yea into Humane Bodies themselves seeing Nature acts every where alike In those says he where Fire is overcome by the presence of Water some call such persons Sottish others Amazed Ones Stupids or Dolts which Temper is a certain duller species of Madness Such persons do Weep and Wail when no man troubles or strikes them they fear things not to be feared and are sadned at things not at all belonging to them and do imagine such things as Wisemen would never do Wherefore it is good to Purge such troubled Brains with Hellebore provided Anticyra have enough to do the Feat Thus speaks Hippocrates against those who deny that Water doth Nourish Hitherto I have demonstrated out of the Shop of Wise Nature how the Child of the Sun being Reverberated by the Sun-beams is fixed into Alcaly and how That Alcaly doth again incessantly Attract the Child of the Sun and so they are both condensed together To this Natural Operation I will now subjoyn That which is Artificial that it may appear how Venerable Antiquity did endeavour to imjtate Nature as near as was possible Art therefore takes Vegetables of all sorts Wood Shrubs Chips Loppings Leaves c. all green and fresh whose moisture here is instead of Rain if it be Wood young Shrubs or Loppings which are made use of They may be burnt in the open Air or in a Chimney and so without flaming out be reduced to Ashes lest that which we seek for should return by the motion into Air or its own Country If they be Herbs full of Juice they may be burnt to Ashes in a fired and lighted furnace Fire here is instead of the Sun Beams which reverberates the Acid of Vegetables into Alcaly which afterwards are agitated with a quick flame in a reverberating Furnace fit for this purpose till they begin to threaten fusion a sure Argument that the Acid is shut up in the Alcaly and then they are called Alcalizate or Pot-ashes Artificial Alcaly out of these Ashes by means of Common Water Salt is elicited by Lixivation then the Water is exhaled till the Siccity remains which is called Fixed Artificial Sal Alcaly This Salt having almost lost its form remains for the greatest part a Vacuum and therefore being impatient of inanition it again desires to be saturated with the Acid into Salt that it may fulfil the course of Nature as I have shewed before out of Cosmopolita And as Nature doth incessantly and daily infuse an Occult Vital Acid out of the Air into the Alcaly made by her both of which do afterwards the heat of the Sun concocting them gradually rise up into Corn and Fruit so also Art Alcaly with Oyl is made Sope. in imitation of Nature doth impregnate her prepared Alcaly lest it should wax barren with an Occult Acid an for Example Oyl Fatness c. and by a continual heat doth by little and little digest them till it assurge into Sope of a Salt taste or else it mixes it with things more fixed either White Sand or Powder of Flints which mixture being agitated in a stronger Fire viz. of Fusion rises up to Glass Alcaly with Flint is made Glass which must needs be of a Salt taste because it is made of the Acid of Flint and Fixed Alcaly yea Alcaly saturated with so much Acid as to make it sufficient for it self is turned into Salt and if the Alcaly be not saturated with Acid enough to dissolve or slack the Flint then the Alcaly overcomes the Acid and the Glass attracts Humidity from the Air by means of the empty and thirsty Alcaly and so chinks and is broken Hence Zoar says That Glass may be made out of any Herb viz. when it is Alcalized as my Hippocrates shews Chap. 4th and 5th These things being understood we are again furnished with Arguments against Those who deny Fix'd Acid. That there is a Fixed Acid in Nature and as when the Alcaly exceeds the Acid the Glass chinks and contracts flaws so becoming useless so also as I have shewed above out of Hippocrates those persons in whose Brains Water exceeds the Fire do become so stupid and dull that by reason of their darkning humidity they can perceive no Fixed Acid in Nature Now Glass is destroyed by the same Fixed Alcaly of which it is compounded and made Destruction of Glass a Position contrary to Those who deny That there is no Alcaly like to Nitre then which nothing can be spoken more absurd But t is no wonder If slight Doctors produce light Argumenrs Therefore let more parts of Alcaly than of Glass be melted together into one lump Glass made Liquor which being exposed to the Air is wholly resolved into Liquor for out of what Glass is made into That and by That it must needs again be resolved as Aristotle rightly Teaches Pour Mineral Acid
with all its Eximious Vertues cannot cure the slothfulness of these Approvers and Subscribers so that it happens to them as to those mens Children who hire other mens Farms for They seeing their Fathers they themselves being yet but Children gathering in the fruits and commanding the labourers do presently conclude the soil is theirs and so are very Jocund but when they grow up and understand that there was nothing Theirs but the labour of Tilling the Ground then their Mirth is turned into Sorrow Even such are these men and as we read in Sendivogius whatsoever the Alchymist would have out of Sulphur it ended in a snuff the same happens to these Deans with the other Approvers Whatsoever Eximious Vertues they would have from Copper 't is still naught but Vinegar CHAP. VII That no Matter can be so destroyed but It will remain under some Form or other I Shewed in the fore-going Chapter that Acids do draw Alcalyes to their own properties and that Both are changed into Salts But those which are not fully Alcalyes when a noble Acid supervenes upon them their internal Acid is indeed abated but not so wasted or destroyed that any other new thing can be Regenerated out of it I will now proceed to prove by the following Argument and that Mechanically That all Alcalyes do after a sort retain of the Form with which the Mixta were saturated before they were reduced by Fire into Alcaly of which see Hippoc. Chymic Dissolve half an ounce of Sublimate Mercury in fifty ounces of Common Water distilled or at least a drachm of Sublimate in twelve ounces of Water Into a part of this clear Solution instill by drops but with a quick infusion fixed Alcaly of Tartar in the form of Liquor or as they call it Oyl of Tartar per deliquium which in a moment separates and absorbs the Acidity for the greatest part from the Mercury and the Mercury falls into the bottom of the Vessel in the form of Powder obscurely Red. This Operation is called by Apothecaries and their Operators and by all Lovers of Physick Precipitation which name I shall also retain and use Out of the Faeces of distilled Vinegar burnt into Ashes Alcaly of Tartar is elicited by water and though It be produced out of the same Vine with Wine yet it Precipitates Mercury dissolved as before sparkling and splendent But when the same Alcaly is calcined to Redness with a moist fire then the same Mercury falls like pounded Cinnabar To the Tartar being burnt if you superadd the Calx and extract the Alcaly with Simple Water the Mercury is Precipitated Rutilant Calx of it self doth not Precipitate Mercury so dissolved since it is Salt from Acid and Alcaly and they who against Experience do deny the saltness of Calx are to be reckoned in the number of Fools But if the Liquor of Mercury afore-spoken of into which a piece of Calx hath been injected be suffered to rest for some hours so long until the Acid which contains the dissolved Mercury can suppress That in the Calx then indeed Mercury is forced to fall by little and little and to stick round about the Calx like Minium a delightful spectacle to Curious Eyes Alcaly extracted from the Herb Kaly being incinerated doth Precipitate Mercury much more obscure than the former The Lixivium which Sope-Masters call Magistra which consists of Calx and artificial Alcaly yields Mercury darkly Yellow Out of Spain there is brought an Alcaly whether Simple or Compound is uncertain yet it Precipitates Mercury of a Tauney colour These Examples concerning Fixed Alcalyes for Sope and Glass which do admit Reverberation in Ashes neither do easily perish from an acute Flame may suffice I will add certain Alcalyes in Physick which do not bear sharp reverberation in Ashes unless they be mixed with the former And These are made of the Herbs called Cephalickes as of Rosemary Lavender Rue c. all Hot and of a Grateful Smell I say all these are indeed Alcalyes but not fusible in Ashes for they easily fly away and are therefore Medicinal All these be they never so many do cast Mercury so dissolved into a Reddish shining Powder So also Celandine affords Alcaly or Precipitates Mercury most red so that John Isack Holland doth not unskilfully but excellently and learnedly speak He that knows not Salts will never perform any thing in Art All the foresaid Alcalyes as well those burnt by a sharp Flame for Sope and Nitre as the Medicinal ones from Cephalick Herbs do Precipitate Mercury so dissolved as I have said of a different colour a manifest Argument that their Form is not totally consumed by the Fire but that they preserve some properties of their Simples from whence they were extracted as Geber says Salt retains the property of that thing from whence it had its Original To which the Experience which I have shewn bears witness Heretosore I was of opinion that the difference of Colours in Sublimate Mercury dissolved as before and Precipitated by Alcalyes did proceed from the Fire acting more or less upon the Alcaly but at length by frequent Experience I have found my mistake for day to day and night to night sheweth Knowledge we are not all born Masters nor can we all be Lullies but Age frequent Use and Experience do manifest the Truth I have observed that Hippocrates and Galen also being better informed did Conrect their Errors so that it is no shame for me a slow witted Person to amend the mistakes committed in my youth especially seeing had not Forerunners from whom I might excerp any thing as they have who seek for Glory in gathering together Receipts niether had I any other guide save the fountain of all Vertue so that I have bolted out the Truth by immense Meditation and Labour and not a little Expence from the fountain of Nature by my own Industry Wherefore to demonstrate the constancy of Forms be it known to you That I can find no better nor shorter way than that which I have shewed by the alterations of Mercury upon the affusion of Alcalyes For when I endeavour to declare the Forms with the same labour the Precipitation of Mercury doth voluntarily offer and discover it self which yet running being dissolved in Aqua Fortis upon the affusion of Alcaly of Tartar is precipitated into a colour obscurely Yellow All the aforesaid Precipitated Powders of Mercury are of a Caustick and Corrosive Property because the Mercury assumes the nature of that thing with which it is first mixed and the Caustickness is not wasted off by any Artifice but by fire alone as Hippocrates Chymicus shews In like manner Mercury dissolved in Aqua Fortis and evaporated to Siccity the Fire being encreased that the bottom of the Vessel may be Red-hot is made a most Red sparkling Powder and is called in Physick the Precipitate of Vigoe because Johana de Vigoe a Chyrurgeen of great Fame was the Inventor of it on which Red
Operation of those Instruments by vehement Heat or Cold and so the Work is perfected and Bread made which is so necessary for the Sustentation of Man's life Neither do Aliments alone stand in need of this Art but also the most Wholesome and Effectual Medicines cannot be made without it as amongst others We may see in Treacle for unless the infinite Instruments of Nature in the Simples which make up that Compositum be united by Fermentation and so suffered to rest it would be altogether useless For * Lib. De Viribus Cordis Tract 2. c. 4. Avicen says That That Medicine is of double Vertue which hath suffered Fermentation For which cause the Inventor thereof being well skilled in Chymical Operations adds Wine that the Work may be more readily done For all Natural things are transformed by Fermentation as is plainly seen in the Juice of Grapes in Brewing of Beer and in Making of Bread But it is alleaged Obj. though Reason and Truth it self do evidence these things to be so yet notwithstanding the Novelties which you introduce into Philosophy and Physick and the Mineral and Metalline Remedies prescribed by you which are very contrary to Man's nature and were unknown to Antiquity These are the things which we implead and oppose I answer Ans It is an impossible thing to introduce Novelties into the World but to perfect alter throughly to mix and compound things introduced already by the Creator is very possible This Hippocrates teacheth and it is allowed to Art So Flax or Hemp by various alterations is made Paper Grass by the like Alterations is changed into a Glove There is nothing made which was not before but things thorowly mixed and severed are alâ—ered L. 1. De Diaet and also into Glew The Juice of Flowers by a various Alteration is made Honey and Honey in like sort is changed into Hydromel i. e. Mead or Methegline a most pleasant Drink in Lituania nothing inferior to Spanish Wine and at length it turns to Vinegar which is afterwards casily reduced to Elementary Water Bread-corn by Alteration is made Hot-water Sundry Simples gathered together and mixt in one by Fermentation become Treacle So since Hippocrates his time Cassia Sena Mechoacan Cremor Tartari and infinite other things are found out which he made no mention of which yet are not new but only retrieved and brought forth into use again by long Study and Experience So that we may boldly say with the Wise Man Eâ— l. c. 1. v. 10. There is no new thing under the Sun Whatsoever therefore the Followers of Hippocrates have handed out and as it were Mid-wifed into the World the same was from the beginning though our eyes were not so clear-sighted as to discover it But Stephen Pasquier answers this Objection very Elegantly Dicitur esse novus nobis Paracelsus ob idque Crimen in obseurum pellitur exilium At novus Hippocrates novus est Chrysippus c ipsi Romae Asclepiades tempore quisque suo Qui nova damnatis veteres damnetis oportet Aut ista nihil est in novitate novi Englished thus Some Paracelse of Novelty implead For which Judg'd Crime he erst was banished So Hippocrates Chrysippus and at Rome Asclepiade too were New They'd all one Doom They who condemn new things condemn the old Or else do both mis-judge and are o'r bold As for Mineral and Metalline Remedies neither these were not newly introduced into Physick but were in use among the Ancients For Treacle that most ancient Compound is altogether Ineffectual without Chalcitis Alkermes takes into its composition Lapis Lazuli and Gold Gold the perfectest and noblest of Metals The same Mesue made Pills of the same stone of good use in Melancholy and Madness which latter Practitioners guild over with Gold or Silver At Vilna the Metropolis of Lituania I knew a Silver-Smith a lusty Fellow a Batchellor unlearned Silver yet of so happy a memory that in his own Mother Tongue he could repeat almost word for word whatsoever he had once heard This man from his youth to that very time which was the 47th year of his age had accustomed himself daily to eat a little of the filings of Silver as he was at work and he firmly believed that the use thereof encreased his memory Emeraulds Rubies Jacinths Gems do they not enter into various compositions which we call Cordial ones Sulphur is daily prescribed in the Diseases of the Lungs Sulphur and is praised by Dioscorides a very Ancient Writer Iron is commended by the Ancients in the Diseases of the Spleen and we use it at this day with good success Iron Mineral Waters were in great veneration among the Ancients and we also have recourse to them every year in desperate cases But what will they say of Salt Salt without which Man's Life cannot be sustained and which we use every day in seasoning our Meat Is that a new Invention or had the Ancients no knowledge of it yet it is excocted not only from the Sea and from Fountains but there are besides Mountains and Mines of native solid Salt like Marble out of which it is hewn and grows again like Stones in Quarries I my self have seen such in Valachia and near Cracovia a greater Revenue arising thence to the King than from any other thing which yet cannot be called a Vegetable nor an Animal it must therefore needs be a Mineral So for external Remedies The Ancients never composed their Oyntments Plaisters Collyries and such like without Minerals and Metals Of Lead Lead mix'd by Chymical Art with Vinegar they made Cerusse for the Vnguent and Plaister which is called White of Lead is made Litarge of which is made the Emplastrum Triapharmacum All these were found out by the Ancients Of Copper and Vinegar by the same Art is made Verdigrease Copper which enters into the composition of the Egyptian Oyntment so called from its Swarthy colour the invention also of the Ancients But why do I spend time in mentioning these things there is not an Old Woman in Italy but will inveigh against the opposers of this Art for without It it is impossible for them to find out ony thing to Colour and Dye their Hair In a word whatsoever Famous and Excellent thing is performed by Art it proceeds from the foundation of This Ancient Philosophy though men know this well enough yet they are ashamed to speak it out L. 1. De Diaet The Old-Man Hippocrates admiring at this stupidity and turning to his Followers says smilingly and with a low voice The Divine Mind hath instructed men to imitate her Works they know what they do but are ignorant of what they imitate They are Hippocrates his words So that Hippocratical Chymists do not endeavour to produce new things but to recal from Oblivion Things approved by the Ancients It is further objected That the strong Remedies of Quicksilver and Antimony do evince the ignorance
if they were entirely generated anew and brought forth to light for increase as the vulgar being ignorant of this Hippocratical Learning do suppose but only by a simple alteration of the Subject as my Hippocrates shews L. 1. de Diet. and they also know who have skill to make an Harmonious Conjunction between the External and Internal So also without the help of Fire Salts are changed from their natural temper as for example mingle Liquor of Salt of Wormwood not Alcalized with Rosemary and the Solution becomes milky both of them being coagulated into a Neutral thing On this Foundation stands the Process of the Febrifuge Medicine of Lazarus Riverius Riverius Febrifuge hitherto known to few but I shall crave leave a little more clearly to explain it know then that it is made of one only Subject representing Alcaly and two Acids all of them not having yet undergone the Fire but by Exaltation so often repeated till you see it again changed from blackness into a most white volatile artificial Salt not unpleasant to the taste to which afterwards the fourth Athleta is added i.e. Scammony as appears in the Process But who can enumerate all the Metamorphoses which arise from the mixture of Salts some of them assuming one form some another by their mutual mixtures as Hippocrates teaches L. I. de Diaet It is to be observed that Salt of Soot having its Original from the stock of vegetables doth precipitate Mercury from the aforesaid Solution white spongy Alcah of Soot is made Salt and light as do the volatile Alcalyes of all Animals as shall be said anon but if they are converted into Salts then the Mercury falls no more Hence we may conclude that almost all oily Herbs and such as are counted hot and pingueous do yield Sal Alcaly by a light and simple Incineration to which if the Hippocratist renders its proper Pinguedo by an hidden Coction they are converted into an admirable Salt which is then called by our Chymists Elixir Parvum and is of great * See Riple Bacon c. vertue in Physick of which in its place The salts of other Herbs do degenerate and turn into imperfectly Salt or into Acids and by a quick flame or the fire of Fusion are reduced into vitrifying Alcaly CHAP. VIII The Founders Art doth further shew that Alcalyes and Acids are absorbed ALl Minerals of what kind soever having in them hidden Metalline Bodies are joyned with Acids i.e. Sulphur of several sorts which do hinder the Metal from being purged from the impurity of the Mines In this streight it is needful to have recourse to Alcalyes which do the work speedily Reducing therefore the Mineral to Powder they mix it with Alcaly and melt it in a Crucible the Fusion is accelerated by Nitre which is kindled with the Sulphur as part burns away so part with the Tartar is turned into Alcaly that Alcaly absorbs all the Acid with which otherwise all the Metal would fly away but this way it easily goes to bottom and that Artists call Regulus i. e. pure Metal free from Sulphur which again under a Probatory cuppell with Lead they further purifie for which you may consult the Say-masters and Refiners it being my intent to speak only of the Foundation of Salts I have told you Silver flies away with Acid Minerals that Metals are turned by Acid Minerals into Fume which is manifest in Silver melted with Lead in an Earthen Pot made of Pot-ashes put the Sulphur piece-meal into it whose acidity as it flies away it also expels the Metal which you may gather up again with a moist Linnen Cloth spread abroad in the Chimney Another Experiment to prove that Metals are carried off by the Acid Mineral is that Cement Gold slies off with the Acid Mineral which is called Regale which is made of common salt and Powder of Bricks with which they stratifie or spread over Gold Money bound in with Copper In this Cement the Gold without Fusion dismisses the Copper and together with the Acid Spirit of Salt vanishes to smoak which yet carries off with it something of the Gold but when the Acid Spirit being loaded with the Gold assays to pass through the Earthen Covers the Gold is precipitated and sticks to the Covers Regulus Antimony whiles the Spirit corrodes them which are afterwards pounded together with Quick-silver and water This recollects the Gold and restores it to his Master when it is separated from it through Leather As Minerals bearing Metals are precipitated into Regulus the same way is Regulus of Antimony precipitated i. e. with Tartar and Nitre because the Alcaly of Tartar imblbes the Acid Sulphur from the Antimony and segregates the pure Regulus Antimony is also melted with common Salt but the Acidity of this latter doth corrode the Antimony in the vehemency of the fire and it is raised into bubbles and so less Regulus falls These examples concerning precipitation the dry way may suffice So any Alcaly being dissolved in water which is called the moist way as it always drinks up the Acid it also cleanses Salt-peter from every Acid which therefore the ablest Physicians do chuse for a great cooler in the Quinzey for which reason it is called Sal Prunellae A certain dull Fryar hearing Sal Prunellae to be commanded by Chymists came by night to a skilful Apothecary and demanded of him whether this Sal Prunellae were extracted out of Sloes or Garden Plums yet these are the men who would be accounted by vulgar Ideots and silly women the only Regular Practicioners I say they boil * Nitre burnt with Sulphur doth more hurt than good in a Quinzey for it becomes salt Nitre in Alcalized Lye till a drop stands on cold Iron like Suet then they set it aside in a cool place without pouring it into any other Vessel and in a night suffer it to concrete into most clear and pure Flakes which the next morning they wash off for the Alcaly hath drunk up all the hurtful and impure Acid from it as it happens also in mans body as Hippocrates shews in his first Book of Diaet CHAP. IX The Prerogative and Priviledge of Alcaly of Tartar I Have mentioned already that amongst the fixeder sort of Alcalyes Salt of Tartar is endued with a singular priviledge for though it be an heavy Body terrestrial impure Gold is almost all Sulphur and gives the least Mercury of all and mixed with filth yet being digested with any Metal whatsoever in a due space of time it turns it into running Mercury Having experimented this I affirm it for a truth to convince the incredulous but if any refuse to believe it I am not much solicitous A Friend of mine endeavouring to obtain Tartar from generous mature and clear Wine did elicit and draw forth the Spirit and suffered the Phlegme to exhale the remainder being thick as a Syrup he permitted to concrete in a cold place
into Pellucid Tartar which he burnt and as the custom is with common water extracted the Alcaly which he suffered to run down into a Liquor of its own accord A sudden occasion offering it self that he was to go to Rome with a certain great man to the end that the precious Liquor might not be lost in the interim he commanded his Servant to preserve it in a Vessel which he appointed and shewed him for that purpose his Servant by a mistake poured it into a Neighbourâ— Vessel like the former in which Silver was which had been dissolved in Aqua fortis to which Sal Armoniack sublimated and dissolved in distilled Vinegar begun for another work had been added My Friend returning after nine Months and seeking for the Liquor of Tartar he found the Cucurbite into which his Servant was injoyned to put it quite empty The Servant answering that he had poured it into a Neighbourâ— Vessel looking there he found not the Liquor but dry Earth nine Months exsiccated which he touched with his Rod Mercury out of Silver and a great part of the running Mercury discovered it self at that time he could not believe that running Mercury could be made out of perfect Metals being so perswaded according to the Axiom That it is easier to make than to destroy perfect Metals which made him neglect the Experiment imagining in himself that the Mercury had fallen into the Vessel by some chance But at length he learned out of Basilius Valentinus that Salt of Tartar hath this priviledge above all other Salts The ingenious Helmont hath confirmed this Experiment in these words I have found says he Tract potest Medic S. 4. that the Crudity of Saturn is dissolveable by the fat of fixed Salts and that the parts of the Compositum are so divided that it suffers Silver to run crude There came then to my mind a strong Lixivium wherewith old women boil Litarge to black their hair of which Porta also makes mention in his Magia Naturalis into which I dropped Spirit of Vitriol and presently the Alcaly suffered the Metal to run into a white Powder which I reduced into Lead by which means I knew for certain that Alcalyes do invisibly contain and hide in their Bowels Calcined Metals This Experiment being made Helmont goes on saying That calcined things are most sharp but they are dulcerated with dissolved Sal Armoniack and putrified Tartar i.e. they are turned into running Mercury which is not any longer tart or biting as Calcined things are but insipid to the taste I return now to the Salt of Tartar which in form of Liquor was poured into the Cucurbite in which was Silver corroded by Aqua fortis with Sal Armoniack All these changed their nature into Neutral Salts different from their former state so the Silver made no more any shew of Silver of which * Lite de magno mundi Mirac Basilius de Tartaro Durch c. By my Spirit they take revenge and break or dissolve all Metals For as all Sublunary Bodies Experience being witness do consist of two things Acid and Alcaly as I shall mechanically shew in this Tract the same may be said of Silver from this Silver the Alcaly of Tartar by due digestion and coction hath absorbed so much of the Acid Sulphur Diana nada as was sufficient for the Mercury in the state of Silver now it being segregated and divided from it for its constancy into the place of Mercury succeeds the Alcaly Philosophers call it Adulterium which it imbraces from the Silver and therefore loseth its form and beauty and changeth its nature so that it is melted even with the gentlest fire as Lead or Sal Armoniack mix'd with the Calx of Flints Lana Cornea and it is called by Crollius Luna Cornea because it may be cut with a Knife like Horn. This Luna Cornea though it be washed an hundred times with hot water and * As I have elsewhere said of Furum Fulminans melted with a swift Flux from Tartar and Nitre yet it is impossible to Separate them one from the other unless in Balneo Saturni in which that of the Silver which remains returns to pure but the Salts with the Lead into dross and Litarge which also again by simple Fusion is reduced into Lead but the dross which were Salts are hurried into Element together with the Sulphur of Silver which they had absorbed CHAP. X. That the Bodies of Alcalyes are Vacua proved by examples WHerefore Salt of Tartar is a Medium A Vacuum in Nature demonstrated by Art wherein not only Metals but Minerals also do revive and obtain as it were a Resurrection though by Art and a strong fire they seem quite destroyed Pour Spirit of Vitriol drop by drop upon dissolved Salt of Tartar till the hissing noise cease reduce the Liquor into Chrystals or dry it all up and you shall find a Salt having the nature of Vitriol it provokes vomit and being superbibed purges by Stool as white Vitriol is wont to do Regeneration of Vitriol It is mingled with Nitre and Quick-silver 't is sublimated into red to which add common Salt and it becomes a Corrosive Sublimate it is distilled per se as Vitriol The whitish Mucilage subsiding in the bottom is the same Faex which in dissolved crude Vitriol by the affusion of Salt of Tartar falls down black It endures the fire and resisteth fusion as the Colcothar or Caput mortuum of Vitriol which yet without the affusion of Spirit of Vitriol was easily melted That fixed Salt is Vitriol Regenerated called by the Writers of the Rudiments of Chymistry Tartarus Vitriolatus and Vniversale digestivum It is made much more excellent and perfect from crude Vitriol dissolved in water and Liquor of Tartar poured upon it until it cease to be troubled which point of Saturation is not found without difficulty for if it exceed but one drop it turns the mixture either into Vitriol or Alcaly of which my Hippocrates L. I. de Diaet Nunquam simul in codem consistunt coagulate the clear Liquor into shining Chrystals This is more Noble than the former because in distilling the Vitriol the violence of the fire elevates the Liquamen of the Copper and mixes it with the Spirit so that it become troublesome to the Stomach But in this simple way the Alcaly consumes only that most simple Natural Acid which corroded the embrionated Metal in its Flux This is that simple Acld agreeable to our Nature in Acid Fountains refreshing the Drinkers and acceptable to the Stomach though taken in great quantity of this I determine to speak briefly yet * De morbis Tartareis Paracelsus relates that in a Village called Veltin in Helvetia there is a Fountain the like whereto is not to be found in the whole World So also Spirit of Nitre reassumes a Body in Salt of Tartar and becomes cold natural Nitre Regeneration of Nitre conceiving
thing L. 1 de Diaet to blame any one of them for not findingâ— all are rather to be commended for seeking and enquiring after These things being praeviously understoods let us now consider What excellence and prerogative the Viporine Sals of this Reformer hath above the Inventions of the Ancients which yet They prepared by an easte Operation but He with great charge labour pompous ostentation and triumph The Alcaly of Vipers under that Title Pharm f. 486. distilled out of a Retort drinks up the Acid Spirit of Common Salt which I have shewed with Alcaly added to be separable without the Art of Distillation The Sal Viptverium of the Reformer sâ— Common Salt from that Conjunction i. e. of the Acid Salt and the Alcaly of Vipers is made Comon Salt If we urge this Common Salt with Fire of Sand it will be elevated into Artificial Sal Armoniack as having all its properties which is proved by this Experiment Mingle the Powder of Salt of Tartar i. e. the Fixed Alcaly of Tartar with an equal part of the Viperine Salt of our Reformer Pure Alcaly of Vipers distil this Mixture in a Retort placed in Sand and you shall presently see the Alcaly of Vipers to ascend by the neck of the Retort because the Fixed Alcaly of Tartar apprehends and catches the Acid Salt then the Alcaly of Vipers willingly leaves her Acid Companion whilest it is forced to fly away by Heat Do the same with Common Sal Armoniack and you shall find no difference and therefore what the Ancients did with the Body of Salt That the Reformer performs with greater labour and cost with the Spirit of Salt and if the Ancients Sal Viperirum be of no use as he says surely His hath the same property But when Pure Alcaly of Urine That Alcaly is expelled with Salt of Tartar from the Common Sal Armoniack then you will have the pure and dry Spirit or Alcaly of Urine which the Reformer most foolishly calls Salt Spirit of Sal Armoniack as he also with the same sottishness calls that Vinegar which he distilled from Meal mixed with Sal Armoniack out of a Retort The Acid Spirit of Sal Armoniack adding withal this gross mistake These two Spirits out of Sal Armoniack Append. ad Amimad f. 73 74. the Acid and the Salt though both of them contain not a drop of Sal Armoniack though produced out of one Subject yet are contrary one to another and being joyned together destroy one another wherefore let the Apothecaries carefully distin uish between the Salts and Acids But the Reformer informs them very grosly concerning Tastes yea he presumes to teach them that which he is ignorant of himself witness amongst many other things * The Water of Mindererus for the Hearing Aqua Mindereri for the Hearing For this Water hath Urine and Vinegar for its Foundation which-mixture the Reformer doth not only disallow as believing without further enquiry That the Salt and Acid are destreyed by one another being ignorant that the destruction of one is the generation of another Thus he huggs his own opinions as the Ape doth her Apelings but also he asperses a worthy Man with reproach and calumnies who hath candidly communicated his experiences for the Publick good notwithstanding which the Reformer after his manner thus scribbles in his Appendix Besides many other Absurdities Ad Aâ—imadver Fol. 336. I see Vinegar and Vrine to be poured on which are plaâ—nly contrary one to another for the Vrine of Animals distilled yields a sharp Saline spirit which is a destroyer of all Acetous spirits Thus he Hitherto I have demonstrated that the Volatile Salt of Urine is by no means Salt but Alcalizate and therefore being mixed with Acid from them both there arises a balt tart Sapor wherefore from the mixture of the Volatile Alcaly of Urine and Distilled Vinegar which two do never concrete there is made a distillable salt and most piercing Liquor I question whether any thing be more subtle in nature of a simple mixture for an old Obstruction For which cause the most Ingenious Mindererus rightly and with good Judgment Without hurt or pain it pervades the Cornea Toniea and dissidves the Whitespots in the Pupel left there by the Small-Pox The ignorant carp at what they do not understand commends and prescribes it for Thickness and Difficulty of Hearing because it is salt as Sweat is as shall be proved and in regard of its Symbolicalness and congenious nature thereunto this Distilled Salt and Volatile Water pervades the membrane of the Tympanum yea it is willingly admitted into it I said this Spirit was Salt which is proved by experience for it doth not precipitate Mercury from the often named Solution as other salt things do not which according to Galen's opinion do cut attenuate and discuss the excrements they dry they support and strengthen Nature and that in a rude lump of Salt why may not then this most subtle Spirit be also Salt Wherefore let the Skilful judg whether the most Learned Mind rerus be not unworthily worthily blamed by Impostors The Reformer understood Hippocrates but ill who says L. 6. Prac. That a Physician using veason for his guide will never enviously calumniate another for thereby he betrays the weakness of his own mind Now let 〈◊〉 consider Salt of Tartar which drinking up the Acid â—ad stparated it from the Alcaly of Vipers and remained in the Retort they call that but improperly Caput mortuum especially that from common Sal Armoniack from whence the Spirit or Urine hath been extracted That Caput Mortuum is a compound of Acid and Alcaly and will be doubtless of a salt relish like the Viperine Salt of this Reformer and common Sal Armoniack as hath been said and shewed and for confirmation thereof I will repeat another Experiment Dissolve the said Caput Mortuum in water cause the foeces to go to the bottom and coagulate the clear liquor with a gentle heat to a Siccity and with Bole Armoniack in a four-fold proportion mix it into a very fine powder urge this with a naked Fire from a Glass Retort luted into a great Receiver and the Acidness of the Salt which found a body in the Alcaly of Tartar by the power and heat of the fire is put to flight but in the greatness of the heat it flies not alone because being absorbed by the fixed Alcaly it carries off with it the fixed Salt of Tartar so that from the Acid and Alcaly being mixed and urged with a violent fire there is extracted a Spirit Semi-Acid-Salt which as it is an artificial product from a various mixture doth not precipitate Mercury from the aforesaid solution yet it is not of it self unfit for Medicine as neither for destroying certain Minerals but one Operation being finished part of the Tartar returns into the element of Water and the Acidity of the Sal Armoniack from the other part of the Tartar cloaths it self
Tartar fell to the bottom as a Cadaver But the Acidity spread through the Liquor hath dominion over it and doth defend it and is called Wine the Acidity whereof is grateful to the Palate because of the Alcaly with which it is joyned and tempers the Acid till at length the Acidity weary of the Alcaly or excited again by Heat strives to overcome the Alcaly and so a new and insensible fight begins and the Wine foures more and is called by a common name Vinegar from which if the Acidity be separated in a Limbeck Without Art there is not found a pure Acid in Nature unmited with Alcaly and on the contrary Hippoc. l. 1. de Diat Aust 1. Phys and the bottom burnt by fire then the Alcaly is found out of that Tartarous bottom though it seem impossible to some to find Alcaly in so great an Acidity yet it is true and it is That which the Philosopher means when he says That it is impossible there should be any matter under which there should not be some form Pour or superadde Distilled Acid on this Alcaly and evocate the watery flegme having the smell of Aqua Ardeus or hot water then from the Acid and the Alcaly you shall have a re-generated Tartar which out of a Retort yields a fat Oyl and a bitter Water full of â—olatile Alcaly out of the Phlegme through a Phyal of a long Neck So the Rector by degrees vanishes from our External senses into nothing that Man cannot find out the work which God operates Fâ—cl 3.11 evocate the Fat burning watery part which we call Aqua vitae the other part is elementary water the Fat re-assumes the Alcaly out of which again extract the Elementary Water and repeat this operation and the whole substance of Wine passes into Water and Elementary Earth void of all taste and smell Hence it appears that the Juice of Grapes hath preserved the Alcaly and the Acid in which the Rector doth inhabit in various hazards and several alterations even unto its last annihilation CHAP. XIX An untrodden Path discovered THat which I have spoken in the precedent Chapter concerning the Juice of Grapes the same is also to be understood of the Juice of all Vegetables for in them all there is Acid and Alcaly more or less as Hippocrates and Experience also shew but with this difference that in those Vegetables which we call Cold the Alcaly doth predominate and they are not fermentable unless by the help of an outward Acid or being excited by heat but in those which are hot the Acid prevails and therefore they are easily fermentable as in the Progress will appear Also the Alcaly of some Vegetables is nearer to fix'd and therefore it joynes in with Acid Minerals All things are corrupted mutually by themselves the greter by the less and the less by the greater Hipp. L. 1. de Diaet as I have shewed in Galls in the greater Housleak in Rinds of Pomgranates c. The Alcalyes of others are much more delicate so that Acid Minerals do presently absume them in as much as they are nutritive and fit for the digestion of Animals which consists in a milder Acidity of which sort are Winter-green Sanicle Bettony Fole-foot c. Which therefore are called Vulnerary Herbs whose Alcaly restrains and hinders the injust Acidity vising in the Stomach as it lessens it also in wonuds because all Acidity out of the Stomach is hurtful morbous and accompanies putrefaction which the Vulgar call heat from the effect for it causes a Feavour and putrefies Wounds many skilful Chyrurgeons have taken notice of that Acidity in wounded men as the beginner of heat and putrefaction and have therefore forbade them the use of Wine and not without cause least the subtle and evaporable Acidity of the Wine should encrease the Disease I say the Alcaly of these is not discovered with Acid Minerals Nature delights in its like nature but because they themselves are Nutritive therefore the said Alcaly associates it self with its similary Nutritives and with gentler Acids than Minerals As for Example Dissolve a drachm of Sal Saturni made with Distilled Vinegar for that resists not the Digestion of Animals in about three Ounces of Distilled Water which hath no Volatile Alcaly of Rosemary Lavender Rue c. Suffer the Lees to settle This Solution being sweet in taste contains Occult Lead drop the clear Juice of the foresaid Vulnerary Herbs into this clear Solution and it presently grows as white as Milk which is a sign that the Alcaly of the Herbs absorbs the Acid from the Lead which falls by degrees For as fixed Alcaly praecipitates Mercury and Alcaly nearer to fixed praecipitates Vitriol as I have shewed before so also here a milder Alcaly requires a milder Examen Paracelsus first observed That hidden Alcaly of Herbs and it is probable that by the like Examen he took notice of their several minute degrees he had taken notice that in wounds putrefaction came from Acidity and from thence arose feavorish heats and corruptions of Wounds he also first prescribed Vulnerary Potions and did happily restrain the said Acidity and putrefaction Paracelsus his Analytick knowledge of Bodies and called the Herbs Vulnerary And though John Taugaultius a French Man and Gabriel Fallopias an Italian both famous Physicians and excellent Chyrurgeons do condemn and endeavour to explode Vulnerary Potions in the Cure of Wounds affirming that by their heat they inflame and extenuate the Blood and excite its eruption from the Wound yet though simple Vulnenary Medidicaments are not known to every Chyrurgeon and and are prescribed without distinction and knowledge of their degrees for all cannot attain this pitch of Science nevertheless Experience shews Ulcers of the Feet or Thighs and Wounds are Cured by Potions why may they not do the same in the Lungs that the aforesaid Potions are useful with which also Paracelsus cured the Ulcers of the Lungs as Histories witness and also the Hectick Feavor as I have also experimented which is an universal and inept Acidity and that of the solid parts which in one word we call Heat and which the aforesaid Alcalys do more readily absorb and consume than Milk as I have shewed in its place and the cure it self demonstrates Therefore Vulnerary Potions are not to be rejected but used with good Success in the curing of Wounds Many of the accuratest sort of Chyrurgeons The brevity of this Compendium will not allowme to discourse of Specifick Acid. Yet see ch 21. and Physicians have taken notice that Acidâ—ty is the cause of Heat and Pain as also that burnt Harts-horn absumes in it self Vinegar and other Acids of all sorts whence it comes to pass that it is given with good success in Feavors in a great dose from half an ounce to an ounce in any cooling water containing Volatile Alcaly For as they have observed to their great joy that the said burnt Harts-horn absorbs and
imbibes the Acid Volatile Salt from Vinegar so it takes away the Acidity accompanying several sorts of Feavors Besides Vulnerary ones Occult Alcalys there are also more Occult and Volatile Alcalys in Herbs which we call Cooling as Lettice Purslane Colts-foot Endive and its species whose Alcaly is very Fugitive and is found not only in their Juices but also in their Waters carefully Distilled Whence we may learn that such Herbs being dryed are of no value because their Alcaly hath evaporated So also the Distilled water of Frogs-Spawn the whole Spawn with Patience is elevated in è Balneo into a pure water the black and dry Grains or Specks Cooling waters have an occult Alcaly being left behind which are not to be rejected doth abound with Occult Volatile Alcaly and doth presently precipitate Lead out of the aforesaid Solution more readily and copiously than any other cooling water This water is much to be esteemed in many diseases arising from a peculiar Acidity I have known a desperate Hemorrhage from the Womb happily cured by it in as much as at first it sucks up the Acidity of the Blood afterwards it restrains and expels it Also this water applyed to the grieved part in the Feet-Gout presently asswages the pain in as much as it mortifies and alters the Acrimony But when the pain is more violent then the Acidity is in greater quantity and vigor and the Volatile Alcaly consuming the cause of the pain Volatile Altalys ease the pains of the Gout then must needs be more manifest for it indubitably takes away the pain whence we learn that the cause thereof proceeds from Acidity if otherwise the principal indications are to be taken from things helpful and nocent as Avicen teaches Foolish therefore and almost Frantick is the opinion of certain Canonical Physicians who against the Doctrine of Hippocrates out of ignorance do fear and perswade the simple that a greater mischeif is occasioned by undertaking to Cure by contraries and by endeavouring to repel the Catarrh by such Simples For Hippocrates shews that Volatile Alcaly is empty and void and that it takes away all pain of the Feet-Gout I mean not the knotty and coagulated Gout all Arthritick The knotty Feet-Gout doth coagulate as the Stone aâ— least by a diverse Acid. Hippoc. l. 1. de Diaet Simple water doth nourish and there is a great Secret in water as Hermes saith Let Canonical Physicians observe that the Alcaly of common water doth not ascend in a Limbeck Wherefore distilled it cools not as the water of Frogs-Spawn before spoken of Nephritick Sciatick and such like pain in a very short time if it be but outwardly applyed in as much as it presently imbibes and assumes being impatient of Vacuity the Acidness which is the cause of the pain But not only waters Distilled from cooling Herbs but also common water both of Wells and Rivers contains an Occult Alcaly by means whereof it nourishes Animals and all Plants Red hot Iron quenched in water acquires strength thereby as Hippocrates teaches in the fore-cited Book and daily Experience shews for Iron hath too much of the Volatile Acid whence it readily passes into Scoria and Rust but when the Acid is imbibed by the Alcaly then it is made more compact and resists more therefore Cutlers of Knives and Swords anoint their work with shavings of Horns heating their blades till the shavings melt and thus they draw the Alcaly out of the Horns and their blades become stronger hence it is that such as pass by their shops do sometimes perceive the stinking smell of burnt Horns But it is easily proved that an Occult Alcaly is in common simple water by the fore-mentioned solution of Sal Saturni which presently grows white thereby So if Silver be dissolved in Aqua Fortis and you add simple water to the Solution it presently waxes white as Milk but when the same water hath been distilled then the Alcaly doth not ascend neither doth the Solution of Silver grow white any longer thereby For which cause John Baptista Porta advises Water to be twice or thrice distilled for a Tree of Silver and Mercury Lib 5. Magnatur c. 3. which the Vulgar foolishly call the Philosophers Tree So also Water distilled from Cephalick herbs doth precipitate neither Silver nor Lead from the above-named Solution For these as I have said contain not Alcaly in their Juices So that the Water distilled only from cooling Herbs as also common water not distilled do contain a Volatile Alcaly by means of this Alcaly Water doth nourish Hence Lactantius saith From Water are all things L. 1. c. 5. which before Hippocrates Thalâ—s Milesius also knew perhaps by the benefit of this Art as Laertius witnesseth in his Life So the Ancient Hermes Water saith he is susceptible and producible of Nutriment in Men and other creatures And without Water Nature operates not c. Now because our discourse is fallen upon Cooling Waters I shall not pass over in silence the abuse of Rose Water which is said to cool but it is disproved by this Experiment At Venice Rose-water as commonly all other waters are distilled out of a Copper Vessel sometimes lined within with Tinn though oftentimes the Tinn for age is worn away This Water is prescribed to Children because it kills and expels Worms and sometimes provokes Vomitting which Operation and Vertue is Vulgarly ascribed to the Rose-water whereas Rose-water is not simply cold but of a temperate nature as containing an occult and insensible Acidity Rose-water doth not cool unless it be distilled through Lead which is unseparable from it never leaving it till it be annihilated but in flowing through a Copper Limbeck its Occult Acidity abrades and takes off certain Atomes from the Copper which are invisibly mixed with the water if you would discover or separate the Copper drop into a little quantity of this water one or two drops of the Alcaly of Urine and presently all the water turns Green because the Acidity of the water doth more greedily catch the light Alcaly more similary to it than the Metal which therefore by little and little subsides into a greenish bottom Then the same water doth no longer provoke Vomit nor kill Worms but will be like That which is Distilled through Glass Vessels but melt the green bottom with Borax and then it returns to Copper again Neither is this Occult Nutritive Alcaly found only in Vulnerary and Cooling-herbs All Pot-herbs contain a Volatile Alcaly and cooling and as all wound herbs beget Milk in Nurses for Acidity is an hindrance to Milk but in all Pot-herbs whatsoever which are therefore desired by the Stomach abounding with Acidity This Alcaly is the cause that such as eat boiled Cabbage or Coleworts before a fit of Drinking are seldom inebriated for the Alcaly of this Herb as it moderates the inebriateing Acidity of the Wine in the Stomach so it absords and consumes That in the Glass But
tinged with a Golden colour by occasion of this Tincture It comes to my mind that not without great labour by the help of Fire and much Diligence a Volatile Alcaly of which I have elsewhere spoken ascended of a grateful smell so rare and light that it can scarce be perceived by the touch sometimes of a grey sometimes of a white colour of a Salt taste biting the Tongue and so subtil that without the irritation by fire in an open Vessel of its own accord it evaporates to Air whereas of it self it remains constant in fire I say by the property of this Alcaly Gold Silver Quick-silver Chrystal c. are made truly potable so that it is not only impossible they should return to their bodies but moreover they are so freed from the bonds of Coagulation that we may freely dally with them c. But these and the like being not proper for this place I willingly pass them over Pour out the aforesaid water and super-adde other and again distil it in a hot place till the water be sufficiently tinged mix and shake the tinged waters together in another Phyal and into that water put plates of Silyer first cuppelled then the water tinged with a Golden colour presently grows Black and in a few moments all the Silver is invisibly dissolved and all falls into a black Calx which the Skilful in the Art without contradiction call Gold But observe that water not tinged by Gold dissolves not no nor any way affects the Silver Hence * Of the propertieâ— of Blanets Basilius de Argento I have devoted my Soul my Spirit and my Body to my King Wash the Gold-money and you will find it something paler but to have lost little or nothing of its weight This Experiment is worthy of consideration but when the aforesaid powders are distilled with a naked Fire and open more of the dust of Bricks being added then it draws forth no Tincture but wholly dissolves all the Gold I say this Experiment though it seems useless yet is pleasant and of great consequence doth not succeed without Salt So that Salt doth not hurt these Acid Spirits So also simple Aqua Fortis of Nitre and Allum Sulphur of Antimony or Vitriol corrodes not nor dissolves Crude Antimony but add to this water so much fused Salt i. e. clean and finely powdered as it can dissolve The Minera of Antimony from the Raurian Mountains with red spots or Veins so dissolved melts Gold Superfuse This water on the Antimony only grosly pounded like the grains of Millium and presently with a gentle heat it acts on the Antimony and corrodes the Regulus of it on which presently pour cold water and you will see the Sulphur seperated which swims a-top of the water like Pitch But mark that at one operation you should dissolve not above two drachms or there-abouts for in a greater quantity the Sulphur is also corroded by the water and turns to Faeces Dulcify this Sulphur with cold water and it will look like the Common only a little greener This separation also succeeds not without Salt so that Acids are not hurt by It. Of this Sulphur adding two simples A Febrisuge Oyl you may make an Oyl with which if you annoint the Back-bone Hand-wrists soles of the Feet one hour before the fit you may cure all intermitting Tertian Agues and Feavors This Sulphur is the Basis of the Artificial water wherein if Silver be dissolved it precipitates the greatest part of it into a black Calx which Aqua Fortis afterwards will not touch If Chrystal be coemented with the same Sulphur as also Crude Antimony marked with red Spots Christial tinged like Ruby mix'd with a little Orpiment and powdered it acquires the colour of a Ruby but take heed of the wind for that will make it chink and crack or break This is that Sulphur of Antimony which * Tract de Verbis Herbis Lapâ—dibus Remedy of Tympanâ—tis Helmont advises us to extract scarce different from the Common in sight only it is a little more greenish how much this Sulphur avails in the Dropsy called Tympanitis They who having used it know as well as I yea I firmly maintain that * Ruland ' Ba'sam of Sulphur Rulandus his Balsam is elicited from this Sulphur Helmont goes on make says he Cinnabar I know many do much disquiet themselves with this Operation but I will now openly and clearly discover it Melt this Sulphur of Antimony in an Iron spoon with a gentle Fire when the Sulphur is melted of which let there be E. C. an ounce and a half add about six drachms of Mercury a little over or under 't is no great matter for the Sulphur receives as much as it can mortify mix them continually with an Iron Spatule till they be cooled reduce the Mass into Powder which many fire or kindle with live coals that the superfluous Sulphur may deflagrate put this powder into a Retort of a large neck I say large lest it be stopped by the Cinnabar ascending and by degrees Distil it from Sand then that which is superfluous either of the Mercury or Sulphur runs down through the neck of the Retort which gather up Cinnabar of Antimony then encrease the fire that the Cupple may be hot and the Cinnabar will be elevated when all is cold break the Retort reduce the Cinnabar to Powder which you must seven times more sublimate per se in a fit Glass Vessel or Retort and you shall have your intent By the same way Common Cinâ—â—â—ar Common Cinnabar is also made but without repetition of the Sublimation Helmont here purposely concealed There must be but one Rector that it must not be Common Mercury but That taken from the very body of Antimony Errors sought after are sound out by Operation not else To what purpose is this superfluous industry Let me whisper this word to Our Chymists when as the same Cinnabar is Sublimated after Distillation of Butter of Antimony unless Mercury of Antimony be here required CHAP. XXIV Nocuments are Documents HItherto in those Operations The Reformer is ignorant what Hermes thought of these Trifles which are all persormed by Acids and Salts it no where appears that they destroy one another now let us proceed to the Rhapsody of the Reformer which he proudly calls Mantissa Hermetica as we are told in his own Book Where the true preparation of Mercury Sublimate and Corrosive is Mantis f. 801 as he says presented to us Good Wine needs no Bush as the Poet says why he adds True preparation to the Title I see not I suspect that after his accustomed manner he hath a mind to cheat us with fair words but let us do the best we can to prevent it Mercury says he is rightly sublimated with Salt and Vitriol 't is a wonder he did not fear lest the Salt should destroy the Acidness of the Vitriol
Chap. 21. And he writes thus to Apothecaries That these are boiled according to Art But among Metals there is none that doth more readily associate with fixed Acid than Lead For according to the species of the Acid it changes its form as I have said of Alcalyes The steam of Vinegar turnes It into white Ceruss Acidity in flame into red Minium Lead yields Colours and Glass by the Acid of Sulphur fire being added 't is turned into black with Acid Minerals impure and mix'd ' tis-turned into a double Litarge with the Acid of yellow Clay 't is burnt into Glass of a box-like colour with the Acid of black Clay into a swarthy vitreous colour as the Glass-men know For which cause Melters and Refiners of Metals do honour it very much because it absorbs all sorts of Acids and clears the Metal from all spots The Ancients have observed that all inflamations in living creatures arise from Acidity * In his Book of Ancient Medicine Hippocrates attesting the same In Man says he there is Acid bitter most Acid and hundreds of other things which according to their quantity and strength have various faculties For which cause they devised several Oyntments and Plaisters of Lead How Lead cools That they might take away that Acidity and the oftner those foresaid Unguents are changed the sooner is the Acid consumed and the Distemper cured This consumption of the Acid in condescention to the oapacities of the Vulgar we call re-frigeration in as much as it mortifies the cause of Heat CHAP. XXVII A further Probation that there is Acidity in Flame REverberate whole Corals in an open fire Tincture of Corals twelve ounces for example for six days and nights the fire serves the Skilful for distilling Spirit of Vitriol and you will find fifteen-ounces i. e. three ounces encreased and turned into a most fine powder this encrease is nothing else but the Acid from the flame which dissolves the Corals and is coagulated and fixed with them after the manner of Acids into Salt If you poure distilled Vinegar on this Salt it doth not send forth Bubbles as it otherwise happens in Corals not reverberated for they are saturated with Acid and it dissolves Them into a pellucid Semi-Acid Liquor which though transparent and colourless yet it hath a Latent Sanguineous Redness which the affusion of Spirit of Vitriol in a moment makes manifest 'T was neither the Vinegar nor the Spirit of Vitriol This Tincture is the Rector or Archeus as long lifed as Coral it self of great Vertue not destro ' d by fire it self as I have shewed in Wine which introduced this redness for then the Mixture would be always red when the Magistery of Corals is prepared the common way wherefore of necessity this redness must be secretly Latent in the Coral and by the help of Fire be produced to maturity of which I shall now forbear to speak more 't is enough that contrary to the sleepy Doctrine of the Reformer I have shewed that Acid hath not destroyed this Salt and that Tincture of Corals abides constant in the fire which you may by ingenuity separate and it will commend and praise it self So place the Regulus of Antimony Antimony fixed by Acid from fire being elevated into Flowers E. C. twelve ounces on the floure or hearth of the Glass-mens Oven or Furnace in a large fit Earthen Vessel well covered lest the flying Ashes should fall into it and remove it far from the Eye where the flame plays that it be not melted so let it stand eight days afterwards draw the Vessel nearer to the Eye every fifth day a little until about the fiftieth day then you will find the Flowers of the Regulus fixed into a small light and most white powder and encreased by two ounces by the Acidity drawn from the fire which pierced the Earthen Vessel without hurting it after the manner of Spirits This Regulus was erst melted with a gentle fire now it resists even Antimonial Fusion unless it be urged with quick blowing Bellows then the Acid Spirits return from the fire to their Elements and you will find twelve ounces of Regulus as I before shewed in Lead In like manner deal with Crude Antimony and it will part with its Volatile Acid Spirits and assume other more fixed ones from the fire and is turned into a white powder like Antimonium Diaphoreticum of greater vertue in Physick then that which is burnt with Nitre the reason is that here so much of the Sulphur doth not deflagrate with the Nitre but it is here fixed by its proper Regulus by the fire which this Mechanick shews Boil Antimony in simple water let it be mixed with three parts of Nitre and by turns kindled and calcined in that Ebullition Milk of Sulphur of Antimony of great Vertue the Nitre from the Sulphur of Antimony being burnt to Alcaly dissolves the Sulphur of the Antimony which is now fixed as the boiling or bubbling Alcaly of Tartar doth dissolve common Sulphur for Milk as Crollius hath it sprinkle Vinegar on this Solution being filtrated warm and you shall perceive the Odor of the Sulphur which presently is drunk up by the Alcaly and the Sulphur falls into a white small rare Fixed Antipesti ential Antimony light and spongy Powder which you must wash A drachm of this given with Vinegar in the Plague is more worth than an ounce of that which is not boiled nor dissolved Hence it appears That the Sulphur of Antimony which elsewhere deflagrates with the Nitre here is fixed by its proper Regulus by the Fire in the above-named Vessel and so becomes more perfect so that there is Acidity in the flame of Fire which I have shewed to be imbibed by Corals and Antimony as well as Lead and so by Iron it self which with this and all other Acids is with fire turned into Rust So that there is no difference betwixt that Crocus Martis Câ—ocus Marth which is made either with manifest or Occult Acids both of them are either binding or loosning CHAP. XXVIII The ways and necessities of Precipitation discovered THere are Varieties of Opinions amongst Writers concerning the Properties and Operations of Iron and how and by what manner it performs them in Man's body * L. 3. P. 2. sect 2. C. 7. Sennertus gives us a Catalogue of them but few of them have hit the Mark by reason of their ignorance of Hippocrates his Doctrine * L. 1. de Diaet I will therefore shew how It adstringes and how it loosheth Iron doth manifestly bind and consequently it strengthens the Stomach and neighbour parts Therefore it is good in the Dysentery Lientery Diarrhaea and all Laxative diseases c. But I hear some object that Iron Medicaments provoke the Terms in Women and restore the defects of the Liver and Spleen and so do rather Loosen than Bind Lanswer not as that Canonical Physician who asserted That the stones
do their utmost to restore and underprop Sciences delivered indeed by the Ancients but now almost worn out by age and Adulterated besides or else who do endeavour to add to them or illustrate them moreover they labour to Degrade such persons from the first Knowledge of things and so to dis-inherit them from their possession of ancient Learning by whose Calumnies the Enquirers after Truth are deterred and led out of the right way If the ancient Philosophers had taken this course to reproach the Labours and Studies of Those that went before them they had never pierced into the inward knowledge of Nature but the Truth in many Sciences would as yet have been buryed in Obscurity and very few would have attained to any light in the Secrets of Nature But since Those Philosophers were pleased with another way and manner of Study not being deterred or taken off from their honest Labour by the tongues of Revilers but rather more earnestly applying themselves to their Disquisitions and Studies so that almost in every age some one or other Art and Science was hatched or else retrieved and from small beginnings promoted to great encrease Semblably why may not I more clearly open the sense of Hippocrates That so the Ancient and Noble Science of Physick and Method of Cures may receive an advancement why may it not be lawful for me to Contemplate that divine abstruse and admirable Thing as well in Diseases as Remedies and to restore It from Darkness to Light Let the Tongues of Slanderers be silent let them not blame me that being but a Puny I first of all bear the Lamp to all that seek for Truth in this Argument Let all such Flies and Cantharides be packing for as the One pitches on the slourishing Corn and the Other fly into the sweetest Oyntments so these foolish and sloathful Calumniators cease not to detract from the labours and manners of other men perswading themselves that they shall catch much Honour and Glory by fishing for it in the disgracing of others Avaunt such Thorny Medickes Let them continually go a begging and spend their time in collecting raw Receits reformed neither by Reason Method nor Judgement which Hippocrates disapproves and proscribes in the very entrance into this Art as unsafe because not understood Experiment says he upon this account is fallacious Neither let them Object to me this my Institution as a new and unprofitable piece whereas indeed It is most Ancient and found most true by solid Experience not that I am so vain and insolent as to boast my self to be the Author of It I only profess my self to be its Interpreter and Explainer These things I determined to do in a Book by it self and therefore I pre-emitted my Hippocrates Chymicus which Book seem ed necessary for the demonstration of the Subsequent Doctrine by known Examples But now seeing Malign Ignorance raigns in Our Art I think it better to change my Resolution and to reduce into this Compendium what and how much of Divinity is in Ancient Medicine as also in Natural Philosophy and in all things All which shall be discussed for the sake of the Prudent in this Little Book I determined Mighty Prince and my gracious Lord to Dedicate this my grand Endeavour to You not with an intent to Blazon the Genealogy of Yours and Your Ancestors most August House that be far from me for I know that all Adulation doth displease Your Highness but because You are a Favourer of hidden Sciences and of all admirable Things and especially a Patron of the Muses which evidently appears not only by that flourishing Academy which you have lately erected but furthermore by those great Largesses and Stipends wherewith you have endowed its choice Members and learned Professors out of Your incredible Clemency and Favour To which may be added Your Highnesses singular Courtesy Bounty and Benevolence extended towards Me in particular your poor Client the last year and also that unspeakable Beneficence which Your Father of happy Memory a few years since shewed towards me which you by a rare Example have also doubled and out-done Which consideration alone had been sufficient to have obliged me to make this Dedication to Your Self and so to hang up this little Table on the publick Altar of Immortality not only that my Writings may hereby speak to the whole World but that I might manifest the symbol of a grateful mind and might testify and profess my observance of You. Be pleased therefore Great Sir favourably to accept of that admired Divine Thing of Hippocrates anciently adorned with somany Trophies now consecrated to Your Mighty Name and let it find a place there whither the Messengers of a grateful mind are wont to be admiâ—â—â—â— which as I supplicate with that humility which becomes me So I also beseech Almighty God from the bottom of my heart long to preserve Your Highness in safety and prosperity so prayes VENICE the Ides of November 1668. Your Highnesses most devoted TACHENIUS THE PREFACE TO THE COURTEOUS READER And Lover of the Ancient Hippocratical MEDICINE IN the Inquist after the hidden Causes of Things how prone Men are to erre and to be mistaken without the help of True Experiments it easily appears by that common and in this age Epidemical Complaint which I my self do also think not altogether groundless concerning the inconsiderate edition and multitude of New Books partly beeause the rash publication of the Writings of Sciolists and vain Persons is of it self odious partly also because such a multiplicity of raw Pamphlets doth prejudice even our common Scanties and takes off the minds of many from Reading the Books of the Ancients which are full fraught with accurate Wisdom and Instruction whence probably it may come to pass that the Studies of the Ancients in enquiring after Truth may be less esteemed and regarded by us And if any one demand why do I then publish this present Tract A piece Composed with no Maturity of Judgment but thrust forth in great haste and temerity and consequently in no wise to be compared in point of Vsefulness with the Mouuments of the Ancients To him I answer There are two Causes which moved me again to put Pen to Paper and to emit to publick view this Piece of Ancient Medicine First in the Year 1666 I Printed the necessary Opinions of the Old Philosophers under the Title of Hippocrates Chymicus and there shewed by clear Arguments deduced from Exerience p that Fire and Water in essence root and property ought to be esteemed the Primordial Principles of all Things since the Divine Old Man Hippocrates in his first Book of Diaet treats of the same after the manner of the Pythagoreans wittily enough yet most obscurely perhaps fearing the ridiculous censure and inept confutation of such as the Austrian and Norinberg Doctors of Physick and their foul mouthed companions who are craftily busied with their Rustick Muse only about the barks and outside of things because in
of things are in the Air. If these things are so as Experience proves them to be True why should not the Acid flowing down from the Sun into the Matter of a Flint The Mother of Flint fired and constant in the Fire be multiplied in It and be hardned into the fixation constancy and siccity of the Flint Since every individual hath treasured up in it a spark of the Nature of Light by whose Beams the Body will be multiplied as my Hippocrates Chymicus shews Chap. 3. and afterwards when the Flint by Artificial Fire is turned into Lime or Calx its Acid doth not therefore perish which since it is fixed by External Fire in Vegetables as I shall shew anon why may it not be so also in a Flint Fixed Acid in a Flint So that it is a sottish thing to deny that there is Acid in Lime but these are vain Arguments and Subjects forged in empty Brains wherefore leaving such false Conjectures I turn my self to the Lovers of Truth CHAP. III. Alcaly what it is and how it is made both by Nature and by Art and whence it had that name AS in the former Chapter I have shewed out of Hermes and by Experience That the Sun is the Father of Acidity now in this Chapter I will also demonstrate our of the same Hermes and the same Experience That the Moon is the mother of Alcaly and as the Acid doth not discover it self but to the Natural Philosopher so also Alcaly comes not forth to view or light unless it be detained by the Acid which she loves And first I will alledge the Operations of Nature and afterwards will Mechanically demonstrate how Art doth ape Them in her Imitations Thales Heraclitus Hesiod Hermes as well as Hippocrates have affirmed That Water is the first matter of all things The Writer of Genesis seems to be also of the same mind For all water is of a feminine nature because it contains and cherishes in it self the Seeds of things and clothes it self with various figures In the Macrocosm 't is made sometimes Wine sometimes Vinegar sometimes Aqua Ardens Caustick Oyl c. In the Microcosm 't is sometimes Choler sometimes Milk Sweat Blood Urine c. The root of all these is water and that cold which from the beginning was endued with a tenuious Acid or Light that so it might be fitter to receive the form of mixed Bodies for so Fire is easily mixed with Fire Light with Light Water with Water for unless it had been endued with this slender Light from the beginning the Vital Spirit had never been able to assume a body in it For our better understanding I now call that little body Alcaly Experience so directing me See Hippoc. Chymicus chap. 19. Alcaly in Water The way which Nature useth in preparing that Alcaly is taught us by that Noble Polonian the Ingenious Cosmopolita in these clear and express words When Rain falls says he it takes from the Air that Vertue of Life which in the Chapter afore-going I have shewed to be the Acid Spirit and conjoyns it with the Salt-nitre of the Earth because the Salt-nitre of the Earth is like calcined Tartar by its Siccity drawing the Air to it self which Air in it is resolved into water Such a force of Atraction hath that Salt-nitre of the Earth which also was Air Alcaly the Child of thâ—â— Sun and is conjoyned with the fatness of the Earth and by how much the more plentifully the Sun beams do then affect it so much the greater quantity of Salt-nitre is made and by consequence a plentifuller crop of Corn is produced and this is done day by day Thus far He whose single Testimony culled out from many others is a sufficient authority for me to affirm That the Acid Vital Spirit in the fatness of the Earth by the Sun-beams is fixed into Alcaly which again covets to be saturated with the Acid Vital Spirit from the Air into Salt which there is called Nitre of the Earth the reason thereof will more clearly appear in the progress Hence it is that he says in another place That this Spirit hath a Sister Alcaly which it loves The Child of the Sun loves his Sister Alcaly and is again loved by it for it is to it as a Mother What can be more clearly held forth for the preparation of Alcaly out of the Acid Vital Spirit by the Operation of Nature I add That if this Spirit be shot down out of the Air upon the Earth by Rain then it must necessarily fall down also on the Water and the same Sun-beams which by Reverberation do fix it on the Earth into Salt-nitre of the Earth do in like manner fix it in the Water Alcaly in Water if not into Salt-nitre yet at least into Natural Alcaly with which all waters do abound except such as are distilled from Cephalick Herbs the reason whereof you may see in Hippocrates Chymicus chap. 19. and in some places they fix it into Sea-Salt other where into Vitriol and sometimes into Mineral according to the disposition of its Mother as I have also shewed out of Lully in the fore-going Chapter Upon this foundation proceeds the spiritual representation of Plants Regeneration of Plants proceeds from Hippocratical Learning concerning which see Hippoc. Chym. chap. 20. If any one doubt of or desire to know its Inventor let him consult and weigh this Ancient True Philosophy and the sincere Studier of Natures Secrets maugre the Brawls of Scolding Detractors will soon obtain his desire As concerning the Ignorant either Allowers or Detractors who write without any sure foundation I am not solicitous about them for I know that Calumny which is not in a Man 's own power to avoid leaves a guilt on him that casts it He against whom it is directed being innocent and faultless Nay nothing is more pleasing to an Honest-man then to undergo Reproaches for love of Vertue for it is undergone in this case with Incredible Pleasure and Alacrity and being never long-lived It again returns of its own accord without any labour to its Author But to return That Alcaly is found in the Earth Alcaly in the Earth Experience confirms by the Extraction of it because a Volatile Alcaly is drawn and sublimated out of Earth which hath not yet attained any constancy whence not enduring to be solitary and alone it strives to avolate into the Air. So That nourishing Alcaly is made out of Water Alcaly in Water Paracelsus proves by the accretion of a Flint in a Phyalglass for water is the Liquor and Root of all things as Hippocrates witnesseth in his Books of Diet Fire Water doth Nourish says he moves all things but Water nourishes all things Hence Lactantius Water is all things Democritus also was not ignorant of the Vertues of Water who therefore affirmed that Truth was hid or immersed in a Well So Hermes Water is susceptible and producible of
as well in the Animal as Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms yet with this difference that some Minerals not equally mixed contain more of Alcaly than Acid Sulphur Gold and Meat-Salt being excepted which have more of Acid as I have shewed Hence it is that the Ancients have Writ that this Virgin hath three Fathers viz. Nature Fire and the Philosopher but here we must Note that no man by the art of Ustion in any one of Natures Kingdoms Artificial Alcaly never Pure or destitute of any Form can prepare any Alcaly absolutely Pure i. e. deprived of all mixture of the Acid whatsoever he that seeks to do it will lose his labour Whence Cosmopolita Burn says he Sulphur from incombustible Sulphur and from its Soul whose Grain and Ferment indeed Mercury hath in it as much as is sufficient for it self but make that it may be sufficient for other things too Enough now hath been spoken for the convincing of Those that deny the principles of this Ancient Art viz. That Mercury hath no Sulphur separable from it 'T is altogether vain what some Masters and Writers of Vanity have thought says Geber for I have seen that It doth emanate from it c. Experience also confirms the same Common Salt is of a Salt-acid taste i. e. the Acid is prevalent in it therefore it is incorruptible if the Salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Hence being moderately mixed with Meat it conciliates a grateful taste to them and excites Appetite Sal-Alcaly is contrary to a Salt-Acid taste hence if it be mixed though but moderately with Meats it gives them an unsavory taste and blunts the Appetite Common Salt by reason of its Acidity preserves Flesh and Fish a long time from Putrfaction and draws out and attracts from them the Volatile Alcaly which by a Retort is again easily separated as Hippoc. Chymic teaches Chap. 14. On the contrary Sal-Alcaly doth consume the Acid and promotes Putrefaction Common Salt doth imbibe nothing of Acid and therefore being dryed from its Aqueous Humidity and cast into Butter of Antimony it disturbs it not Sal Alcaly being dryed and cast into the fame Butter of Antimony is so far from not disturbing it that in an instant it quite destrovs it because it drinks up the Acid Spirits and the Antimony falls into a white Powder Common Salt being mixed with the Quadruple of Bole Armonick and distilled with an open Fire yields an Acid Liquor Sal Alcaly mixed and distilled with the like quantity of Bolus with an open Fire yields a bitterish Liquor by reason of the Bolus Insipid and Aqueous per se as Hippoc. Chymic shews Chap. 10. In this place I desire the equal Reader to take notice That the Process concerning the making Volatile Salt of Tartar A false Proâ—â— of Volaâ—ile Salt of Tartar inserted into the last Edition of the Reformer I had almost said Deformed Auspurgh's Dispensatory f. 247 was stolen out from my above-named 10th Chapter of Hippocrates Chymicus And after they had stript it of things unknown to them as I can shew what further they mutilate the Text then load it with Calumnies pervert Sentences and prove manifest Falsaries God Almighty curb such Plagiary Falsified Stoln and Deformed Labours which darken the minds of the Studious In that fore-cited 10th Chapter I did Experimentally Demonstrate That all things did consist of Eire and Water and that Water was the Basis and Root not only of Sweet and Insipid but also of Igneous Vertues and of Caustick things as of Aqua Fortis Alcalyes Salts Oyls Vinegars Hot Waters and of all things in which the Acrimony of Fire doth prevail I say Water and that cold is the root of all those things for Nature impresses the Vertues of Her things upon a moist Element Wherefore Moisture is the first Subject of Nature upon which Her first Labour is spent as I have shewed in the Third Chapter of this Book and hereafter will make clear by plain and evident Examples I say for this end my Hippocrates Chymicus in the fore-cited place reduced many things as also Alcaly of Tartar by Solution and Coagulation into Simple Elementary Water of no Taste or Smell but Fire and the Child of the Sun for whose sake the Dance is made in that Operation returns to its own Country and that for this Cause That Man may not find out the work that God doth Eccles chap. 3. v. 2. See also Hippoc. Chymicus Chap. 18. These Surreptitious Doctors have not only stoln out this my Labour Sweat and Travel to advance their own Praises but have also essayed to reproach the Author with infinite Calumnies and to suppress the Truth yea they boast that this Simple Elementary Water is Volatile Salt of Tartar in these Rhodomontado words And by this means at length Courteous Reader thou mayst be sure That the Vertues of Salt of Tartar have passed through the Lembick and That thou hast in succinct words received a great Secret destinated to thy own and neighbours Health which use happily Consider Friendly Reader whether any thing could be more plausibly devised by their Mightinesses What to rob an Author and afterwards to Defame Him and then to depress and detract from the clear Truth and that they may procure Fame to themselves amongst their Companions with a lofty Brow to Venditate most Simple Watâ—r for Volatile Salt of Tartar not only to the prejudice of ones Neighbour but to the reproach of Physick it self which would certainly be the Noblest of all Arts unless it were thus treated by such ignorant Brains which are dar more vacuous and emptie than Alcaly Loe this is the cause why now it is reputed the vilest and meanest of Arts by the Vulgar What Candid Person Ingenious Reader can be pleased with such Actions or gull'd with Prescriptions stuffed with manifest Vanities under the pretence of Physick Heretofore he that taught Falsities was accounted Infamous and a Knave Hence Cicero speaks Pro Roscio A man may easily be deceived by a Knave Their Brain is pre-possessed with so many Absurdities that they have lost their Remembrance and have forgot That Water drawn from Alcaly of Tartar is most Simple neither are any of those Vertues radicated in it contained therein which Raimund Basilius Hollandus Helmont and others Ascribe to Volatils Salt of Tartar Doth this Water which you have so Distilled from Alcaly of Tartar dissolve a Metal or at least the Stones of Crabbs by a true Solution Can only four drops of this your Distilled Water taken by the Mouth augment the Vital Spirit when it is weak with incredible Vigour To which I add that Volatile Alcaly may be made not only from Tartar but from all Cephalick Herbs which contain Alcaly in their Ashes i. e. without Clavellation So a Friend of mine extracted Volatile Alcaly out of Lillye Convallye which was very Restorative Yea I my Self have prepared the same of no less Efficacy in dissolving from the outward
be referred to Acid and Alcaly therefore it will not be a miss yea pleasant and acceptable before I proceed to subjoyn the Preparation of Medicinable Salts CHAP. V. The Preparation of Medicinable Stals HAving shewed before That there is nothing in the Universe but Acid and Alcaly of which Two Nature composes all her works to which yet a Third doth also inseparably adhere as by degrees will be manifested I shall now proceed to confirm my Proposition of Medicinable Salts and to shew what they are because I have not found Their Nature hitherto described by any Man and therefore I think it worth my Labour to transfer the True way of their Preparaton out of my Hippoc. Chymicus Chap. 21. to this place which will likewise declare their Essence and Nature Most Wise Nature in the 3. Chap. shews us the way how het Spirit of the Air is coagulated and fixed to witâ— by Fire and Water i. e. by the Sun Beams and by Rain for unless they both concur the Spirit returns to its Original which They find to be True who endeavour to prepare Salts out of dry Simples for in drying the greatest part doth exhale and by how much the dryer they are left the less quantity of Salt is procured from them least of all yea nothing from rotten Sticks and Wood which though with great Care you reduce into Ashes Rotten Wood hath no Salt in its Asheâ— yet you can elicite no Salt from them but on the contrary the fresher and newer they are burnt a greater quantity of Salt will be extracted there-from Therefore for the Preparation of Salts our principle Care and Study should be That the Herbs be fresh see Chap. 3. for then in concremation the innate Acid apprehends the Alcaly and the Alcaly absorbs or sucks up the Acid and they are both fixed according to the property of the concrete but from that part which flies away with the flame and not being sufficiently bound in by the Acid goes to Soot you may easily extract Volatile Alcaly Let Green Wormwood be the Example Take This green as it is and burn it in a Chimney or open Place but Fumitory or such like Juicy Herbs may be cast Green and Fresh into a Red Hot Furnace and the Mouth-hole be shut that it catch its Flame flaming out is to be hindered as much as we can for it is sufficient that it be turned into Ashes though but black which Ashes are further to be Caloined in a large Earthen Pot and low or upon a large Iron Plate of a lifted up edge Coals being kindled under in the Wind Furnace to the end that the little Door may be opened or shut as there is need The Ashes are always to be stirred with an Iron Spatule till they be very white Note that the process made this way is and must be more Sweet and Benigne than that mentioned Chap. 3. in the Preparation of Alcaly for There the Ashes are stirred and agitated with a quick flame which are therefore called Clavellated or Pot-ashes but here the Fire must not touch the Ashes but they must be spread on a large Iron or Earthen Plate or Table which must not enter the mouth of the Furnace see the Contents of my Hippoc. Chymicus in the above-cited Chapter Lay the Ashes on a Linnen Acuminated Bag or if there be few of them on Acuminated Paper and pour Common Water on them which running through them being pregnant with Salt is called a Lixivium or Lye Coagulate this strained Lye with a quick Ebullition in a Frying Pan not greased in the Kitchin and make it up into a Mass which when it begins to thicken like Honey you must continually move with a Spatule and it will be dryed up into a Grey Powder which you must presently lay in a Pot not Glazed with a Cover the little Door of the Wind Furnace being stopped and cover them with Small Coals mixed with the Powder of the same Coals leisurely heat it unto Brunity not making it Red Hot or melting it when all is cooled put the Salt into a Glass Vessel and dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of Water stirring it between whiles with a Wooden Stick till the whole be dissolved afterwards let it rest for two or three dayes when it is clear pour it forth from the Lees without much stirring and in a Leaden or Glass Vessel placed in Sand suffer the Water to exhale without bubbles till a Saline Cuticle appear Then remove the Vessel and the next morning gather up the Splendent Grains of Salt which are to be washed with clear Water with a quick motion and dryed put the remaining Lye again into Sand that the Water may exhale as before unto the Cuticle Both these Salts are to be kept together joyntly in one Vessel It is to be observed that Salts this way sweetly prepared do resemble the Crasis of their Concretes the rest of the Lixivium being of an Urine-like taste and stinking smell is to be lest for washing of Glasses This is the easie and natural way to prepare Salts of Vegetables which do never melt of themselves neither are of an ungrateful taste for they are compounded of their proper Acid and Alcaly by Concremation A pound of These Ashes yields almost four Ounces of the purest Salt but four Pound of the Ashes of dry Herbs will scarce afford one Ounce of Salt CHAP. VI. That the Seminal Vertue of all things is Acid and that Acids lead Alcalyes ad Lubitum and that every Acid Liquor is a Solution of Acid-Salt in Elementary Water I Have shewed before that Water would be coagulated by the force of Vegetable Sulphur into That of whose Determination Sulphur was It is the property of Sulphur to be Occultly Acid and Pinguous as I have shewed in Chap. 2. which in Vegetables is always Volatile Take therefore eitheir Wood or Meal whose Spirit these Magnifick Ridiculous Masters do proclaim and approve for Acid Spirit of Sal Mrmoniack or any simple Vegetable whatever it be yea or the very grains of Kermes and Distil through a Report the Pinguous Acid Liquor which is called andis Sulphur of the Grains of Kermes or any other Vegetable â—â— which their Masterships hitherto were ignorant of upon this Liquor pour alcaly of Tartar which answers to Water the Fire being taken away as my Hippoc. Chymic teaches Chap. 10. till the Strepitus cease strain this Compositum through Paper and dry it up by degrees into the consistency of Honey and the Tartar of the Grains of Kermes or as some call it Tartar of Kermes The essential Salt will concrete in it when it is cold But if you desire to turn it into Pure Salt heat it in a Pot not Glazed scarce to Brunity only that the exceeding Pinguousness may deflragrate or else put it into a Retort and distil the Oyl from the empty Cuppel Dissolve the black Mash with Common Water let the Solution rest for three days till it
with Alcaly of Tartar as I have formerly taught conconcerning Salt Vinegar and Distilled Nitre i. e. Thus Pour so much of This Spirit on the Alcaly of Tartar till the hissing cease near upon equal parts suffer the abounding or exceeding Flegme to exhale or if you will distill it carefully to Siceity distill that Flegm from an high Glass in Balneo and there will come forth Aqua Ardens see Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 18. and you shall sind regenerated Tartar of the same Nature Condition and Property that That was which was above generated from Vinegar of Wine for it is the very same for if it hid any thing of the Nitre the Allum or the Copper hid in it as they ignorantly give forth they would all be manifested in the Alcaly of Tartar as I have Mechanically shewed above But it must needs be that This Spirit can have no other Instruments but distilled Vinegar since it can only make a Body of Tartar for it self Whence this Spirit hath been presently known by Philosophers Spirit of Venus which is as Alcahest is known to be Vinegar not for the Immortal Son of Venus or as Alcahest but for the True Genuine Brother of Vinegar of Wine and that not Spurious neither as my Revilers and Reproachers have published to the World but the Legitimate Son of the Vine which hereafter will count it an impious thing to be reviled by unskilful Masters Therefore in this regeneration He was willing again to discover himself to the Curious and to the Lovers of Truth for the True and Natural Brother of Vinegar of Wine i. e. for Distilled Vinegar Now that nothing may be wanting to this Enquiry but all doubt taken away viz. that This Spirit which they dream to be the Child of Venus hath acquired no Constancy no Immortality or excellent Vertues from the Copper nor that it is as Alcahest as the Deans with their Fellows do cant you may learn by this Experiment Take this regenerated Tartar to wit from the Imaginary Spirit of Venus and the Alcaly of Tartar distill It out of a Retort as you did before and there will extil an Oyl of a loathsome smell together with a bitterish Water as I have shewed a little before from regenerated Tartar out of simply Distilled Vinegar Out of what hath been spoken it appears that whatsoever is distilled from the Alcaly of Tartar which is impregnated with Distilled Vinegar i. e. the bitterish Water Aqua Ardens and the Oyl taking Flame the same thing is distilled from Alcaly of Tartar impregnated with fained Spirit of Venus to wit bitterish Water Aqua Adrens and Oyl taking Flame Spirit of Venus is Distilled Vinegar and so That Spirit of Venus since it hath all the Properties and Operatious of Vinegar is nothing else nor never will be than distilled Vinegar Witness Aristotle and Experience But leaving this puny vain and futile Society to please themselves in their foolish Detrectings I convert my Speech to you O ye famous Lights of the World That you may judge of the Truth herein not that I would trouble you to vindicate it from the fained and rash Contumelies of such clamorous Reproachers since it appears out of Pliny That when Frogs croak more than ordinary it is a sign of a Tempest ensuing supposing then but not granting that one drop of Acid contains only the 8200 part of the Eximious Vertue of Copper I say this so small part ought yet under the heat of Fermentation to extend it self and to regenerate if not in Vegetable Alcaly yet at least in Metalline as the order of Fermentation elsewhere shews so that it would turn though not much yet a small quantity of the Metalline Alcaly into Copper no otherwise then the Vertue of Acid Vegetables and the mid-sort of Minerals doth transmute Alcaly of Tartar into a Salt of its own proper Nature as I have before said and proved but as the Antecedent and their Premises are false and favour of gross ignorance so is the Consequence Again supposing but not granting That Vinegar did carry off with it such eximious Vertues from Copper as they unlearnedly and without truth affirm yet I could never find eithe ramongst Philosophers or Physicians that It was assumed within the Body but whatsoever was got from the Copper was always used outwardly for Chirurgical Operations And although mighty Vertues might be drawn forth and distilled out of Copper by Vinegar which I have shewed to be impossible why is not the same Eximious Vertue drawn forth with less labour out of immature Copper since it is easier to go one Mile than two Why should my regenerated Vitriol prepared from Crude Vitriol of Mars procure monstrous Vomitings and Suffocations This sained yet prâ—sed Spirit of Venus is 〈◊〉 a counter â—â— Pâ—â—acta and Alcahist is if you draw forth such Eximious Vertues from mature Copper by Vinegar to which you subjoyn these losty but most false words This most praise-worthy Spirit is not only of great use in Physick seeing in highly Cures and Relieves the Epilepsy Appolexy Histerical and Hypochondriatal Listempers but is as the Liquor Alcahest and not as other Acid Spirits which by Solution do suffer and are destroyed and so turned into another ens See Hippoc. Chy. mic Chap. 29. Now let the Reader who loves the Truth judge whether any thing could have been devised more sottish than to affirm That the regenerated Vitriol of Philosophers educed from an Immature Mine of Iron is pernicious and deadly when we see that every year some Myriads of Men do drink even in great quantity Acid Waters saturated with Immature Iron and Natural Spirit and that with great benefit and advantage and also That the great Imaginary Vertue extracted with Vinegar out of Mature Copper if there were any such is a Panacea I may very aptly apply hither That of Plautus nothing can be more foolishly sottishly or falsly spoken It remaines that we bring That most praised Spirit of Venus which they fay is as Alcahest by dissolving some Body unto an Examen Now Alcahest is described by Helmont to be an Eximious Liquor Alcahest what (a) Pharm 14 ti be got by the Art or Labour of Sophia (b.) Imâ—g Form S. 8. which doth not only resolve every visible Body into its first Matter (c.) Verb. explic but is moreover Immortaland Incorruptable (d.) Arcana Paracels it putrifies Nature and takes away all Diseases (e.) Potesl Medic. S. 4. 2. but it is not given to putative and empty Doctors but to well Lined and rich Vnderstandings (f.) Arboravita in sine So Helmont Now let the equal Reader Judge whether this praised Vinegar of these Prateing and Wordy Doctors which is Distilled from Copper be alike in Vertue to Alcahest Truly if this their foolish Assertion were profoundly examined and laid before the Eyes of the Readers it would move Nauseousness and Indignation and therefore I shall discover their Vanity by Experience
alone Dissolve then at least one Drachm of Red Powdered Corral Spirit of Venus dissolves Coral in This Vinegar which they proclaim to be the praised Spirit of Venus dry the Solution in a Bath In like manner dissolve another Drachm of pounded Corals in Vinegar simply Distilled Vinegar dissolves Coral which likewise Exsiccate in Balneo Diligently gather up those Powders and weigh them severally in a Ballance and you shall find the dissolved and dryed Corals to be increased half a Drachm as well by the Spirit of Venus which They count as Alcahest as by the Vinegar Vulgarly Distilled So that the Corals have imbibed as much Acid Salt from the counterfeit Spirit of Venus as from the Distilled Vinegar Whence it again appears Spirit of Venus is Vinegar not Alcahest That This shews it self to be Vinegar because it is so indeed and not the Liquor Alcahest as the lofty Doctors would impose upon rude and ignorant people Again They urge That this praised Spirit of Venus doth dissolve Pearls without bubbles and leaves the cortices untouched Truly this may seem a wonder to Men altogether unskilful in the Art of Physick and who never learned the Rudiments thereof but methinks it should seem a trivial and sleight thing to the Deans and the rest of the Approvers For what ordinary or mean Physician can be ignorant that Vinegar simply Distilled doth perform the same thing though in a longer tract of time if you cast whole Pears into It Spirit of Venus is 〈◊〉 Vinegar and therefore your spirit of Venus which you account as Alcahest will not cease to be distilled Vinegar But why the skins or pellicles of Pearls are not dissolved by either of the Vinegars the reason is Their fatness and unitive glew the feat of the Child of the Sun which is proper and familiar to all Crustaceous Creatures to Fishes and the Membranes of Animals The counterfeit Son of Venus however extolled by vain Approvers doth never touch this Glew in stones of Crabbs Pearls c. it hath no access to them it is Leprous in comparison of them and therefore is not admitted to the Princely-Seat unknown to Ideots But why Vinegar doth corrode the Medulla of Pearls of the afore-said stones and Corals c. The cause is That Nature hath put least part of Acid into most things as I have shewed in the second Chapter which least part unless it be multiplied by Art or Nature is easily suppressed by the more powerful I will give an Example in the afore-said dissolved and dried Corals in which there is the least portion of Natural Acid which being oppressed by the counterfeit Spirit of Venus is made subject to It hence they are encreased in weight Again Dissolve these dried Corals in some water either Distilled or common clear water let the Solution rest that the Turbid may subside which they improperly call Faces which nevertheless you must separate and drop into the clear Solution a little of the spirit of Vitriol of Sulphur which overcoming the counterfeit Spirit of Venus not by its Acidity but the Nobleness of its Soul cast out the Vinegar which they call Spirit of Venus from its seat and place and doth assume the possession of the Region of the Spirit of Vitriol and with the Corals represents the form of curdled Milk but the Counterfeit Spirit of Venus being now expelled by the more Noble is diluted and sticks to the supernatant water and is mingled with it Wash both these Coagulums as much as you may and dry them severally in brown Paper and you shall have Magistery of Corals equal in weight as well from the counterfeit Spirit of Venus Spirit of Venus is distilled vinegar as from the Vinegar simply distilled because it is the same But take that water so washed from the Corals in which as I have said the counterfeit Spirit of Venus or some simple distilled Vinegar was diluted if you have otherwise warily poured on the Spirit of Vitriol for if you have carelesly and without judgment powred on more than the Coral will imbibe it will not swim atop but I suppose the affusion was skilfully made and instill into it Alcaly of Tartar till the Motion of Ebullition cease exhale the abounding Water in a Glass Vessel placed in Sand and you shall find regenerated Tartar as I have shewed above from the Counterfeit Spirit of Venus or Vinegar simply distilled imbibed in Alcaly of Tartar for it is the same by this infallible Argument That in the Corals dissolved and dryed in a Bath there remained only half a Drachm of Acid Salt from the feigned Spirit of Venus That Acid Salt being separated from the Corals by Spirit of Vitriol cannot be alone wherefore it guards it self again in Elementary Water as in his Mothers lap and diffuses it self in her and becomes again Counterfeit Spirit of Venus And unless Elementary water did contain Occult Alcaly in its belly Acid Salt could not inhabit in it because that alone it is not sufficient for it self as Hippocrates hath taught us De Diaeta Simple distilled Vinegar performes also the same thing so that it now appears even to the most unskilful-in Physick that this most celebrated Spirit of Venus here and every where is nothing else and savours of nothing else but Distilled Vinegar whatsoever Bugbears its Adorers would fright us with And although Crollius Beguinus and other Writers of the Elements of Chymistry in express words do call it Solvent Vinegar from whom the process of this Vinegar is stoln word for word as my Hippoc. Chym. shews Chap. 29. Yet This poyson of Ignorance hath infected not only Austria but almost all upper Germany witness these unskilful Approvers and their soolish Partizans with their Rythmes It would be no woder if as the Romans of old so Magistrates now would eject out of their Cities and Common-wealths such Harlotry Collegiates and such a Nest of Bablers who do scrible of things unknown even to themselves to their Neighbours hurt Low Germany is yet free from this Contagion so is Italy and France and for the future I hope by this Antidote they will be preserved Now Why Vinegar distilled from Verdigrease Vinegar from Eruga why more Acid than Simple in a small quantity doth more powerfully dissolve Corals than That which is distilled the vulgar way I have shewed the reason before viz. that it happens because Vinegar distilled the common way is as yet diluted with much Water but the Elementary Water is evaporate from That which is distilled from Aerugo by gradual Exhalation no otherwise than in the distillation of Green and Humid Vitriol for then the Acid Salt being long in the Liquor would be very weak but when the humid which they call Phlegm hath by degrees exhaled and evaporated before distillation the Acid Salt must needs be more powerful and strong in a lesser quantity of water for Light by how much more contracted by so much the more
most subtil Fume kindled from the heavenly Fire c. I have shewed before that in It the Sun's Child doth inhabit which assumes not a Body unless with his beloved Sister The authority and experience both of the Old and also the Modern true Philosophers bear witness hereunto So that the Air being most subtil and incondensible of it self can add no weight to the Minium The Air it self is neither light nor heavy neither is it compressed of its own accord but by some force in the barrel of a Gun from which it again breaks out by force we see the same thing in that Glassy Organ which is called a Weather-glass the Air indeed is compressed in it by Cold but is again rarefied and dilated by Heat If therefore the Air in a cold season did add weight to the Minium it would make it lighter in an hot But Minium weighs alike in all Seasons so that it is not the Air that gives weight to the Minium But supposing though not granting that the Child of the Sun dwelling in the Air did assume a body in the Minium yet this would not be but in some years space as I have shewed in the Matrix of Nitre and Mines of Vitriol But Minium newly drawn out from the Furnace and as yet hot weighs as much as it will do some years after so that the Child of the Sun neither hath any Tabernacle in the Minium nor gives any weight to it The Air being impatient of a Vacuum as I have shewed by the authority of Philosophers is always filled with an Aqueous Humour which in the cold presently concretes to Water Take a familiar houshold example when we drink cold things in the hot Summer-time out of a Glass as soon as the Glass is filled with the cold Liquor presently it is troubled because the Aqueous Vapor dispersed through the Air is condensed by the Cold and sticks there in so great quantity that sometimes drops do fall down Here they wonderfully lift up their Crests and cry aloud rejoycingly Now you are catched This is that Aqueous Vapor which is attracted by the Minium out of the Air and adds the weight to it but soft and fair Your Aqueous Vapor doth concrete in Cold and again rarefy in hot Weather which your ridiculous and childish Experiment proves viz. The Caput Mortuum of Vitriol i. e. the Faex of Vitriol out of which the Spirits by one single distillation have been drawn being exposed to the Air is again saturated with Spirit of Vitriol which if it be distilled doth again yiold Spirit Lo O Curious and Truth-loving Reader This is their Proof that as the Caput Mortuum of Vitriol is again satiated with Spirit in the Air so also Minium drawn from the Furnace is saturated out of the Air with weight which is both Childish and Ridiculous and as I have shewed all the rest to be false and ill understood so I shall likewise demonstrate This to be most false and least of all understood by the whole Colledge of Guessers For if Vitriol have once undergone the tyranny of a quick Fire the Child of the Sun acts no more upon it than it doth on an Egg boiled for the hatching of the Chick Now burnt Vitriol doth attract from the Air by reason of its driness because it is without moisture not the Acid Spirit of Vitriol but an Aqueous Vapor which when the Vitriol grows hot either by the Sun or by Fire again flies into Air as it is the property of all Water For if that Caput Mortuum could again re-assume the nature of Vitriol in the Air that Famous Distiller of Spirit of Vitriol at Amsterdam who furnishes not only near the third part of Europe but also all Ships and both the Indies therewith yearly expending many thousands of pounds upon it if it being once Distilled and Exposed to the Air would again become Vitriol he would have luck in a Bag as we say but as it is false that the Caput Mortuum of Vitriol returns to Vitriol so it is also an untruth that the Aqueous Vapor adds weight to the Mium which I prove by this Experiment Take at least an Ounce of Minium such as is commonly sold and in a Glazed Earthen Vessel large and low put it for a Night in a Bakers hot Oven or else expose it to the Noon-day Sun whose heat as it doth exiccate not only the Humid Minium but also dries up Marishes Lakes and Rivers so in like manner it would expel the Humidity of the Air if there were any in the Minium but the same weight of Minium which was put in is also drawn forth from the Oven or heat of the Sun so that That which gives weight to the Minium is not the Child of the Sun nor the Air nor Water therefore against the absurd prateing of the Deans and Approvers it must needs be the Acidity in the kindled Flame which as the false Spirit of Venus exercising tyranny over the Debile Acid in the Medulla of Pearls or in Coral adds weight to Them so also the Acid kindled in the Flame which by its tyrannical power and force doth keep down and suppress the Debile Acid in the Lead is fixed into Alcaly rules over it and gives weight to it Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 26. We may learn from hence that if the Reader whosoever he be enquiring after the truth in those infinite doubts which in long Art do daily occur should have recourse to these Denns and their Associates what profit could he get thereby Surely none which plainly appears by that counterfeit and lamentable piece of Science which they had forth to the whole World for they call Simple Water Volatile Salt of Tartar and moreover judge it an incomparable Cordial Besides with what pompous and swelling Words do they shamelesly adorn it and commend it to their poor Neighbours and to the Sick as I have shewed above in the Chapter of the Difference of Salts in their own Words there quoted They say also That Vinegar Distilled is the Son of Venus that Acid is not in Graines of Kermes that Gold is not Fixed and Constant in the Fire that Mercury corroded with Caustick Water is made sweet by boiling with Vipers Grease that Minium acquires weight from the Air and infinite other absurdities which I shall anon discover Fye for shame defile not Youth with these fooleries and falsities Dispute not de Lana Caprina and after the dispute ended you silence your Opponents in a matter of no value and gain nothing but an empty puff of breath And then in your silence Truth as the Philosopher says though unsought for will come to light if she may But leaving these Jejune Interpreters of Physick who proceed to the Practick Part as the Ass to his fodder not knowing to what he lays his Lips I shall go on to prove that there is Acid in Fire by This no less Noble than profitable and pleasant Example I shewed before That the Salts
And as It performs several Actions so it hath obtained several Names for in the Eyes it sees in the Tongue it Tastes in the Fingers it Touches c. And as I have shewed that Acid and Alcaly do constitute Ferments so also Radical Humid and innate Calid as well in a Grain of Corn as in Mans Body do perform Vital Actions and therefore may not unfitly be called Vital Ferment The Vital Ferment for it flows and is diffused from thence into all the Members of the Body And as that Vital Spirit or Child of the Sun is multiplicative that I may so speak of it self in the Stomach or Ventricle of a Grain of Corn which is the 8200 part of its Body as the deep Sages of Natures Mysteries have observed and from the super-abounding stock of its Wealth may wax sour and be made Ardent and inflameable Water So also This in Mans Stomach doth regerminate is multiplied it sours after the manner of Ferment and like Aqua Ardens doth illuminate the whole humane Body with vivid Heat and Colour and because it hath the Operations of Fire Why 't is called Ignis Mollis therefore it is called by Hippocrates a soft Fare having its Seat in the Stomach For as the Sun the heart of the World doth uncessantly send this Spirit to the Aether which contains all Things which the World hath in it self lest the Frame of the World should fail so also the Heart doth unintermittently send this Spirit to the Aether of the Microcosme i. e. to the Stomach which contains in its Cavity or Venter all Things which the Microcosme hath and therefore Natures Myxtae have given it the Name of Multiventrous Spirit of Mercury Now because It flows all the days of our Life and vanishes by reason of the volatility and frailty proper to the Nature of Animals especially growing ones as Hippoc. Chymic demonstrates Chap 12. It is therefore necessary that It should be repaired by Congruous Food for we are nourished by the same Things of which we consist which doth acquire in the Stomach a beginning of volatileness from the fore-said Spirit of the Animal himself a Species whereof that Spirit was from the beginning so Meat in the Stomach conceives Ferment from within as Raymond in his Theory Hence of necessity Bread and Water in the Stomach of a Man become Humane Aliment and the same Bread and Water in the Stomach of a Dog become Canine Aliment c. because the Vital Acid of Animals and the Acid Occult in Aliments are by Digestion and Concoction turned into Radical Humid All these have fetch'd and deduced their Original from the Child of the Sun But the specifick Acid Vertue in the Aliments is overcome by the Vital Acid dwelling in the Stomach of Animals as the Acid seated in a Pearl is subdued and brought under by Vinegar but Aliment doth not fall down from a sound Stomach till it hath attained the end of Ferment as I have shewed by many Examples in the 6 Chap. For Nature is alike is all Things Hippocrates the Authority of the Ancients and Experience proving the same hi i. e. till it hath attained the Foundation of Vitality and Volatility for since the Radical Humid of all Animals is Volatile as it is also the very Shop of Vulcan it is requisite that whatsoever is laboured and wrought out there should be also frail and volatile Hence the Flesh of all Animals Blood Urine Sweat Stones Sand Gravel Schirrhus's Tophus's c. and whatsoever and Animal can generate do not resist but are destroyed from their former State and annihilated by Fire or else are reduced into an insipid Calx as Bones or into a mordicant Calx as the shells of Eggs of Oisters and the like c. But that all These before spoken of were Occultly Salt before they were burnt we may be convinced not only by the Reason aforesaid and by the Authority of Hippocrates but moreover also by our School Mistriss frequent Experience For which that I may not cloy you with Repetitions see Hippoc. Chymic from Chap. 12. to the 16. For whatsoever is distilled from an Animal by the help of Fire there goes forth from it a Liquor pinguous Oil and flying Alcaly but the Acid which bound up the Alcaly in this tyrannical Operation returns with Proserpina to her Mother which you may again fetch from thence by Art and subtile Hands as I shall shew anon But the Caput Mortuum even from the hardest Bones is left vacuous and empty except Blood which whilst it is by degrees reduced to a Coal by a gentile Fire in a Retort then out of it by Common Water is elicited a portion of Salt but the greatest part is turned into Fugitive Alcaly not very much stinking a plain argument that in the Blood there is a greater part of Occult Acid binding in the Alcaly that with a Light Fire it may not fly away than in the Bones or other parts Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 12. But that it is Salt viz. a Composition of Alcaly and Acid the Solution of Sublimate Mercury doth prove Salt of Blood for being cast into It it doth not precipitate It as Alcaly as above Chap. 7. But the part which is distilled from the Retort is fugitive Alcaly Alcaly of Blood and precipitates Mercury of a White Colour and in to a small spongy Powder Add fixed Alcaly to Vrine a little coagulated to the consistence of Hony that the Alcaly may imbibe the Acid Salt which Man eats Distill it through a Limbeck and it will emit a flying Alcaly having the stinking smell of the Urine from the Ferment of Putrefaction Ferment of Putrefaction what Urine doth not acquire this putrefactive Ferment in Artificial Putrefactions as those Deans with their wild Colleagues do imagine but in that very moment when the Serum passes through the Reins as through a Syringe but for want of a Name I call it Ferment of Putrefaction to distinguish it from other Ferments for Alcaly of Sweat doth not stink as that of Vrine doth neither doth That of Bones nor Horns but hath a fresh smell which these vain-glorious Artists hitherto were ignorant of though my Hippoc. Chymic hath taught them it yet they never understood it for That Book as it sets forth the difference of fixed Alcalyes and the constancy of Forms by the Precipitation of Sublimate Mercury dissolved so it distinguisheth the Permanency of the Forms of Volatile Alcalyes by the Ferments acquired in their Native Places because the same Form walks pari passu to the Fire with them even unto the very Eliments viz. The Form of the same thing from which they were taken as Geber and Experience do witness as I have above clearly shewed By this we see the reason why Alcaly and Viperine Radical Humid or the Alcaly of other Animals passing through Actual Fire as I have said doth retain the Form of the Animal whence it was taken undestroyed but as the
singular Vertue above the stones of all other Animals grounding their opinion on this weak argument because it is bitter to the taste not considering that it contracted the bitter tast from the Gaul part of which hath undergone coagulation with Acid and Alcaly after the same manner as the stone of the Kidneys is many times red from the Blood and That of the Bladder is white by reason of the Mucilage mixed with it which the Bladder doth exsude For whatsoever the coagulating Acid and Alcaly do lay hold of in hasty coagulation being thrust forth from the Vital Regiment and doth not much receede from the nature of them both they take It into their society just as Lime moistened with Water again becomes a stony or petrous coagulum with things mixed with it as daily experience shews Hence it is That Hippocrates de Diaeta laments That Men are ignorant how to know or collect obscure things from manifest But why I pray Stone in the Gall of an Oxe is not the stone found in the Gaul of an Oxe of the same Vertue with that in an Histrix or Hedghog since in other cases nothing comes from an Oxe which is not good for Mans use The reaon is plain because it is more common The Deans and their Colleagues do commend the Hedghogs stone by this just as wise as powerful reason If it were not of great vertue Noble Men would not buy it at so great a rate Fie upon it do your mighty Masterships so expose your selves to the laughter of the Vulgar What are Great and Noble Men the proper Arbitrators and Judges of Physick in our days And if they were yet it is no new thing to approve Distilled Vinegar for the Son of Venus and Elementary Water for Cordial and out of meer Ignorance to commend and dedicate It to them for a great Treasure in Physick and to swear that they are good for our Neighbours Health whereas they do but appear so but are really for his destruction But the multitude of Followers procures no patronage to lies though unhappy Mortals are apt to obey and follow gowned sloth and ignorance But how came Great Persons to know that the Vertues of this Stone were so excellent seeing they cannot be learned but by the knowledge of their Causes and by manifold Experiences witness Hippocrates de Lege But Noble Men or very few of them study either and therefore they must needs by a kind of adoption suck in this their knowledge from such vain Fablers to whom they subscribe and who make great but empty vaunts of their Skill in Physick for they know not how to distinguish Vinegar from Salt as I have proved as clear as the Sun Away therefore with these trifles which redound so much to the detriment of the Noble Art of Physick and the misery and damage of ones Neighbour Such Medicasters are so full of vanities witness the reformed and vulgarly applauded Auspurgh Dispensatory that the Name of a Physician is now become the reproach of the Pople and the jeer of Comoedians and unless this sordid unskilfulness and miserable ignorance be laid aside I am afraid the day is at hand that Physicians must turn Country Plow-men To which doughty principle and design the supplanting of the Ancient Physick of Hippocrates and the defaming of the memorable Doctrine of our Predecessors God so permitting will not a little contribute But to return at length they pour Water on the Stone leaving it there so long till it grow bitter which is done in a short space of time especially â—f the Stone be new and fresh for if it hath been washed oftentimes before then it must be steeped a longer time in the Water This Ablution they afterwards prescribe to the Sick Zaculus Ideg whose taste is bitter and its vertue heating Here Zacutus jestingly and smilingly says In intense Feavers it is not good to be given for it mightily heats inslames and provokes thirst although it be mixed with cold Cordials and at last it provikes Sweat after great trouble straits and with much ado and removes obstructions by rea'son of its bitterness The meaning is that Later anguiin herba for highly to heat to inflame and to provoke thirst are accidents proper in Malignant so called Feavors which properties if they proceed from the Ablution of the Stone being drunk as Zacutus testifies then certainly it is far from taking them away as our Mr. Deans and their Collegiates do promise But let us hear Dioscorides who ascribes the same Vertues to the Gaul of Animals which our great Doctors do to the Ablution of their Stone The Gaul says he is bitter sharp and heating and therefore the Ablution of the Stone is bitter from the Gaul because it hath the same Vertues with the Gaul if we believe Dioscorides But we will prescribe this Ablution to great Men in Maligne and Perillous Diseases say our Mr. Deans and their Fellows Why I pray because it costs dear ergo c. Oh sottish Society The shame and detriment of Great Men That it is bitter from the Gaul the hasty ablution shews as I said before and therefore if this Stone be Aperitive simply for its bitterness it must of necessity be granted That one drop taken from the Gaul of the meanest Fish is of more avail for opening of Obstructions than ten Ablutions of this Stone because the Gauls of all are sharp and heaâ—ing witness Dioscorides see also Hippoc. Chymic Chap. 14. But 't is a mad thing to imagine that this Stone is bred thus in the Gaul and that it contracted not its bitter taste therefrom Sope is boiled and made out of Alcaly and Oil and becomes a Body of a Salt taste and white because no forrain thing enters into it To which if you add in boiling Juice of Beet it acquires a Green Colour and if Gaul were likewise added to that Juice the Sope must needs be bitter So the Stones of the Kidneys are of a Red Colour by reason of the Blood which transudes or soaks thither by little and little out of the Veins by reason of the Morbous Acid and entering into the Coagulum tinges and dies the Stones The Stone of the Bladder is White by reason of the Slime found in the Bladder and shall not the Stone bred in the Gaul of an Hedghog or Histrix acquire a bitter taste from the Gaul And shall it not also draw from it its heating faculties Why I pray doth it draw the Cause of the Disease or no Let us see therefore how this happens 'T is clear that the Loadstone draws Iron to it Load stone only by Odor as the distance through which it draws it proves The Radical Humid or Natural Acid of the Iron being very frall exhales of its own accord as Hippoc. Chymic shews Chap. 19. out of Hippocrates For unless the Acid of Iron were of this sort it could not be killed by the Stomach of Animals and by consequence the
he be Occult yet by Mechanical necessity he must needs be Acid as I have evidenced in Oyl Suet Milk c. otherwise nothing at all in the Universe would be Coagulated For the things which have been spoken says my Doctor none of them can be seen with the Eye i. e. none can understand my Writings De Arte. unless he be versed in this Chymical and Salt-fusory Art Wherefore Hippocrates found out those things which by a grateful consent The book of Nature is to be read but Paper ones are not to be rejected are subject to the Empire of Art and Nature On this Foot he places the unmovable Foundations of Learning and from these he hath deduced all Mechanical Progresses and Explications of Causes so firmly that if all Paper Books with their Authors were lost yet by this Method out of the Great Book of Nature they may be all again retrieved Hence it appears how many Fables have been ascribed to this worthy Man which he never so much as dream'd of yea many things published under his name suit not with his Profound Wisdom so that if he were alive again he would be ashamed to own them The permixture and alteration which I have demonstrated in fixed Alcalyes with Acids the same also * L. 1. of Diet. my Hippocrates would have to be understood of the Volatile Alcalyes of Animals for the Volatile Alcaly of any Animal whatsoever being saturated with the Acid Spirit of Variol assumes the nature of Vitriol but not having the Colcothar of Iron it is precipitated by juice of Galls into a bottom of a Purple Colour like to White Vitriol of which above Out of what hath been spoken 't is as clear as Noon-day that the Spirit is the Vehicle and lodging place of the Soul and the Bond joyning Soul and Body which I shall also shew by the following Experiments For the same Volatile Alcaly of what Animal soever with Spirit of Nitre is made natural Nitre conceiving Flame and is melted in the fire like ordinary Nitre The same Alcaly I say with Vinegar is made Tartar which is wholly Distilled into a Salt liquor as I have shewed in Mindererus his Water the same may be said of other Acid Juices for as fixed Alcalyes are vacuous and empty bodies so are also the Volatile ones of all Animals whose preparations the Reformer indeed teaches which yet is very inane and empty as all Alcalyes are Hence my Hippocrates moved to a smiling laughter pleasantly says L. 1. of Diet. They know not what they do but they obey their destined fate Wherefore the Alcaly of Vipers being a vacuous and empty body is saturated by the Reformer as empty with great labour and cost with the Acid Spirit of Salt Pharm f. 486. and what else I pray but Common Salt can issue from it Behold the Cheat and Imposture which the Reformer hath at last found out with so much labour of which triumphing before the victory he thus scribbles Whosoever thou art never think there is any other way of Fixing having spoken this by and by heâ—recants Pharm f. 486. saying with a low voice If yet there be any Man who hath greater Experience in these Operations I give him occasion for the Publick good that what he hath Experimented herein he would not suffer to die with him Alas poor Man why not but go too Let us comply with his desires he hath made a fair Oration and no doubt deserves a Statue from the Common-Wealth of Physick Append. in Animadu fol. 75. for having so politely distinguished the Acid from the Salt for the benefit of Apothecaries CHAP. XXII A Childish Opinion Discovered I Will briefly now run over the Acids In Append. f. 52. which the Reformer teaches as contrary to Salts which Doctrine yet with many others I find to be false and full of Ignorance Fire both Internal and External Explains the Book of Nature as the ordinary professor of the Creator as shall be demonstrated by Fire keeping to the Terms usually received for Fire is here the publick Professor and just Judge Logick hath no such way of distinguishing for That only handles true Sciences already found out and propounds Methodically and clearly and profitably to treat of what is to be known in every knowable thing But I have before distinguished the Tastes or Sapors of Salts as much as was necessary for the understanding of this present Compendium Let there be made a Powder of Nitre The Calcining of Gold the day way and Common Salt Ana four Ounces and two Ounces of Allum to which add Simple Water as much as is sufficient for the solution of the Salts which act not undissolved and you will obtain a Salt Liquor to which add two Drachms at least of Leaf-Gold mingle the Gold with the Salts and boil them in a glazen pot to Siccity towards the end encrease the fire till it affords a smell like That of Aqua Fortis so the saltness of the mixture erodes the Gold Dissolve the white Mass in a pot with Common Water let the Solution rest in the Glass Vessel till the Faeces of the Salt do subside when it is clear pour it out by inclination to this clear solution instil by drops some fixed resolved Alcaly Ex. Gra. Liquor of Tartar which presently absorbs the more subtil Acid Spirits and the Gold presently falls of a Purple colour In this Operation the Salt hinders not the Acid Spirits as the Reformer teaches but the Alcaly of Tartar consuming the Acids destroys the Compositum The same way but with great force distilled water of Nitre and Allum in which Common Salt hath been dissolved Galcining of Gold the morst way dissolves Gold for if the Salt were not dissolved in water it would not corrode the Gold Wherefore Salt doth not destroy the Acid Aqua Fortis neither in the dry nor moist way but adds Vigor to it like to Sal Armoniack Hence Basilius What is found in the Eagle is also to be met with in me Hence it appears that Gold is not dissolved but by Salts but why the Acid Spirit of Salt doth dissolve It I have elsewhere shewed viz. by corroding the Spirits it returns to That which it natively and originally was viz. into Salt CHAP. XXIII Obscure things made manifest I Will shew another Experiment very pleasing to the Eye manifesting that Salts are not contrary to Acids Take three pound of dryed Vitriol Tincture of Gold two pound of Nitre fix ounces of the Flowers of Common Sulphur and five pound and a half of Common Salt and Powder of Bricks as much as is sufficient least the Salts should be melted with the Sulphur Let there be six pound of this last powder mingle the small powders exactly and distil the water at least out of Sand put Gold Money into this water without rectification premised and in a few hours hours in a warm place you will see the water