times as much of Loaf-sugar in powder of which they take half a spoonful after Meal this for the digesting Powder Their Cordials made of cold Mint and Balm-water with a little Wormwood Cardamome Hot Waters and sweetened with Syrup of Clove-July-flowers They use also to take betwixt each Pinte Glasses some Anise or Caraway Comfits Candied Orange-peels and the like The best way of mixtures or heating of the Waters is thus First to mingle with the first and second Glass one or two spoonful in each of pure rich Canary secondly to have hard by the Well a Kettle full of Water with Fire under to heat it in which Kettle put divers Stone Bottles full of the Mineral Waters taken within the Well very well stopped and when the Water is moderately warm take out of one quart Bottle but two Glasses at the most leaving the sediment behind Thirdly they may be taken in bed a little warm bearing upon the Region of the Stomach a Down Pillow when the whole quantity hath been taken and by the warmth of the Bed the Water begins to pass then the Patient must go to his moderate exercise of walking riding on Horseback or in a Coach according to the strength of the Body and his conveniency These and the like miserable shifts are such glad to use which drink too weakly impregnated Waters To drink but few days the Waters of any sort is to no purpose the shortest time if nothing intervenes is one month if the Waters pass currantly and the Patient find a good effect towards the romoval of some old chronical Disease he may go further By all means if Rainy weather comes forcibly leave off drinking except you have at hand some of the essential Salt to revive the Waters And from the beginning after three or four days tryal if the Waters remain in the Body and are not voided leave off Some persons are costive during the drinking of such Waters as only purge by Urines those if they refuse Clysters may take every third or fourth day Stomachal purging Pills a quarter of an hour before Supper as those de Ammoniaco Mastichinae Fernellii Stomachicarum cum Gum mis de Hyera or the like When arriv'd to the end of this task to draw out of the Body all that might be lodg'd in the Veins or elsewhere one two or three Purgations if needs be are not to be omitted which done nothing remains but every one to make much of himself returning little by little to his ordinary manner of life within the Rules of Art and Mediocrity Now to come to this particular Mineral Water near to Chappel-Izard I say in the first place that as it is now situated it is impossible to preserve it long in its puris naturalibus and without some mixtures of common Waters by all the means imaginable But with care and industry it may be traced unto the foot of the neighbouring Hill some two or three yards high from whence undoubtedly it proceeds and there guarding it round with good strong Clay then walling it in and fixing a Bason over its rise there it may be kept from all dangers but a suddain fall of Waters unto which inconveniences all Mineral Waters are liable But so long as it remains on such a flat bottom so near to a running stream liable to be overwhelmed upon every glut of Rain it will never be of any significant use for the Cure of any chronicall Diseases though it may succeed with some in the opening of slite recent Obstructions For though I deny not but that in divers places Mineral Springs have been overflowed through their proximity to Rivers low situations and yet presently upon the retreat of the flouds have remained as strong and vigorous as before by reason that the strongly impregnated Waters have kept them stations by the weight which they received from their own Salts not admitting but of a very slight and superficial mixture with the intruding Liquor yet when other Waters break under ground in to the course of the Mineral Waters and so roll together for some space they are so mixed per minima and so wholly enervated that no good can be expected from them Though I am not of a humour to content my self with Pythagoras his Scholars bare Ipse dixit yet here I have been forced to take divers things upon trust through the late accidental weakness of the Mineral Waters near Chappel-Izard But as to what has fallen under my inspection upon those tryals which I have made thus much I can say that when I mixed some Powder of Galls with it in a Glass it turned purple adding a little Alum it turned blackish Oak-leaves in powder have made it of a subrufus brown which has turned blackish with a little distill'd Vinagre With Spirit of Harts horn I caus'd a white separation to be made with some little sulphurious or bituminous Odour which was reduc'd again to its natural clearness with some few drops of Oyle of Tartar With Oak-leaves or Galls being tinged some few drops of Oyl of Vitriol have caused a separation of a black sediment This Sediment being examined proves to contain a Vitriolick Salt of Mars It s being mixed with equall parts and boyled with Milk makes no alteration In the precipitation of it I have found a subtle Gass or sharp fume to arise somewhat sulphurious which speaks it to partake also of Sulphur In the Distillation in close Glass vessels it has afforded a small proportion of this acid wild Spirit which has been turned red with powder of Galls that were placed in the Receiver In the bottom of the Glass-vessel I found a black sediment not much unlike mudd out of which I have extracted some few grains of a Vitriolick Salt of Mars All which examinations and tryals make me conclude that this Mineral Water is imbewed with a slender proportion of Iron Vitriol Sulphur and Alum which answers very properly to its effects and to the Soil adjacent to it and it is my opinion that it partakes of Nitre also though I found none I have been credibly informed that when it was first found out it had over it a very thick scum of Rust which denoted its passage through some Iron Mine how remote from its rise it matters not It had under that scum a thin skin or film Cauda Pavonis or Rainbow commonly called for the variety of its Colours which it borrowed either from the Sulphur of Mars or of common Brimstone which last I am more apt to believe because that then it had a strong bituminous odour and taste No great observations can be made upon the Soil through which it passes it is like unto most of the Earth about this place mix'd with small pieces of a glittering Stone which by chewing in my mouth I scaled so thin that no Talk could be more finely split nor yield a more glorious lustre and whiteness this and some small particulars of a kind of courser Talk
Colour which it receives from a competency of this Vitriolick Salt of Iron is an infallible sign of a Water apt to yield a good proportion of that essential Salt and consequently very medicinal Moreover that Water which is rough to the Palate which at the first relish discovers some acid that terminates into a kind of an austere Bitterness of a bituminous Odour that dyes the Excrements black and sometimes the Urines of a greenish Colour of an easie digestion quick conveyance through the smallest vessels though taken in a small quantity is to be preferred But a Mineral Water so qualified in all respects is not to be found in all places in this our age whither through that general decay of Nature which in the opinion of some is very remarkable I shall not now insist upon but thus much I here assert that for want of such Waters the sick are frequently obliged to make use of such as are less impregnated which being not powerful to cure and eradicate formed Diseases yet are generally known and used with some success in the removing of recent Obstructions and in preparing the Body for the reception of specifick Medicines ordained by skilful Physicians according to the nature of the Diseases Which Waters might also be happily us'd in confirmed Diseases were they not to be taken then in such large quantities for want of sufficient Impregnation to make them pass by the pressure of their own weight from which there frequently follows an unusual extension of the Tunicles of the Stomach and an extinction of its natural heat from which two accidents do commonly proceed Hysterical Passions Convulsions Cramps Palsies Apoplexies and the like and sometimes immediate Suffocations which Inconveniences by taking too large quantities of weakly impregnated Waters I shall further insist upon from these four particulars Quantity Quality Time and Place First as to Quantity A Gallon of Water is the usual height to attain unto any benefit by them though sometimes six Quarts nay two Gallons have been devoured which Quantities are usually taken within the space of an hour or two at the most the half of this vast quantity to be contained at once sometimes in a Stomach which has been debilitated either by the violence or duration of the morbifick matter the tedious persistance in a fruitless course of Physick or both disenabled from digesting and distributing a small proportion of a good Nutriment much more incapable of dealing with such a large quantity of a crude Liquor so that it frequently happens that the Waters remain in the Stomach not passing at every fourth or fifth Glass as might be expected and consequently not to be voyded again but by Vomit except as I have already said they be pressed down by their own burden a very dangerous thing to trust to For when they chance to go off so on a suddain it is with such an impetuous course that the weight and quantity meeting with some obstructions in the smaller vessels and passages thereby are caused great Inflamations in the Meseraick Veins Kidnies Uriteries Bladder c. with so great a dilatation of the Vessels to force it self out that Swounding Fits Cold Sweats and sometimes without a singular suppliment of Nature sudden Death has followed notwithstanding the use of common Salt carminative Seeds mixtures of other Liquors with the Waters taking of them in Bed laying of warm Clothes and Down Pillows over their Stomachs the use of Cream of Tartar the heating of the Waters and the like which last renders them less powerful by the loss of their most subtle parts which are thereby evaporated the Waters remaining more crude and indigestible then before Secondly if the Quantity is so nocent well may the Quality To have at once in a weakned Stomach the forementioned quantity of Water in which the virtual substance doth not exceed the weight of six or eight grains all the rest being of a cold raw and undigestible nature must needs be a wrack to our Nature who is contented with a little Thirdly the Sick are limited to such particular seasons of the year wherein as the Proverb says they must make Hey while the Sun shines and frequently in the midst of their course are impeded by some great fall of Rain which mixing with the already too crude Waters does instantly extinguish that small portion of Virtue which they had and so are deprived for that time from all kind of Operation by which accident the poor Patient is wholly disappointed of his hopes and abandoned to the cruel tyranny of a conquering and merciless enemy Lastly And here I must except these Waters near so great a place of all manner of Accommodation as is this City of Dublin as well as others so advantagiously situated I say that there are no persons who have seen the great Inconveniencies which attend most of the places of drinking the Mineral Waters but are already convinced of the great want of better Accommodations I mean in reference to the poor weak languishing sick Creatures which Inconveniencies most chiefly happen by the great concourse of people where there is such a scarcity of Conveniencies For sick persons being at the best fitted not as their nice and peevish Humours would require but as well as they can though when in their own habitations being transported to those cold and bleek places in danger of having added to their other Distempers Colds Coughs Agues in a word exposed to all the injuries of a piercing Air besides the stirring up of Humours raising of Vapours there confined into some scanted Cottage streightned of such necessary Refreshments as are requisite for them must of necessity prove if well examined more prejudicial in general then those Mineral Waters can do good I speak not of such whose plentiful Fortunes can render all places alike commodious to them but of the generality Thus much as to Mineral Waters in general and the many Inconveniencies which attend the taking of weak impregnated Waters Now if such accidents do usually attend the use of weakly impregnated Waters is it not a charitable act to endeavour the removing of all these forementioned impediments It is well known that this has been already done in England and elsewhere and no question but that it may be also performed in this Kingdom in supplying the Weakness of these Waters by joining unto a small proportion of them the essential Salt extracted out of others more strongly impregnated Waters of the same nature operation with these Whereby they will be rendred more powerful in their Operations enabled to carry themselves through all Obstructions and that not by the violence of their own weight but by gently insinuating themselves and by their penetrating qualities piercing through the most remote opilated and obstructed parts of the Body This I humbly offer for the publick Good of this Nation unto which I have been lately called until I find some opportunity of being more serviceable Namely an essential Vitriolick Salt
THE IRISH SPAW BEING A Short Discourse on MINERAL WATERS in general WITH A Way of Improving by Art weakly impregnated Mineral Waters AND A brief Account of the MINERAL WATERS at CHAPPEL-IZOD near Dublin With Directions for the Taking of Mineral Waters either strong weak by themselves or with Additions By P. Bellon Dr. in Physick Dublin Printed by J. R. for M. Gunne at the Bible and Crown in Castle-street and Nat. Tarrant at the King's Arms in Corn-Market 1684. TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE JAMES Duke of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant OF IRELAND May it please Your Grace SPrings tend not more naturally unto their center then this Discourse to Your Grace through whose courteous Invitation I have left my native Soil to end the remainder of my days in the Service of my most Gracious King in this his Kingdom under Your Graces Favour and Protection This Nation my Lord which is so sensible in its whole and in each individual parts of those vast and innumerable Benefits and Advantages which it has receiv'd from the benign'd influences of your Graces wise prudent and most politick Government that in a due sense of Gratitude sends up its daily Prayers to Heaven for Your Graces Preservation That I might not remain useless during my stay in this City till Your Grace were pleas'd to appoint me a fix station where I might be most serviceable in my capacity I thought it convenient to employ my hours of leisure in some particular which might tend to a general good The Crudities of the River Waters in these parts might have been a proper Theme to insist upon but it requiring peradventure a further Scrutiny then the spare time which I may enjoy here would permit me to enter upon I diverted my thoughts on a Spring of Mineral Waters at a small distance from this place the Subject of this Discourse Be pleased my Lord to protect these few Sheets under Your Graces Favour together with their Subject the Spring by encouraging the search after some other Head so much elevated above this as may place it beyond the encroachment of common Waters on its Prerogatives that amongst all the wonderful goods and advantages which this Nation has receiv'd at Your Graces Hands there may be added Your Graces miraculous production of a Spring of Health from the midst of insalubrious Waters If in this first attempt I am so happy as to please Your Grace I have my end which shall never presume beyond the bounds of being May it please Your Grace Your Grace's Most obliged most humble most obedient Servant P. Bellon THE IRISH SPAW With a short Discourse on Mineral Waters in general c. HAving been informed that neer unto this City there is a Spring of Mineral Waters of which divers persons have drank with good success as to the Cure of some particular Diseases I thought this a fit Subject on which to entertain my thoughts during my stay in this City in order to discover its particular Virtues and Use by the anatomising of its parts and by a Chymical examination of those Metals Minerals from whence it derived its Virtues In this design I transported my self upon the adjacent places to this Spring and there examin'd the Soil Situation distance from fresh and salt Waters its Sediment in the Spring the most proximate Hills Next I considered the Water it self its Colour Odour Tast Brightness Weight and Softness and what Skin Film or Skum it did afford on the superficies Having made some immediate observations on all these circumstantial accidents I applied my self unto such persons as might give me what further observations they could as to the Strength of the Water when it was first found the causes and proportions of its Decay and its Effects both internal and external To this I added those observations which I made during the divers tryals and examinations which are usually performed with Galls Oak-leaves Oaken-vessels Allum Spirit of Harts Horn distill'd Vinager Oil of Vitriol Oil of Tartar mixing heating and boyling of it with Milk and the like All which tryals standing good though weak but having no effect at all on Milk In the next place I entred upon the more judicious and Philosophical way of examination by Fire after a more particular method then is common whereby the Gass Silvester or wild volatile Spirits are so preserv'd that Judgment may pass upon them as well and with as much advantage as on those more gross and terrene parts which are rendred visible not only through common Distillation but by Precipitation also By these examens I was inform'd of the Minerals with which it was imbued though not to that degree that I could wish through its late mixture with common Waters Having found that though this Mineral Water is tinged with such Minerals as other efficatious Mineral Waters are yet in so small a proportion as would not raise any great hopes of success in the Cure of obstinate chronical Diseases but that like unto other weakly impregnated Mineral Waters in other parts it would require some Stimulator to add more virtue unto its weakness I thought it convenient to give here a short account of Mineral Waters in general to mention the inconveniencies which usually attend weakly imbued Waters and to offer at the means to supply those defects and to render them not only equal to the most powerful natural Mineral Springs but even to surpass them Which I will endeavour to perform with the greatest brevity that I can possible considering the large extant of this Subject after which I shall fall upon this particular Water which is the Theme of my Discourse That there is a universal Spirit or Spiritus mundi which God hath established for the continuation of the Species which Spirit gives a life to all beings is a truth long since agreed upon by the Learned but how and through what conveyers this Spirit is communicated and distributed into every individual being is that point unto which I would come as neer as this Subject does require without amplification Springs have been placed and appointed by a Divine Providence in the Earth for the same use as is the Air on the surface of it to be the Vehicles by which this universal Spirit of the World should be communicated to all the parts thereof yet with this difference that whereas in the Air that uncontroled Spirit acts more in its purity in the Waters it is attracted by matter and so becomes adherent to it The chief attracting matter of this Spirit is by the Philosophers esteemed to be Vitriol in which is contained that subtle acid Juice of the Earth the sole cause of that universal Fermentation which precedes all natural productions this its external Green and Azurine colours its internal acidity and its magnetick property testifies its Sulphur being that which attracts to it self the universal Spirit that opens unites gathers and coagulates the subterraneous vapours and forms them into Mineral and Metallick substances Without dispute
Venus is most apparent in this Mineral and therefore most ingeniously feigned by those Poets that were Philosophers to be the Principle or Mother of all natural production which is manifested by its internal Redness that generative Blood of Nature with which she ferments all her Seeds and of them produces such varieties of Minerals Vegetables and Animals according to the nature of their respective Matrix This animated Vitriol is dissolv'd in the Waters as they pass thorough subterraneous concaves and thence distributed throughout the whole Globe that from thence all things might receive their being nurture and conservation But as these Waters in their progress sometime do run through the veins and over the beds of Minerals and Metals so they are more or less impregnated with the Medicinal properties of the said Minerals according to the time of their stay upon them and the compactness or flexibility of their Natures whence arising to the surface of the Earth they flow in continual streams of Health It was some reflections on this which gave occasion to a Philosopher to say Fontes definire Arduum est cum praeter aquam quam habent naturalem in sitam Spiritum etiam habeant mundi ex quo omnia producuntur cujus solius Fontes sunt delatores per universam Terram ut hinc omnia desumant esse suum alimentum conservationem It is difficult says he to define Springs which beside their natural innated Water have the Spirit of the world also of which all things are produced and preserved the conducts of which Springs are throughout the whole Earth that from thence all things may receive their being nurture and preservation By what has been said it is easily conceived that Springs are not only of a bare simple Waters but of such as are impregnated with a Spirit of power to work wonderful effects This Spirit as we have said is mixed and incorporated into every mix which makes it yield with more facility to that Water which is impregnated with the same Spirit so that thereby it attracts the Virtues out of the Minerals and appropriates them to it self which a simple and unspirited Water could not do and then it may be thus defined A mineral Water is that which has its passages under ground through the Veins of one or more of crude and sometimes digested Minerals or Metals by which through the assistance of that acid ferment which it carries along with it it is first insinuated into and then impregnated with some proportion of their Salt Sulphur or Mercury in which three all the qualities and virtues of every mix do reside But above all they are tinged and imbued with the most fix of these three substances yet of a dissoluble nature namely the Salt in which is contained according to the opinion of the learned the most essential qualities of every compound Mirum est certè amoris Divini symbolum maximum c. It is for certain a wonderful argument of the Divine Love cries out a Philosopher that in all the parts of the world there should be sound Springs endowed with such signal and admirable Virtues for the Cure of all Diseases That God of Nature who to manifest his infinite Love towards Man has not only ordained an infinite number of Animals Plants Trees and Minerals also not to be reckoned for the Cure of Diseases but moreover hath commanded the Springs to pour out continual streams of Health in all parts But to give the Reader a farther inspection into the Constitution of a Mineral Water I must say that in the family of Minerals some are of a more easie and yielding nature then others the more perfect are the more fix and not so easie to give their tinctures such are Metals amongst which Gold and Silver are the most compact and concentred within themselves Copper Tinn Lead and Mercury more yielding and Iron the least locked up of the seven by reason of its abundance of crude and undigested Sulphur which is not of power to secure the Salt from dissolution in the bare open Air as the rust which is so constantly annexed to unhandled Iron doth daily testifie But Minerals being of a less perfect existance then Metals are therefore more yielding to any Menstruum or Liquor in which they are immerged Now since that even from Metals may be expected a yielding tincture full of virtue power to cure some particular Diseases Iron being dissolved with the most ease though not esteemed by some of so cordial a Virtue as Gold and Silver yet endowed with divers excellent qualities it may reasonably be expected to be proper against most Diseases proceeding from obstructions Iron being esteemed by all Authors without contradiction to be the most powerful opener of all Obstructions in what part soever settled wherefore I do prefer that Water which is impregnated with Iron before any other But all Mineral Waters are not impregnated alike some more some less according as they are animated with the acid ferment beforemention'd proportionable to the yielding or compactness of the Mineral they pass over and answerable to their stay upon them care must be had of chusing such Waters as are most impregnated which may be known by these following marks Contrary to the best quality of common Waters which consists in their lightness the most heavy and ponderous the most clear of a dark greenish Colour of an acid and brackish Taste of a sulphureous Smell and which is the easiest evaporated is the best For its weight denotes a good proportion in it of that which only gives weight to all things namely Salts in general It s clearness shews it free from heterogenious parts except such as are annexed to all Waters which in the Evaporation of them is found in the bottom of the vessel not much unlike a slimy mudd in looks smell and taste as well as in consistency in which though of such a contemptible aspect lurks the essential Salt But how to order that Earth either before during the Evaporations and after so as to extract that Salt without any detriment of its qualities Hic Labor hoc Opus However I have found these terrestrial particles divested of the Salt to be of a stiptick and astringent nature which could not but retard the Virtue of the essential Salt and sometimes create new Diseases in lieu of curing those already contracted when the Water is overcharged with them which does frequently happen when they are drank too soon after great showers of Rain before they are perfectly settled and clear It s dark Colour shews its Impregnation with a Vitriolick or Martial Salt mixed with some Sulphur which Sulphur is also denoted by its Odour By its activity and aptness to be evaporated is more at large manifested the considerable proportion of the said essential Salt which by his native heat joined with that of the culinary Fire the Humidity or Flegm is therewith the easier rarified Besides these the dark green
of Mars extracted out of Mineral Waters so far to be prefer'd before most of Mineral Waters as a strong rectified pure Spirit of Wine before a weak flegmatick Brandy or a Chymical Extraction before a meer Galenick Potage For any person that is not prepossessed with prejudicate Opinions against the scientifick Art of Chymistry or too much byassed with his own Interest but will confess upon tryal that this essential Salt in which the Virtues of the Waters reside being-first disengaged from that large proportion of Flegm in which it lay drowned and after mixed with a less proportion of the same or with some other idoneous Vehicle will thereby be rendred more convenient and easie to be taken and received in the Stomach and there once received more powerful and active both in it self and its commixture to operate upon the peccant Ferment to mix with the Chyle and to be convey'd with more facility and quick dispatch even to the most remote Digestions For this essential Salt is hot piercing searching opening and driving from the center to the circumference by which Qualities it doth powerfully resist all putrid and indigested Humours the results of evil Fermentations which produce such a variety of Obstructions in all parts of the Body by attenuating with its piercing heat their viscous and tenacious parts which choak up the small passages of the Veins Arteries and Nerves by which the free and natural Circulation of the natural animal and vital Spirits is impeded By its dissolving quality liquifying and mixing it self with the crude Humours and by its dilating faculty insinuating it self into the most remote and last Digestions there aiding Nature to overcome whatsoever is offensive to her nay if timely taken preventing all Obstructions first caused by ill Digestions in the Stomach which at such a time produces a viscous Flegm in lieu of a laudible Chyle for Errors in the first Digestion are not rectified in the second or third Thus Waters so qualified either in themselves or through the addition and assistance of such a Salt mix themselves with the natural ferment aid and enable it to oppose combat and suppress all preternatural Fermentations disingage the Stomach from all Crudities cause the generation of a good Chyle attend it to a perfect Sanquification circulate with the Blood and driving forth all serossities and other impurities they are instrumental in the creation of quick and active Spirits so that by these means they may with Justice deserve the glorious title of universal Restorers and Preservers by cleansing correcting and strengthening all the natural Faculties which being vitiated are the Causes of all Diseases And Natura corroborata est omnium Morborum medicatrix In the just Commendations of arightly impregnated Mineral Waters I could enlarge my self at pleasure on every particular but my intention being more to inform in the matter of fact then to amuse with multiplicity of Notions I shall conclude this part of my discourse and proceed to the other which has respect to the ways and methods of using them both as to the prevention and the extirpation of Diseases I have said that all Diseases proceed at first from a deviation of the Functions of the Stomach If therefore any persons are sensible of sick intervals Weakness Oppressions Rawness Gnawings Burning in the Stomach a dog-like Appetite or a nauseating of Food and the like to intercept all Diseases that would follow let them by way of prevention suppress those evils in their buds with the use of Mineral Waters in this following method First let them apply themselves to some learned able Physician to have the Humours well prepared according to the Constitutions of the Bodies for that maxim Proemisis universalibus is always to be regarded From the omission of this caution do ordinarily proceed all the errors and ill consequences which follow the unruly taking of any Mineral Water though never so good if you will add the faults of the Patients and ill Diets which is the bane of all the ill begun and worse prosecuted Cures According to the natural strength and vigour of the Waters you drink or the proportion of essential Salt you add to them so must your Doses be and this learned by experience the first day Never begin to drink till the Sun be a little high after the drinking of each Glass of half a pint walk or ride moderately till the Liquor begins to pass either by stool or by urine but those that are not able to perform either of those two exercises are to be easily agitated in a Coach Increase daily by one Glass till you come to two quarts for strong and vigorous Bodies which is the most that any must ascend to When you are come to the tolerable quantity stay in it during 8 or 10 days according as you find your self able When you are near bidding the Waters farewel decrease for four or five days till you come to your first proportion All that is to be drunk every day must be done at the furthest within an hour When you walk or otherwise exercise let it be moderately resting by intervals and use not a superfluous toil which doth not awaken but rather choak up Nature and hinders the free Expulsion Put off your Dinner till you find that the best part of the Water is past and to that purpose when the Waters work only by Urines as those of Tunbridge you must measure your Urine in Glasses of equal dimensions to the former but where the Waters work both ways a sign that the most are passed is when the Urine doth come again to its natural yellow Colour Let your Dinner be light and your Supper lighter of one or two sorts of Meats at the most young tender of easie Digestion and good juicy substance roasted and not boiled No Fruit no Milk nor Cheese no Veneson Tarts nor Spices no Fish Use well baked White Bread good middling Beer or Ale clear ripe and well settled and good French White Wine or small Rhenish as Baccarach All mixtures of Drinks and adulterated Wines are most dangerous You will do well to weigh your selves every morning before you drink and after to know what alteration there is made by Stools and Sweats if you have any I forbear mentioning here any digestive Powders Cordials or the like to fortifie the Stomach because that having a Water sufficiently strong of it self or made so by the addition of the essential Salt it has heat sufficient in it self to assist the Stomach withal Now a word to those that use weakly impregnated Waters for want of better or not having the essential Martial Salt for the opening of slight Obstructions and new found Distempers Let them consult their Physicians in order to have such digestive Powders and Cordials in readiness as will best suit with their Constitutions to prevent all inconveniencies The ordinary Remedies are the use of Mace Cardamome Anise Foenel and Caraway Seeds grosly beaten to powder and mixed with four
call'd Lapis Entalis which Schroder mentions together with a common grayish Sand and a Dust of the same colour is the compound of that Earth nearest to it which would give me occasion not to despair of finding some Aluminous Mine or Talk Veins in the neighbouring Hills if some pains were taken about it The Qualities and Virtues of the Minerals wherewith this Water is impregnated are these Mars or Iron is hot dry internally red it consists of a double Mercury burning and black of a red Sulphur and an impure Earth It is piercing opening and corroborating good against all Obstructions debility of the Stomach all Fluxes it is an Alkali therefore a great dulcifier of the Blood c. Vitriol there are divers sorts and of various colours it is commonly white blue and green I have seen some in Poland that was yellow and some red It abounds in a combustible Sulphur and a corrosive acid it contains a sweet anodine Oyl difficult to be had it is internally red It is stiptick emetick detersive hot and drying it partakes of the virtues of Mars and Venus it is good against all Inflamations especially of the Eyes Alum of Alum there are divers sorts also and divers comprehend Vitriol under the nature of Alum of which it only differs in a metallick Sulphur it is void of Tincture Paracelsus does attribute the Names of Salts unto external Ulcers according to the diversity of the congelations of Salts if it is a red Ulcer he calls it Vitriolick if without redness aluminous and because there are divers sorts of Alum in respects of Tasts and some that are wholly insipid as the Alumen Entalis plumosum c. There are likewise insipid tuberous Ulcers It is stiptick drying cooling coagulating and dissolving it most powerfully resists putrefactions precipitates evil Ferments allays the Inflamations of the Bowels and stops a Gangraine Sulphur it is called the Rosin the Lungs of the Earth the second acting principle existant in mixt bodies from it whatsoever is combustible either liquid or solid is called Sulphur or sulphurious There are two sorts one that is combustible and another that is incombustible The combustible is that which is burnt and yields no smoke but is inflamable The incombustible yields no flame but remains fix and permanent Sulphur is found either coagulated or liquid in the form of a Bitumen as it is found in the Mines before it is separated by fusion from its earth it is called Living It differs from Vitriol only in the external form and each may easily be transform'd into the other therefore they have much the same qualities and virtues only this last is more inflamable and a particular friend to the Lungs Thus much as to the Nature of those Minerals that have embued these Waters from whence may be gathered the reasons why it cures recent Obstructions cleanseth the Reins Uriters and Bladder aids Dropsical persons cases the pains of the Gout and Rhumatisms procures an Appetite fortifies the tone of the Stomach and corroborates the Visceras Now as to this essential Vitriolick Salt of Mars which I have mentioned to be used to add strength and energy to those Waters that are but superficially embued with Mineral tinctures it may seem strange to some persons and I expect that some will be sound amongst the ignorant mobile that will deride my Proposition but Hos oblatrantes caniculos cum contemptu praetereo I address my self to the learned only and to them I further add that besides the Extraction of this essential Salt from Mineral Waters and the rejoyning of it to others of the same nature or to its former Vehicle in a larger proportion then before I say that of late days all Mineral Waters either for drinking or bathing have been by some ingenious Artists so exactly imitated after some Philosophical Speculations used on the Natures of the natural Springs nay I may say outdone that by those factitious Mineral Waters as great Cures have been performed in the Patients particular habitations as any have been by the natural Springs upon the place and what is more the Artificial Baths brought to those several degrees of heat as the natural ones have at the Baths without the aid or assistance of any culinary fire to which have been added all the other accidents of Odours Tasts Colours and of Tinging Silver into a curious Solar tincture All which things were once pretended to at the place which goes under the notion of the Dukes Balneo in Longaore London But how performed I leave to all ingenious persons to judge that have used those Baths and drank of that Water The Art of Chymy has a multitude of Well-wishers as many pretenders to and more that court her designedly But ex quovis Ligno non fit Mercurius There are but few that make use of those two things which Galen reckons as necessary concurrants to the attaining the perfect Knowledge of Arts and Sciences or the nature of any simple Medicine viz. Experience and Reason from which there arose in his time two Sects of Physicians the one called Empiricks the others Methodists The Empirick did only observe the Operations and Effects of Medicines and never troubled themselves concerning their Natures or the reasons of those effects but used all Medicaments promiscuously to the prejudice of many The Methodists were not satisfied with the bare finding out of the Virtues of Medicaments but added to the OTI the ALOTI diving into the Nature of the same These he termed the two Legs of a true Physician upon which he would have him to stand and walk It is an easie matter to pretend to things and after the picking here and there some mouldy Receipts and Terms of Art to cant especially in Chymy before the unthinking multitude but first to entertain Philosophical Notions and then to reduce them unto Mechanical real Demonstrations belongs but to a few And now that my Reader may not put me in the number of the great Talkers and litle Doers as to what I have in this Discourse proposed I offer to produce after a month or six weeks time sufficient quantity of the Essential Vitriolick Salt of Mars extracted from Mineral Waters to supply this City every season of drinking the Waters or all the year long at the same reasonable Rates that any true and genuine Essential Salt of Mars can be prepared I could make larger proffers yet but I forbear lest it should be thought I were byassed by Interest or blown up with Ostentation The curious learned I shall ever be ready to serve in giving them all the satisfactory Demonstrations that I can possible in every particular which I have mentioned in this Discourse or in any thing else that I am capable Mean time if they please to spend som hours in the Tryals of such Chymical Preparations as I have faithfully delivered to the publick in my Intruduction to the French Author in a Treatise called A new Mystery in Physick discovered by Curing of Feavers and Agues with the Jesuits Powder printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1681. There they will find wherewith to satisfie their Curiosity till they command me further In meliorem partem interpretari debemus quae nobis dubia sunt POSTSCRIPT I Had but just ended this precedent Discourse when word was brought me of a new Mineral Spring found in the Road that leads to the first near the Gate I immediately went to examine it upon the place and caused some of the Water to be brought home to me for further inspection But after all sorts of Examens I found these last much less impregnated then the others though they participate of the same Minerals with the first In both a Vitriolick Salt of Mars predominates they have so weake a tincture of Alum that neither of them has the power to turn Milk though for a long time boyled together in equal proportions which speaks these Waters to be Alkalies and consequently dulcifiers of Acids This last found Spring has within less then a foot of it another of fresh common Water which peradventure does commix with it and may be the cause of its weakness and in my opinion neither of these Waters can last long untainted except care be taken to trace them on some more eminent ground where they may be secured from the insultations of violent Rains Flouds and Springs of common Waters To conclude considering the visible decay of either of these Waters though removed but to the City from their Springs especially the last which would scarce afford any Tincture at all with Galls it were very requisite that these Waters should be drank upon the place To which purpose I could wish there were better Accomodations and Conveniencies sutable to the occasions of the more modest of the modest Sex To this purpose if Rows of Tents were pitched on each side of the Green proportionable to the concourse of people and a large Walk left between it would supply in some measure the natural conveniences which a multitude of Shrubs Bushes besides some winding Dales betwixt close Hills in other places of the like resort do afford To which might be added according to the laudable custom of Foreign Nations which has been taken up of late in some parts of England also the divertisement of Musick Bowling Pins Lotteries Shooting or any other pastimes to disingage the Mind from too serious or melancholick thoughts Ut sit Mens sana in Corpore sano FINIS