the concavities of the earth appears evidently but be artificiall projection many imaginations are not strong enough to conceave though some too strongly conceave them by thus conceaving have deceaved many of the world and themselves and it is thought be many that gold is not so dissolved bee any preparation as yet found out that it renders any tincture worthy of the least and smalest part of the praises it receives For in auro potabili essentia auri sale auri there are other excellent things of more worth nor the gold lurking in another forme reducible to the metallick substance neither perchance is it to bee denyed but there is in gold excellent vertues and specifick remedies for all kinde of diseases yea more then in any other thing else if the right and true preparation thereof were known as it may bee future ages more happy then wee shall finde and I pray GOD they that spend their spirit and expence herein may better themselves and the world And it may be thought if the ancients or moderns had known that the tinctures of minerals were carryed from the concavities of the earth with water as in our Petrean fountain they had never so perplexed themselves to have tryed so many solutions calcinations coagulations fixations sublimations c. As they have done evaporating their spirits and exhausting the humià um radicale of their substance Within the earth from whence our Petrean water flows is a concavitie a great vessel ampullare matratium capacissimum wherein is contained materia proxima metallorum which sends forth its tincture with our water In this natural operation there is no need of calcination solution reduction to its prima materia and separation of the foure elements which are the most difficile operations in the composition of the stone And where many may erre for here as yet the matter is not coagulate neither is mercurie vnited to its salt and sulfur but nature finding the salt sulphur and mercurie of minerals as yet not vnited conjoyns them by digestion and cohobation sublimating and subtilizing the earthly part rēdring the mercurial fixed going on naturally with all the operations requisite to the perfection of the work as coagulation cibation sublimation fermentation exaltation augmentation as certainly it would increase grow and fill up the whole concavities where our water is contained if there were not a continuall projection of this naturall elixir this magisterium this quintessence of all mettals in our water dissolving it self therein the water being impregnate with this admirable yet naturall medicine bursts out dauncing bringing with it the cure of all diseases crying and calling all those who are troubled and loadned with infirmities to come and buy without money what may restore them to their health And truely I may speak of this source what sweetly the prince of French Poets did sing of the tree of life neither let divins take exception that we symbolize from one earthly thing to another from the tree of life to the water of life for what is called the tree of life in the old testament is called the water of life in the new both pointing out the lively vertue of our life which is hid in Christ yet from the tree of life to the water of life let mee subsultim passe as birds doe from sprayes to brayes and from mountains to fountaines saying of this water what hee spoke of that tree Du Bartas pag. 174. O holy peerlesse rich preservative Whether wert thou the strange restorative That suddenly did age with youth repaire And made old A Eson younger then his heir Or holy Nectar that in heavenly bowrs Eternally self-pouring Hebe pours Or blest Ambrosia gods immortall fare Or else the rich fruit of the garden rare Whereof three Ladies as assured guard A fire arm'd dragon day and night did ward Or pretious Moly which Ioves pursuivan Wing footed Hermes brought to th' Ithacan Or else Nepenthe enemie to sadnes Repelling sorrows and repealing gladnesse Or Mumie or elixir that excels Save men and angels every creature else And it may be thought that a more ancient I will not say a better Poet when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comparing water with the rest of the elements meant of this and such other medicinall waters and not of common rivers fountains which have no taste not being impregnate with barley or beef or some such like good commendable ingredients Nature hath here prepared an vniversall medicine by many divers long and naturall preparations which for its perfect temperament and puritie is able governe conserve and increase the radicall humor and enliving nectar sympathizing be its spiritall nature with our spirits Hee that useth this water aright and in season shall be restored corroborate and so armed with strength that he may afterwards more easilie and readily shake of diseases of whose comforting help nature being destitute may sooner succumbe For if our naturall balsame the shining torch and lampe of our life faile either through defect of proper aliment or bee confined and retrenched by dregs and ashes obstructing or impeded be any other cause from exercing its livelie flame for the conservation of our life then and in that case it must be restored fortified inlarged with this balsamick medicine the true and naturall tincture of such wholesome minerals that it may afterwards absolutely exerce its functions which come from a friendly harmonie which this balsamick medicine hath with our naturall balsame And from this sympathie and similitude of nature this our water is indued with great activity spirituall and penetrative for it attenuats digests dissolves and evacuats these feculent oppilations which threaten danger to our health and life If there bee any impuritie or corruption offending nature by what better and more safe way can it be extirped then be so excellent and pure a thing as this If any ardent fever invade us with what sharp julep with what more convenient and efficacious syrup of limons shal you extinguish it then with the balsamick aciditie of our medicinall water is their pain to quench let this be your Anodyn this your only and safe Nepenthes this your safest Triacle your wholesome Alexipharmacum and Antidote to abolish and extirpate poysonable pestilent and maligne qualities no Bezoar naturall nor artificiall animall minerall or metallick no Alkermes comparable to this for corroborating the heart that our bodies may by its comforting help continue in lively strength and vigour these and many more vertues are proper to this Panacea and universall medicine these are the vertues of our medicinall balsamick water working together with our naturall balsame which naturall balsame is the only governer and conserver of life the only preserver of health and expeller of diseases for if morbus be affect us contra naturam actiones laedens altogether contrary to our naturall balsams and nectar of life which is nothing but nature or an assisting instrument so conjoyneds that without its help nature can perfect
ΠΙΔΑΞ ΠΕΤΡΕΙΑ OR The discâ—â—erie of S. Peters Well â—t Peter-head in SCOTLAND being in latitude 57. d. 43. m. and in longitude 22. d. 40. m. Shewing the admirable vertues thereof against many deplorable diseases BY A. M. Student in Medicine Visitavimus Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenimus Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam EDINBURGH Printed by the Heirs of Andrew Hart Anno Dom. 1636. TO THE TRVELY NOBLE AND Vertuous Ladie D. MARIE ERSKEINE Countesse of Mareshall c. MADAME THese my travels upon the medicinall water of Peter-head are yours as the Well is and many miles about neither arâ— my travels only but my self am and many of my progenitors parents and kinred are and were yours as receaving first breath under your L. most noble and famous house of Marshall Wherefore I have taken the bold 〈◊〉 to publish them to the world under your L. name that whosoever shall bee benefited hereby may next to God blesse your L. for that blessed instrument of their health What I have written I have not written at randon but by infallible grounds of reason and experience And if neither the Well nor the Writer were yours yet the singular vertues and graces wherewith your L. beautiful minde is richly adorned should have furnished reason sufficient for this dedication and for much more then 〈◊〉 spring of my years could possibly produce Receave herefore Noble Ladie these first fruits of my small ingine as an earnest of a greater harvest of service which if it please God may bee after reaped for your L. and your most noble Family and hopefull progenie whom God continue in felicitie and honour so long as the Sun and Moon shall last Your L. devouted servant AN. MURE To the Reader GOD by his wise mighty and wonderfull providence in such fashion governeth the world that hee doth furnish every nation with what hee knows to bee most necessary and convenient for them This our nation of North Britaine in all former ages was esteemed and known to be as wise and valiant in minde so health full in body while now that by intemperancie the gut gravell the diseases of the splene the hypochondriak melancholy with many other terrible uncouth cruel and monstruous maladies are come in ready to undermine and destroy us if God of his great mercy had not revealed to this nation that excellent spring and water of health which I thus discovered being at London with that hopefull gentleman Iames Scot son to my L. of Scots-tarvet who was he avily troubled with a disease which the chiefest and greatest Physicians in that place called a Carnositie in the urinall passage though it proved in end to be a very hard one and turned in a stone the which to cure they applyed many good and laudable medicaments without prevailing any thing against his disease At length despairing of health he is sent to the waters of Tunbridge as tâ—â—â—s last refuge With whom amongst others I went where by the use of these waters his paine was mitigate and aboundance of slimy humors voyded from thence he went to Paris where he was cured and ordained to go to the Well of Spaw in Germany and from thence to Knesbrough in England by the use of all which waters he is come to be expert and to have full knowledge of the nature and vertues of such minerall waters In the mean time of these voyages my study was of that kinde of fountains remembring from my childhood in some kinde the affinity of the taste of the Well of Peter-head with that which I did finde in thole Wells whereof now I have spoken I resolved to come and try the vertues and operation of that Well Which first the inhabitants of that town of Peter-head manifested to me by their relation of its curing of sore eyes loosing of the belly if bound stopping the immoderate course thereof serving to them for a cup of preparation before dinner with many other such like experiences as one which I think not amisse to insert in this place of an old ancient grave man of 76. years experience yet living who diverse and often times hath told me that he himself being usually troubled with sand and stones in the kidneys used many kindes of drogues to free him from this fearfull and consuming desease at last being vehemently vexed with paine took some 5. or 6. draughts of this water after which there burst out with his urine great quantitie of sand and stones Which water thus he did drink 8 dayes altogether every morning with the like effects and hath never been troubled hithertils with so vehement paine Another in that same town who voyded his stomach of a stone bigger then a tennis ball per anum and I think it was the great antipathie which this water hath against stones or sand in all places of the body that made him so evacuate such a monstrous thing as this Yet not content to know the truth hereof and that the vertues of this water were great by some experiences I intended to dive in the deepest of this fountaine by the ordinary tryals of such waters as the drawing of the tincture of a nutgall which it will do in the twinckling of an eye with many other pretty little tryals of that sort as in all of them it proved excellent Neither yet confident of my own tryals I carryed the water of this source to the source and fountain from whence my first knowledge in medicine did slow and from whom many in this nation have received the most part of their knowledge both divine and Philosophicall which water was keept half year then tried and found neither changed in taste nor smell as yet it remaineth in that same state after two years and by his advise information and ordinance I caused pur this clear pure wholesome water in a vessell which after a little boyling was coagulate in a red or brownish tincture like that of Plin. chap. 2. lib. 3 Tungria civitas Galliae fontem habet insignem plurimis bullis stillantem ferruginei saporis quod ipsum non nisi in fine potus intelligitur Purgat hic corpora tertianas febres discutit calculorumque vitia Eadem aqua igni admota turbida fit ac postremo rubescit In the bottome of which vessel after evaporation remained a red kinde of matter like unto colcothar which was calcined pulverised and dissolved with common water the water being separate from the sediment by inclination and evaporate there remained in the bottome a perfect vitriol of a greenish colour and of taste sharp and sweet the vitriol by concoction within the earth having turned its corrosive acrimonie in a good sweet aciditie ideo aquae thermales omnes qua solutam vitrioli materiam fixam eamque coctaÌ„ subdulcem sine suo humido complectuntur caeteris omnibus praestant quod materia illa fixa vitrioli humido radicali fixo auri argenti respondeat cui infinitas occultas virtutes inesse
tota credidit antiquitas inquit Fabet Cap. 17. Pallad spag The sediment which remained after separation of the water by inclination being again tried in the fire proved to be a confused masse of not perfectly cancocted mettals But none can speak more by experience of the goodnesse and vertue of this fountaine then the gentleman I have named and another gentleman of good worth M. Thomas Aikinhead Commissar of Edinburgh who in August last An. 1635. did find in this Well as much worth as they found in any of the forementioned exotick Wells having tryed both And not only those but many other gentlemen of good respect can testifie these things to be true which in this booke I have written concerning the medicinall vertues of this fountaine which good reader I hope you may patiently read and thank God if diseased you reap any benefit from hence Neither had I intention to have published this treatise being conscious of my own weaknesse if I had not been animated and encouraged thereto by a letter which I receaved from my learned Master whom I shall reverence with a filial respect so long as breath shall delay to expire Io Adamsonus An. Moro S. D. PErgratae fuerunt tuae ad me literae pergratus libellus utraque vel quod à te ex utrisque amorem satis antea perspectum sed ex hoc industriam quà scrutinio quodam accurato nobis videris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thesaurum à nemine hactenus ved quaesitum vel inventum demonstrasse O te felicem cui coelitus obtigit tam eximium thesaurum invenisse in salutem humani generis prodidisse Sed ego hujus felicitatis non vacuus abiero cui contigit discipulum habuisse tam industrium tam doctum disertum qui talis thesauri vires usum tam eruditè concinnè patriae suae aperuerit Tu perge ut facis virtuti litare amantem me tui redamare Vale. Edinb Cal. Mart 1636. De Fonte Petraeo ejusque reclusore ANDREA MORO Cùm gelidus fons est nitidis argenteus undis Vulcanum admoveas aurea lympha siet Est auro argentoque simul praestantior omni Quâ reparent vires languida membra suas Ergo aegri vivis libate è fontibus undas Et manibus puris sumite sultis aquas Atque Deo coeli grates persolvite dignas Qui facit ut tantas petra refundat opes Et Mori ingenium voto laudate benigno Qui facit ut tantas penna recludat opes I. A. Ad Andream Morum Petraei fontis detectorem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 PEtraei laticis gratas languentibus undas Detegis tanti quae sit origo boni Si tanta utilitas insit vulgaribus undis Hasce sibi ut vulgus commoda prima putet Quanta o Petraeo debetur gloria fonti Omnigenis obstat quae Panacèa malis Nymphae monstratis meruerunt Orgia lymphis Quanta erit inventi gloria More tui T. CRAFORDIUS S. PETERS WELL OR THE WELL OF Peter-head MEdicinall waters differ much in savour and taste some of them being sulfureous some vitriolate some saltish yet all of them communi nomine are called acidi from the taste which acidity or sharpnesse comes partly from vitrioll and partly from the salt of minerals or they are called minerall waters because passing through the concavities of the earth they carry with thē the tinctures of what they renconter and are impregnate with the quintessence of those minerals by which they passe whether it bee terra lemnia bol armen chalk or congeled liquors an juyces as allome succin sulphur nitre vitriol c. or mettals as gold silver yron c. or stones as christall marble load-stone c they are also called medicinall waters for their rare and admirable vertues in curing diseases and preserving of health Many of these waters are found out by the diligent searching and industrious labour of the learned endevouring to find out the secrets of nature most easie for the help of mankind as the wel of Spaw in Germany the wells of Burbon of Pouges of Forges in France of Porrecta in Italy of Tunbridge and Knesbrough in England with many others of infinite vertues as Plinius recordeth in many passages of his books especially in the 2. chap. of his 31. book And I would that any reader who doubts of the excellent vertues of infinite diversity of waters should read that chapter And now our waters of Peter-head called be our forefathers Saint Peters wel thinking that it was S. Peter that sent from Rome a facultie of curing diseases to these waters because hee himself could not come being imployed about more necessary affaires at Rome for the time Pope Wherefore to gratify this holy Apostle they have built a temple which to this day is called S. Peters church They used to come to the well on S. Peters day assembling themselves in great mulitudes on which day as yet we have a great faire at this place But this is meer superstition like that of the heathen who as Plinius testifieth lib. 31. chap. 2. denominate their rare and medicinall waters from diverse of there gods S. Peters well may be compared with Spaw waters being nothing inferiour to them in medicinal vertues and far excells any other as yet found out in Europe It is certain that this Petrean water for so hereafter shal it be called passes through minerals but with what proportion they are mixed in these subterranean cells it is impossible to know or whether it be hote or cold moist or dry some thinges from whence it flows being hote some cold some temperate seeming rather that it is temperate well mixed as its effects shows yet alwayes this water while it is drunken humectates and refrigerates incontinent being daunted through the heat of the stomach heats and dryes For the vertues of our water it cleanseth and wasteth viscide Tartareous humors extenuats pituite it voyds the liver melt mesaraicks and other our entrails of whatsoever obstructions is troublesome to them it strengthens the stomach so be its astriction that none can complain of harme by its actuall coldnesse It gives strength to the nerves tempers the heat of the kidneys cleansing and expelling their gravell sand and stones more forceably then any other medicament because it is diuretick simple naturall voyd of all arte made by the hand of God alone and most gracious to the taste it hinders the concretion or coagulation of sand resisting the generation of confirmed stones and if confirmed diminishes them it purgeth the bladder and mundifies the stone of viscide pituit and mucositie wherewith it is environed prepairing it to be easily taken out by cutting it is most profitable for the ulcer of the reins and carnosities in the urinal passage cast in be injection it certainly helps the venerean Virulent Gonorhea and all other diseases of that sort applyed with out for their ulcers chancres poulanes pustules within by
injection and potion it helps the concoction of the stomach quenches thirst appeases dolours throwing of the belly with Colick and Iliack passions it purifies the bloud kills and expells all kynd of wormes chases away all fevers cleanses the skin of pustles and skabs be lotion bathing it louses the belly if bound taking away the obstructions from the gal which sends forth its choler or bilis the only stimulus foecum in jejunum intestinum wherewith being sharpned casts out the foeces therein contained it restraines the fluxes of the belly by corroborating the retentive facultie drying the intestins and makes them slow to expell the humors being drawn by the force of the water to the reins and bladder and so it works proportionably according to the necessity of nature as an excellent instrument appointed by Gods providence for the health of mankinde They also carry with them out of the body diverse wayes the cold and watry bloud with other excrementitious humors of choler pituite melancholy Our Hydropotae pisse much their expulsive facultie being helped through the diuretick quality of our water their grosse excrements are black or greenish because the salt of minerals be its precipitating vertue facit deseendere terrestreitatem ad fundum some vomites voyding their stomach of superfluous humors some sweats sending forth their obstructions by the pores for all diuretick things are also diaphoretick the urine and sweat being of natures little different These clear pure waters gratious both to palate and eyes provoke so many and divers evacuations which scarce any medicament grievous to the smell horrible to the sight and loathsome to the taste could effectuate they agree with both sexes all ages restoring health lost preserving in integritie the present Wee have used all kynd of tryalls for examination of the Petrean water and have found as we are able to demonstrate that these waters carry with them the tincture of vitriol and of mettals not perfect nor altogether solide but crude begun growing to a solide mettall if every day a part were not carryed away with the waters As for the vertues and qualities of vitriol they are so renowned by many of the ancients and all our moderne writers that purposely I omit them to a more fit occasion then the brevity of this peece can permit And if I shal but point at the generation of vitriol within the earth the understanding reader shall quickly perceave its nature and operation which is thus There ariseth a sulfureous exhalation be the action of the subterranean heat which mixed with water makes a sharp corrosive juyce proper to corrode and drink up a part of copper and yron and to collect and coagulate it self in one which we cal Vitriol So that the principles and elements of vitriol are sulfur water the two mettals of yron and copper and some little portion of the minerall clay adhering either to the mettals as seldome they remain in the bowels of the earth without some slimy matter or else in the water with which was mixed the sulfureous salsuginous exhalation which things we see in the anatomy of vitriol be destillatiō First the watry part being volatile ariseth in making of Colcothar then that sulfureous salsuginous exhalation which being by cold condensed in the recipient turns in oyl the hypostasis or sediment being puluerised washed dryed and liquified with borax secundum artem shall produce a metallick substance Out of which considerations A. Guntherus hath defined it to be sulfureae salsuginis aeratae ferrataeque coagulum And albeit evidently ad sensum we can see no more mettals but copper and yron yet certainly it is coagulum omnium metallorum autcorum sal Whence some have taken occasion to make an allusion to the letters of Vitriolum Visitando interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultum lapidem veram medicinam As for the mettals the Chimique Philosophers say that their proxima materia Mercurie engendred of the first matter of minerals well mixed to wit that viscous humiditie subtilly incorporate to incombustible earth equally mixed with the least parts in the minerall concavities of the earth And seeing that kinde of matter can not produce self nature hath given it a proper agent sulphur a certain fatnesse of the earth engendred in its own bowels by temperate coction for concocting digesting and converting the forsaid Mercurie in forme of mettall the sulphur having relation to the mercurie as the male to the female and as the proper agent to its proper matter this is proximae materia metallorum As in the generation of man the aliment is a nearer mater then the elements the bloud then the food the seed then the bloud and in end after a long and continuall digestion the matter receaves humane forme so in the generation of mettals there ariseth vapors of the elements these vapors being condensed turn in a viscous and ponderous liquor mixed with subtile and sulfureous earth which is called mercurie whereof as of its proxima materia bee the mixtion and action of sulphur is made gold silver yron or any other mettall according as nature hath digested it lesse or more for there is no difference betwixt gold and yron but that gold hath happened to bee better and longer concocted then the other Some striving to imitate nature in perfecting of mettals meaning to bring them to their perfection Gold have used many artificiall operations in making their Philosophers stone so much searched First they calcine the matter without diminishing the body they attenuate the grosnesse and solidity of the calcined matter by solution and reduce it to its prima materia which they call minerall water whereof gold is the father silver the mother and quicksilver the proxeneta that makes the mariage and union this done they separate the foure elements in two parts one superior and celestiall which is the spirit that quickens another inferior and terrestriall which must bee enlived by the spirit making the combination with the soule and body for that first part is a soul inspired they conjoyn the water and aire with the earth and fire they putrifie the matter bee a moist heat after putrefaction comes coagulation cibation sublimation fermentation exaltation augmentation and lastly projection upon imperfect mettals changing them into perfect gold and silver It is certain that the chief end of the ancient Philosophers who traveiled and laboured about this stone was to compose an universall balsamick medicine to roborate and conserve the radicall balsame and nectar of our life in a good and laudable temperament which great and incomparable medicine they searched in minerals and knowing that gold the perfection of minerals could not have action in our bodys be reason of its compact and firme composition they have endevoured to break its hardest bonds and to reduce it to its first matter that it may be dissolved in all liquors and communicate to them that excellent and balsamick perfection of our life and nature The transmutation of mettals in