repeat these evaporations and Crystallizations until you have got all your Crystals then dry them and keep them in a Glass bottle well stopt This Vitriol of Mars hath the same virtues as the former and must be given in the same Dose Remarks The Spirit of Vitriol is weakned by the Water to the end that it may be incapable of dissolving but only the purer part of Mars Moreover if it were used alone it would incorporate with the very substance of Mars but would not be able to dissolve any of it because there would be wanting sufficient moisture to separate its parts During the dissolution the liquor heats and boils considerably because the acidity of Spirit of Vitriol doth violently enter the body of this metal and makes a separation of its parts To Evaporate unto a Pellicle doth signifie to consume the Liquor until a kind of thin skin is perceived to swim upon it which always happens when some part of the moisture being evaporated there remains but little more than is necessary to hold the Salt in Fusion An Acid Spirit may be drawn from this Vitriol of Mars by distilling it in a Retort in a Reverberatory fire like common Vitriol this Spirit hath been thought to have the same virtues as ordinary Spirit of Vitriol but it can't be near so good because it hath much blunted or broken some part of its edges against the body of Mars in the dissolution and distillation That which remains in the Retort after distillation is that part of Mars which the Spirit of Vitriol had dissolved It may be used like an aperitive Crocus Martis Those who do attribute the aperitive effect of Mars only to its sweetning as an Alkali the acid juices which do too plentifully abound in mens bodies will find it hard to explicate how these two last preparations do come to be esteemed the best aperitives which are made upon Mars for the acid does so far predominate in their composition that the Alkali is able to do little or nothing Tincture of Mars with Tartar This Preparation is a dissolution of Iron performed by the acid of Tartar Take Twelve ounces of the Rust of Iron and Two pounds of White Tartar of Montpelier powder and mix them together then boil them in a great Iron pot or Cauldron with Twelve or Fifteen pints of rain-Rain-water for Twelve hours time stir the matter with an Iron Slice from time to time and take care to put more boiling water into the Cauldron according as it consumes afterwards leave it a while to settle and you 'l have a black Liquor Filtrate and evaporate it in an Earthen Pan over a Sand-fire to the consistence of a Syrup or till there rises a Pellicle upon it It is a very great Aperitive it opens the most inveterate Obstructions and is given in Cachexies Dropsies Obstruction of the Terms and other Diseases that proceed from Oppilations the Dose is from a Drachm to half an ounce in Broth or some appropriate Liquor Remarks Water alone would not be able enough to penetrate the Iron for to make a Tincture though you should boil it a Month together But when it is impregnated with Tartar it dissolves it very easily Nevertheless you must not think that this Tincture is a perfect solution of Mars for if there were an intire solution of it there would appear no more Tincture than there does in the solution of it with Spirit of Vitriol and water but because the soluble part of Tartar which is the agent in this Operation is only an impure acid Salt it can but grosly rarify the Mars and after mixing with it keep it suspended in the water After the Tincture is drawn there remains a whitish matter that you must fling away as good for nothing it is a mixture of the grosser parts of Tartar and Mars This Tincture is called Syrup of Mars by reason of a certain sweetness that is perceived in its Taste It is reduced into the consistence of a Syrup to keep the better As for its virtues it is a very great Aperitive because the force of Mars is assisted by the Tartar that serves to be its Vehicle Opening Extract of Mars This Preparation is a solution of the more open parts of Iron by aperitive juices and reduced into a solid consistence by fire Take Eight ounces of the Rust of Iron prepared in the Morning Dew put it in an Iron pot and pour upon it three pounds of the Water of Honey and four pounds of Must or the juice of White grapes perfectly ripe Add to it four ounces of juice of Lemons cover it with an Iron Cover and set it in a Furnace over a little fire leave the Matter in Digestion three days then boil the Matter gently three or four hours uncovering the Pot ever now and then to stir up the bottom with an Iron slice then cover it again that the moisture may not evaporate too fast When you perceive the Liquor to be black you must take away the fire and leave it a while to settle pass warm through a cloth that which is clear and evaporate the liquor in a Sand fire in an Earthen pan or Glass vessel to the consistence of an Extract 'T is a very good aperitive it hath the same virtues as the Tincture for Obstructions of the Liver Spleen and Mesentery it delivers the Lymphatick vessels admirably well of what may hinder the current of Serum The Dose is from Ten grains to two Scruples in Pills or else dissolved in some proper Liquor That which remains in the bottom of the Iron pot is the more Earthy part of Mars that is good for nothing Remarks This Extract doth not receive its consistence only from the Iron but from the Tartareous juices of the Grapes and Lemons with which it is mixed its virtue is augmented by the Essential Salts and the Spirit of Honey that leaves in it a very good impression The mixture is left in digestion for the better Dissolution of the Mars but seeing the Menstruum is not very sharp or corrosive it dissolves only the more Saline and soluble parts This Description is not common but may be preferred before many others Every body grants that Mars is as excellent a Remedy as any in all Physick for opening Obstructions and restoring a good complexion to those that want it by reason of Obstructions but you must not be contented with giving it once or twice but for a fortnight together some intervals may be observed that nature may not be troubled too much In hot climes such as Languedoc and Provence where are more Oppilations than in other Countries they make no difficulty to take it sometimes every day for a month together after a due Preparation and it is the best Remedy that hath been known for that Distemper Binding Extract of Mars This Preparation is a solution of Iron made with an astringent Wine and reduced into a thick consistence by fire Take Eight ounces of the
likewise fixes the stone the more and makes it fitter to keep It is one of the best Remedies I ever met with for stopping Gonorrheas when it is a proper time to stop them by Injections Salt of Vitriol This Operation is the more fixed Salt of Vitriol that remains after distillation Take two or three pounds of the Colcothar that remains in the Retort after distillation of Vitriol let it infuse in eight or ten pints of warm water for ten or twelve hours boil it a little while and then let it settle separate the water by Inclination and pour new water upon the matter proceed as before and mixing your Impregnations evaporate all the moisture in a sand-heat in a glass or earthen vessel there will remain a salt at bottom It is used as the Gilla Vitrioli to give a Vomit the dose is from ten to thirty grains Remarks This salt is that part of the Vitriol that the fire is not able to rarefie into Spirit Some Authors say that it Vomits just after the same manner as Gilla Vitrioli taken in a smaller dose but I have observed that its effect was much less and on the contrary there was need of giving it in a larger dose than the Gilla to procure a Vomit for having given of it several times a drachm at a dose the person had no Inclination at all to Vomit and truly I am apt to believe that a fixt salt of Vitriol divested of its Sulphur doth rather tend to precipitate downwards than mount upwards for Vomiting is caused by Saline Sulphurs which prick the Fibers of the Stomach whence follows a Convulsion to this part That which remains indissoluble is called Caput Mortuum it is used for Astringents If you expose it to the Air for a year or a year and half it returns into Vitriol again CHAP. XIX Of Roche-Alom and of its Purification ROche-Alom is a very Styptick Mineral Salt found in the veins of the earth in many places of Europe it is taken up in great transparent pieces the best is that which is reddish for the white contains fewer Spirits Alom is purified after the same manner as Vitriol it is used to cleanse the teeth it is a good Diuretick a drachm of it is dissolved in a quart of water and a glass of it is given now and then Many things are likewise called by the name of Alom as the Saccharinum which resembles Sugar it is nothing but a mixture of Roche-Alom Rose-water and the white of an Egg. Plume-Alom which some call Lapis Amianthus is a kind of Talk Distillation of Alom Put five pounds of Roche-Alom into a glass or earthen body and fitting to it a head with its Receiver distil in sand as much as will rise you will have a Phlegm of Alom that is used for distempers of the eyes for Quinsies and to cleanse wounds unlute the vessels break the body and powder the white mass that remains in it put it into an earthen Retort half empty place your Retort in a Reverberatory furnace and fitting to it a large Receiver lute the junctures close and light a very small fire the first three hours only to warm the Retort afterwards increase it every hour to the utmost violence and these Spirits will come forth and fill the Receiver with white Clouds continue the fire in this condition three days together then let the vessels cool you 'l find in the Receiver an acid Spirit which you may rectifie by distilling it in a glass Alembick in sand in order to make it the clearer This acid is more disagreeable than that of Vitriol it is used in Juleps for continued Feavers and Tertian Agues the dose is from four to eight drops it is likewise good to cure the Aphtha or little Chancres in the mouth Break the Retort and you 'l find in it a white mass very much rarefied and light it is called Burnt Alom or Calcined Alom it is used for to eat carnous excrescences or proud flesh Remarks The Distillation of Alom must be performed like that of Vitriol that is to say without addition of earth because these Salts do contain enough themselves The Body into which you put your Alom must be sure to be large enough because it rarefies extreamly The Phlegm is known to be all come forth when there distils no more for these Spirits being very weighty do require a greater heat than that of sand to raise them Some have written that Alom yields but very little acid yet if they take the pains to keep a strong fire under it for three days together they 'l find that this Spirit does not give place in strength or quantity to that of Vitriol Nor are we at all obliged to distinguish as they would have us the Acrimonious Corrosive salt of Alom from its acid seeing that there is nothing either Acrimonious or Corosive in this Mineral salt which will not turn into an acid Spirit when it is strongly urged by fire If a Drachm of Alom be dissolved in six ounces of this Phlegm you make an excellent Alom water to cleanse wounds and ulcers with The mass that remains in the Cucurbite or Dephlegmated Alom is more Escarotick than that which hath lost its Spirits Chirurgeons are wont to Calcine Alom in a Frying pan but the Iron dulls the greatest part of its vertue as absorbing its Spirits wherein consists the corrosion of Alom the Retort must be filled but half full because there happen Ebullitions which do require room CHAP. XX. Of Sulphur SVlphur is a kind of Bitumen that is found in many places in Italy and Spain There is brought among us both a Natural and an Artificial the Natural is greyish and called Sulphur Vivum the other is Yellow and is nothing but the Natural melted purified from its grosser earth and formed into Rowls which we do commonly use Some think that Sulphur is a Vitriol sublimed in the earth because these mixts are very often found near one another that there is a great deal of Sulphur in the mass of Mineral Vitriol and that the acid Spirits which are drawn from them both are wholly alike Flower of Sulphur This preparation is an exaltation of Sulphur Put about half a pound of Sulphur grosly powdered into a glass body place it in a small open fire and cover it with a pot or another Cucurbite turned upside down one that is unglazed so as that the neck of the one may enter into the neck of the other Change the upper Cucurbite every half hour fitting another in its place add likewise new Sulphur gather your Flowers which you find stuck in the Cucurbite and continue to do thus until you have got as much as you desire Then put out the fire and let the vessels cool there will remain at bottom only a little light insignificant earth The Flower of Sulphur is used in Diseases of the Lungs and Breast the dose is from ten to thirty grains in Lozenges or in Electuary It
Sun their spirituous parts that were condensed in the Phlegm do display themselves and exert their activity for which reason it is that the water becomes fragrant which was not so before The Extract doth contain almost all the Essential Salt of the Plant wherefore it is of greater virtue than the water you must take care to Evaporate the liquor with a mild heat for fear too much should carry off this salt which is but too volatile of its own nature for it is in the salt that the principal virtue of the Plant doth consist CHAP. X. Distillation of a Plant that is not Odoriferous such as Carduus Benedictus and its Essential Salt TAke a good quantity of Carduus when it is in its prime pound it in a Mortar and fill with it two thirds of a Limbeck draw by expression a sufficient quantity of the Juyce of other Carduus and pour it into the Limbeck that the herbs swimming in the Juyce may incur no danger of sticking to the bottom during the distillation distil with a fire of the second degree about half as much water as you used juyce this water is Sudorifick It is used to drive out the Small-Pox and in the Plague Express through a cloth that which remains in the Limbeck let the juyce settle and after it is filtred Evaporate with a small fire about two thirds of the liquor in an earthen or glass vessel set this vessel in a cool place and leave it there eight or ten days there will shoot out Crystals round about the vessel separate them and keep them in a Viol well stopt These Crystals are called the Essential salt it is Sudorifick the dose is from six to sixteen grains in its proper distilled water The Extract of Carduus may be likewise made the same way that I described for Balm Remarks Succory Fumitory Sorrel Scabious Cresses and all other Plants that are not Odoriferous which yield good store of Juice must be distilled like the Carduus Benedictus and this method may serve to draw the Essential Salt out of any plant whatsoever The hot Plants have much more of this Salt than others Lettice contains less than Succory Succory less than Sorrel and so of the rest Seeing it is in the Salt that the virtue of the plant consists I would advise rather to use the decoction of Plants than their distilled water when the Plants are in season and when they are out then to have recourse to distilled waters and mix with them a little of their Essential Salt or Extract The fixt Alkali Salt may be drawn from the remainder of the Plant in like manner as I have shewed to draw that of Guaiacum CHAP. XI Of Sugar SVgar is the essential salt of a reed or cane that grows in many places and especially in the Western Islands The pulp in the trunk of this plant is taken and washed and then steeped in hot water this water is strained and evaporated and the Sugar remains at bottom heretofore it was called Mel arundinaceum or the Cane-honey but since it has been called Zucharum or Saccharum The first elaboration that is given to Sugar is to purifie it by dissolving it in water filtrating and evaporating the liquor after which it is made up into Loaves or else it is sent in Casks or Chests and is called Cassonnade or Castonnade There are of it the red the brown and the white Sugar according as it has been more or less purified it differs in colour The name Castonnade may have been derived from the Casks in which it is brought called Cast by the Germans When the Sugar has been refined no more then abovesaid it is a little fat now to refine it farther it is dissolved in Lime-water it is boiled and the scum taken off when it is sufficiently boiled it is cast into molds of a Pyramidal form which have a hole at bottom to let the more glutionous part run through and separate It is still farther refined by boiling it with the whites of eggs in water for the glutinous quality of the whites of eggs does help to receive and take away the impurities which might remain in the Sugar and the boiling of it serving to drive them all to the sides of the vessel in a scum the liquor is passed through a cloth and then evaporated to a due consistence Sugar-Candy is only a Sugar crystallized the way to make it is to boil refined Sugar in water to the consistence of a thick Syrop it is then poured into pots wherein little sticks have been laid in order it is left in a still place some days without stirring and you have the Sugar-Candy sticking to those sticks Red Sugar-Candy is made after the same manner Sugar is good for infirmities of the breast and lungs because it does attenuate and cut the phlegm which sometimes oppresses the fibres of these parts but you must use it as little as may be in hysterical cases by reason that it raises vapours Red-Sugar is sometimes mixed with detersive Clysters It s sweetness does proceed from an essential acid salt mixed with some oily parts of which it consists as I have already explicated in the Remarks upon Oil of Antimony prepared with Sugar The Cassonnade or Cask-sugar makes a sweeter impression upon the tongue than our finer Sugar because it contains more viscous or fat parts which do remain the longer upon the nerve of the tongue and this makes us sometimes prefer the first as to use before the other And for the same reason the finer a Sugar is the quicker it passes off the taste Sugar-candy is better for Rheums than common Sugar because being harder it requires a longer time to melt in the mouth and besides it keeps the breast moister than the common Sugar Spirit of Sugar This Spirit is a mixture of the acid part of Sugar with the Flowers of Sal Armoniack Powder and mix eight ounces of white Sugar-candy with four ounces of Sal Armoniack put this mixture into a glass or earthen body whose third only is thereby filled fit a head to the body and place it in a sand-furnace joyn a receiver to it and lute well the junctures with a wet bladder give it a small fire for an hour only to heat the vessel then increase it to the second degree there will distil a liquor drop by drop and towards the end there will rise white vapours into the head increase your fire still more until nothing more comes forth let the vessels cool and unlute them you will find in the receiver seven ounces of a brown liquor that has but an ill smell and a little black oil stuck to the sides pour it all together into a glass-body and having fitted to it a head and receiver and luted the joints distil in sand six ounces of a very acid spirit that is clear and agreeable to the taste and without any smell of Empyreum It is a good aperitive against the gravel and the
into a Bolus with some liquid substance or else you may boil them in some liquor but you must take the liquor very hot otherwise the Crystals will fall to the bottom of the cup you drink out of If you should boil these Crystals in common water or in broth and then let it stand to be cold they will return into the same form they were in before both at the bottom and on the sides of the vessel but the liquor will remain a little sharp through the solution of some part of the salt of Tartar into it I see no reason so much to wonder as some do why Tartar will not dissolve in cold water for although it does contain a great deal of salt this salt is involved in Earth and Oil which must needs hinder the dissolution and there is no need of having recourse for an explication of this to a proportionable Union of Volatile salts and acids Soluble Tartar Powder and mix together eight ounces of Crystals of Tartar and four ounces of the fixt salt of Tartar put this mixture into a glazed earthen pot and pouring upon it three pints of common water boil the matter gently for half an hour then letting it cool filtrate and evaporate the liquor until it is dry and there will remain at bottom eleven ounces six drachms of a white salt keep it in a Viol it is both a good Aperitive and Laxative it is good for Cachexies Dropsies and all diseases that proceed from Obstructions the dose is from ten grains to two scruples in broth or some proper liquor Remarks This Operation is nothing but a dissolution that the Salt of Tartar has made of Cream of Tartar so that it can dissolve in cold water which it could not do alone the Cream of Tartar also being an acid insinuates into the pores of the Alkali salt and sweetens it If you boil Cream of Tartar in water and put into it some salt of Tartar there will happen an Effervescency between them but if you mix these two ingredients together in cold water there will be no Effervescency the reason of which is that the acid Spirits of Cream of Tartar being involved in other principles can have no active power to open the Alkali unless they be actuated by fire I use to filter the dissolution in order to separate some terrestrious part of the Cream of Tartar which could not dissolve this salt comes near in virtue to Tartar vitriolated some do call it a Vegetable salt Chalybeated or Martial Crystals of Tartar This Preparation is a Crystal of Tartar impregnated with the more soluble part of Iron Powder and mix a pound of good white Tartar and three ounces of Rust of Iron boil this mixture in an Iron pot with five or six quarts of water for half an hour or so much time as is requisite to dissolve the Tartar pass the liquor hot through a warm cloth then let it settle in an Iron or earthen pot ten or twelve hours it will shoot into brown Crystals at the sides and bottom of the pot pour off the liquor by Inclination and gather the Crystals then evaporate about half the liquor in the same pot let the remainder settle and take out the Crystals as before continue these Evaporations and Crystallizations until you have drawn all your Tartar dry the Crystals in the Sun and so keep them They are a good remedy for Obstructions of the Liver Mesentery Spleen they are given in Cachexies and for Melancholy and the Quartan Ague the dose is from fifteen grains to two Scruples in broth or some other liquor proper to the distemper Remarks This Preparation is boil'd but little that the Tartar may dissolve only the more Saline part of Iron the liquor is made to pass through a cloth to free it from the Impurities of the Tartar and Iron which could not dissolve but you must pass it very hot for if it were a little cool the Tartar would Coagulate in the cloth and so none of the liquor would pass Instead of Crystallizing the dissolved Tartar you may evaporate all the liquor and so obtain a brown powder which has the same virtues as the Crystals When you would exhibite this Chalybeated Crystal of Tartar you must make it just boil in the liquor you give it in for otherwise it will not dissolve and you must be sure to give it as hot as they can take it for fear it should Crystallize at the bottom of the Cup. Soluble Tartar Chalybeated Put into an earthen pan or glass vessel four ounces of Soluble Tartar and sixteen ounces of Tincture of Mars prepared according to the description that I have given set the vessel in sand and with a small fire evaporate the liquor until there remains a black powder shut it in a viol well stopt and keep it you 'l have eight ounces This Martial Tartar has the same virtues as the Tincture of Tartar it is good to remove all Obstructions wherefore it is very properly used in Cachexies Dropsies retention of the Menses in Nephritick Colicks and in difficulties of Urine the dose is from ten grains to half a drachm in broth or some proper liquor or else made into Lozenges Remarks This Preparation of Chalybeate or Martial Tartar is not only more convenient for use than the former in that it dissolves or mixes in a cold liquor but has much more virtue in it for the Tincture of Mars contains only the more saline part of Tartar Soluble Emetick Tartar This Preparation is a soluble Tartar impregnated with some portion of Glass of Antimony which renders it Emetick Put into a glass vessel four ounces of Crystals of Tartar powdered pour upon it Spirit of Vrine until it be two fingers above the matter there will happen a small ebullition because the Cream of Tartar will dissolve in the Spirit of Vrine when the dissolution is finished add to it an ounce of the glass of Antimony finely powdered and eight or ten ounces of water boil it all in a sand-heat seven or eight hours and take care to put more hot water into the vessel as the liquor consumes after that filtrate and evaporate gently in sand all the liquor and there will remain three ounces of a greyish powder drawing towards white keep it in a Viol well stopt It is an Emetick that works with little violence the dose is from four to fifteen grains in broth Remarks The Ebullition which happens in this Operation proceeds from the Cream of Tartars meeting with the Volatile and Alkali Salt of Urine for the Acid of Tartar piercing the Salt of Urine divides its parts and gives vent to igneous bodies which were contained in it and which now finding themselves free do break forth in great haste Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack may be used instead of that of Vrine but then there will be no sensible Ebullition the reason of which is because the salt of this Spirit is not an Alkali so open
neck of one Matrass is put into the neck of another they are called a double vessel and this is done when we desire to circulate Spirits but then the junctures must be very well luted You must also provide many large capacious Recipients for the Distillation of Acid Spirits by a Retort They must be so very large that the Spirits may have room to Circulate the better Lingots are Iron molds of divers shapes into which melted Metals are wont to be poured in order to harden in the form that we would have them That which is used for the making Lapis infernalis must consist of two pieces joined together with two little Iron rings and the melted matter is poured into the upper part of it See its figure in the second Table Coppels are porous vessels made in form of a cup to be used for the trying and purifying of Gold and Silver They are made of Ashes well washt or of bones calcined See their figure in the second Table Ashes deprived of their salts are rather used than others for the composition of this sort of vessels that they may be made the more porous by such deprivation See the Chapter concerning Purification of Silver by the Coppel and the Remarks upon it Many glass Funnels great and small Viols of glass Crucibles Pans Mortars of glass or stone or Marble or Iron must not be forgotten Aludels must also have a place there they are Pots without a bottom joyned together and are placed over another Pot with a whole in the middle to serve for Sublimations Of Lutes The Fire is often raised to so high a degree as will melt glass Retorts in a Reverberatory Furnace wherefore it will be convenient to coat them over with such a Lute as when dry is able to preserve and contain the matter that is put into them to be distill'd This Lute may be made after the manner which follows Take Sand the dross of Iron Potters earth in powder of each five pounds horse-dung cut small a pound glass beaten into powder and Sea-salt of each four ounces mix them all and with a sufficient quantity of water make a Paste or Lute with which you must coat the Retort all round to half its neck and so set it a drying This same Lute will serve to stop close the junctures of the neck of the Retort with the Recipient but because when it dries it grows exceeding hard and it proves difficult to unlute it it is needful to wet it with wet clothes when you would take the Retort asunder from the Receiver The Lute that I commonly use my self for such occasions is compounded only of two parts of Sand and one of clay tempered together with water As for the conjunction of Limbecks ordinary Glue upon paper will serve turn but when something very spirituous is distilled such as the Spirit of Wine use a wet Bladder which carries a Glue along with it that sticks very well But if the bladder happens to be eaten or corroded by the Spirits have recourse to the following Glue Take Flower and Lime slackt of each an ounce Potters-earth in powder half an ounce mix them and make a moist Paste with a sufficient quantity of the Whites of Eggs well beaten before hand with a little water This Paste may likewise serve to stop the cracks that happen in glass vessels there must be three lays of the Paste bound on with paper To Seal Hermetically is to stop the mouth or neck of a Glass-Vessel with a pair of Pincers heated red hot To do this the neck is heated by little and little with burning coals and the fire is encreased and continued until the Glass is ready to melt This way of sealing a Vessel is used when you have put some matter within it that is easie to be exalted and you have a mind to make it Circulate Of the Degrees of Fire To make a Fire of the First Degree two or three coals lighted will suffice to raise a most gentle heat For the Fire of the second degree three or four coals will serve to give such a heat as is able sensibly to warm the Vessel but so as a hand may be able to endure it for some time For the Fire of the Third degree you must cause heat enough to make a Pot boil that is fill'd with five or six quarts of water For the Fourth Degree you must use Coals and Wood together enough to give the most extream heat of all The Fire of Sand of the filings of Iron and of Ashes is made when the Vessel that contains the matter that is to be heated is covered underneath and on all sides with Sand or the filings of Iron or with Ashes this is done to heat the Vessel the more gently All these Fires have their Degrees but the Ash-fire is the mildest because the Ashes cannot contain so great a heat as the others The Reverberatory Fire is made in a close Furnace that the heat or flame which always tends upwards may reverberate or return upon the Vessel which is placed on two Iron bars This fire hath its Degrees but may be raised to a greater violence than the rest The Wheel fire for Fusion is made when with lighted coals you encompass all round a Crucible that holds the matter you desire to melt The Balneum Mariae is when an Alembick containing the matter that is to be heated is placed in a Vessel filled with Water under which the Fire is made thus the water growing hot heats the matter contained in the Alembick The Vaporous Bath is when a Glass vessel containing some Matter is heated by the vapour of hot water Explication of many Terms that are used in Chymistry To Alcoholize or reduce into Alcohol signifies to Subtilize as when a Mixt is beaten into an impalpable powder This word is also used to express a very pure Spirit thus the Spirit of Wine well rectified is called the Alcohol of Wine Amalgamate is to mix Mercury with some melted Metal this Operation serves to render the Metal fit to be extended on some Works as Gold or else to reduce it into a very subtile powder which is done by putting the Amalgame into a Crucible over the Fire for the Mercury subliming into the Air leaves the Metal in an impalpable powder neither Iron nor Copper can by any means be Amalgamated Cement is a manner of purifying Gold 'T is done by stratification with a hard paste made of one part of Salt Armoniack two of common Salt and four of Potters earth or Bricks powdered the whole having been moistned with a sufficient quantity of Urine this Composition is called Royal Cement Circulation is a motion given to liquors contained in a double vessel excited by fire and causing the vapours to ascend and descend to and fro This operation tends either to subtilize the liquors or to open some hard body that is mixed with them Coagulate is to give a consistence to liquids by
Liquor till you have recovered all that is in it Mix all your Crystals dry them and weigh them and if you have half an ounce of them powder them and mix them with six drachms of the matter I described for reviving the Calx of Silver remaining in the Matrass put this mixture into a Crucible and covering it with a tile light a strong fire about it to put the matter into fusion then taking it off the fire and letting it cool break the Crucible you 'l find the Silver at the bottom which will be fit for the same Operation again when you please Note that all the Liquor which was drawn by Distillation is as clear as common water wherefore I conclude that the Colour did consist in the dissolution of Silver it self and not of its sulphurs as some have thought You must cut the Silver into little pieces or plates that it may dissolve the more easily The Salt-water must be made of an ounce and a half of Salt dissolved in a quart of water this salt precipitates the Silver because it engages the points of the dissolvent and shaking them violently about makes them let go the hold they had with other bodies I shall speak more at large concerning these kinds of Precipitations in the Remarks which I shall make upon White Precipitate and shall then explicate the reason why Sea-salt which is an acid does precipitate that which another acid had dissolved I shall likewise answer the objections which have been raised on this subject Silver may be also precipitated by means of a Copper-plate as I have said already It is very indifferent which way you please to Precipitate it for it is done for no other end but to reduce the Silver into a very fine powder for an easier dissolution The Precipitate of Silver made with salt or Copper waxes brown in the drying and though dried in the shade which doubtless is by reason of some small proportion of Copper that it contains If you have dissolved an ounce of Coppel-silver and precipitate it with Salt or Copper you 'l draw an ounce and three drachms of Precipitate well washt and dried this augmentation does proceed from a remainder of the points which were broken in pieces and yet do still remain in the pores of the metal for these pores being very small they do but hardly let go what they have received into them There is no need of distilling a part of the Liquor that the Tincture may be the stronger as some have presumed to write for on the contrary it causes a Crystallization which diminishes both its colour and strength for the reason I have given before The effect of this Tincture for Diseases must rather be attributed to the Salt of Urine and spirit of Wine than to the Silver for they are not only able to fly into the Head and open obstructions there but assisted with the Natural heat do open the pores of all the body and drive out ill humours by transpiration The portion of Silver which remains at the bottom of the Matrass being impregnated with volatile parts would fly into the Air if it were melted alone without the addition of something else wherefore the abovementioned matter is added to it that being of a very fixt nature may weigh it down and hinder it from flying away Diana's Tree Take an ounce of Silver and dissolve it in three ounces of spirit of Niter pour your dissolution into a Matrass wherein you shall have put eighteen or twenty ounces of water and two ounces of Quick-silver Your Matrass must be fill'd up to the neck let it lye still upon a little round of straw in some convenient place for forty days together during which time you 'l find a Tree spread forth its branches and little balls at the end which represent their fruit This Operation is of no use at all in Physick I have here described it only to please the Curious Remarks These branches do proceed from the spirit of Niter which being incorporated with the Silver and Mercury do form divers Figures according to the room and moisture it hath to expatiate it self in For if you should put to it but ten or twelve ounces of water nothing but a kind of Crystals in great confusion would be able to appear On the contrary if you should use too much water nothing would then be seen besides a little precipitated powder You must let the mixture lye still for forty days together because the spirit of Niter being very much weakned by common water is able to work but very slowly If the matter should happen to be removed the figure would quickly fall into confusion but would recover it self again if you let it lye still long enough This Preparation is best performed in a cool place being properly a Crystallization This Operation may be fitly compared with the manner of Generation and Nourishment of Plants in the Earth for if the seed abounds with too much moisture the spirits which serve to ferment and dilate its parts will be rendred so weak as not to be able to act and so nothing can be produced if on the contrary there should prove too little moisture the spirits not finding room enough to expatiate in would either continue imprisoned or evaporate into Air and so be ineffectual But when there happens to be a fit proportion of water in the Earth then the spirits gently moving about do insensibly expatiate themselves and do rarifie and sublime along with them the substance of the seed from whence Vegetation doth proceed But to return unto our Operation If you should desire to separate the Silver from the Mercury shake the whole together and having poured it out into an earthen Vessel make it boil for half a quarter of an hour then let it cool a little till it becomes little more than luke-warm pour upon it a quart of water by little and little in which you have dissolved two ounces of Sea-salt and a white Precipitate will fall down pour off the water by Inclination and dry the Powder Then put it in a Retort placed in a Sand-furnace and having fitted to it a Receiver fill'd with water give a small fire at first then encrease it by degrees till the Retort grows red-hot and your Quick-silver will distil drop by drop into the water continue the fire till nothing more will distil let the Vessels cool pour the water out of the Receiver and having washt the Mercury dry it with linnen or the crum of bread and keep it for use You 'l find your Silver in the Retort which you may reduce into an Ingot by melting it in a Crucible with a little Salt-peter in a great Circular fire CHAP. III. Of Tinn TInn is a Metal that comes near unto Silver in colour but differs very much in the figure of its Pores and in the solidity and weight The name of the Planet Jupiter is given unto it and it is thought to receive its
the Head and to the top of the Body that are nothing else but some parts of Tinn raised up by the Sal Armoniack and at the bottom of the Body you 'l find some Tinn Revived Magistery of Jupiter or Tinn This Operation is only a Tinn dissolved by an acid and precipitated by an Alkali salt Dissolve the Flowers of Tinn in a sufficient quantity of water Filtrate the Dissolution and pour upon it drop by drop the Spirit of Sal Armoniack or the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium there will Precipitate a very White Powder You must Edulcorate it by washing it several times with warm water and afterwards dry it It serves for Paint for being mixed with Pomatum it makes a very curious White Remarks It is to be considered in both these Preparations that the Dissolution of Tinn is performed only by an acid Salt which the Sal Armoniack is impregnated with and this is the reason why the Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack doth serve to Precipitate it for being an Alkali as well as the Oil of Tartar it breaks the force of the acid which therefore le ts go what it held dissolved That being granted there will be no longer difficulty in conceiving how the Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack doth often Precipitate what Sal Armoniack had dissolved Flowers of Jupiter or Tinn This Operation is a Tinn Volatilized and raised in form of Meal by the means of a Volatile Salt Take an unglazed earthen Pot with a hole in the middle of its height and a stopple to it place the Pot in a Furnace of a just proportion wherein the pot may enter only as high as the hole and with Bricks and Lute take care that the fire may not transpire fit upon this pot three Aludels or open pots of the same earth without any bottoms and fit a Head to the uppermost with a Receiver to the Head lute well all the junctures and light a good fire in the Furnace to make red-hot that part of the pot which lies within it then mix a pound of Tinn and two pounds of purified Salt-peter throw a spoonful of this mixture through the hole of the pot and stop it a detonation soon follows which when it is over throw in another spoonful and so continue to do until all the mixture be spent let the vessels cool and unlute them and you 'l find in the receiver a little Spirit of Niter and in and round about the Aludels very white Flowers of Tinn gather them together with a feather then wash them divers times with fountain water and when you have dried them on paper in the shade keep them in a Viol they serve for Paint and they make a curious White when mixed in Pomatums or in some liquor You 'l find in the bottom of the Pot a Calx of Tinn mixed with the fixt part of Salt-peter boil it in water wash and dry it and it may be used in desiccative unguents Remarks It is a plain sign that Tinn does contain a Sulphur because being mixed with Salt-peter and put into the pot that 's heated red-hot it will flame for you must not imagine that the detonation can proceed from the Salt-peter alone this salt being never able to flame without the mixture of some Sulphureous matter as I shall prove in its own place But because the Sulphur of Tinn is lockt up in other substances it remains quiet for some time to unite with the Salt-peter before it raises a detonation Nevertheless if you be in haste to dispatch the detonation may be expedited by introducing a small cole lighted into the hole of the pot to fire the matter These Flowers do proceed from the part of Tinn which is easiest to rarifie and which the Volatile salt of Salt-peter and the Sulphur of Tinn had raised You must take care when you would make Detonations to proportion the Salt-peter with the Sulphur for otherwise they will not endure so long as they should either there being too much Sulphur it will not meet with enough Volatile parts of Salt-peter to raise it all up or else the Salt-peter being in too great a quantity for the Sulphur it causes but a Sublimation in part because the great quantity of this salt which remains at bottom without firing does fix some part of the Sulphur Wherefore there was but little reason to believe that three parts of Salt-peter to one of Tinn would raise more Flowers than when there are but two according to my description For then there being too much Salt-peter for the quantity of Tinn the Detonation will prove imperfect and almost all the Salt-peter will remain at bottom and will only serve to check some part of the Sulphurs of Tinn hindring them from Subliming into so many Flowers as would otherwise rise Three Aludels and one Head are used in this Operation that the Vapours which rise in the time of Detonation may have room enough for otherwise they would burst the Vessels notwithstanding the casting in of the matter but little at a time The Flowers of Tinn are washt in order to deprive them of a Volatile Salt derived from the Salt-peter which was mixed with it and the salt dissolves in the water leaving the Flowers in their purity You must dry them in the shade for both the Sun and fire do render them black and this because they do re-unite the particles of Tinn which owe all their whiteness to the fineness of Pulverization which gives them another Superficies than they had to reflect the light with CHAP. IV. Of Bismuth called Tinn-Glass BIsmuth is a Sulphureous Marcassite that is found in the Tinn Mines many do think it is an imperfect Tinn which partakes of good store of Arsenick its pores are disposed in another manner than those of Tinn which is evident enough because the Menstruum which dissolves Bismuth cannot intirely dissolve Tinn There is another sort of Marcassite called Zinch that much resembles Bismuth and on which the same preparations may be made that I am going to describe Marcassite is nothing else but the excrement of a Metal or an Earth impregnated with Metallick parts The Pewterers do mix Bismuth and Zinch in their Tinn to make it sound the better Flowers of Bismuth This Operation is nothing but a portion of Tinn-glass raised up in form of meal by Volatile salts Calcine Bismuth as you do Lead then mixing it with an equal part of Sal Armoniack proceed to its sublimation as you did in that of Tinn Thus you have Flowers which you may dissolve in Water and Precipitate with the Spirit of Sal Armoniack or Oil of Tartar This Magistery or Precipitate serves for the same use as that which follows Magistery of Bismuth Magistery of Bismuth is a Tinn-glass dissolved and precipitated in a very white powder Dissolve in a Matrass an ounce of Bismuth grosly powdered with three ounces of Spirit of Niter Pour the Dissolution into a clean White-ware Vessel and pour
this reason will not hold when 't is considered that this Augmentation comes to pass as well when Lead is Calcin'd with Coals as Wood for Coals contain only a fixt Salt that rises not at all 'T is better therefore to refer this effect to the disposition of the pores of Lead in such a manner that part of the fire insinuating into them does there remain imbodied and can't get forth again whence the weight comes to be encreased If you would revive this Calx of Lead by way of Fusion its parts do squeez and express the igneous particles that were inclosed and the Lead does thereby weigh less than it did when reduced into a Calx for by this means the Sulphureous parts are separated and lost Salt of Saturn This Operation is a Lead penetrated and reduced into the form of Salt by the acidity of Vinegar Take three or four pounds of one of these Preparations or Calcinations of Lead for example the Cerusse powder it and put it in a large Glass or Earthen vessel pour upon it distill'd Vinegar four fingers high an Ebullition will follow without any sensible heat Put it in Digestion in hot Sand for two or three days stirring about the Matter ever now and then then let it settle and separate the Liquor by Inclination Pour new distill'd Vinegar upon the Cerusse that remains in the Vessel and proceed as before continuing to pour on distill'd Vinegar and to separate it by Inclination until you have dissolved about half the Matter Mix all your Impregnations together in an earthen or glass Vessel Evaporate in a Sand-fire with a gentle heat about two thirds of the moisture or 'till there rises a little skin over it Then transfer your Vessel into a Celler or some such cool place without jogging it there will appear white Crystals which you must separate and Evaporate the Liquor as before and set it again in the Cellar Continue your Evaporations and Crystallizations 'till you have gotten all your Salt Dry it in the Sun and keep it in a Glass If you would make it exceeding white you must dissolve it in equal quantities of distill'd Vinegar and common water then Filter it and Crystallize it as I said before This Purification may be repeated three or four times It is commonly used in Pomatums for Tettars and Inflammations the Impregnation of Saturn is also used chiefly for Diseases of the skin when it is mixed with a great deal of Water it makes a Milk that is called Virgins Milk The Salt of Saturn taken inwardly is esteemed very good for the Quinsie to stop the flowing of the Menses and Hemorrhoids and for the Bloudy Flux The Dose is from two grains to four in Knot-grass or Plantain water or mixt in Gargâ—es Remarks I do commonly use Cerusse for preparing the Salt of Saturn because I find it to be more open and easier to dissolve than the other Preparations of Lead by reason of the Vinegar it is already impregnated with The Ebullition that is observed doth proceed from the violent entrance of the acids which do forcibly separate the parts of the Matter But it is remarkable that the Effervescency which happens upon pouring a like quantity of acids on any other preparation of Lead is a great deal stronger because when the acid meets with a body not so open as Cerusse it must use greater endeavour to enter into it and consequently raises up the Matter higher In these Effervescences as well as many others you cannot perceive the least Degree of Heat nay some presume to assert that Cold is increased in them Vinegar loses all its force in the penetration of Lead and acquires a kind of sweet or sugar'd taste You must not imagine that a true Salt of Lead can be drawn It is nothing but a dissolution of its substance by acids which do very closely unite with it to form a kind of Salt For if by distillation you should draw off the humidity of the Dissolution you 'd find it to be nothing but an Insipid water and consequently deprived of all its acids I shall prove that better hereafter when we come to revive our Salt into Lead This Salt called Sugar by reason of its sweetness is good for many Diseases that are caused by acid or sharp humors because it asswages them and mitigates their keenness This is particularly observed in Quinzies whose cause doth ordinarily proceed from a saline or acid serosity which falling too abundantly on the Muscles of the Larynx raises a fermentation that dilates their fibers and causes the Inflammation we see Thus whatsoever is able to dull the edge of Acids is good for the cure of this Disease Menstrual Purgations Flux of the Hemorrhoids and Dysenteries are usually caused by sharp corrosive Salts which fall into the Vessels Wherefore the Salt of Saturn as all other matters that absorb Acids do serve to cure these distempers for take away the cause of a disease and the effect will soon cease The sweetness of Salt of Saturn cannot be better explicated than by the Sulphureous or softish substanee of the particles of Lead which being actuated by the Salt of Vinegar do delightfully tickle the Nerve of the tongue when it is tasted Vinegar impregnated with some preparation of Lead is called Vinegar of Saturn If it be well tempered with Oil of Roses or some other Oil beating them together in a mortar it makes an unguent that is called Nutritum or otherwise Butter of Saturn it is good for Tettars and other disfigurations of the skin Magistery of Saturn This Operation is a Lead dissolved and precipitated Dissolve two or three ounces of the Salt of Saturn well purified as I said before in a sufficient quantity of Water and distill'd Vinegar filter the dissolution and pour upon it drop by drop the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium it will first turn into a Milk then a kind of Coagulum that will precipitate to the bottom of the Vessel in a white Powder Boil it a little and pour it into a Tunnel lined with a Coffin of brown Paper the Liquor will pass through as clear as Water and the Powder remain in it Wash it several times with Water to carry off all the impression of Vinegar Then dry it and you 'l have a very white Magistery that is used for a Fucus like the Bismuth It is likewise mixed in Pomatums for Tettars c. Remarks When good store of Water is poured upon the Impregnation of Saturn it turns white like Milk and is commonly called Virgins milk it is used in Inflammations and to Pimples in the face if you let this Milk settle it becomes as clear as Water and a White powder sinks down to the bottom this Powder does proceed from the particles of Lead which were held up by the acidity of the Vinegar and were made let go their hold by the access of Water diluting the acid This Magistery being well washt may serve like the other
it the parts of Lead close together and expel the fiery particles so that the Lead revives as it was before and recovers its Natural gravity The matter when shut up in the Retort would never be able to revive let the fire be made never so strong because the igneous particles would have no liberty to get out The Yellow earth that 's found in the Crucible seems to be of a Golden colour it is a terrestrious and bituminous impurity that the Lead is purified from There should be indeed but two drachms of it because four ounces of Lead are recovered wherefore the Augmentation must needs be from the fiery parts that remained in it as in a Calx Spirit of Saturn becomes inflammable from its containing in it some spirit of Wine that remains still involved in the Vinegar and was carried away with the acids into the Pores of Lead when the Salt of Saturn was made for if you quicken the Fire to distil this Salt the acids break in pieces and leave the Spirit of Wine at liberty insomuch that the Spirit of Saturn hath no acid taste The matter that remains in the Retort after the Operation may be easily revived into Lead as being deprived of the acids which gave it the form of Salt The Salt of Saturn may be likewise revived into Lead by mixing it with an Alkali Salt melted in a Crucible with a good fire because this last Salt destroys the acids that kept the Lead thus disguised but you must observe that it will flame before it revives by reason of the Spirit of Wine that I said was included in the dissolution of Cerusse made by Vinegar CHAP. VI. Of Copper COpper is a Metal that abounds in Vitriol and Sulphur it is called Venus because this Planet was thought to govern it particularly and bestow its Influences upon it and for this reason there hath been attributed unto it the virtue of encreasing seed and curing the diseases of those parts that serve for Generation But because Copper contains in it a Corrosive quality I would advise no body to use it inwardly Copper takes Rust very easily for if you leave but a drop of Water some hours upon a piece of it it makes a Verdegreese Have a care of drinking water that has lain in Copper vessels for it always dissolves some portion of it which appears easily from the taste it leaves in it It will not be altogether amiss to make mention here of an effect that is no less strange than usual 'T is that Water or any other liquor that 's heated or boil'd in a Copper vessel for a whole day together savours not at all or not so much of the Copper provided that it be not removed off the fire all that time as other water warm'd in a like vessel and put from the fire but an hour for whereas water alone can dissolve something of the Copper it would seem that being aided with the heat of fire it should partake of its nature the more Now in my opinion this is the most rational explication that can be given of this matter Every body may perceive that when the water begins to heat in a Copper vessel that 's set over the fire little Atoms do rise at bottom like the stirring of a powder and these Atoms do encrease according as the water receives more heat so that at length they make it boil on high these little Atoms can have no other cause than the fiery particles which passing through the vessel do drive the water upwards apace and rarifie its parts for this reason it is that the water is not able to dissolve any of the Copper for being continually raised upwards it can make no impression upon the bottom of the vessel Perhaps some will tell me that the liquor might take the impression of the Copper at the sides of the Bason but it is easie to imagine that though there don't pass through the sides so many fiery particles as do at the bottom there do pass nevertheless enough to hinder the liquor from sticking to or dissolving any particles of the vessel But now on the contrary the vessel being remov'd from off the fire and the motion of the igneous particles being quite ceased the liquor partakes easily of the Copper and so much the more easily as the fire has rarified the metal and rendred it more proper for dissolution Every thing seems to confirm this Opinion for if any liquor is put to boil over a strong fire in a Copper vessel it will not impregnate in the least but if you place it upon a small fire and leave it so for some time then because there will not pass enough fiery particles to cover all the surface of the vessel and raise up the liquor it will take some taste of the Copper but this taste will not be so strong as if you had left it the same length of time in such a vessel off the fire after it had been warm'd Liquors that are full of Salts do take the impression of Copper much more easily than those that are not Thus Confectioners do observe what I have mentioned for though they boil their Confections in vessels of Copper for a considerable time they find them taste nothing of the Copper but they know that if they should leave them but half an hour in the vessel taken off the fire they would be tainted with a most loathsom Copper taste We may learn from this Discourse not to use a Copper vessel when we have a mind to boil or heat a liquor gently and when we do think fit to use it to be sure to keep a good brisk fire underneath and not to let what we have boil'd cool afterwards in a vessel of this nature Another difficulty does here offer it self on this subject and it is to know why a Kettle that has been taken off the fire is not so hot at bottom as at the sides so that as soon as it is removed from off the fire one may touch it at bottom without burning ones finger which can't be done at the sides without present scalding The reason of which is that the fiery particles tending upwards through the bottom of the kettle which is flat in a direct line don't make any stop in passing through having but a little distance to conquer before they come into the liquor but those that rise on the sides finding a longer space to make upon the kettle do many of them stop in the Pores of the Copper It is not the same thing in vessels that are made in another form whose bottom is Globular because the fiery particles rising up in an indirect line do find more to do to pass through it than in a flat bottom and so by conference more of them do stop But it is objected that if igneous bodies do pass through the bottom of the kettle without any stop they would not be able to heat it any more when it is empty
Principles it is sufficient for a body to be called an Alkali if it has its Pores so disposed as that the Acids may be able through their motion violently to separate whatsoever stands in their way Mars is almost always Astringent by Stool by reason of its Terrestrious parts and Aperitive by Vrine not only by reason of its piercing Salt but also because when the body is bound the humidities do more easily filter by way of Vrine Opening Saffron of Mars This Preparation is only a Rust of Iron contracted in the Dew Wash well several Iron Plates and expose them to the Dew for a good while they will rust and you must gather up this rust Set the same Plates again to receive the Dew and gather the Rust as before Continue to do so till you have gotten enough This Rust is really better than all the Preparations of Iron that are called Crocus It is excellent for Obstructions of the Liver Pancreas Spleen and Mesentery It is used very successfully for the Green-Sickness stopping of the Terms Dropsies and other Diseases that proceed from Oppilations The Dose is from two grains unto two Scruples in Lozenges or Pills Many do give Mars with Purgatives which is a good Practice Remarks The Chymists have called Calcin'd Steel Crocus by reason of its red colour and they have given this name to many other Preparations for the same reason Though Steel hath been always used in the Chymical Preparations that are used in Physick and is preferred before Iron for the Cure of Diseases it is certain nevertheless that Iron is fitter for that intent than Steel because it is more Soluble for if the action of Iron proceeds from nothing but its Salt as there is no reason to doubt the Salt of Iron must be much more easily separated in the stomach than that of Steel because as I have shewn before the Pores of Steel are more close than those of Iron and therefore this must have quicker effects besides that Steel being harder to be dissolved doth sometimes pass away with the excrements without bestowing any impression on the Chyle The reason that hath induced People to believe that Steel is better for use than Iron was its being thought to be deprived of many impurities by Calcination but that which is called Impurity is the more open part of the Iron and consequently the more wholesome This Preparation of the Saffron of Mars is out of the common road and longer a doing than the others but it is the best of all that ever were invented The Dew is impregnated with a Dissolvent that opens very much the Pores of Iron and incorporating with it renders it more active and soluble than it was before Iron doth open Obstructions by its salt which being assisted with the solid parts of the Metal penetrates further than other Salts But you must always purge and moisten the Person you give it to with broths before you presume to give it because if it should find the passages of the small Vessels filled and obstructed with gross matters it stops and sometimes causes Inflammations that create pains like to those of the Colick Many do use the filings of Steel without any Preparation at all Iron doth frequently open Obstructions by absorbing as an Alkali the Acid that fomented them Seeing that some persons have indeavoured to contradict the Remarks I have made upon the Effects of Mars and particularly concerning the preference I have given Iron to Steel for Physical uses I have thought it not convenient to end this Chapter before I have laid down and Answered their Objections First then they say that because the different substances of Mars cannot be separated as those of Animals and Vegetables can it is in vain that an Aperitive virtue is attributed to its Salt Answer I grant all the substances of Mars can't be separated so easily as those of Animals and Vegetables but because we find Salts to be Aperitive and commonly Remedies that are so are full of Salts and that water in which rust of Iron has steeped for some time is proper to open by way of Vrine it seems to me rational enough to attribute this effect of Mars principally to its Salt for if the water has carried off any taste or penetrating quality from Iron there 's nothing at all in Mars that is able to contribute such a virtue to it besides the Salt therein dissolved Secondly they say the Earth and Salt of Mars being united and in a manner become inseparable cannot act but by consent of both and receive together joyntly the good or bad impressions that may happen to them I Answer there 's no reason to think the Salt of Mars absolutely inseparable from the Earth for the water in which this Metal has steeped or boiled after Filtration does contain a Vitriolick taste and Aperitive quality Now it is the effect of Salt to dissolve imperceptibly in Water and drive by Vrine as I have said but if any body would take the pains to steep and boil gently the rust of Iron a good while in water then Filter it and Evaporate the liquor over a small fire to a Pellicle he 'l by Crystallization or by an entire evaporation of the humidity gain a small quantity of Salt and it is probable enough that there was much more in the water as may be collected from the strong taste it had of Mars but it being something of a Volatile nature it fum'd away in the Evaporation I do not say nevertheless that the close connexion of Earth with the Salt of Mars is altogether unuseful for this effect on the contrary I do conceive that this Earth rendring the Salt more heavy than otherwise it would be does help to drive it forwards and causes the Mars sometimes to penetrate as much by its gravity as by its Salt but we must attribute the principal virtue to the Vehicle which is Salt since without that the Earth would be a dead matter and would have no more action than other Earths bereaved of their Salts Thirdly They say that in all probability Mars does act only according to the preparations which the different juices it meets with in the stomach do make for these acid juices not failing to encounter with and to dissolve it there results from this dissolution a liberty to the parts of the body on which these juices did act and consequently their restauration a-new I am willing to believe that sometimes Mars may act in the body like an Alkali by absorbing and sweetning the acid humour which it meets with as it does absorb and sweeten the acid liquors which are poured upon it but it must not be concluded from hence that its Aperitive faculty does always consist in this effect because as I before hinted the water in which Mars has been put to boil is Aperitive and yet there is no Alkali in it to sweeten the acids of the body when it is drunk Fourthly They object that we must
stomach by pricking its Fibres with some salts that they carry along with them If you mix this Emetick with an Infusion of Senna or some such purgative it works as much by stool as by vomit because these Remedies do precipitate with them some part of the Sulphurs When a man swallows the Perpetual Pill it passes by its own weight and purges downwards it is washt and given again as before and so on perpetually Almost all Chymists have written that this Pill loses nothing at all of its weight though taken several times 'T is true indeed the diminution is but very small yet nevertheless it would not be hard to remark it in some measure It may be said also that in place of the Sulphureous parts which do exhale to cause the vomiting some extraneous bodies do succeed in their place as it happens when Antimony is Calcined in the Sun When this Pill hath been taken and voided twenty or thirty times it purges not so much as it did at first as well because the more soluble parts of the Sulphur are gone as that what remains doth pass without any great effect The same doth happen to Cups or Gobelets which can't make the wine so Emetick as before after they have been filled twenty or thirty times Some do prescribe the Perpetual Pill in the disease called Miserere but this practice is not without danger because the ball stopping sometime in the Intestines which are knotted or twisted together in this disease may cause an Inflammation and so exulcerate the part It is given in the Colick and then it does well Wine draws out the Emetick virtue of the Regulus much better than water or spirit of Wine or vinegar can do the reason of which is that this virtue does consist in a saline sulphur which water could not penetrate spirit of Wine indeed does dissolve some of the more sulphureous part of it but does not take enough of the salt the vinegar by its acidity does fix too much what it has dissolved but Wine contains a sulphureous spirit and a saline Tartar which do make a most convenient Menstruum to dissolve and to preserve the saline and sulphureous part of the prepared Antimony Upon considering the different ways of evacuation caused by Antimony and many other Medicins I do find it very probable that Emeticks do work as they do because their operation being quick is exerted in the stomach before the medicin had time to descend more downwards and then this viscus is very sensible when irritated and undergoes commotions sufficiently violent to make rise what is within it But if the medicin proves slow in its operation and descends into the gutts before it raises a purgative fermentation it then forces downwards whence it comes to pass that those who do not vomit upon taking emeticks are commonly purged by stool Thus Vomits and Purges do differ only in this that the first do work in the stomach the others in the gutts Oil and lukewarm water do vomit by relaxing the fibres of the stomach and changing the motion of the spirits which do then act only by shaking or turning the stomach to a discharge upwards If by way of curiosity you would Calcine four ounces of the Regulus of Antimony powdered in an earthen cup unglazed set in a small fire stirring it all the while with a Spatule there will rise up a vapour for an hour and a halfs time or there-abouts and when the matter fumes no longer it turns into a grey powder that weighs two drachms and a half more than the Regulus did at first This augmentation of quantity is the stranger for that the fume which ascended from it during the Calcination should seem rather to have diminished its weight It must be therefore granted that a great many fiery particles have entred into it in the room of that which fum'd away This Fume proceeds from some grosser Sulphur that remained in the Regulus and indeed it smells strong of the sulphur Golden Sulphur of Antimony This preparation is the sulphureous part of Antimony dissolved by Alkali salts and precipitated by an acid Take the dross of the Regulus of Antimony powder and boil them with common water in an earthen pot half an hour strain the liquor and pour vinegar into the expression there will precipitate a red powder filtrate and separate your precipitate dry it and keep it you will obtain twelve ounces and two drachms of it it is called the Golden Sulphur of Antimony and is an Emetick the dose is from two grains unto six in broth or in Pills Remarks You must put about sixteen pints of water to boil with the fifteen ounces of the dross of Regulus of Antimony though the liquor does coagulate like a Jelly when it is cold by reason of the salts and sulphurs joyning together for the dross of the Regulus is nothing but a mixture of the fixt parts of Salt-peter and Tartar that have retained with them some of the more impure Sulphur of Antimony Now seeing that these salts do become Alkali by means of Calcination the acid which is poured upon them does break or destroy their strength and makes them quit the sulphur which they held dissolved from whence the precipitation of the Golden Sulphur of Antimony does proceed So soon as vinegar is poured on the dissolution of the dross volatile sulphurs do arise which are very disagreeable to the smell the precipitate which is afterwards made is like to a Coagulum or curd in great quantity This Sulphur does operate much like to the Crocus metallorum of which I shall soon speak The Chymists have called it Golden sulphur by reason of its colour which is near like unto that of Gold but it is probable that the Antients did understand by the Golden Sulphur of Antimony some other sulphur than this because almost all of them have writ that there was a gross superficial sulphur in Antimony like unto common sulphur which is this of which our present preparation is made and another more fixt and like unto that of Gold which they held to be Sudorifick You must not imagine that our Golden Vomitive Sulphur is altogether Pure it is still loaded with a great deal of earth and salt which it has still retained in the precipitation and it is this salt which by rarefying its parts does give it this colour Regulus of Antimony with Mars This preparation is a mixture of the more fixed parts of Antimony and some portion of Iron Put eight ounces of small Nails into a great Crucible cover it and set it on a grate in a Furnace surround it above and below with a good fire and when the Nails are red hot throw into them a pound of Antimony in powder cover again the Crucible and continue a great fire when the Antimony shall be in perfect Fusion cast into it by little and little three ounces of Salt-peter a detonation will happen and the nails will melt and when
and for heating the lowermost When its bottom is red-hot cast into it a small spoonful of Antimony in powder through the hole and stir the matter at the bottom of the pot with an Iron Spatule crooked a little on purpose to do it the better draw out your Spatule and stop the hole the flowers will rise and stick in the upper pots Continue a great fire that the pot may still remain red-hot and when you see nothing more sublime cast in so much more Antimony observing to do what I have said Repeat the casting it in through the hole till you have flowers enough Then let the fire go out and when the vessels are cold unlute them you 'l find flowers all about the three upper pots and the head gather them together with a Feather and keep them in a Viol. It is a powerful Emetick it is given in Quartan Agues and other Intermittent Feavers and also in the Epilepsie the dose is from two grains to six in Lozenges or Broth. Remarks In this preparation as in the former you must leave room enough otherwise the flowers of Antimony being driven fiercely by the fire would be apt to break the vessel for want of room to move in And this is the reason why many pots are here placed one upon another There 's no need of any Receiver because there is no liquor to fall into it so that a blind head may serve At the bottom of the pot which contained the matter there remains a mass of the more terrestrious part of Antimony that must be flung away as being good for nothing If the Flowers of Antimony do happen to be of different colours it is because the fire was not managed equally strong these Flowers are more Vomitive than the former because they have no Salt-peter in them Red Flowers of Antimony These Flowers are the more sulphureous part of Antimony rarefied and exalted by fire Powder and mix well together four pounds of common glass with one pound of Antimony put this mixture into an earthen or glass Retort luted whose half is empty set it in a Reverberatory Furnace and fit to it a large Receiver lute the junctures lightly and give a little fire at first to warm the Retort then augment it by degrees and you 'l see Red flowers come forth into the Receiver continue the fire until no more can come which you 'l know as you unlute the junctures and taking off the Receiver gather your Flowers and keep them for use They are more Vomitive than the former and are given to the same intents the dose is from two grains to four in a Lozenge or some appropriate liquor Remarks That which makes these Flowers more Vomitive than the former is the more terrestrious or fixt part of Antimony's being kept from rising by the glass so that what is exalted by the fire is more Sulphureous and consequently more Emetick The red colour of these Flowers doth proceed from the abundance of Sulphurs they are impregnated with and it may be said that glass which is an alkali acting on this Sulphur gives it this colour after the same manner as Quick-lime or the alkali Salt of Tartar makes common Sulphur turn red when they are boiled together in water The time that you take these Flowers of Antimony you must often drink broth both to facilitate the vomiting and dull the great activity of this Remedy for it is one of the strongest vomits that is in Physick But because it sometimes happens that this Powder sticking in the membranes of the stomach or some of its folds doth cause a continual vomiting notwithstanding the frequent use of broths you must then add the Cream of Tartar and dissolve it in the broth and so take some spoonful every quarter of an hour This Cream of Tartar stops the vomiting because it joyns with the Sulphurs of Antimony and fixes them so that they precipitate by stool Butter or Icy Oil of Antimony This preparation is an Antimony rendred caustick by acids Powder and mix six ounces of the Regulus of Antimony with a pound of Sublimate Corrosive put this mixture into a glass Retort whose half remains empty set your Retort in Sand and after having fitted to it a Receiver and luted the conjunctions you must first make a small fire under it and there will distil a clear oil after that augment the fire a little and there will come forth a white thick liquor like Butter which would stop the neck of the Retort and break it if you did not take care to set live Coals near it that it may melt and run into the Receiver Continue the fire until you see a red vapour come forth Then take away the Receiver and put another in its place filled with water Encrease the fire by degrees to make the Retort red-hot and the Mercury will run into the water dry it and keep it for use as other Mercury The Butter of Antimony is a Caustick it eats proud flesh and cleanses Ulcers the Powder of Algarot is made of it as I shall shew hereafter Remarks This Butter of Antimony is nothing but a mixture of the acid Spirits of Sublimate Corrosive with the Regulus of Antimony and those Spirits are they that render it Caustick The spirits of Salt and Vitriol in this operation do leave the Mercury to adhere unto the Antimony which is more porous insomuch that the Mercury being divested of that which kept it in a Crystalline form and being driven by a strong fire rarefies into vapours which pass through the neck of the Retort into the Receiver filled with water wherein it condenses into Quick-silver by means of the coolness I doubt not but some will find difficulty in conceiving how the acids that adhered to the solid body of Mercury should strike off to joyn with the Antimony but it may be said to that that the acids being so many edges fastned at one end in the body of Mercury may by t'other end be separated and drawn off by the soft and ramous parts of the Antimony that are in greater motion than the Mercury Instead of Regulus the Liver or Glass of Antimony might serve if you please Butter of Antimony together with its Cinnabar The first of these preparations is an Antimony opened and rendred caustick by the acids of Sublimate Corrosive and the second is a mixture of the Mercury that was in the sublimate and of the Sulphurs of Antimony sublimed together Fill a Retort half full with Sublimate Corrosive and Antimony powdered and mixed well together Set your Retort in Sand in a small Furnace and fitting a Receiver to it and luting the junctures proceed in the distillation the way I shewed in the preceding operation with Regulus observing the same circumstances When the red vapours begin to appear take away the Receiver and put another in its place without luting the junctures encrease the fire by little and little till you make the Retort red-hot continue
it so three or four hours then let the Retort cool and break it you 'l find a Cinnabar sublimed and adhering to the neck separate it and keep it it is a good Remedy for the Pox and the Epilepsie it purges by sweat the dose is from six to fifteen grains in Pills or Bolus with some proper Conserve This Butter of Antimony is Caustick like the other I now spoke of It may be rectified by distilling it anew in a glass Retort Remarks In the Receiver are found little crystals sticking to its sides which do curiously represent the branches of trees these figures do proceed from the acid spirits of sublimate mixed with Antimony If you have used five ounces of Sublimate Corrosive and the same of Antimony you 'l draw two ounces and a half of very good Butter of Antimony three ounces and six drachms of Cinnabar of Antimony and half an ounce of Quick-silver The mass which remains in the Retort does weigh two ounces and a half Thus the matter has lost six drachms which loss happened whilst the Cinnabar was rising The Quick-silver is found in the neck of the retort with the Cinnabar and in the last receiver Sometimes a kind of mossey substance is found at the end of the neck of the retort which does represent many little figures it is the more rarefied Cinnabar The mass which is found at bottom of the retort is the more terrestrious part of the Antimony and is to be flung away In the preceding operation the Mercury did not find sulphurs enough to adhere to whence it hapned that it came forth flowing but in this operation wherein crude Antimony is used which hath all its sulphur whilst the Corrosive spirits sticking to the Antimony come forth in Butter the Mercury joyns with the sulphur and by the action of fire sublimes afterwards into Cinnabar in the neck of the retort for to make Cinnabar Sulphur and Mercury must be sublimed together Now if you have the curiosity to anatomise Cinnabar you must powder it and mix it with a double quantity of Salt of Tartar then putting it into a Retort distil with a great fire the Mercury into a Receiver filled with water the Sulphur will remain in the Retort with the Salt of Tartar but may be separated from it by boiling it in water Filtrate the Decoction and then pour upon it distilled Vinegar a gray powder will precipitate which may be washed with water and dried thus you have the Sulphur of Antimony which is much esteemed for diseases of the Breast six or eight grains of it are given for a dose in some liquor appropriate to the disease If you mix Butter of Antimony with double its weight of oil or spirit of Sulphur prepared according to my description you will have a liquor that is good for foul bones and for venereal ulcers and Chancres it is applied on pledgets and works much like the oil or liquor of Mercury that I have described The Emetick powder of Algarot or Mercurius vitae It is a Precipitate of Antimony or Butter of Antimony washed Melt in hot sand the first butter of Antimony I described with Regulus and pour it into as earthen pan wherein are two or three quarts of warm water a white powder will precipitate that must be sweetned with many lotions and so kept it is improperly called Mercurius vitae It purges upwards and downwards it is given in Quartans and Intermitting feavours and all the maladies wherein it is required to purge strongly the dose is from two grains to eight in Broth or some other convenient liquor If you joyn all the lotions together and evaporate about two thirds or until the liquor becomes very acid you 'l have a Philosophick spirit of Vitriol that may be used like common spirit of Vitriol in Juleps to give them an agreeable acidity Remarks I have said before that the Butter or Icy Oil of Antimony was nothing but a mixture of the spirits of Salt and Vitriol with the Regulus of Antimony This last operation confirms this opinion because when this Butter is cast into warm water these spirits render the liquor very acid letting the Regulus of Antimony fall down to the bottom so that the powder of Algarot is an Antimony transmuted much like the white flowers I spoke of before The water does separate or take off very well the acid spirits from the Butter of Antimony because they cannot have a good hold in the pores of this softish and sulphureous mineral but it was not able to separate those same acids from the Sublimate Corrosive because the pores of Mercury being of a closer fabrick than those of Antimony they do retain what they once receive into them with greater strength The powder of Algarot may be made after the same manner as the Butter that may be drawn from crude Antimony or else with the Liver or Glass but that which is made with crude Antimony is not so white as the rest If you do use four ounces of Butter of Antimony you will draw an ounce and six drachms of Mercurius vitae after it is well washed and dried insomuch that four ounces of this Butter do contain two ounces and two drachms of acid spirit in which its corrosion does consist The acid liquor called Philosophick spirit of Vitriol does grow in a manner insipid in length of time because its acidity has been volatilized by the Mercury and afterwards by the Antimony Bezoar Mineral This preparation is an Antimony fixed by spirit of Niter and rendred sudorifick Melt in hot ashes two ounces of the Butter of Antimony and pour it into a Viol or a Bolthead drop into it good spirit of Niter until the matter is perfectly dissolved commonly so much spirit of Niter is requisite as there is Butter of Antimony during the dissolution there will rise up vapours that you must have a care of and therefore will do well to place the vessel in the Chimney Pour your solution into a glass body or an earthen dish and evaporate it in a gentle sand-fire until it is dry there will remain a white mass which you must let cool and then pour upon it two ounces of spirit of Niter set the vessel again in sand and evaporate the liquor as before once more pour two ounces of spirit of Niter on the white mass and having evaporated the humidity encrease the fire a little and Calcine the matter for half an hours time then take it off the fire and you have a white powder which you must keep in a Viol well stopt It is sudorifick and serves for the same uses as Antimonium Diaphoreticum the dose is from six to twenty grains in broth or some appropriate liquor Remarks The Spirits of Vitriol and Salt were not strong enough nor in quantity enough to make an entire dissolution of the Antimony they only made a light adhesion to it but when they are joyned with spirit of Niter they act with
Orpin and the Red called Realgal or Sandaracha the White is the strongest of all and is sometimes transparent like crystal Some do add to these for a fourth kind of Arsenick a Yellow Arsenick which is an Orpin differing from the other only in this that it is not so transparent nor of so high a colour None of these Arsenicks may be given inwardly although several persons that have ventur'd to use the white do pretend to have cured with it divers diseases and among others the Quartan-Ague They venture to give of it as far as four grains in a great deal of water and after that manner it will Vomit like Antimony But I can by no means allow of this Febrifuge and would never advise any body to use so dangerous a Remedy Nature doth furnish us with Medicins enough of Conscience to provoke Vomiting without recourse to Arsenick It is used outwardly with sufficient success because it eats proud flesh People sometimes cover the Corns of their feet with Arsenick in powder and it eats them to the root without any pain but they must be sure to cover the adjacent flesh with a plaister of Diapalma after the same manner as when Causticks are applied Regulus of Arsenick This preparation is the more fixt and compact part of Arsenick Powder and mix together a pound of Arsenick with six ounces of gravelled Ashes incorporate this powder in a pound of soft soap and make a paste of it put it in a great Crucible and cover it with an earthen cover that hath a hole in the middle set your Crucible in a wind-furnace and give a little fire at first then augment it gradually that the matter may be in a clear fusion throw it into a mortar greas'd at the bottom or into a Culot strike it round about a little with pincers and let the matter cool then knock it out you 'l find in the bottom of the mortar a Regulus of Arsenick separate it from the dross It is not so Corrosive as Arsenick it self and its effect is milder Remarks The soap being full of an alkali salt and the gravelled Ashes do correct or fix the great activity of the sulphurs of Arsenick A hole is made in the cover that the more volatile part may sublime with the Oil and humidity that are in the Soap the alkali salts do remain in the dross with some part of the more gross sulphurs of Arsenick If by way of Curiosity you should boil the dross in water Filtrate the decoction and pour Vinegar upon it or some other acid to break the force of the alkali's a Sulphur of Arsenick will precipitate that is stronger than Arsenick it self Arsenick being compounded of abundance of sulphurs is not so quick in its operation as Sublimate Corrosive because these sulphurs do not knaw so fast as the acid salts If Arsenick should happen to be taken inwardly through any mistake the person may still be saved half an hour afterwards by swallowing good store of warm oil to Vomit and Purge after that he must be purged with Cassia and Salt of Tartar and he must often drink Salt of Tartar in Broths that if any sulphur should chance to remain it might be fixed by this Salt for when Arsenick is in the body the heat of the body raises and rarefies the sulphurs on every side Sublimate of Arsenick This operation is an Arsenick corrected from its more malignant sulphurs and raised by the means of fire to the top of a matrass Put what quantity you please of Arsenick grosly powdered into a Crucible set it in a small fire under the Chimney to Calcine and evaporate about the third part of the matter Avoid as much as may be this malignous vapour pour into a mortar that which remains and when you have powdered it weigh it and mix it with an equal quantity of Salt Decrepitated put this mixture into a matrass whose two thirds remain empty set your matrass in sand in a small Furnace and making a little fire at first encrease it by little and little to the third degree in order to Sublime the Arsenick continue it in this condition until there rises no more the operation is ended in five or six hours let the vessel cool and break it gather that which sticks to the top of the matrass and keep it fling away that which remains at bottom If you should repeat the Sublimation four or five times adding salt each time a sweet Sublimate of Arsenick would be made that is to say abundantly less corrosive than common Arsenick Some Authors tell us that this sweet Arsenick is a Counterpoison but I shall never think it convenient to trust to such an Antidote seeing we don't want those that are safer The Sublimate of Arsenick eats proud flesh and cleanses old Ulcers being mixed with the common Suppurative and Aegyptiacum The same Operation may be performed with Orpin Remarks The Arsenick is Calcined to the end the more volatile part may fly away in fumes if you should continue the fire and encrease it toward the end every jot of the Arsenick would fly away Some do sublime it without addition of any thing else after it is Calcined but it is better joyn some body that may fix it a little such as Salt Seeing the sublimate of Arsenick doth resemble sublimate Corrosive in colour some Cheats do falsifie sublimate Corrosive by mixing with it that of Arsenick I have shewn the way to discover this imposture in the Chapter of sublimate Corrosive The Salt Decrepitated does six the great volatility of Arsenick and the fire carries off some of its more active sulphurs insomuch that the oftner it is sublimed the more it does dulcify and becomes proper to apply to flesh where we would gently corrode If you sublime Arsenick alone in a bolthead with a great fire without having Calcined it at all before the sublimate will be converted into a glass much resembling common glass both in colour and transparency Caustick Arsenick This operation is an Arsenick rendred more fixt and more burning than it was before and in form of a Calx by the means of fixt salts Powder and mix together a pound of Arsenick so much Salt-peter and half a pound of Sulphur put this mixture into an Iron mortar cover it with a Cover that hath a hole in 't thrust a red-hot Iron or a lighted coal through the hole the powder will take fire with a great noise called detonation this noise being over and the matter cold powder it grosly and calcine it in a covered Crucible for two hours time over a great fire then let it cool and you 'l have a Caustick matter that you must break into little pieces and stop close in a Bottle to use as common Causticks If you set it in a Cellar or other moist place it dissolves into a liquor like the salt of Tartar Remarks This great detonation proceeds from the flagration of common sulphur and that of Arsenick which being
that by the conjunction of these two spirits the Aqua fortis is compelled to abandon the metal that it had dissolved is nothing at all to the clearing of the question unless a man will needs give an intelligence to these spirits Wherefore we must still have recourse to the agitation and jostles for the true reason It is also remarkable that the effervescency which happens when Spirit of Salt is cast into the solution of some bodies by Aqua fortis is different from that which happens when some alkali is cast into it the former being much more gentle than the latter The Spirit of Salt dissolves leaf gold which Aqua fortis is not able to do When this Spirit is dulcified it is mixed with Spirit of Wine which being a Sulphur doth take off the edges of the acid and in part hinders their motion whence it comes to pass that this Spirit is milder by this addition than if water had been used instead of Spirit of Wine The Spirit of Salt may be made with Salt Decrepitated after the same manner CHAP. XVI Of Niter or Salt-peter IT is probable that the Niter of the antients was either the Aegyptian Natron or a salt that is found in the earth in a gray compact mass or else the natural Borax or the salt which is drawn from the water of the river Nilus and many other rivers And it may be that all these salts are divers kinds of their Niter but the Niter of the moderns is nothing else but Salt-peter and this is that of which I intend to speak Niter is a Salt impregnated with abundance of Spirits out of the air which do render it volatile it is taken from among the stones and earths of old ruined buildings Some of it is likewise to be found in Cellars and several other moist places because the air doth condense it in those places and easily unites with the stones Salt-peter is also sometimes made by the Urine of Animals falling upon stones and earths Nay some have thought that all Salt-peter comes from that cause whereas we see every day that some of it is taken out of places where there never came any Urine at all This salt is half volatile and half like unto Sal Gemme as I shall prove hereafter The great and violent flame which happens so soon as Salt-peter is flung upon the coals and the red vapours which it uses to yield when reduced into a spirit have induced the Chymists generally to believe that this salt is inflammable and consequently fully loaded with Sulphur because Sulphur is the only Principle that flames but if they had suspended their judgments herein until they had got more experience on this Subject they would not only have known that Salt-peter is not at all inflammable in its nature but they would e'en have doubted whether or no any Sulphur does enter into the natural composition of this salt for if Salt-peter were inflammable of it self like Sulphur it would burn where there is no Sulphur for example in a Crucible heated red-hot in the fire but it will never flame therein use what quantity of it you please and let the fire be never so great It is true indeeed if you throw Salt-peter upon kindled coals it makes a great flame but this is only through the sulphureous Fuliginosities of the coals which are violently raised and rarefied by the volatile nature of Niter as I shall prove in the Operation upon fixt Niter As for any Sulphur that is thought to be contained in Salt-peter it can't be demonstrated by any Operation whatever for the red vapours that come from it are no more inflammable than the Niter when they are not mixt with some Sulphureous matter and it is far more probable that this salt contains no Sulphur if we consider its cleanness transparency acidity and cooling quality which have no manner of affinity with the effects of Sulphur which are commonly to make a body opake to take off acidity and to heat Purification of Salt-peter To purifie Salt-peter is to deprive it of part of its fixt salt and of a little bituminous earth which it contains Dissolve ten or twelve pounds of Salt-peter in a sufficient quantity of water let the dissolution settle and filtrate it then evaporate it in a glass or earthen vessel to the diminution of half or until there begins to appear a little skin upon it then remove your vessel into a cool place stirring it as little as may be and leave it there till the morrow you 'l find Crystals which you must separate from the liquor evaporate this liquor again to a skin and set the vessel in a cool place to get new Crystals repeat the evaporations and Crystallizations until you have drawn all your Salt-peter Note that in the last Crystallizations you 'l have a Salt altogether like unto sea-salt or Sal Gemme keep it apart it may serve to season meat with The first Crystals are the pure Salt-peter You may if you please dissolve and purifie Salt-peter several other times in water observing every time what I said before for to render it more white and purifie it from its Sea-salt Salt-peter purified is a great aperitive it cools the body by fixing the humours that are in too much motion and drives them by Urine It is given in Feavers in Gonorrheas and many other diseases the dose is from ten grains to a drachm in Broth or some appropriate liquor Remarks The first Purification that is given to Salt-peter is this the stones and earths that contain it are grosly powdered they are boiled in a great deal of water to dissolve the Salt-peter the dissolution is filtred and then poured upon ashes to make a Lixivium after it hath been poured upon the ashes several times it is evaporated and Crystallized The salt of the ashes which does mix with the Salt-peter increases its fixt part but that which is made without ashes is the better to make Aqua fortis with The earth from whence Salt-peter hath been drawn being set in the open air and stirred about from time to time doth re-impregnate with a kind of Salt The long Crystals that we see Salt-peter shoot into do proceed from its volatile part for that which is Crystallized last is fixt like sea-salt and looks just like it Salt-peter can never be purified so well but it will still contain a salt like unto Sal Gemme or sea-salt but in less quantity than before When Salt-peter is boiled a long time in water and over a great fire some part of the Spirits do fly away and there remains at last nothing but a salt like unto sea-salt or Sal Gemme which serves to prove that Salt-peter is only a Sal Gemme fuller of Spirits than the other as I said speaking of the Principles When you would Crystallize a Salt you must dissolve it in a convenient proportion of water for if there should be too much the salt would be weakned too much and
stupefaction of the Nerves and nauseousness of the stomach If you used sixteen ounces of purified Salt-peter and so much sulphur in this operation you 'l have at last but three ounces and a half of Sal Polychrestum very fine but if you use common Salt-peter instead of purified you 'l have five ounces of Polychrestum as white as the other This difference of weight proceeds from common Salt-peters containing more fixt salt than purified Salt-peter Sal Polychrestum may be Crystallized like Salt-peter and other salts Its Crystals are very small and much like those of sea-salt but only they are keener Monsieur Seignette an Apothecary of Rochell whom I have spoke of before hath put in use a certain Sal Polychrestum which seems at first to be like unto this but when it comes to be examined there 's found a notable difference as well in the Crystallizations and when it is thrown into the fire as in the effects for whereas six drachms of this sort taken as I have said do cause gripes in pricking the membranes of the stomach that of Monsieur Seignette in the same quantity doth purge very gently without any gripes at all as he proves in a little Treatise that he hath made touching the uses of this Polychrestum And the truth of it I have found my self in several persons The composition of this salt is known to none but himself who having given it a reputation in the chiefest Towns of France hath left some quantity of it with me to distribute and make use of here at Paris Spirit of Niter Spirit of Niter is a liquor very acid and corrosive drawn from Salt-peter by distillation Powder and mix well together two pounds of fine Salt-peter and six pounds of Potters earth dried put this mixture into a large Retort either of earth or glass luted set it in a close Reverberatory Furnace fit to it a great capacious Balon or Receiver and give a very little fire to it for four or five hours to make all the Phlegm come forth which will distil out drop by drop When you perceive there will distil no more throw the Phlegm away that is found in the Receiver and having refitted it lute the junctures and encrease the fire by little and little to the second degree there will come forth Spirits which will fill the Receiver with white clouds then keep the fire two hours in the same degree after that encrease it to the greatest violence you can give it and so the vapours will come red continue the greatest fire till there come no more the operation will be ended in fourteen hours When the vessels are cold unlute the junctures and pour your Spirit of Niter into an earthen bottle which you must stop with Wax Spirit of Niter is used for the dissolution of metals it is the best Aqua fortis that is and the corrosive virtue of other waters of this nature doth chiefly proceed from the Niter that enters into their composition Remarks You might as some do mix four parts of Potters earth with one part of Niter when you would draw its Spirit but you will succeed better and with less difficulty by observing my description for whereas the earth does here serve only as an intermedium to separate the parts of this salt to the end that the fire operating more easily upon it may draw its Spirits it is a very needless business to use more of the earth than is necessary towards this effect Besides this over great quantity of earth may serve to weaken the Spirits and by taking up too much room may hinder the drawing so much as otherwise you would with the same Retort I fling away the Phlegm because it only serves to weaken the Spirit The white vapours do proceed from the volatile part of Salt-peter and are a weaker sort of Spirit but the red ones do come from the fixt part and are the strongest Spirit for which reason the fire is made so very violent towards the latter end This fixt Spirit is commonly called Salamanders bloud Of all Salts Niter is the only one that yields red vapours When you use here the best Salt-peter there remains nothing in the Retort but only earth I have boiled several times in water a good while the earth that remained after the distillation of the Spirit of Niter and after evaporation of the filtrated decoction I could find no salt at bottom I have likewise observed that out of two pounds of purified Niter a pound and fourteen ounces of liquor in Phlegm and Spirit may be drawn A third part of the Retort wherein the operation is performed must remain empty and the Receiver must be very large for otherwise these Spirits coming hastily forth would break all to pieces for room to move in Spirit of Niter Dulcified This oparation is a Spirit of Niter whose more subtile edges have been broken or evaporated Put into a large Bolt-head eight ounces of good spirit of Niter and so much spirit of Wine well dephlegmated set your Bolthead in the Chimney upon a round of straw the liquor will grow hot without coming near the fire and half an hour or an hour afterwards it will boil very much have a care of the red vapours that come out a-pace at the neck of the Bolthead and when the ebullition is over you 'l find your liquor clear at bottom and to have lost half what it was pour it into a Viol and keep it this is the sweet spirit of Niter It is good for the wind Colick and the Nephritick for Hysterical distempers and for all Obstructions its dose is from four to eight drops in broth or some other convenient liquor Remarks You must leave the Bolthead open for the vapours would either carry away the stopple if there were one or else they would break the vessel the Bolt-head is so hot during the ebullition that one can't endure ones hand upon it The heat and ebullition begins sooner or later according as the Spirits that are used have been more or less dephlegmated or else according as the season in which it is made is either hotter or colder for in the winter you must warm the liquor in a gentle sand-heat and when it grows a little hot you must take it off and shake it thus it will come to boil This effect is very strange for spirit of Niter being a strong acid and spirit of Wine a sulphur it can't be said that there is here any alkali to cause the ebullition with acid according to the common maxim And this operation shews us that every thing can't be explicated by the sole Principles of acid and alkali as some do pretend This operation has much resemblance with that which happens when oil of Turpentine is put into a bottle with oil of Vitriol for the mixture of these liquors does heat and boil much alike I shall say something of this last mixture hereafter There is this difference notwithstanding that spirit
matter fit to it another matrass in order to make a double vessel lute well the junctures and place your vessel to digest in horse-dung or in a vaporous Bath four days stir it from time to time the Spirit of wine will load it self with a red colour unlute the vessels filtrate the Tincture through brown paper and keep it in a viol well stopt It is a Febrifuge to be given in Agues three or four times a day at a distance from the fitt and to be continued for a fortnight the dose is from ten drops to a drachm in some proper liquor such as Centaury water or Juniper or Wormwood water or wine If you put new Spirit of wine to the matter which remains in the matrass and set it in digestion as before you will draw more Tincture but it will not be so strong as the other wherefore you must give it in a little larger dose Remarks This Tincture works like the Infusion I now spoke of it is a more convenient preparation than the other in this that it can keep as long as you will whereas the other does sowr in a little time Again those who do not love wine will like it better but I should prefer the Infusion before the Tincture because wine is a more proper menstruum wherewith to draw the saline and sulphureous substance of a mixt then Spirit of wine You may steep a few Coriander seeds or a little Cinnamon in the wine or water and after it is strained off dissolve some sugar in it and in this you may mix the Tincture of the Bark and so make a kind of Febrifugous Rossoli which Infants may be easily made to take of Extract of Peruvian Bark This Operation is a separation of the more substantial parts of the Bark Put to infuse warm four and twenty hours eight ounces of Peruvian Bark in a sufficient quantity of distilled water of Nuts afterwards boil the Infusion gently and strain it make a strong expression of the residence put it to infuse in new water of Nuts boil and strain it as before mix together what you have strained and let them settle decant the clear liquor and evaporate it in a glass or earthen vessel set in a sand-heat unto the consistence of thick honey It is a Febrifuge that has the same virtues as the former the dose is from twelve grains to half a drachm in Pills or dissolved in wine Remarks The Wine and Spirit of wine are very proper to draw forth the Tincture of the Bark but they are by no means good to make the Extract with because in the evaporation the Spirit carries away with it the more subtile parts of the mixt The water of Nuts is much more convenient for besides that it loses less of the volatile substance it is a little febrifugous itself Instead of this water you might use those of Juniper-berries the lesser Centaury or Wormwood-water The Extract is convenient for those who cannot endure the taste of remedies for it may be given in Pills wrapped up in a wafer without partaking of the taste But I should prefer the Infusion or the Bark in substance before this preparation because it is impossible to avoid the evaporation of the more subtile parts in the ebullition of it use what precaution you will to preserve them You may draw the fixt salt from the residence that remains after you have drawn the Extract or the Tincture You must dry it and burn and calcine the ashes in a crucible then steep them in hot water ten or twelve hours boil them an hour and then filtrate this lixivium and evaporate the water in an earthen pan or glass vessel in sand there will remain a salt at bottom which you must keep in a bottle well stopt This salt is an alkali as are all other fixed salts drawn from plants it is aperitive it may be given for a quartan Ague the dose is from ten grains to a scruple in some proper liquor You must not think that this salt retains all the virtues of the Bark they are rather all destroyed in the calcination Nor may we think to separate the Febrifugous virtue of this Bark by distilling it dry in a Retort for on the contrary this would destroy it by breaking the natural harmony and union of its parts and you would get only a stinking Spirit and a burnt oil which would be of no great use CHAP. VII Of Cloves CLoves are the fruit of a Tree as big as the Laurel Tree its Bark is very much like Cinnamon but tasts like the fruit Cloves it grows in many places in the Indies it is an admirable stomachick held in the mouth it preserves from the contagion of ill air Oil of Cloves per Descensum Take several large drinking glasses cover them with a Linnen-cloth and tie it round each of them leaving a cavity in each Cloth to put the powdered Cloves into set a small earthen Cup upon each glass of these Cloves let it stop so fitly that it may suffer no air to enter between its brim and that of the glass fill these Cups with hot ashes to warm the Cloves and distil down to the bottom of the glass first a little phlegm and Spirit and after that a clear and white oil continue the fire until there falls no more separate the oil in a Tunnel lined with a cornet of brown paper and keep it in a Viol well stopt Some drops of it are with Cotton put into aking Teeth it is likewise good in Malignant Feavers and the Plague the dose is two or three drops in Balm-water or some appropriate liquor You must mix it with a little Sugar-candy or a little yelk of an egg before you drop it into water otherwise it will not dissolve in the water Remarks I have given you this Preparation to serve upon an emergence when you want in haste the Oil of Cloves you must only use hot ashes to warm the Cloves if you desire to have a white Oil for if you give a greater heat the Oil turns red and loses a good part of it You must also take care to lift up the Cup from time to time to stir about the powder of Cloves The Oil of Cloves may be likewise drawn if you please like that of Cinnamon If you use a pound of Cloves to distil per descensum according to the description I have given you 'l draw an ounce and two drachms of white Oil and an ounce of Spirit there will remain thirteen ounces and two drachms of matter from whence might still be drawn a little red Oil. It is likely that the Oil of Cloves works in easing the tooth-ach much after the same manner as I said the Oil of Guaiacum did But this Oil having an agreeable smell with it there is no difficulty in admitting the application of this as there was in the other Some do dissolve Opium in Oil of Cloves and do use this dissolution for the tooth-ach
of the Sulphureous Spirits which held it as it were involved and thus clear wine sowrs alone but it does not sowr so fast and the Vinegar is not so strong as when it is made upon Tartar Furthermore if we consider the Principles that wine consists of we shall find that neither the Oil nor Earth nor Water are capable of yielding any Acidity and that nothing but the Salt is able to give it Now it cannot be doubted but that the Salt of wine is in the Tartar It may be added here that the Air to which wines are exposed by leaving the vessel open when they would have them turn into Vinegar does likewise communicate a little of its Acidity to the wines by exciting and rarifying the Acid of Tartar Distillation of Vinegar Put six quarts of strong Vinegar into an earthen pan evaporate in Balneum about a quart which is the Phlegmatick part and pour that which remains into a glass or earthen Cucurbite and distil it in a strong sand-heat until there remains at bottom nothing but a substance like Honey keep this Vinegar well stopt many do call it Spirit of Vinegar It s principal use is to dissolve or precipitate bodies It is sometimes mixed in Cordial potions to resist putrefaction the dose is half a spoonful it is mixed with water and this Oxycrate is used to stop Hemorrhagies taken inwardly and to asswage Inflammations applied outwardly Remarks The Acidity of Vinegar consists in an Essential or Tartareous Salt which being heavier than the Phlegm rises last but you must evaporate this Phlegm very gently because the Acid Spirit of Vinegar will easily sublime with it I do use an earthen pan rather than a Cucurbite that the Phlegm of Vinegar finding a large open passage may evaporate the more easily It would be no great fault if you should distil the Vinegar without dephlegmating it first for the separating the phlegm from it is not of so much consideration as to make it as clear as pure water that it may not bestow any particular tincture to the ingredients that are to be dissolved in it The Spirit of Vinegar is much less fixed than many other acids because it partakes of the Sulphureous Spirits of wine which still remain in it Common Vinegar keeps its strength a longer time than the distilled because it contains a more Terrestrious Salt that doth not Volatilize so easily And for this reason you should rather chuse to use Vinegar newly distilled than that which hath been kept a good while All Acids do prove Cordial and good against malignity of humors when it is caused by too great a commotion because it fixes and Coagulates them moderating their motion Thus in places where the Air is corrupted and Pestilential Vinegar is a good Preservative you may every morning take half a Spoonful of it Fasting but in diseases which proceed from a Tartareous humor as the Hypochondriack melancholy it is rather hurtful than good because it fixes the humors the more Some having dried and calcined the sweet extract that remains at the bottom of the Cucurbite after the distillation of Vinegar and having by Solution Filtration and Coagulation separated from it an Alkali fixt salt much like to that which is drawn from Tartar they do mix it with Spirit of Vinegar and distil and cohobate it divers times until say they the spirit has carried off all the salt and then will needs have it called Spirit of Vinegar Alkalized or Radical Spirit of Vinegar and they affirm that this being much more pure and entirely united with its proper salt is much the more powerful in dissolving Metals But the distilled Vinegar is so far from becoming the stronger through this Preparation that I can demonstrate that it breaks and loses the greatest part of its edges in contending with the Alkali salt with which it is mixt for it is the property of this salt to sweeten Acids Neither is it necessary to believe that by distillations is so drawn the Alkali salt of Vinegar for it remains fixt at bottom of the Retort with the acids it is impregnated with so that this same Spirit of Vinegar to which so many great names and uses have been appropriated is properly the more Phlegmatick part of distilled Vinegar CHAP. XIV Of Tartar ANY gross or terrestrious matter that sticks to the sides of the vessel when separated from its liquor by means of Fermentation is called Tartar But the Tartar I am going to speak of here is that of Wine It is found sticking to Casks like a very hard stone sometimes white and sometimes red according to the colour of the wine it comes from White Tartar is to be prefer'd before red because it is purer and contains less earth both one and t'other are had in greater abundance in hot Countries such as Languedock and Provence than many other Climats but the best white Tartar of all is brought out of Germany it must be heavy White and Crystalline The Lees of wine are likewise a liquified Tartar they are burned and the Ashes that are made of them are called Cineres Clavellati in English Gravelled Ashes Crystals of Tartar This Operation is a Tartar purified and coagulated in form of Crystals Boil in a great deal of water what quantity of white Tartar you please until it be all dissolved pass the liquor hot through Hippocrates his Sleeve into an earthen vessel and evaporate about half of it set the vessel in a cool place two or three days you 'l find little Crystals on the sides which you are to separate evaporate again half the liquor that remains and remit the vessel to the Cellar as before there will shoot out new Crystals continue doing thus until you have gotten all your Tartar dry the Crystals in the Sun and keep them for use The Crystal of Tartar is Purgative and Aperitive it is good for Hydropical and Asthmatical persons and for Tertian and Quartan Agues The dose is from half a drachm to three drachms in broth or some other proper liquor Remarks This Operation is to speak properly nothing but a Purification of the more Terrestrious parts of Tartar You must observe to boil it in an earthen vessel rather than any metallick one because it would be apt to take some Tincture from it A Skin that swims a-top after evaporation of some part of the liquor was heretofore carefully taken off and there was thought to be some difference between it and the Crystal of Tartar But this Cream or Skin is only a part of the Tartar that begins to Coagulate and so it is the very same thing in substance with the Crystal You must not imagine that the Crystals of Tartar do much differ from common Tartar for they differ from it only in the containing a little less earth but all the five Principles may be drawn from the Crystals as from common Tartar When you would take the Crystals in substance you must make them into Pills or
as the Spirit of Vrine by reason of some impression it has of the Acid sal Armoniack with which it was mixt insomuch that the Crystals of Tartar whose acid is not separated from the Earth has points too gross and too unactive to insinuate into the pores of this salt and separate its parts so easily as those of the salt that is contained in Spirit of Vrine whose pores are bigger Some part of the Glass of Antimony dissolves in the boiling and gives the Emetick quality to the powder It is a very gentle Vomit because the Tartar fixes and in some measure hinders the activity of the Sulphurs of Antimony If instead of making the aforesaid evaporation you should take the vessel off the fire when there is but two thirds of the liquor consumed and let it settle without stirring it in four and twenty hours the soluble Tartar will crystallize at the bottom and on the sides but it will be never a whit the better When you would make this Crystallization you must use a flat vessel let it be of earth that the Crystals may display themselves the better The liquor is to be decanted and the Crystals to be taken and dryed The evaporations and crystallizations are to be continued until you have obtained all your salt Another sort of Soluble Emetick Tartar may be made by boiling in water an ounce of the Glass of Antimony powdered with four ounces of Soluble Tartar for seven or eight hours then upon filtring and evaporating the liquor there will remain a grey powder of the same virtues as the other and to be given in the same dose Distillation of Tartar This Operation is a separation of the Phlegm the Spirit and the Oil of Tartar Fill two thirds of a Retort with Tartar grosly powdered place your Retort in a Reverberatory Furnace and fitting to it a large capacious Receiver begin the distillation with a very small fire for three hours only to warm the Retort and drive out the Phlegm drop by drop throw away this insipid water and refitting the Receiver Lute closely the joints encrease the fire by little and little and you 'l see Spirits fill the Receiver with Clouds continue it that the Oil may likewise come forth then when there will come no more let the vessels cool and unlute them pour that which is in the receiver into a Tunnel lined with brown paper that the Spirit may filtrate and separate from the thick black Oil that remains in the filter keep this Oil in a Viol it is good to smell to in Hysterical vapours it would be good to rub Paralytical parts with and for cold pains but by reason of its abominable smell it is not used Pour the Spirit into a glass Cucurbite and rectifie it by distilling it in sand it is good against the Palsie Asthma and Scurvy it works by Urine and by Sweat It is used in Hysterical maladies and for the Epilepsie the dose is from one drachm to three in some appropriate liquor You will find in the Retort a black mass from which a Salt may be drawn as I shall shew hereafter Remarks If you have used three pounds of Tartar of sixteen ounces to the pound in this Operation you will draw four ounces of Phlegm eight ounces of Spirit and three ounces of Oil the black mass which remains in the Retort after distillation will weigh two pounds or two and thirty ounces and you will draw from that mass twelve ounces of salt Almost all Authors who have spoke of Tartar have asserted that two sorts of Spirits could be drawn from it by distillation the one very Volatile the other fixt and acid wherefore after all had mixed confusedly in the Receiver they separated the Oil and added some Alkali such as Coral or Crabs-eyes to that which remained then they poured it into a Cucurbite and distilled about half the liquor which they pretended to be a Volatile Spirit for the acid Spirit remained absorb'd by the Alkali with the Phlegm in the bottom of the body But having vowed never to be led by any Authority which is not founded upon Experience I have examined the nature of Tartar as strictly as possible and after a great many distillations of it I could never perceive this Volatile Spirit which hath been obtruded upon us all that I could ever find is this that Tartar contains good store of Essential salt which renders it acid and that this Salt coming forth by distillation and mixing with phlegm doth make all the Spirit that can be drawn from Tartar So that the Spirit of Tartar according to the description of these men is only the more Phlegmatick part of the liquor that is to say the most deprived of this Essential Salt because almost all of it doth adhere unto the Alkali body of Coral or Crabs-eyes which were added to it But according to the way I have set down the Spirit may be drawn as pure as may be because I do not leave it to mix with the phlegm which comes out first If we do rectifie the Spirit it is done to purifie it from some Terrestrious parts which it might have carried along with it in the distillation Some thinking to do better than those who rectifie Spirit of Tartar on alkali matters do instead of those alkalis use biscuit powdered but they attain their end never the better for the biscuit does sweeten the acid Spirit of Tartar as much as Coral or Crabs-eyes A very volatile and alkali Spirit is drawn from the Lees of wine I shall speak of it in the Chapter of the Volatile Salt of Tartar and perhaps it is this very Spirit that Paracelsus and Van Helmont do boast so much of and which has occasioned many Authors to write that the Tartar does contain a most volatile Spirit Fixt Salt of Tartar and its liquor called Oil per Deliquium Break the Retort which served you for distillation of Tartar and take the black mass you find in it Calcine it until it becomes white then put it into a great deal of hot water and make a Lixivium filtrate it and pour it into a glass or earthen vessel evaporate in a sand-heat all the water and there will remain a white salt which is called the Alkali Salt of Tartar This Salt is Aperitive it is used for to draw forth the Tincture of Vegetables and is given for Obstructions the dose is from ten to thirty drops in broth or Laxative Infusions If you expose for some days in a Cellar this Salt of Tartar in a wide glass vessel it will dissolve into a liquor that is improperly called Oil of Tartar per Deliquium It is used for Tettars and to discuss Tumors the Ladies do mix it in Lilly-water to clear their complexion and hands Remarks In these two last Operations I have given you the means of obtaining all that can be got from Tartar but those who have no need of the Spirit or Oil and would only desire the
three sorts of it the Black the White and the Yellow The Inhabitants of those Countries do keep this Opium for their own use and do send us only the Meconium which is nothing else but the Juyce of these same Poppy-heads drawn by expression and then thickned and wrapt up in leaves to transport the better It is this Drug that we improperly call Opium and always use for want of the true but being more impure than the true it hath not the same activity and strength A Meconium may be made after the same manner with the heads of those Poppies that grow in Italy Languedoc and Provence but it will prove much weaker than the former The Opium which comes from Thebes or else from Grand-Cairo is accounted the best you must choose it Black Inflammable bitter to the taste and a little acrimonious its smell must be disagreeable and stupefactive Extract of Opium called Laudanum This Operation is the purer part of Opium drawn in water and Spirit of wine and reduced to the consistence of an extract Cut into slices four ounces of good Opium and put it into a bolt-head pour upon it a quart of Rain-water well filtred stop the bolt-head and setting it in sand give your fire by degrees then increase it to make the liquor boil for two hours strain it warm and pour it into a bottle Take the Opium which remains undissolved in the rain-Rain-water dry it in an earthen pan over a small fire and putting it into a Matrass pour upon it Spirit of wine to the height of four fingers stop the Matrass and digest the matter twelve hours in hot Ashes afterwards strain the liquor and there will remain a glutinous earth which is to be flung away Evaporate both these dissolutions of Opium separately in earthen or glass vessels in a Sand-heat to the consistence of honey then mix them and finish the drying this mixture with a very gentle heat to give it the consistence of Pills or a solid Extract It is the most certain Soporifick that we have in Physick it allays all pains which proceed from too great an activity of the humors it is good for the Tooth-ach applied to the tooth or else to the Temple-artery in a plaister it is used for to stop spitting of bloud the bloudy-flux the flux of the menses and hemorrhoids for the colick for hot defluxions on the eyes and to quiet all sorts of griping pains the dose of it is from half a grain to three in some convenient Conserve or else dissolved in a Julep Remarks Opium is compounded of a Spirituous part and a gross terrestrious Rosine the Spirituous part may be easily dissolv'd in water but the Resinous requires a more convenient Menstruum such as Spirit of Wine You must dry the Opium after the first dissolution least the Spirit of Wine be too much weakned by the watry part that remains which would hinder the solution from being done so well as it should be Distilled Vinegar dissolves Opium but the acids may diminish its virtue by destroying or fixing its volatile part which serves for a vehicle to the other Spirit of wine alone might be used to dissolve both parts of the Opium but it might be feared it would carry away with it the volatile part in the Evaporation All that is in the Opium is preserved by my description for the Resinous part dissolved in the Spirit of Wine cannot evaporate with it because it is the heavier and the other part which I call Volatile in comparison with the first is mixt with a little Rosine that keeps it back while the water evaporates The truth of this I have found by experience and any body else may try as well as I have done by distilling these liqours Lastly it is hard to use any greater precaution than this for the preservation of all the pure parts of Opium and fewer Menstruums can be used that are more convenient If in curiosity you weigh the glutinous earth after it is dried you will find it to be half an ounce Almost all Authors have appointed to torrifie Opium before it be dissolved to the end a certain malignity which they say is in it may be evaporated but that which they call malignity is nothing but the Spirits or Sulphurs that are most volatile whereof I spoke but now so that by the Torrefaction they deprive it of its more active part They do further add to the Extract commonly drawn with Spirit of Wine Coral Pearl Treacle Extract of Saffron Cordial Confections Hysterical ingredients and other things which may resist a cold malignity in the fourth degree which they pretend to be in Opium But experience convinces us that it is not so dangerous when given in the foresaid dose so that there is no need at all of losing its volatile part by Torrefaction nor of mixing it with other ingredients which may hinder its operation or retard its effect It belongs to the Physician when he thinks fit to give it to judge whether there be any need of an Hysterick or Cordial which he may appoint to be mixed upon the spot I shall not stay to examine here whether Opium is cold or hot they who have made the Anatomy of this mixt do know very well that it is almost all of it Sulphur I shall endeavour to explicate its effects the most sensibly I can according to the Rules of Chymistry The virtue of Opium consists in causing sleep and that by calming the motion of the Spirits for since watchfulness does proceed from the motion of the Spirits which by rarifying the humors in the little passages of the Brain do augment their Circulation it may surely be said with probability enough that sleep is caused by some condensation of the humors which happens from a repose of the Spirits in the Brain According to this Principle then there must be contained in Opium and all other Soporificks a certain substance that inviscates the Spirits and hinders them for some time from Circulating so fast as they did before Let us examine now whether any such thing can probably be found in Opium by the Analysis I have made of it first of all I have observed a Spirituous part but after that hath been drawn out by means of Rain-water there remains a gummous and terrestrious matter and this is the substance that I find so proper to produce this effect For nothing in Physick is so fit to thicken the bloud and other humors as things that are Mucilaginous Milk and the Emulsions which are drawn from divers seeds the Water-Lily Lettice nay and all temperate Aliments do frequently incline to sleep because they are impregnated with a gummous substance which mixing in the bloud does serve to agglutinate the Spirits and to moderate the quickness of their motion this now being supposed it is easie to conceive how Opium makes one sleep seeing it is loaded with Mucilaginous parts which may be conveighed into the vessels But without doubt
Rosines such as that of Scammony Jalap Turbith but whenever an Extract can be drawn with a watry menstruum it is better to use that rather than another for the reasons I have mentioned Purgative medecins have been divided into Melanagogues Phlegmagogues and Cholagogues By Melanagogues are understood those that chiefly purge Melancholy by Phlegmagogues such as purge Phlegm and by Cholagogues those that evacuate Choler so then by mixing these three sorts of Remedies a composition is made that is called Panchymagogue that is to say purging all the humors as doth the Extract I have described Now to explicate the action of Purgative Remedies upon all the several humors you must consider in the first place that Melancholy is a very Tartareous humor and full of fixt salts that Phlegm is very viscous and descending from the brain sticks like Glue to the internal Membrane of the Viscera and that Choler is very thin and easie to rarifie The Remedies which are called Melanagogue such as Scammony Senna c. are full of Lixivious Salts which are very good dissolvents of the Melancholick humor contained in the lower parts in that these sort of Remedies do always descend and being strong purgers do raise a Fermentation where-ever they come Phlegmagogues such as Agarick Coloquintida c. do purge the Phlegm chiefly that is contained in the Brain because these Remedies are full of volatile parts which easily sublime thither by means of the Natural heat and rarifying this humor do make it come down by the ordinary ways of Purgation Cholagognes such as Cassia Rhubarb c. which are mild Remedies and are not strong enough to excite so great a fermentation as the others do only purge Choler it being very soluble and easie to ferment but they are not able to reach Melancholy or Phlegm by reason of their thickness wherefore there is no need of wondring why a greater evacuation of Choler than other humors is effected by these Remedies It is further observable that the Remedies which purge Phlegm and Melancholy do remain or leave their impression in the body a longer time than those that purge Choler because they more abound in Spirits or Salts Moreover it is not to be imagined that these Phlemagogues and Melanagogues do evacuate no Choler at all for they do force away all they can meet with but because it is then mixt with other humors it appears not so plainly as when it is wrought upon alone CHAP. XX. Of Turpentine THere are two sorts of Trees that the Turpentine comes from by Incisions that are made into them to wit the Turpentine Tree and the Larix or Larch-tree there are a great many of both sorts in hot Countries such as Italy Provence and even in Dauphiné Turpentine is properly a liquid Rosine in the consistence of a Balsom that which is brought out of the Isle of Chios is best esteemed and is also the dearest that which we commonly use and is called Venice Turpentine must be clear transparent fragrant and a little biting on the taste it is used like a Balsom for Wounds it is very Diuretick taken inwardly and is therefore given in Gonorrheas in Bolus or else dissolved in some liquor by means of a little Yelk of an Egg it gives the Urine a smell much like Violets It is often boiled in water and then becomes solid like Rosine and being so prepared is made up into Pills the Dose is from half a drachm to a drachm if you take too much of it it gives the Head-ach If in curiosity you should boil a little Turpentine in water for a quarter of an hour and after you have removed it from the fire if you should pour cold water upon it you would see a little skin spread it self upon the water which has many curious marble colours And if you gather this skin into a lump it will become a white Turpentine Distillation of Turpentine This Operation is a separation of the Oil of Turpentine from its terrestrious part Take three pounds of good Turpentine and pour it into a Retort large enough to remain half empty Add to it a handful of Stupe to prevent the thicker parts of the Turpentine from rising when the liquor distils you must cleanse the inside of the neck of the Retort and place it in a Furnace to distil in an open fire fit to it a Receiver and luting the joints begin the Distillation with a very small fire only to warm the Retort and drive out a volatile spirit after which augment the fire by degrees there will come forth first a clear Oil then a yellow oil and at last a red oil take care to separate these liquors as they do distil and when you see the red oil begin to come thick take away the fire and when the vessels are cold unlute them Keep all these liquors separately in Viols The volatile Spirit is an excellent Aperitive it is given from four to twelve drops in some appropriate liquor to expel Gravel out of the Reins or Ureters in the Nephritick Colick or to dissolve Viscosities it is likewise used in Gonorrheas The first Oil serves for the same uses as the Spirit the second and third do serve as a Balsom to consolidate wounds discuss tumors and to fortifie the Nerves Break the Retort and you 'l find in it a mass melt and strain it to separate the Stupe it is a good Colophone and is used in Plaisters to dry and to consolidate After this manner may be distilled Rosines Mastich Frankincense Tacamahaca Gum Elemi Varnish Labdanum and other Gums of this nature Remarks The Spirit of Turpentine is properly an Ethereal oil mixed with a little phlegm and Acid Essential salt which renders it Aperitive it is this Spirit that gives the Turpentine its smell A great fire is requisite for to draw the last oil and it becomes red through some Fuliginosities that fall upon it before it comes forth of the Retort If you should continue to raise the fire until there comes no more liquor you 'd find in the Retort nothing but a little light and very rarified matter that is good for nothing The Oil of Turpentine that is bought at the Druggists is a mixture of Spirit and yellow oil The Oil of Turpentine being mixed with that of Vitriol there grows a very considerable heat and if the Oil of Vitriol is strong it makes an ebullition I have endeavoured to give you a reason for it in the Remarks which I have made upon Distillation of Vitriol CHAP. XXI Of Benjamin BEnjamin called by some Assa Dulcis is a Rosine that distils from a great Tree in Foreign Countries the name of it is unknown though many have thought fit to call it Laserpitium this Tree is very common in Samaria and in many other adjacent Countries Benjamin is very much used by the Perfumers and it hath use also in Physick to resist the malignity of humors and to fortifie the Heart and Brain you must
that it is no poison for although Spirit of Vitriol for example or some other acid does not prove mortal when taken inwardly nevertheless if the same quantity should be syringed into the veins the Animal falls presently into Convulsions and dies Now as that which caused the Spirit of Vitriol taken inwardly not to be Poison was this the acids do become weak through the mixture of the Saliva and before ever they come to mix in the Mass of bloud their parts do receive so great an alteration from the ferment of the places they must pass through that they are able to do nothing else at most but cool the Body so the same may be said of the Yellow liquor of the Viper when it is tasted of that besides its mixture with the liquors of the mouth and stomach it receives divers alterations from the ferments of the places it must pass through before it enters into the mass of bloud Many do likewise think that the venom of Vipers hath its chief seat in the Gall and thence is easily transported to the Gums when they are angry nevertheless in the Anatomy of this Animal there 's no passage found capable of such a translation I know very well that the pores of living bodies may be said to be so open that all manner of liquors may be presumed to pass through them but yet no mischievous effect is discovered to proceed from the Viper's Gall when given inwardly for it only causes sweat Lastly others will have the Viper's venom to be dispersed over all its body And those who think thus do advise us to whip these Animals in a warm bason to drive their venom into the extremities of the body before we cut as is usually done their heads two fingers below and their tails two fingers above after that to flea off the skin and take out the bowels and then boil the body in water wherein are added Salt and Dill to correct as they say the remaining malignity When the flesh is tender it is to be separated from the bones then to eight ounces of this flesh beaten into a Paste in a marble mortar are added two ounces of bread dried and powdered and Troches made of it which being dried are kept for use But this long preparation is seldom used since Experience hath taught us that no part of a dead Viper is at all poisonous The Head and Tail dried and powdered may be taken instead of a Cordial as well as the rest of the body I can likewise assure you upon my own experience that the Tooth of a dead Viper is no ways venomous having by chance been prickt my self till the bloud came whilst I was a handling the heads of Vipers newly kill'd that I had a mind to dry and there did not follow the least ill accident from it Furthermore by this Coction the Vipers flesh is deprived of its volatile salts which gave its greatest virtue for they dissolve in the broth which is flung away and only the Faeces remain wherein there hardly rests so much Cordial virtue as there does in the bread which is mixed for a Corrective But there is no need I should enlarge my self further on this subject because these Observations are sufficiently delivered in the Augustan Pharmacopoeia Wherefore I do conceive it to be much better to use the Powder of Vipers newly made than the Troches To make this Powder well it is good to chuse Vipers when they are in the prime of their strength the Females that are full of Eggs or young ones are not so good as the others their heads are to be cut off their skins thrown by and their bowels taken out and so they are set a drying in the shade to be afterwards powdered in a mortar But because this Powder is hard to keep in that worms do breed in it it will be good to make it into a Paste with a sufficient quantity of the mucilage of Gum Tragacanth so form it into Troches to dry them and powder them when there is occasion to use them and thus it keeps good a long time This Powder is given in the Small pox Malignant Feavers and all other maladies where Alexipharmicks are required and the humors are to be purified by Perspiration the dose is from eight grains to thirty in broth or some other convenient liquor The Heart and Liver are dried in the Sun and powdered together and this Powder called Animal Bezoar hath the same virtues as the body of the Viper only it is given in a little lesser dose The Gall of Vipers provokes Sweat the dose is a drop or two in Carduus water The fat that is found in them is melted then strained for to separate it from the membranes it sticks to it is as clear as Oil. Several Countries do use it in the Small-pox and in Feavers The dose is from one drop to six in broth or some other convenient liquor It likewise enters into the composition of some Plaisters and into discutient unguents Distillation of Vipers This Operation is a separation of the phlegm the volatile salt and the Oil of Vipers from its earth Take twelve dozen of Vipers dried in the shade as I said before put them into an earthen Retort or glass one Coated place it in a Reverberatory furnace fit to it a great capacious Receiver and luting the joints close begin the distillation with a small fire to warm the Retort gently and drive out a phlegmatick water drop by drop when you see no more drops to fall encrease the fire a little and Spirits will come forth which will fill the Receiver with white Clouds you will see at last a black oil come and the volatile salt stick to the sides of the Receiver Continue the fire until there comes no more after which let the vessels cool and unlute them Shake about the Receiver a little to loosen the volatile salt from the sides and pour it all into a Bolt-head fit to it a head and a small Receiver and lute the joints with a wet bladder you must set your vessel in Sand and with a gentle fire under it the volatile salt will sublime and stick to the head and uppermost part of the bolt-head separate it and keep it in a viol well stopt It is one of the best medicins we have in Physick it is good in Malignant Feavers and Agues the Pox Apoplexy Epilepsie Palsie Hysterical Maladies and the bitings of all venomous Beasts the dose is from six to sixteen grains in some proper Liquor Pour that which remains in the bolt-head into a Tunnel lined with brown paper the Spirit and phlegm will pass through and the stinking Oil remain behind Hysterical women may smell to this last to allay vapours and Paralytical parts may be anointed therewith but its smell is so offensive that it is hard to endure it Pour the Spirit and Phlegm mixed confusedly together into an Alembeck and distil in a vaporous Bath about half
Colcothar the Natural 330 And the Artificial 333 339 Colophone 490 Colour what it is 194 195 228 Variety of colours 199 344 345 and the reason of them 201 Coppel 77 Copper 118 Coral 270 The ebullition it causes with Vinegar in its dissolution thought to be a cold ebullition 273 The solution of Pearl and other alkali matters perform'd as that of Coral 274 Coral prepared 272 much better than the Magistery 275 Cornachine powder 225 Crocus Martis its best preparation of all 132 133 Crocus metallorum how often the same will serve to make the Emetick wine 221 D Depart 62 79 That Digestion owes more to the saliva than to acids 456 E Earthquakes their nature explicated 140 Ebullition without the encounter of acid and alkali 302 342 Elosaccharum 391 Elixir proprietatis 479 Emetick Syrop 215 Emetick wine 218 222 Extracts of greater virtue than waters 406 Extractum Panchymagogum 484 F Feavers their nature and their principal symptoms explicated 459 460 The regularity of their fits explicated 461 A Febrifugous salt 321 Fermentation 26 Fire how it alters the nature of bodies 20 21 25 26 251 How the substance of fire does increase the weight of some medicines 107 116 208 228 229 What Fire is 303 Flints how generated 263 Fulminant powder 71 Furnaces and vessels 31 G Gold 48 The wicked cheats which Alchymists do use in pretending to make it 49 c. The improbability of making Gold fairly represented 56 57 Whether it be a Cordial 58 59 That it can be volatilized 60 Purified by an operation called the Depart 62 Purified by Cementation 63 Its Precipitation 68 Its Fulmination from whence 70 Why it spreads under the hammer better than Sylver 315 Gravelled ashes 256 Guaiacum 383 its Oil why so good for the tooth-ach 385 Gumm Armoniack its best Purification 497 Other Gumms how Purified 498 H Hair distilled 518 Harts-horn distilled 516 Honey 542 Hunger from what cause 457 Hydragogues why they do work more on watery humours than the others 358 Hysterical vapors why allaied by ill smells 367 368 I Jalap 373 That all its Purgative virtue consists in the Rosine 373 Inks called sympathetical 258 330 Iron 130 How made Steel 131 Preferred before Steel for Physical uses ib. 132 133 c. That it opens obstructions by its salt 133 When mixed with Sulphur and wetted with water it grows extraordinary hot of it self which serves to explain the nature of Earthquakes and hot baths 140 141 Ivory distilled 517 L Lead 105 That it purifies Gold and Sylver as the white of an Egg clarifies a Syrop ib. increased in weight by Calcination 107 increased in weight by Distillation 116 how to be Revived 115 118 Lignum sanctum 383 Lime water 254 Litharge 76 Lutes 37 M Mace 425 Magnesia Opalina 219 Marcassite 101 Mercury 154 Why it remains fluid and why it so easily volatilizes by fire ib. it s ill effects 160 and its good effects 161 especially in Venereal Maladies ib. the raising a Flux by Mercury ingeniously and at large explicated 162 163 c. proved to be an alkali 167 168 why it requires less Spirit to dissolve it than other metals 172 in what form to be taken inwardly 185 Mercurius vitae 236 Mercurial water 190 191 Metals seven 46 Milk its coagulation explicated 29 454 Virgins Milk 493 Minerals their formation and growth 45 Minium 106 Mountebanks their cheat in taking Poisons 182 Myrrhe 500 N Niter see Salt-peter Nutritum or Butter of Saturn 111 Nutmegs 401 O Oleum Philosophorum or Oil of Bricks why so called 270 Opium and Meconium 467 how its narcotick quality is best to be preserved in the Extract 469 That it ought not to be Torrified 470 how it is that Opium causes sleep more than other things 471 Reason given why it allaies pains takes off deliriums and cures fluxes 473 The Turks taking such quantities of it descanted upon 474 Why Sudorifick 476 P Paper both antient and modern how made 386 Perpetual Pills 204 not good in the Iliaca passio but good in the Colick 207 Whether they do lose their virtue by frequent use 206 Perspiration insensible two sorts 72 That more is Perspired in the heat and drought of a Feaver than in the violent sweat ib. Petrification how 264 Petroleum 363 364 Peruvian Bark 393 The greatest Specifick ever known in Agues ib. The different manner of giving it heretofore and at present ib. The body to be well Purged before the Bark is given 394 The ill effects of taking it irregularly ib. To be avoided by such who have an Abscess ib. How it comes to remove the fit ib. 395 Its febrifugous virtue lost by distillation 398 Phagedenick water 171 Philosophers Stone or Powder of Projection a miserable cheat 51 c. Phosphorus the solid 523 and the Liquid 525 Its Inventors 526 Experiments made upon the Phosphorus 528 529 c. Baldwin 's Phosphorus 538 Plumbum ustum 106 Poison what it is 179 The difference between Coagulative or cold Poisons and the Corrosive or hot 179 How different the Remedies proper to each of them be 180 181 Principles of Chymistry 2 That they are not first Principles 5 How much they are indebted to fire in their production 6 c. The five Principles not to be found in Minerals 9 Pulvis Cornachinus 225 Purgative medicines their different operation explicated 487 Purgative virtue of mixt bodies wherein it consists 381 382 Pus how it becomes white 356 Q Quicklime how made 251 Fiery bodies proved to cause its corrosion and ebullition with water 252 253 No salt to be drawn from it 253 That Acids will give it a new ebullition after it is slak't 254 but will make no ebullition with Lime-water ib. R Rhubarb commended as it deserves 379 Rosines how distilled 490 S Salivation explicated 162 163 c. Sal Armoniack the Natural and the Artificial 310 Its Purification ib. Its Flowers Chalybeated 312 Sal Gemme its origine 13 277 Sal Prunellae often counterfeited 295 Salt one chief of which all the rest are compounded 12 Three sorts of it drawn from Vegetables 19 That it becomes Alkali by fire 23 24 Alkali Salts how made exceeding white 446 Common Salt 277 its origine 13 That made by evaporation not so strong as that by crystallization 278 The manner of making Salt at Rochel 279 Its Spirit drawn without addition of earth 284 New Spirits drawn several times from the same matter exposed to the air after distillation 285 Salt decrepitated must be newly made for use 282 Salt-peter or Niter of the antients different from ours 289 its origine 15 289 That it is not inflammable in it self nor sulphureous 290 308 That it is a Sal Gemme impregnated with greater store of Spirits 292 Salt-peter Purified judged better for use than Sal prunellae 295 Sanguification explicated 356 Sea-sickness its cause 278 Small-pox ingeniously compared to the fermentation of Wines 416 Vniversal Spirit 2 Steel how made 131 Stones how generated