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
of the moisture pour the rest as it is hot into a good German Crucible that must be large enough by reason of the Ebullitions that are made in it Place it over a gentle fire and let it alone till the boiling matter sinks quietly to the bottom of the Crucible Then encrease your fire a little and it will come to be like Oyl pour it out into an Iron mould a little oil'd and heated it will presently coagulate or harden after which you may keep it in a Viol well stopt It is a Caustick that will remain for ever provided you don 't let it be expos'd to the Air. This Stone may be made of Copper instead of Silver but will not keep so well because the Copper being very porous doth suffer the Air to enter easily and dissolve it If you use an ounce of Silver you 'l obtain an ounce and five drachms of the Infernal stone Remarks The Effect of this Stone proceeds from the Corrosive Spirits of Niter which do remain incorporated with the Silver It is more Caustick than the Crystals I now spoke of though compounded of the same ingredients The reason of it is that in the Evaporation of the Spirit of Niter the sharpest part remains at last and it is that which gives this strength to the Infernal stone But in the Crystal there 's a much weaker Spirit as being impregnated with watry parts When you boil the solution of Silver you must take care to keep but a gentle fire for the matter easily rarifies and rises over into the fire or else it spirts some drops upon the hand of the Artist which make it smart grievously and fetches off the skin because this liquor is not only very corrosive in it self but has the assistance of fire to make it the more burning You must likewise often cast your eye into the Crucible especially towards the end that so soon as the matter is observed to cease boiling and gets the form of an Oyl you be ready to cast it into the mould for if you should then leave it longer in the fire the strongest Spirits would evaporate and the stone would not be so corrosive If you would melt the Crystals of the Moon in a Crucible and boil the Liquor till it come into the consistence of Oyl and afterwards cast it into the Iron mould you would have an Infernal stone like this I have described When Plate silver is used to the making the Infernal stone an ounce of Silver gains but three drachms in augmentation but using fine Coppel-silver you 'l get five drachms This augmentation of weight does proceed from the sharp acids of Spirit of Niter adhering to the body of silver but the difference of the increase lies in this that the Coppel-silver having narrower pores than the other does retain the acids better and the stone is thereby the stronger as I have found by experience Tincture of the Moon The Tincture of the Moon is a dissolution of some of the more rarified parts of Silver made in Spirit of Wine whetted by Alkali salts Dissolve in a Matrass upon Sand a little warm two ounces of Silver with six ounces of Spirit of Niter Pour the dissolution into a Cucurbit or other Glass-vessel wherein you shall have put a quart of salt-Salt-water well Filter'd the Silver will presently precipitate in a very white powder Let it lye a while that all the Powder may fall and then pour off the water by Inclination Wash your Powder several times with fountain-Fountain-water to take away the Acrimony of the Salts dry it upon paper and put it into a Matrass Pour upon it an Ounce of the Volatile Salt of Urine and four and twenty Ounces of the Spirit of Wine Rectified with the Salt of Tartar after the manner I shall shew hereafter Stop this Matrass with another that is to say let the mouth of the one enter into the neck of the other and this is that which is called a Double-Vessel Lute well the junctures with a wet bladder and digest the Matter in horse-dung or some such gentle heat for a Fortnight during which time the Spirit of Wine will have got a bright Sky-colour Unlute your Matrass and Filtrate the Liquor through a Coffin of Brown paper and so keep it in a Viol well stopt You may use this Tincture for the Epilepsie Palsie Apoplexy and other diseases of the Head It is also used in Malignant Feavers and all other Diseases wherein it is requisite to drive out the humours by Perspiration The Dose is from six to sixteen drops in a convenient Vehicle There will remain at the bottom of the Matrass a Calx of Silver that may again be revived by means of the following Salts Take Eight ounces of Niter Two ounces of Crystal powdered according as I shall shew hereafter so much Tartar and half an ounce of coals Powder them all and put it by little and little into a Crucible heated red-hot a great Detonation will happen after which you 'l find the matter melted pour it into a warm Mortar and let it cool you 'l have a Mass that you must powder and mix an equal weight of it with so much Calx of Silver Melt this mixture in a Crucible over a strong fire and the Calx will revive into Silver take your Crucible out of the fire and break it when it is cold then separate your Silver from the salts Remarks This Operation seems at first to favour the opinion of those who hold there can be a separation of the Principles of Silver for say they what is it can give this blue colour after that the Silver hath been a long time digested with the Volatile Salt of Urine and the spirit of Wine Alcoholized but an inward sulphur of the Silver that separates from it by the means of this sulphureous Liquor and mixes with it much after the same manner as we find these sorts of Menstruums usually dissolve the sulphur of Vegetables Animals and Minerals and let alone their terrestrious and saline parts But when we consider this Tincture a little nearer we shall find it to be nothing but a dissolution of some part of the Silver it self that hath been volatilized by the salt of Urine and afterwards united with the spirit of Wine so that if you draw off or revive this dissolved Silver there will remain no longer a Tincture and this is the way for you to do it Pour your Tincture of the Moon into a Glass Body cover it with its head and fit a Receiver to it lute the junctures close and distil in a Vaporous Bath about half the moisture and you 'l have a Liquor as clear as spirit of Wine Put your Cucurbit into a cool place and leave it there two days without stirring it you 'l find little Crystals on the sides pour off the Liquor gently which hath now lost much of its Sky-colour Gather your Crystals and continue to distil and crystalize the rest of the
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
upon it five or six pints of fountain-Fountain-water in which you shall have dissolved before-hand an Ounce of Sea-salt you 'l see a White powder Precipitate to the bottom Pour off the Water by Inclination and wash this Magistery several times then dry it in the shade It is an excellent Cosmetick called Spanish White that serves to whiten the complexion It is either mixed in Pomatum or Lilie-water Remarks You must use a large Bolt-head to dissolve the Bismuth in because the great Ebullition that happens as soon as Spirit of Niter is cast upon it requires room to move in You must likewise have a care as much as you can of receiving the Vapours at your Nose or Mouth for they are very offensive to the breast This quick and violent Ebullition proceeds from the acids immediate penetration of the large pores of Bismuth so soon as thrown upon it and the acid violently divides all that opposes its motion It happens also that the Bolt-head grows so hot that a man can't endure his hand upon it because the points of the Menstruum do chafe against the solid body of Bismuth with such force that you may observe from thence much the same heat as when two solid bodies are rub'd against one another Add to this that the great store of igneous particles contained in Spirit of Niter may much increase this heat If the Dissolution becomes turbid through some impurities in the Bismuth you must pour into it about twice as much Water and filter it for if you should go to filter it without water it would coagulate like salt in the Filter and not pass through This Coagulation proceeds from the acid spirits of Niter that are included in the particles of Bismuth which finding too little liquor to swim in and disperse do gather together into Crystals when the dissolution is cold The impurity which commonly swims upon the solution of Bismuth is a fat or bituminous matter which will not dissolve in the spirit of Niter This Magistery may be made by pouring in great quantity of Fountain water without any salt into the dissolution but it is made the quicker when you use salt and the Precipitation is the better because salt does encounter and break some of the acids that water alone was not able to weaken sufficiently Now some difficulty appears in conceiving how plain water alone comes to precipitate Bismuth Lead Antimony which the acid had dissolved and yet can do nothing at all to the precipitating Gold Silver or Mercury without the assistance of some salt or other body I do imagine that the former having large Pores the acids cannot stick so close in them but that water is able to force them out but Gold Silver and Mercury having finer pores in comparison than the other do retain the acids so very closely that the weak impulses of water alone can make no separation some more active body is requisite to do it The Augmentation which happens to Bismuth when made into a Magistery does proceed from some part of the Spirit of Niter that remains still in it notwithstanding the Precipitation and Lotion Commonly one Drachm of this Magistery or Precipitate is mixed with Four ounces of Water or in an ounce of Pomatum It softens the skin very much and is also good against the Itch because it feeds upon those acids or Salts which cherish this Disease CHAP. V. Of Lead LEad is a Metal fill'd with Sulphur or a Bituminous earth that renders it very supple and pliant It is probable that it contains some Mercury It hath Pores very like those of Tinn it is called Saturn by reason of the influence it is thought to receive from the Planet of that name Those who work upon Lead are subject to Colicks and to become Paralytick whether it be that there rises out of it a Mercury which obstructs the Nerves or else that the very substance of Lead does act upon them after the manner of Mercury Lead is extremely cold and for that reason is proper to asswage the heats of Venus being applied to the Perinaeum and it may be the heat of the skin causes it to lose some particles which insinuating through the pores do some way fix the Spirits and qualifie their motion from whence the part waxes cold it is also applied on many Tumours caused by too great an Ebullition of the Bloud Lead serves to Purifie Gold and Silver and may be said to act in the Coppel much after the same manner as the white of an Egg does in Clarifying a Syrop that 's boil'd in a Bason for as the gross and terrestrious impurities of a Syrop do stick to the white of an Egg by reason of its glutinous nature and are driven to the sides of the Bason in the stirring so do the Heterogeneous parts that were mixt with Gold and Silver stick unto the Lead and by the fire are driven to the sides of the Coppel like unto a Scum Calcination of Lead Melt Lead in an earthen Pan unglazed and stir it over the Fire with a Spatule 'till it is reduced to a powder If you increase the Fire and still Calcine the Matter for an hour or two it will be more open and fit to be penetrated by acids If you put this Powder to Calcine in a Reverberatory Fire for three or four hours it will be of a red colour and is that which is called Minium Lead is also prepared into Cerusse or White-Lead by the means of Vinegar whose vapour it is made to imbibe for it turns into a White Rust that is gather'd up and little Cakes made of it Two parts of Lead may be melted in a Pot or Crucible and one part of Sulphur added to it when the Sulphur is burnt out you 'l find the matter turned into a black powder which is called Plumbum ustum All these Preparations of Lead are of a drying nature they may be mixed with unguents and plaisters they unite with oils or fat substances in the boiling and they do give them a solid consistence and the greatest part of our plaisters do derive their hardness from it I spoke of the way of reducing Lead into Litharge when I treated of the Purification of Silver by the Coppel and it is thither I desire my Reader to return Remarks There happens an observation in the Calcination of Lead as well as several other things which very well deserves some reflection 'T is that although the Sulphureous or Volatile parts of Lead do fly away in the Calcination which loss should indeed make it weigh the less nevertheless after a long Calcining 't is found that instead of losing it increases in weight Some trying to explicate this Phaenomenon do say that as long as the violence of the flame does open and divide the parts of the Calx of Lead the acid of the Wood or other matter that burns does insinuate into tha pores of this Calx where 't is stopt or fixt by the Alkali but
unto Air. But if there were not enough the fermentation which happens at the meeting of Iron and Brimstone may be able to raise the earth in some places and to burst it a-sunder The great heat of many Mineral waters may likewise easily be explicated by the means of these Subterranean Fires and how they came to receive those Sulphurs which we see are wont to be separated on the sides of the Bath when the water is not disturbed It is because those waters do pass immediately over or else through the midst of some of these burning earths wherein they are heated as they pass and do imbibe the Sulphur But when they are arrived to the place of the Baths and have there a-while setled this Sulphur being a fatt body cannot so intimately mix with the water but that it will separate to the sides of the Bath It may be also that some Mineral waters do owe their heat to a natural Quick-lime they may meet withal in their passage through the bowels of the earth but this Quick-lime is only a stone calcined by the Subterranean Fires of which I have spoken And now to return to our Operation You must observe to make this Calcination rather in an earthen Pan than Pot or Crucible and to stir it continually with a Spatula that the Sulphur may exhale the more easily I have sometimes tried to do it in a Crucible but the matter still remained black though I persisted in calcining and stirring it for above twelve hours together If you have used a Pound of Mars you 'l get at least a pound and four ounces of Crocus which proves the acids of Sulphur or some igneous bodies to incorporate in the pores of the Iron and augment its weight The red colour proceeds from Vitriol that Mars is full off which being calcined grows red like Colcothar Many other Preparations of Opening Saffron of Mars have been invented but these three are sufficient as being the best Binding Saffron of Mars This Preparation is the filings of Iron deprived of their more Saline part Take what quantity you please of the last Aperitive Saffron of Mars wash it five or six times with strong Vinegar leaving it to steep an hour at a time then calcine it in a Pot or upon a Tile in a great Fire five or six hours after that let it cool and keep it for use It stops the Diarrhoea the immoderate flowing of the Hemorrhoids and Terms the Dose is from fifteen grains to a drachm in Lozenges or else in Pills Remarks Because Mars is an impure Vitriol the more it is Calcined the more astringent it is But seeing that which renders it Aperitive is its Salt or more soluble part I intend by washing it several times with Vinegar to deprive it of much of its Salt Afterwards I Calcine the matter to carry off by Fire what Aperitive parts might remain Not that I expect by this means to separate intirely all that is Aperitive in Mars from that which is astringent that is a thing in a manner impossible by reason of the strict union of its Salt and earth in the Mine but I do believe it very probable to say that if there be any thing astringent in this metal as it cannot be denied it must needs be the more terrestrious part I may likewise say that if the astringent Mars has sometimes the effect of opening it is by the remaining Salt that it opens but when this Salt has done acting the terrestrious part never fails to bind Lastly I further say that I do not believe any Preparation of Mars to be absolutely astringent and that all we can do is to render it less incisive and less penetrating than before by depriving it of some part of its Salts Several other Preparations for making the Astringent Saffron of Mars are taught but this one may suffice Salt or Vitriol of Mars This Preparation is an Iron opened and reduced into the form of Salt by an acid liquor Take a clean Frying-pan and pour into it an equal weight of Spirit of Wine and Oil of Vitriol set it for some time in the Sun and then in the shade without stirring it you 'l find all the Liquor incorporated with the Mars and turned into a Salt that you must dry and then separate from the Pan and keep in a Viol well stopt It is an admirable Remedy for all Diseases that proceed from Obstructions the Dose is from four to twelve grains in Broth or some appropriate Liquor Remarks The Spirit of Wine serves here to moderate the too great force of the Oil of Vitriol which if alone would indeed in a little time penetrate all the parts of the Iron and cause a very impure Salt but the spirit of Wine hinders its so quick dissolution so that nothing but the more soluble part incorporates with the Oil to make a Salt or Vitriol A Frying-pan is more proper for this Operation than another vessel less flat because the liquor spreads it self about and incorporates the better you must use a Pan that is new If you use two ounces of Spirit of Wine and the same quantity of Oil of Vitriol in a small Frying-pan you 'l obtain five ounces of Mars You may put your liquor a thumbs height in the Pan and leave it there a day and a half or two days without stirring it The Oil of Vitriol is improperly called Oil being nothing but the more caustick Spirit as I shall prove in its proper place Riverius in his Practice gives a way of preparing the Salt of Mars like unto this excepting that he puts more Spirit of Wine than Oil of Vitriol but it is better to put equal parts as I have done It s virtue is greater than that of the Crocus because it is whetted by the Oil of Vitriol and therefore is given in a less dose you must observe that sometimes it causes a nauseousness as all Vitriols do If you put this Salt or Vitriol of Mars to dissolve in a cold place you 'l have a liquor that is called improperly Oil of Mars Another Vitriol of Mars This Vitriol of Mars is an Iron dissolved and reduced into the form of Salt by Spirit of Vitriol Put eight ounces of clean filings of Iron into a large Matrass and pour upon it two pounds of common water heated a little add unto it a pound of good Spirit of Vitriol stir it and set your Matrass in hot Sand leave it in Digestion four and twenty hours during which time the purest part of the Iron will dissolve separate the Liquor by Inclination and fling away the earthy part that remains in a small quantity at the bottom Filtrate this Liquor and evaporate it in a Glass-Cucurbite unto a Skin in a Sand-fire then set your vessel in a cool place and you 'l find green Crystals which you may take out after having gently poured off the Liquor Then evaporate again this Liquor unto a Skin and Crystallize it as before
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
making the subtiler part of it perspire away or that by being Alkali's they do absorb some part of it For this reason some do use to give their Patients the Volatile Salt of Vipers several mornings together but these Alkali's are in truth of too weak a nature to carry off such an Acidity after they are impregnated with it as Mercury is able to do without losing its nature They are Nets of too fine a make to catch such keen and active bodies if these Salts do destroy some part of the Acidity they destroy themselves likewise in the conflict so that they can have no further operation wherefore there 's need of a more powerful Volatile Alkali than these Salts are to eradicate the Acidity of the Venereal poison As for Fixt Salts and Alkali bodies as Pearl Coral Crabs-eyes whereas they have no Volatile quality in them and their tendency is wholly downwards it is very uncertain whether ever they reach to Venereal tumours which commonly rise in the Joints by reason of the long way they have to pass thither and the Juices they have to encounter with in their passage which may in all likelihood change their nature but suppose they were carried to those Tumors with the same qualifications with which they were taken they would only serve to weaken a little this Acidity without being able to carry it off and so they would only give a little ease without removing Radically the Ferment of the Distemper as Mercury is able to do It may be further asked why Sublimate does not fill the substance of the Brain with Vlcers as well as it does the mouth I Answer that this Sublimate being in the Brain finds it self so clog'd with a Mucilaginous moisture that it is fain to lose there some part of its Acidity so that it can do nothing else but cause a Fermentation which makes the Phlegm purge away through the Salivating vessels and this it is that causes the Spittle of those who have a Flux to be so sharp and stinking This sharp Phlegm may also as it passes in the mouth encrease the number of Vlcers for the mouth is as it were the sink of the whole body upon this occasion Sublimate Corrosive Sublimate Corrosive is a Mercury impregnated with acids and raised by fire to the top of the vessel Put a pound of Mercury revived from Cinnabar into a Matrass pour upon it Eighteen ounces of Spirit of Niter Set your Matrass in Sand a little warm and leave it there till it be all dissolved pour your dissolution which will be clear as water into a glass vessel or earthen pan and evaporate the Liquor gently in Sand until there remains a white Mass which you must powder in a glass mortar and mix with a pound of Vitriol Calcined white and so much Salt decrepitated put this mixture into a Matrass whose two thirds at least remain empty place your Matrass in Sand and begin with giving a small fire which you must continue so for three hours then encrease it with coals to a pretty good strength there will arise a Sublimate to the top of the Matrass the Operation must be ended in six or seven hours let the Matrass cool then break it avoiding a kind of Farine or light powder that flies into the air when the matter is stirred you 'l have a pound of very good Sublimate Corrosive keep it for use The red Scories that are found at the bottom must be flung away as useless This Sublimate is a powerful Escharotick it eats proud flesh and cleanses old Ulcers very well If half a drachm of it be dissolved in a pound of Lime-water it turns Yellow and makes that which is called Phagedenick Water Remarks There needs not half the Spirit of Niter for dissolving a pound of Mercury as there does for the same weight of Bismuth although the pores of this last be much the larger and the parts more disposed for separation the reason of which is that the Mercury being Volatile and very disunited in its parts it will divide almost of it self and is held up more easily by Acid Spirits than another body can be whose parts are more united and whose tendency is downwards such as Bismuth is When the dissolution of mercury is a making there appears a great ebullition in the Matrass accompanied with Red vapours also the heat is so very strong that a man cannot endure his hand upon it all this great stir proceeds from the Acids which meet with resistance in their penetration of this body for jostling one against another they heat the liquor and cause some part of the Spirit of Niter to evaporate away in red clouds as it uses always to do when it rarifies When the mercury is all dissolved the dissolution clears up and cools because the edges of the Spirits are all sheathed in the mercury whence their motion comes to be interrupted and cease and this is a thing so true that if you should by way of curiosity distil this dissolution you would draw off only a weak acid for the greatest part of the edges do remain involved with the mercury in a white mass That which proves this Remark is this that the white mass which is drawn from the Solution of sixteen ounces of Quicksilver in eighten ounces of Spirit of Niter does weigh at least two and twenty ounces that is to say six ounces more than the weight of the Quicksilver Now this augmentation cannot proceed from any thing else but the acid Spirits This mass is exceeding Corrosive by means of the same acid Spirits which become very active whereever they are met with If instead of Spirit of Niter we should use Aqua fortis to dissolve the Mercury the Solution would become clear like the other but there would be this difference between them that when we have evaporated about a fourth part of the liquor in a glass-body in Sand the remainder would be as red as Claret wine and if we should let the liquor cool there would appear in it white Crystals in form of long needles and the liquor would still retain its red colour I conceive that the Solution acquires this colour from the Sulphurs which remain in the Aqua fortis for the Sulphureous parts being in great motion may often turn and whirl about the insensible parts of Mercury round their center Now it is easie to Remark by abundance of Experiments that the red colour is a consequence of the great attenuation or disposition to circulary motion which the matter has received But the Solution which is made with Spirit of Niter does not become red because there is no Sulphur in this Spirit or else there is not enough to do it You might perform this Operation by only mixing crude Mercury with Salt and Vitriol without taking the pains to dissolve it with Spirit of Niter but you would be an intolerable while incorporating them together so as to make the Quicksilver imperceptible Moreover
in order to try the virtue of their remedies as they pretend to do all the Mithridate they have would never be able to save them And supposing they did not understand their Legerdemain tricks well enough but should be constrained to swallow such poisons as these you must not think them such fools as to keep to the remedy they recommend which would be sure to do nothing else but increase their misery by its acrimonious heat They would have recourse to the Oil and other fat substances to avoid death which otherwise would certainly follow Sweet Sublimate or Mercurius dulcis Sweet Sublimate is a Mercury reduced to a white mass by some broken edges of acids Powder sixteen ounces of Sublimate Corrosive in a marble or glass mortar mix with it by little and little twelve ounces of Mercury revived from Cinnabar stir this mixture with a wooden Pestle until all the Quicksilver becomes imperceptible then put this gray powder into several Viols or into a Matrass whose two thirds do remain empty place your vessel in Sand and give but a little fire at first then augment it unto the third degree continue it in this condition until your Sublimate is made which usually happens in four or five hours Break your Viols and fling away a little light earth that 's found at bottom separate also that which sticks to the neck of the Viols or the Matrass and keep it for Unguents against the Itch but gather up carefully all that is in the middle which is very white and having powdered it resublime it in Viols or a Matrass as before separate once more the matter in the middle and resublime it in other Viols as before this third time lastly separate the terrestrious matter at the bottom and the Fuliginous that lies in the neck of the Viols and keep the Sublimate that is in the middle for it is sufficiently dulcified It s use is for all sorts of Venereal diseases it opens obstructions and kills the Worms the Dose is from six unto thirty grains in Pills it purges gently by Stool Remarks You must observe never to powder Sublimate Corrosive in a mortar made of metal because it would corrode it and carry off some part which would spoil the operation glass marble and stone mortars are more convenient because they can communicate no ill impression to the matter Many have written that we should use equal parts of Sublimate and Mercury but they did not consider that so great a quantity of Mercury could not be here used and that when the Sublimate hath received near about the quantity I have appointed the rest will remain unmixed When a matrass is used for this operation half its neck must be cut off before-hand for when it is performed in common matrasses a great part of the Fuliginous matter not being able to rise high enough falls down again on the Sublimate and hinders it from becoming sweet because this Fuliginosity contains the more acrimonious part whereas it will easily fly out of Viols or matrasses with a short neck Two thirds of each vessel must remain empty otherwise the Mercury which rarefies like a Spirit would be apt to break them That which sticks to the neck of the Viols being too acrimonious to be used inwardly may serve for Ointments against the Itch and Tettars Sweet Sublimate rises more easily than the Corrosive because it is less loaded with acids The Sublimate that is made in a matrass loses half an ounce each sublimation so that an ounce and a half is lost in three times when the operation is done Six drachms of Scories and light earth are found at bottom and consequently there is but two drachms of matter carried off each Sublimation But if you try this operation in Viols the sublimate loses half an ounce more as having a larger aperture to fly out at than in a matrass or long neck It seems a little strange at first that so strong a Poyson as Sublimate Corrosive should be reduced into so mild a remedy by the addition of nothing but Mercury But you ought to wonder no longer when you consider that those Spirits which caused the Corrosion were then shut up in a strait room but being now divided and enlarging their quarters cannot in reason act with such force besides that by the repeated action of fire the subtler part of their points is blunted against the body of Mercury The Purgative quality of sweet Sublimate does consist in the acids that remain wherefore if you should sublime it twice or thrice more the Sublimate would not be at all Purgative but only Sudorifick And it is then more proper to raise a Flux with than it was before for having lost those salts which by irritating the stomach and guts did render it Purgative it is the more disposed for rarefaction in the body and so to joyn with the ferment of Venereal Tumors Mercury prepared any way whatsoever ought to be taken inwardly no other way than in Pills but by no means in potion for fear it should stick in the Gums and so spoil and loosen the Teeth White Precipitate White Precipitate is a Mercury dissolved by Spirit of Niter and precipitated by salt into a white powder Dissolve in a Glass-Cucurbite sixteen ounces of Mercury revived from Cinnabar with eighteen or twenty ounces of Spirit of Niter when the dissolution is made pour upon it salt-salt-water filtrated made of ten ounces of sea-salt in two quarts of water add unto this about half an ounce of the volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack there will Precipitate a very white powder that you must leave for a sufficient time to settle then having poured off the water by Inclination wash it several times with Fountain water and dry it in the shade It is used to raise a Flux with the Dose is from four to fifteen grains in Pills It is also used in Pomatums for Tettars and the Itch from half a drachm to two drachms for an ounce of Pomatum Remarks Although I do recommend eighteen or twenty ounces of Spirit of Niter for the solution of sixteen ounces of Mercury yet you must know that it is not very necessary to keep too strictly to this same quantity You may use either a little more or a little less according to the strength of the Spirit or according as it is more or less dephlegmated I my self do commonly use but an equal weight of it with the Quick-silver because the Spirit of Niter I do use is exactly dephlegmated You might likewise use Aqua fortis instead of Spirit of Niter The Dose of white Precipitate must be less than that of sweet Sublimate because it retains more acid Spirits but if you would Sublime this Precipitate alone in a matrass in a gradual fire you 'd obtain a Sublimate as sweet as the other because the fire having acted upon it breaks most of its points and then it may be given in as great a Dose as ordinary Mercurius Dulcis If
you desire to make this Precipitate exceeding white you must dissolve the Mercury in a vessel whose mouth is very large that so the red vapour of the Spirit of Niter may sly out the more easily When the dissolution is made without the help of fire the Precipitate is the whiter The Precipitation of Mercury may be made with the Spirit of Salt as well as the salt in substance This is not so easily made as that of Bismuth because the pores of Mercury being smaller than those of Bismuth do retain with more force the acids which are fixt into it Moreover Quick-silver being of a volatile nature does remain suspended in the liquor more easily than Bismuth which is a body altogether fixt It may well seem strange that an acid salt such as sea-salt should be able to precipitate that which the acidity of Spirit of Niter had dissolved To resolve this difficulty you must know that though our Senses tell us that acids do all perform the same effect which is to prick and to pierce yet nevertheless they all do differ in the figure of their points for according as they have received more or less fermentation they have also consequently their points more subtile sharp and light and this is attested not only by taste but the sight also for if you should Crystallize the same body by dissolving several parts of it in several vessels by Spirit of Salt Spirit of Niter Spirit of Vitriol Spirit of Alom and by Vinegar you 'l observe so many kinds of Crystals different in figure as there were different dissolutions The Crystals made by Vinegar will be more sharp than those prepared by Spirit of Niter those made by Spirit of Niter will be sharper than those by the Spirit of Vitriol those made by Spirit of Vitriol will be sharper than those by the Spirit of Alom but of all these Crystals none will be found to have grosser parts than those prepared by the Spirit of Salt for these Crystals do all retain the figure of their constituent parts This now being supposed it will be an easie matter to explicate our Precipitation for the salt or its spirit containing points more gross or less delicate than those of Spirit of Niter and falling on this dissolution do move jostle and easily break the points impregnated with the body of Mercury and so do make them let go their hold whence it comes that Mercury precipitates by its own weight The same Principle may serve to explicate why Lead dissolved in Vinegar precipitates by means of the Spirit of Vitriol or Salt You must observe not to make the water too salt for then the great quantity of salt would hinder the Mercury from precipitating The Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack containing an alkali salt does much help the Precipitation for its agility carries it into every recess of the liquor where the sea-salt whose parts are not of so active a nature was not able to go which is proved from hence that if you use only sea-salt dissolved in water to make this Precipitation with it will then happen that if after pouring off the clear liquor which swims upon the Precipitate into another vessel you drop the Spirit of Sal Armoniack into the liquor there falls a considerable quantity of Mercurial Precipitate which may serve like the other If instead of the volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack you 'd use the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium the Pricipitate would then be reddish Two objections have been made against my manner of explicating the Precipitation of such matters as Spirit of Niter had dissolved made by Sea-Salt First they say it is not proper to make the jostles and encounter of salt-water with Spirit of Niter loaded with bodies which it had dissolved to be the cause of its precipitation whenas the most violent jogs that can be given to the solution either from an arm or with matters much more heavy and solid than sea-salt are not able to cause the precipitation This Objection will raise no difficulty to any that are a little skill'd in Natural Philosophy for although I have said that by reason the edges of sea-salt are grosser than those of Spirit of Niter the sea-salt does precipitate what Spirit of Niter had dissolved and suspended I never meant that if these edges were as big as a mans arm they would do it the better It is sufficiently known that there must be a proportionable subtilty of parts between the dissolvent and that which does precipitate and that the edges of an acid must be otherwise treated than with a cuff of the fist in order to make them let go their hold But I intended to make it appear that if sea-salt does jog and shake the edges of Spirit of Niter it does it by dividing into very minute parts and thereby entring into the pores of the phlegm which in would not be able to do if these parts were as big as a mans arm or were like the solid heavy matters now spoken of Secondly if the grossness of the edges of sea-salt or the shock they give did make the precipitation of substances dissolved by Spirit of Niter we should expect afterwards to find the first with its gross edges separated from those of Spirit of Niter whereas upon evaporating and crystallizing the liquor their edges are indeed reciprocally confounded the one with the other making together a new body I answer that the shock and jostle which the edges of sea-salt do give to Spirit of Niter when loaded with some bodies does not hinder the edges of Spirit of Niter remaining after the precipitation from uniting with the sea-salt by which union the Crystals do become confused I shall here add one preparation more that is very proper to raise a Salivation with Take an ounce of the solution of Mercury made in Spirit of Niter put it into a glass-vessel and pour upon it three or four and twenty ounces of water all the liquor will turn white let it settle until it becomes clear filtrate the liquor and keep it for use This water may be given from half an ounce to an ounce in a glass of Ptisan or broth It vomits gently and provokes a Salivation some do drink half an ounce of it to cure the itch but they ought to be purged and bled before-hand Red Precipitate This preparation is a Mercury impregnated with Spirit of Niter and calcined by fire Take eight ounces of Mercury revived from Cinnabar dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of Spirit of Niter which is eight or nine ounces pour the dissolution into a Viol or Matrass with a short neck set it in Sand and evaporate all the moisture with a gentle heat until there remains a white Mass then quicken the fire by little and little to the third degree and keep it in this condition till all your matter is turned red then take it off the fire let the Viol cool and break it to obtain your Precipitate
which weighs nine ounces It is a good Escharotick it eats proud flesh it is used for the laying open of Chancres mixt with burnt Alom AEgyptiacum and the common Suppurative Some do give it inwardly to four grains for to raise a Flux with but this is dangerous unless rectified Spirit of Wine be burnt two or three times upon it Remarks This Preparation is improperly called Precipitate here being no Precipitation at all Many Authors have thought they could much encrease the redness of this Precipitate by Cohobating it or distilling Spirit of Niter three times upon the white mass but I have found by experience both ways that these Circumstances are of no use The white Mass which remains after Evaporation of the humidity is a mixture of Mercury with a great many acid Spirits for it weighs three ounces more than the Mercury did which was dissolved it is extreme Corrosive and fiery if applied to the flesh but according as it is Calcined in order to make it red the edges of the Spirit of Niter which caused the Corrosion do strike off and fly into the Air whence it comes to pass that the more we desire to encrease its redness by Calcination the less it weighs and the less it corrodes Some Chirurgeons observing this effect do choose the Precipitate that is not so red as usual when they would make an Eschar quickly If you still continue the fire some hours under the red mass it will sublime and still retain its colour this sublimate is not so Corrosive as the other which makes me think that the points of Spirit of Salt are necessary to make a sublimate very Corrosive The reason why it sublimes is because the Mercury being delivered from a great many acid Spirits which did fix it has power to rise with those that remain But because these remaining Spirits do moderate a little its volatility it makes a stop in the middle of the Viol. Some do put red Precipitate into an Earthen Pot and pour upon it Spirit of Wine well rectified then fire it and when the Spirit is consumed they add more and burn it as before they repeat the adding Spirit of Wine and burning it six times and then call this Preparation Arcanum Corallinum The Spirit of Wine by burning does carry off some edges of the Precipitate and joyns it self to the rest so that this Precipitate is sweetned and rendred fit to be taken inwardly If by way of curiosity you pour Spirit of Vitriol upon common red Precipitate such as I have described a dissolution will soon follow because Spirit of Vitriol joyning with the Spirit of Niter that remained in the Precipitate an Aqua fortis must happen from their union which is able to dissolve imperceptibly the parts of Mercury but this dissolution will happen without any Ebullition because the Mercury has been already rarified by an acid so that the Spirit of Vitriol does only dissolve them without making any commotion The solution is clear like other solutions of Mercury without any appearance of redness and the same Preparations may be made with it as are used to be by the solution of Quicksilver in Aqua fortis If instead of Spirit of Vitriol you pour Spirit of Salt upon the red Precipitate it turns presently into a curious white because the Spirit of Salt does break the force of the Spirit of Niter that was in the red Precipitate and the same thing must happen here as does when Spirit of Salt is poured upon the solution of Quicksilver for although red Precipitate be a dry body yet it is nothing else but a mixture of Quicksilver and Spirit of Niter I have given the reason why Spirit of Salt comes to weaken Spirit of Niter in my Remarks upon white Precipitate As for the sudden change of colour it is indeed somewhat strange that a matter which is grown red by Calcination should in a minutes time turn so exceeding white This Effect can be attributed only to the dislocation which the acid spirit of Salt does cause in the parts of red Precipitate and to the disposition it puts them anew into so that their Superficies is put into a capacity of reflecting the light in a right line to our eyes to give the appearance of a white colour for if by means of another sort of liquor or else by fire and some alkali body the disposition of the parts of your Precipitate is again changed it will obtain some other colour or else it will return and revive into Quicksilver If you pour the volatile spirit of Sal Armoniack upon red Precipitate it turns into a grey powder but if you throw a great deal of water upon it it becomes a milk though none of the whitest The same thing happens when you drop Spirit of Sal Armoniack into the solution of Quicksilver made with Spirit of Niter for soon after the effervescency is over a grey powder is seen to Precipitate and if you add to it water it becomes a milk of the same whiteness as the other Common red Precipitate then is subject to the same alterations as the solution of Mercury the red colour giving no particular impression to it which truly is a good proof that colour is no real thing but wholly depends upon the modification of parts Turbith Mineral or Yellow Precipitate This Preparation is a Mercury impregnated with the acidity of Oil of Vitriol Put four ounces of Quick-silver revived from Cinnabar into a glass Retort and pour upon it sixteen ounces of Oil of Vitriol set your Retort in Sand and when the Mercury is dissolved put fire underneath and distil the humidity make the fire strong enough toward the end for to drive out some of the last Spirits of all afterwards break your Retort and powder in a glass Mortar a white Mass you find within it which weighs five ounces and a half pour warm water upon it and the matter will presently change into a yellow powder which you must dulcifie by a great many repeated Lotions then dry it in the shade you 'l have three ounces and two drachms of it It purges strongly both by vomit and stool it is given in Venereal maladies the dose is from two grains unto six in Pills Remarks Though that which is improperly called Oil of Vitriol be the strongest and most Caustick acid of this Mineral Salt it is nevertheless much weaker than Spirit of Niter and so requires a greater quantity of it and longer time to dissolve the Mercury in for there 's much a-do to dispatch the solution in ten hours That which is distilled is exceeding weak because the Mercury retains the greatest part of the acid Spirits and they are the things that purge so strongly although many of them be carried off by the Lotions All these Preparations are nothing but so many different shapes of Mercury made by acid Spirits which according to their different adhesions do cause such different effects All these Precipitates and
the same virtue as Sal Armoniack but are given in a little less dose as from four to fifteen grains Remarks This operation is performed to the end the Sal Armoniack may be volatilized by checking some part of its fixt salt by the addition of Salt decrepitated thus these Flowers are a little more active than the Sal Armoniack though they are both compounded of the same Salts Iron or Steel powdered may be used instead of Sea-salt as Schroder describes it and then the Flowers do become of a Yellow colour because the Salts do take the Tincture of Mars And these last Flowers are a little more penetrating than the others Aqua Regalis This water is a solution of Sal Armoniack in Spirit of Niter Powder four ounces of Sal Armoniack and put them into a matrass or other glass vessel of a good bigness pour upon it sixteen ounces of Spirit of Niter place the vessel in sand a little warm until the Sal Armoniack is all dissolved then pour the dissolution into a bottle and stop it with wax this is Aqua Regalis you will have seventeen ounces of it Remarks This water is called Regalis or Royal because it dissolves Gold which is the King of metals It is likewise called Aqua Stygia or Chrysulca The vessel in which it is made must be of a sufficient bigness because in the dissolution the Spirits do rarefie with so great violence that they would break it if they had not room to circulate in when a great deal of this water is preparing at a time you must take care to remove the vessel from the fire so soon as the dissolution begins Aqua Regalis may be likewise made with equal quantities of Salt-peter and Sal Gemme by mixing these Salts with thrice as much Potters-earth powdered and the distillation of it is made after the same manner as I shewed to draw the Spirit of Niter It is somewhat difficult to conceive how Aqua Regalis is able to dissolve Gold which is a most solid Metal and cannot dissolve Silver which is a much less solid body Some Chymists endeavouring to resolve this difficulty have said that Gold being a Metal fuller of Sulphur than Silver did therefore require a sulphureous dissolvent such as Aqua Regalis compounded of the volatile sulphureous salts of Sal Armoniack but this explication destroys itself for if Gold did contain more Sulphurs than Silver it would consequently be less weighty for Sulphur is one of the lightest Principles in Chymistry I know the Alchymists will tell me that their Sulphur is quite of a different nature from the common sort and that they do conceive in Gold a Fixt and consequently a heavy sulphur But besides that a fixt sulphur is a thing meerly imaginary it can never be so heavy as the other principles which they pretend to be in Gold and which they are forced to think as fixed as the Sulphur Moreover if we examine what happens in the composition of the dissolvent of Gold it will be no difficult matter to contradict this opinion for we see that as soon as ever the Spirit of Niter begins to work upon the Sal Armoniack the acid salt joyns with it and quits the volatile salts which finding themselves disingaged from the bodies that held them in a manner fixed do rise up with violence but because these salts which are alkalies do meet in their passage with some acids of the Spirit of Niter the great effervescency happens which is always wont at the meeting of alkali salts and acids This effervescency being over our Aqua Regalis remains in the vessel it is properly nothing else but an acid sea-salt dissolved in Spirit of Niter the volatile salts being either exalted or destroyed by Acids and that which confirms this opinion is that Aqua Regalis is as well made with sea-salt in which there are no volatiles at all as with Sal Armoniack according as I have said It is not then by discourses of this nature that this Phanomenon can be clearly explicated I am apt to believe with more likelihood that if Aqua Regalis be not able to dissolve Silver the reason of it is because the edges of the Spirit of Niter being magnified by the addition of Salt do slide over the pores of Silver not being capable to enter into them by reason of the disproportion of their figures whereas they easily enter into Gold whose pores are larger to make their divisions On the contrary if the Spirit of Niter dissolves Silver it is because its points are very subtle and fitly proportioned to enter into the small pores of this metal and by their motion to divide its parts These same points may likewise enter into the large pores of Gold but they are too small and pliable to act upon this body There 's need of stronger and keener knives which by filling its pores more advantageously may have force enough to divide it I do easily foresee it will be objected that Gold being heavier than Silver should have lesser pores and not greater because the weight of a body doth only consist in the proximity of parts but it is easie to solve this difficulty by considering each metal with a good Microscope for the pores of Gold are seen to be much larger than those of Silver though indeed there are much fewer and that will explicate very well why Gold is heavier than Silver though its pores are greater for seeing they are at a good distance the one from the other there 's a very compact matter as it were intercepted which causes all the weight but the pores of Silver being very near one another and of a much greater number do intercept less solid matter and consequently it must be lighter I 'le use a familiar example to make my self more plainly understood If you take two vessels of the same size and bigness and fill one with small hail-shot and the other with large bullets that which holds the bullets will be much heavier than that which is full of shot and yet notwithstanding the vacuities between the bullets are much larger than those between the shot According to this Hypothesis reason may be likewise given why Gold is cut in pieces more easily than Silver for the greater the pores of a body are the easier entrance will a pair of Sheers meet with Gold spreads under the hammer more than Silver because having larger pores the hammer makes a greater impression into it and dilates the parts the more easily It is objected that if there be any heavy matter as it were intercepted between the pores of Gold it must needs precipitate of itself after the action of Aqua Regalis upon this metal which is a thing that does not happen I answer that if the parts of Gold are heavy the dissolvent nevertheless is a gross body and very well proportioned to hold up those heavy parts and to hinder them from precipitating Others have opposed this explication and have
will find in the Retort thirty ounces of a white matter which you must throw away as useless it is the fixt salt of sal Armoniack mixed with the Quick-lime Another Preparation of the Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack together with its Flowers and Fixt Salt against Feavers Powder and mix together eight ounces of Sal Armoniack and so much Salt of Tartar put this mixture quickly into a glass body and sprinkle it with three ounces of rain-Rain-water set a head upon it and after fitting the Receiver and luting the junctures close with a wet bladder place your vessel in sand with a gentle fire at first to warm the Retort by little and little and distil the Spirit drop by drop but when you perceive there will distil no more take away the Receiver and stop it close then encrease the fire to the third degree and continue it about two hours there will sublime the white Flowers of Sal Armoniack which will stick about the bottom of the head like meal The Spirit hath the same strength and virtues as the former you will have seven ounces of it and a half Gather up the Flowers with a Feather and use them as you would those I described before the Preparation you 'l have of them ten drachms and a half There remains at the bottom of the Cucurbite nine ounces and three drachms of a white fixt mass You must dissolve it in sufficient water then filter the dissolution and evaporate it until it is dry you 'l have a very white Salt that may be reckoned a good Remedy for intermittent Feavers the dose is from eight grains to thirty in the small Centaury water or some other convenient liquor Remarks The Salt of Tartar serves in this Operation as the Quick-lime did in the other but because it is a more powerful Alkali than Quick-lime you must not use so great a quantity of it The fixt Salt of Niter might be substituted in its place or any other Alkali that you will When the fire begins to heat the matter there do rise up into the head store of volatile Salts in a fine delicate Crystalline form but the moist vapours coming upon them do dissolve them into Spirit The Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack is then a dissolution of Volatile salt in water and if there be not phlegm sufficient to dissolue all the Volatile salt there will remain some part of it at bottom of the Receiver and that may likewise be turn'd into Spirit by only adding enough water to dissolve it Thus the Spirit becomes as strong as it can be made for the pores of the water being filled with as much salt as they can contain it can receive no more But if there happens to be more water than the proportion of Volatile Salt requires then the Spirit proves weak and must be given in a larger dose This Spirit is Sudorifick but you may perceive more sensibly the effect of Sal armoniack to cause Sweat by dissolving six or eight grains of this salt and the same quantity of Salt of Tartar each separately in two small doses of some proper liquor and giving them to a Patient one presently after the other for the salt of Tartar working upon the Sal Armoniack in the stomach after the same manner as it does when they are mixt together in a Mortar the Spirits do separate from the latter with the more force and act more powerfully than when they were mixed before they were given for the little violence that the Volatile Spirits do use in their separation from sea-salt does leave them the more activity and disposes them the better to pass through the pores Again it is probable that in the former effort which these Spirits made in their separation from the fixt part when Sal Armoniack was mixt with salt of Tartar in a mortar the more subtile part might fly away first and be lost now it is this subtile portion that is most proper to rarefie the humours and to drive them forth by Transpiration The flowers do proceed from some part of the Sal Armoniack which the salt of Tartar had not sufficiently opened The Febrifugous salt is nothing but a mixture of salt of Tartar and the fixt and acid part of Sal Armoniack it works by Urine and but seldom by Sweat by reason that being fixed it precipitates more easily than it rarefies and it is by this means that it opens obstructions which are often the first cause of Feavers If you mix in a Viol equal quantities of Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack Spirit of Wine and shake them a little together they will cause a Coagulum This Coagulation proceeds from hence that the Spirit of Wine which is a rarefied Oil does unite with the Spirit of Sal Armoniack which is a saline liquor and it is but the same thing which happens from stirring Oil and some salt liquor in a mortar in order to make an Unguent called Nutritum By this incorporation together the salt is involved in the ramous parts of the sulphur and these same sulphureous parts are checkt or as it were fixed by the salt so that neither of them have any more freedom of motion and from this repose of these parts does result the Coagulum It may be likewise said that the conjunction of the acid that is in Spirit of Wine with the volatile Armoniack alkali does contribute much to this Coagulation The Spirit of Sal Armoniack prepared with Quick-lime does not at all coagulate with Spirit of Wine by reason of fiery parts that it contains The Salt of Tartar too may have mixed some fiery bodies in the Spirit of Sal Armoniack but there are not enough of them in it to hinder its adunation with Spirit of Wine Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack dulcified This Operation is a volatile Armoniack salt mixed and dissolved in Spirit of Wine Take Sal Armoniack and Salt of Tartar of each four ounces powder them separately and mix them well in a glass or marble mortar put this mixture into a glass body pour upon it ten ounces of rectified Spirit of Wine stir it all together with a wooden Spatule and fit to the body a head and Receiver lute well the junctures place the vessel in a Sand-furnace and give it a very little fire to warm the body The volatile salt will rise and stick to the head and neck of the receiver Increase the fire a little and continue it until there distils nothing more the operation is ended in four or five hours Let the vessels cool and unlute them You will find a volatile salt stuck to the head and a spirit in the receiver Put quickly both the one and the other into a Retort in sand and after having fitted another Retort to it to serve for a Receiver and having luted the junctures distil the whole with a small fire Cohobate it again three times then keep what you have distilled in a bottle well stopt almost all the
fire-coal flung into water would do Besides it heated the water very much and much more than common Oil of Vitriol could I kept this congealed Spirit about six months after which time it dissolved into a liquor which I used as Oil of Vitriol for it was in effect the same thing And in my opinion this operation does sufficiently evince that Oil of Vitriol contains fiery parts It hapned to me another time that having rectified the Spirit of Vitriol to separate it from its Oil by an Alembick some part of the distilled Spirit was turned into fair and transparent Crystals in the bolt-head or Receiver which Crystals had the same acrimony and strength with the mass I now spoke of If you pour some drops of Spirit or Oil of Vitriol into a quart of hot water in which you shall infuse a pugil of dried red Roses the liquor will in a little time become as red as Claret and this effect must not so much be attributed to the Spirit of Vitriol's sharpning the water and so thereby drawing out the Tincture of Roses as to this that the acid Spirit does rarefie and separate the particles of the Rose which the water had dissolved and made to appear better than before for if you strain the Infusion and separate the Roses before you pour to it your Spirit of Vitriol although the liquor so strained be yet but little raised in colour it will nevertheless turn to as high a red after the Spirit is dropt into it as if the Roses remained still in the liquor We must say the same thing of other Tinctures that are drawn by acids as also of such as are made by an Alkali salt If you fill a glass Viol with the decoction of Nephritick wood clarified and look on it turning toward the light it will appear yellow but if you turn your back to the light it will appear blue if you mix with it some drops of Spirit of Vitriol it will appear yellow on every side but if you again add about as much more Oil of Tartar it will return unto its first colour If you take a Blue or Violet tincture made in water such as is drawn out of the Sun-flower or Violet flowers and pour upon it some drops of Spirit of Vitriol it will presently turn red but if you throw into it some Alkali salt it will recover again its former colour On the contrary if you pour an Alkali liquor such as volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack or the Oil of Tartar upon the blue Tincture it will presently turn green and if you again pour upon it a little Spirit of Vitriol it will change this colour into an obscure red The decoction of Indian wood is very red if you drop into it a little Spirit of Vitriol it will turn yellow and if you still add some volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack it will become black If you infuse three or four hours a piece of Indian wood in some clear juice of Citron and take out your wood the liquor will have received no alteration of colour but if you add to it some drops of Oil of Tartar made per deliquium it will take a brown colour and if you add to it a little Spirit of Vitriol it will resume its colour again If you pour some drops of Oil of Tartar upon Claret it will become greenish and if you add to it a little Spirit of Vitriol it will return to its former colour All these changes of colour which the Spirit of Vitriol or other acids and Alkali's do make proceed only from the different position of bodies dissolved in the liquor and from its disposition to modifie the light different ways Styptick Water This water is a solution of Vitriol and other ingredients to stop bleedings Take Colcothar or the red Vitriol that remains in the Retort after the spirit is drawn out Burnt-alom and Sugar-candy of each half a drachm the Urine of a young person and rose-Rose-water of each half an ounce plantain-Plantain-water two ounces stir them all together a good while in a mortar then pour the mixture into a Viol and when you use it separate it by Inclination If you apply a Bolster dipt in this water to an opened Artery and hold your hand a while upon it it stops the bloud In like manner you may wet a little Pledget in it and thrust it into the Nose when an Hemorrhage continues too long taken inwardly it cures spitting of bloud bloudy flux and the immoderate flux of the Hemorrhoids or Terms the dose is from half a drachm to two drachms in Knot-grass water Remarks When the bloud gushes forth too fast you must redouble the first Bolster that was put upon the wound and assist it a little with your fingers for half an hour The Basis of this water is Colcothar Having used this water with good success upon several occasions I was willing to insert it in this Book and I believe if any body please to experiment it as I have done they will easily acknowledge it to be an excellent Remedy in many Distempers Lapis Medicamentosus Powder and mix together Colcothar or the red Vitriol that remains in the Retort after distillation or in want of it Vitriol Calcined to a redness two ounces Litharge Alom and Bole-Armenick of each four ounces put this mixture into a glazed pot and pour upon it good Vinegar enough to cover the matter two fingers high cover the pot and leave it two days in digestion then add to it eight ounces of Niter two ounces of Sal Armoniack set the pot over the fire and evaporate all the moisture Calcine the mass that remains about half an hour in a strong fire and keep it for use It is a good Remedy to stop Gonorrheas a drachm of it is dissolved in eight ounces of Plantain water or Smith's water to make an Injection into the Yard it is likewise good to cleanse the eyes in the small pox seven or eight grains of it must be dissolved in four ounces of Plantain or eye-bright water it is also good to stop bloud applied outwardly to a wound It may be dissolved in Knot-grass water and will go near to have the same effects as the styptick water Remarks This stone is called Medicamentosus by way of excellence by reason of the good effects it produces The Colcothar that remains in the Retort after the distillation of Vitriol must be better than the others for this Operation because being deprived of the greatest part of its Spirits it is the more Astringent Litharge which is a Lead Calcined Alom and Bole-Armenick are so many considerable Astringents that do no hurt in this composition Vinegar is put in to incorporate the ingredients together and set them a Fermenting after which the Niter and Sal Armoniack do easily mix among the rest The Calcination which is given to it at the end is done to carry off some part of the acid and to augment the Astriction It
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
as much as lies in my power those things which render it mysterious and dark Spirit of Wine is good for Lethargical and Apoplectical persons because it puts the Spirits into a greater motion than they were in before Now because according to all appearance these Diseases are caused by Obstructions which hinder the course of the Spirits into the Brain this Spirit serves to give them a new vigour to dissolve and rarefie these Tartareous viscosities which shut up their passage It likewise discusses Tumors and Defluxions because it not only opens the pores and gives vent to the subtler part of the humor to perspire but likewise dissolves and rarefies the grosser part so as to render it fit to circulate with the blood The Spirit of Wine is excellent for Burnings provided it be used so soon as they happen for then it opens a passage for the igneous particles to come out at and if there should remain any within the part it unites with them as it uses to do when mixed with an Acid. Spirit of Wine Tartarised This preparation is a Spirit of Wine that has carried with it some portion of Salt of Tartar Put a Pound of Salt of Tartar into a long glass-body pour upon it four pounds of Spirit of Wine prepared as I said before place your vessel in Sand and cover it with a head to which fit a Receiver lute well the junctures with a wet Bladder and give it a gradual fire which continue until three parts of the Spirit of Wine are risen then remove the fire and keep this Spirit in a Viol well stopt it hath the same virtues as the other but is more subtile The liquor that remains in the body may be evaporated and a Salt of Tartar got as good as before Remarks This Operation is only a Rectification of the Spirit of Wine to render it more subtile than it was before because the Salt of Tartar becomes impregnated with the Phlegmatick parts and hinders them from rising The Spirit of Wine doth likewise volatilize and carry along with it some portion of the Salt of Tartar which gives it a very agreeable smell and renders it a good Remedy for Obstructions A sign that the Spirit of Wine has carried along with it some of the Salt of Tartar is this if you dry gently the Salt of Tartar that remains in the Body and weigh it you 'l find it diminished an ounce and a half You may again put this Spirit of Wine Tartarized to half a pound of more Salt of Tartar and distil it as before but I have found that it is never a-whit the better for it This way of Tartarizing Spirit of Wine is the very best and shortest of all that have been invented whether you desire to make it pure or to impregnate it with Salt of Tartar and I may venture to say that all the many long and tedious descriptions that have been given of this Operation have been only invented to cast a dust into the eyes of Novices for it is easie for any to observe who give themselves a little to examine things that after all their long turnings and windings and circumstances to no purpose the Spirit of Wine is not so well Tartarized as by the plain method that I have described Queen of Hungary's Water This Operation is a Spirit of Wine impregnated with the more essential part of Rosemary flowers Fill a glass or earthen cucurbite half full with Rosemary Flowers gathered when they are at their best pour upon it Spirit of Wine sufficient to infuse the Flowers in set your Cucurbite in a Balneum and joyning its head and Receiver lute close the junctures and give it a digesting fire for three days after which unlute them and pour into the Cucurbite that which may have been distilled Refit your Alembick and encrease the fire strong enough to make the liquor distil so as one drop may immediately follow another and when you shall have drawn about two thirds of it and put out the fire let the vessels cool and unlute them you 'l find in the Receiver a very good Water of the Queen of Hungary keep it in a Viol well stopt It is good in the Palsie Lethargy Apoplexy and Hysterical Maladies The Dose is from one drachm to two It is likewise used outwardly for Burnings Tumors Cold pains Contusions Palsie and all other occasions wherein it is requisite to revive the Spirits Ladies do use to mix half an ounce of it with six ounces of lily-Lily-water or Bean-flower water and wash their Face with it to clear their complexion Remarks You must distil this water in a Fire that is strong enough for otherwise the Spirit of Wine would rise alone or else draw along with it but very little Essence as I have observed in the working upon it The Oyl or Essence of Rosemary may be made as the Oyl of Cinnamon and some drops of it mixed in the Spirit of Wine and hereby you have a Queen of Hungary's water made upon the spot The Water of the Queen of Hungary sometimes gives ease to the Tooth-ach being snufft at the Nose or applied to the Gums with a little Cotton Some thinking to Criticize a little do say it is altogether useless to digest Rosemary flowers with Spirit of Wine because their substance being of a very Volatile nature it easily dissolves in the Spirit without any digestion But this Circumstance is very necessary if we desire to have a Water well impregnated with the Essence of the Flowers for although there is a Volatile substance in Rosemary yet good part of the Oil in which consists principally the Smell is involved in the other Principles and cannot be well rarefied mixed and exalted but only by a digestion and thus we have a very good effect from it CHAP. XIII Of Vinegar WInes like all other liquors that use to Ferment do grow sowr by the dissolution of their Tartar in a second Fermentation This dissolution is commonly made when upon the Wines going to decay some of the more subtile Spirits are lost for the Tartar taking their place fixes the rest of the Spirits which remain in the Wine so that they can act no longer This fixation is the cause that when the Wine turns sowr very little quantity of it is diminished and very little Tartar is found in the vessels wherein Vinegar is made To the end that Wine may quickly sowr you must set the Vessel that contains it in some hot place and mix the Lees from time to time for this Tartar will easily dissolve when heat comes to act upon it Perhaps it will be objected that Wine deprived of Tartar and Lees does grow sowr when kept a long time in a vessel without any dissolution of Tartar But we must consider that Wine let it be as clear and pure as may be does always retain the more saline and subtile part of Tartar which exalts and easily smells when by Fermentation it gets the predominancy
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
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-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-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
chuse it clean friable and full of white spots and that sort is called Amygdaloides Flowers of Benjamin and its Oil. This is an exaltation of the volatile salts of Benjamin and a separation of its Oil by distillation Take an earthen pot high and narrow with a little border round it put into it three or four ounces of clean Benjamin grosly powdered cover the pot with a Coffin of paper and tye it round about under the border set the pot into hot ashes and when the Benjamin is heated the Flowers will sublime take off the Coffin every two hours and fix another in its place stop up quickly in a glass the Flowers you find in the Coffins and when those which afterwards sublime do begin to appear Oily take the pot off the fire put that which remains into a little glass Retort and fitting a Receiver to it distil in a Sand-heat a thick and fragrant Oil until nothing more comes forth there will remain in the Retort nothing but a very spongy earth The Flowers are good for Asthmatical persons and to fortifie the stomach the dose is from two grains to five in an Egg or in Lozenges The Oil is a Balsom for wounds and ulcers Remarks Benjamin being full of a great many volatile parts easily sublimes over the smallest fire the Flowers do rise in little needles that are very white but if you give never so little fire more than should be they carry along with them a small quantity of Oil which makes them to be yellow and impure You must therefore perform the Operation in hot Ashes or in Sand to have the Flowers fair The Flowers of Benjamin have a very pleasant acidity Tincture of Benjamin Take three ounces of Benjamin and half an ounce of Storax powder them grosly and put them into a bottle or matrass half empty pour upon them a pint of Spirit of wine stop your vessel close and set it in warm horse-dung leave it in digestion for a Fortnight after which filtrate the liquor and keep it in a Viol well stopt some do add to it five or six drops of Balsom of Peru to give it a better smell it is good to take away spots in the face a drachm of it is put into four ounces of water and it whitens like milk this water serves for a wash and is called Virgin 's Milk Remarks This Tincture is a dissolution of the Rosine of Benjamin made in Spirit of Wine When it is mixed in a great deal of water it makes a Milk because water weakens the Spirit of Wine and makes it quit what it held up dissolved If you let this Milk settle the Rosine precipi 〈…〉 to the bottom of the vessel and the water becomes clear The Storax is added to this Tincture to encrease the goodness of the smell CHAP. XXII Of Camphire CAmphire is a Rosine that distils drop by drop from a great Tree that is much like to a Walnut-tree in the Island Borneo in Asia Little Cakes of it are likewise brought out of China but that is not so good it must be chosen white transparent clean friable without spot and such as is hard to quench when once lighted Camphire is compounded of a Sulphur and Salt so exceeding volatile that it is very hard to keep it any time and it always loses something let it be never so closely stopt It is an excellent remedy for the Fits of the mother it is not only smelt to by women in this condition and used in their Clysters but also taken inwardly for it is lighted and then quenched five or six times in some water proper to the Distemper and so the water is given to drink it is likewise good for intermittent Feavers being hung about the neck because in its evaporating away it insensibly enters through the pores and causes a rarefaction and transpiration of the humor which caused the disease and for the same reason it is that several Druggs applied to the Wrists and other places have often cured diseases but you must observe that this sort of Remedies is always of a very Spirituous nature Camphire is dissolved in Spirit of Wine and this dissolution is called Spirit of Wine Camphorized it is good in the Apoplexy and in Hysterical maladies it is also found to be of excellent use in the Tooth-ach a little Cotton is dipt into it and put into the aking Tooth Oil of Camphire This Operation is a Camphire impregnated with Spirit of Niter which converts it into a liquor Powder grosly three or four ounces of good Camphire put it into a matrass and pour upon it twice as much Spirit of Niter stop your vessel close and set it over a pot half full of water a little heated stir it ever now and then to help forward the dissolution which will be finished in two or three hours and then you 'l find the Camphire turned into a clear Oil which swims above the Spirit separate it and keep it in a Viol well stopt It is used for the Caries of bones and to touch Nerves that are uncovered in wounds Remarks This Oil is nothing but a dissolution of Camphire in Spirit of Niter for if you pour water upon it to destroy the force of the Spirit it returns into Camphire as before Of all the Rosines this is the only one that can dissolve with Spirit of Niter This dissolution is made without Ebullition or sensible heat because the Camphire consisting of thin disunited parts the acids do enter among them and make an easie separation again acids mixing with sulphurs do never raise any ebullition because they find those bodies too pliant and yielding to make sufficient resistance If you have used three ounces of Camphire in this operation you will obtain four ounces of Oil and the Spirit of Niter will have lost an ounce this last will likewise have lost much of its acrimony Some have censured this operation by reason say they of the violent impression which the corrosive Spirit does give to the Camphire in its dissolution and that therefore the acrimony of the medicine renders it of a dangerous use But seeing this Oil is not wont to be given inwardly methinks there is very little reason for this scruple there are medecins which are much more acrimonious than this which nevertheless are not esteemed dangerous to be used Again there is occasion for this acrimony in the use that is made of this Oil for the Spirit of Niter which is mixed with it does very much help the Camphire to deterge wounds and to cleanse rotten bones CHAP. XXIII Of Gumm Ammoniack GVmm Ammoniack is so called because it distils from a sort of Ferula or Fennil-gyant that grows near the place where the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon stood heretofore the best is in large yellowish tears and white within It is given inwardly in Deoppilative Electuaries for Schirrhous Tumors of the Liver Spleen and Mesentery it is used in Emollient and Attractive Plaisters The
doubtless that is the reason why it is the whiter If you distil twelve ounces of Hair you will obtain eight ounces of liquor and volatile salt There will remain in the Retort three ounces and a half of a black matter very spongy and earthy from which no fixed salt can be drawn And by Rectification you will raise into the Head an ounce and seven drachms of a very fine volatile salt separate by a filter three ounces of a black and very fetid oil and by distillation of that which is filtrated you 'l have two ounces of Spirit and nine drachms of phlegm All Volatile salts have much resemblance in their figure smell and taste but that of Vipers is accounted the most active and proper against Poisons those of Harts-horn and Mans Skull are thought to be better than others for the Epilepsie that of mans bloud to purifie the bloud and so of the rest When you Rectifie the Spirit of Vipers or man's Skull or Harts-horn or hair in order to purifie them from their phlegm if you should let the liquor continue distilling longer than is fitting the phlegm will rise after the Spirit but then it separates from the Spirit as water separates from oil the Spirit will be uppermost and a little troubled and whitish but if you keep these two liquors together for a month the whole will mix together and there will be no longer any separation of them at all These effects do happen from this that the Spirit in rising does carry with it some small quantity of Oil which was dissolved in the liquor by reason of salts that it contains This Oil is very volatile it rises with the Spirit and by rendring the Spirit a little oily it hinders at first the phlegm from mixing with it It is likewise this little quantity of oil which makes the Spirit look a little troubled and whitish but when the Spirit and phlegm are kept a good while together they mix and the whole appears like a homogeneous liquor because there being but little oil in the Spirit the phlegm insensibly enters into and incorporates with it wherefore you must take care to separate the Spirit from the phlegm so soon as ever you take the Receiver from the nose of the head in case you have suffered the liquor to distil too long What I have now spoken of does not happen in the Rectification of the Spirit of Ivory and without doubt the reason is that the Ivory does not contain so much Oil as the other parts of Animals Some do prepare a Sudorifick water with Vipers after this manner They do put the Vipers alive into a great earthen body they fit to it a head with its Receiver they lute the joints and distil in a Balneum all that will rise from it but you must take care that the head be well fastned to the body for when the Vipers begin to be heated they leap and fling about with so much violence that they would otherwise throw it down and get out of their stove And then the Artist must have a care of himself and not be too bold for these creatures being irritated would fling about on every side and a bite of theirs at that time would be twice as dangerous as at another This water which rises whilest the Vipers are in their greatest fury is Sudorifick because some Volatile salts have risen and mixed with it You may give of it from a drachm to half an ounce in some proper liquor But to avoid the forementioned danger you might cut the Vipers in pieces before you put them into the body and because these pieces of them do retain life a long time the water will be little the worse for their not being intire When you have drawn as much water from them as you can by the heat of a Balneum you must put the remainder of the Vipers into a Retort and distil it as I have shewn before you will thereby have the Volatile salt the Spirit and the Oyl CHAP. II. Distillation of Vrine and its Volatile Salt THIS Operation is a separation of the Spirit the Volatile Salt and the Oil of Vrine from the phlegm and the earth which it contains Take ten or twelve quarts of Vrine newly made by sound young men evaporate it in an earthen or glass Cucurbite in a Sand-heat until it remains in the consistence of Honey then fit a head with its Receiver and luting the junctures close continue a small fire to distil the rest of the phlegm after which encrease it by little and little and the Spirits will rise in Clouds carrying with them a little Oil and after that the Volatile salt which will stick to the head like Butter-flies continue the fire until there comes no more then unlute the Vessels and separating the Volatile salt put it into a bolt-head pour likewise into it the Spirit that is in the Receiver and fit a blind-head to the bolt-head lute the junctures with a wet bladder and setting your bolt-head in Sand sublime with a small fire all the Volatile salt as I have shewed concerning that of Vipers separate this Salt and keep it in a Viol well stopt It is a good Remedy for Quartan Agues and Malignant Feavers it opens all Obstructions and works both by Vrine and Sweat the dose is from six to sixteen grains in some convenient liquor filtrate that which remains in the bolt-head the Spirit will pass through the Filter whilst a small quantity of black and extraordinary stinking Oil remains which is good to discuss cold Tumors and to give to Hysterical women to smell to You may distil the Spirit in a Sand-heat to separate it from a thick matter that remains at bottom it hath the same virtues as the Salt it is given from eight to twenty drops in some proper vehicle Two drachms of it are mixed with two ounces of Spirit of Wine to rub Paralytical parts with it is likewise used for cold pains and for the Sciatica If the Mass that remains in the Cucurbite should be Calcined and a Lixivium made of it with water a very small quantity of fixt Alkali salt might be gotten from evaporating the water and it hath the same virtues as other Alkali salts Remarks The Vrine of young men is to be prefer'd before others because it contains more Salt It must be newly made and evaporated with a gentle fire that the Fermentation or too much heat may not cause the Volatile Salts to rise with the phlegm The Spirit is only a Volatile salt dissolved in a little phlegm this Volatile salt works more by Vrine than any of the rest but its smell is more offensive This Remedy must never be given in Broth for Broth being to be taken hot the heat evaporates some of the volatile salts before it can well be taken A Volatile salt may be drawn from Vrine after setting it some months Fermenting in a Vessel close stopt and then a third part of the Liquor
and its reduction into an impalpable Powder To Amalgamate Gold is to mix it with Quicksilver Take a Drachm of the Regule of Gold beat it into very thin little Plates which you must heat in a Crucible red hot in a large Fire then pour upon it an ounce of Quicksilver revived from Cinnaber as I shall shew hereafter stir the matter with a little Iron-rod and when you find it begin to raise a fume which quickly happens cast your mixture into an Earthen Pan fill'd with Water it will coagulate and become tractable wash it several times to take away its blackness thus you have an Amalgame from which you must separate the Mercury that you find not united by pressing it a little between your fingers in a linnen cloth The Gold retains about thrice its weight in Mercury Now to reduce this Gold into Powder you must put this Amalgame into a Crucible over a gentle fire the Mercury will evaporate into the Air and leave the Gold at bottom in an impalpable Powder Remarks Mercury doth easily penetrate Gold and insinuating into its Pores makes a soft matter that is called Amalgame it doth the same with other Metals too except Iron and Copper which are too ill digested to receive its impression The Amalgamation of Gold is useful to Gilders for so it is easily extended upon their works Aurum Fulminans called Saffron of Gold This Operation is a Gold impregnated with some Spirits which cause it to give a loud crack when it is set over the Fire Take what quantity you please of Gold beaten into thin plates put it into a Viol or Matrass and pour upon it by little and little three or four times as much Aqua Regalis compounded after the manner I shall shew in its proper place Set the Matrass upon Sand a little heated until the Aqua Regalis has dissolved as much of the Gold as it is able to contain which you will know by the ceasing of the ebullitions pour your solution into a Glass-vessel of five or six times as much common Water Afterwards drop into this mixture by degrees the Volatile Spirit of Salt Armoniack or the Oyl of Tartar made by Deliquium or Solution you 'l find the Gold precipitate to the bottom of the Glass Let it alone a good while to settle that all the Gold may fall down then pouring off the Water by Inclination wash your powder with warm Water till it grows insipid and so dry it in Paper at a gentle fire because it is apt to fire and the Powder would fly away with a terrible noise If you use one drachm of Gold you will obtain four scruples of Aurum Fulminans well dried Aurum Fulminans causes sweat and drives out ill humors by Transpiration It may be given in the Small Pox from two to six grains in a Lozenge or Electuary It stops Vomiting and is also good to moderate the activity of Mercury Remarks The Plates of Gold are made use of in this Operation that its dissolution may be more easily performed You must pour the Aqua Regalis by little and little to avoid the great effervescency that might be able to drive it out of the Matrass The effervescency proceeds from the violent division of the particles of Gold by the Aqua Regalis for when it finds no more bodies to act upon having divided the Gold into as many parts as 't is possible the ebullition ceases and though the Gold doth all remain in the Aqua Regalis it becomes so imperceptible to us as it seems the Water hath not changed from what it was before it appears so very clear and transparent Indeed the solution has received a Golden colour and becomes yellow The dissolution of Gold is a suspension of this metal in Phlegm made by the edges of Aqua Regalis For it is not enough that the Aqua Regalis does divide the Gold into subtle parts but it is further requisite that its edges do hold up the Gold as if it were like so many Finns otherwise it would always fall to the bottom in a powder though it were never so subtle Now 't is objected that the particles of Gold should fall to the bottom of the liquor because they being joined to the points of the Aqua Regalis they are become more heavy than they were before for the union or adhaesion of two bodies does cause a greater weight than when the two bodies were separated one from the other I answer that we ought to conceive the particles of Gold being suspended or held up in the Phlegm by the acid points much after the manner as we do conceive very well that a small piece of metal fixed to a staff or a plank will swim with the wood in the water for although the small piece of metal sinks to the bottom when it is alone yet it swims when it is affixed to the wood the acid edges are bodies exceeding light in comparison with the particles of Gold and they have likewise their superficies more extended and consequently do take up more room in the phlegm this is that which holds them up and causes them to swim The Oyl of Tartar or the Spirit of Salt Armoniack is used for the Precipitation of Gold because both those Liquors do contain an Alkali Salt which being mixed with Acids must cause a Fermentation Now in this Fermentation the parts of Aqua Regalis that held up the particles of Gold do grow weak and having no more force to retain them longer they must needs precipitate by their own weight Perhaps some may find a difficulty in comprehending how the Volatile Spirit of Salt Armoniack should come to weaken the Aqua Regalis that is it self compounded of Salt Armoniack but there will be no difficulty at all when they shall consider that the force of the Aqua Regalis doth not so much depend on the volatile part of the Salt Armoniack as on the Sea-salt that is in good store in it united with the Aqua Fortis for Sea-salt or Sal Gemma may be substituted very well in the place of Salt Armoniack for making Aqua Regalis as I shall observe hereafter speaking of the composition of this Water It may be also enquired here why the Dissolvents do quit the bodies they held before in Dissolution to betake themselves to some other for example why the Aqua Regalis leaves the Gold it was impregnated with to give way to the Alkali Salt This question is one of the most difficult to resolve well of any in Natural Philosophy Nevertheless I 'le give you my opinion of what can be said most sensibly on this Subject I do suppose that when the Aqua Regalis hath acted upon the Gold so as to dissolve it the points or edges that enabled it to do so are fixed in the particles of Gold But seeing that these little bodies are very hard and consequently hard to penetrate these points do enter but very superficially yet far
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
Sublimates may be revived again into flowing Mercury by mixing them with Lime and distilling them as I have said iâ— the reviving of Cinnabar into Quick-silver because the alkali of Lime destroys those acids thaâ— disguised the Quick-silver Oil or Liquor of Mercury This preparation is an acid liquor loaded with Mercury Put the lotions of the white mass that Turbiâ—â— Mineral was made of into an earthen pan oâ— glass vessel evaporate in Sand all the liquor until there remains at bottom a matter in form oâ— salt which weighs two ounces and a drachm puâ— the pan in a cellar or other cool place and then leave it until this matter be almost all dissolveâ— into liquor It is used for the laying open Venereal Shancres and eating the flesh Pledgets being dipt into it Remarks This liquor is nothing but Mercury so penetrated and divided by the acid Spirits of Vitriol that it can dissolve like a Salt now for that it contains these corrosive Spirits it eats and corrodes where-ever it touches like unto a Sublimate Corrosive This liquor may be made with spirit of Niter and then it will be more violent in its Operation but because it would then pierce too much and cause dangerous accidents I would rather choose to prepare it with Oil of Vitriol If you drop a few drops of the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium into this liquor there will fall immediately a Mercurial Precipitate because the alkali of Tartar will break the edges that held up the Mercury dissolved Another Oil of Mercury This preparation is a Sublimate Corrosive dissolved in spirit of Wine Powder well an ounce of Sublimate Corrosive and put it into a Bolthead pour upon it four ounces of Spirit of Wine well rectified upon salt of Tartar stop well your Bolthead and let it infuse cold six or seven hours the Sublimate will dissolve but if any sediment remains at bottom decant the liquor from it and pouring upon the sediment a little more Spirit of Wine infuse it as before to finish the solution mix your solutions and keep them in a Viol well stopt This is an Oil of Mercury milder than the former it is good in Venereal Shancres especially when there is any fear of a Gangrene you may use it with pledgets like the former Remarks Spirit of Wine well rectified can dissolve sublimate corrosive but it is not able to dissolve Quick-silver nor even Mercurius dulcis the reason of which is that the Sublimate being a Mercury extremely rarified and already as it were suspended by acids the Spirit of Wine insinuates into it by little and little and dissolves its parts but Quick-silver and Mercurius dulcis consisting of parts too close and compact the Spirit of Wine which is a rarified Sulphur cannot give shakes strong enough to disjoyn or separate them This liquor is milder than the former because Spirit of Wine which is a Sulphur does so blunt the acid edges of Sublimate Corrosive that they cannot act with that strength they did when they were at liberty Other Precipitates of Mercury These preparations are only Sublimate Corrosive dissolved and precipitated into powders of different colours Mix 7 or 8 ounces of Sublimate Corrosive powdered in a glass or marble Mortar with 16 or 18 ounces of warm water stir them about for half an hour then let the liquor settle and pour it off by Inclination filter it and divide it into three parts to be put into so many Viols Pour into one of these Viols some drops of the Oil of Tartar made per Deliquium there falls immediately a red Precipitate Drop into another of these Viols some volatile spirit of Sal Armoniack and you have a white Precipitate Pour into the last of these Viols about a spoonful of Lime-water you have a yellow water that is called Phagaedenick-water or a water for Ulcers because it is good to cleanse and heal Ulcers the Chirurgeons do frequently use it especially in Hospitals if you let the liquor settle it will let fall a yellow precipitate To obtain these three Precipitates you have only to pour off the clear water by Inclination wash them and dry them apart Red precipitate may be used like that I described before but it is not so strong it is the truest red precipitate of any The white precipitate has the same virtues as the other Yellow precipitate may be used in Pomatums for the Itch half a drachm or a drachm of it is to be mixed with an ounce of Pomatum The Sublimate which remains at the bottom of the Mortar being dried may be used in Pomatums for the Itch like yellow precipitate Remarks Sublimate being a Mercury loaded with acids common water is able to dissolve some of it because these acids do rarefie it and make a kind of salt of it but because there are not acids enough in it to dissolve all the Mercury the most compact part of it remains at bottom the liquor is filtrated to clear and purifie it the more it is as clear and transparent as Fountain water If by way of Curiosity you should drop into the Viol of red precipitate that I now described some spirit of Sal Armoniack and would shake the liquor a little it would presently turn white and your precipitate would be white but if instead of spirit of Sal Armoniack you would use spirit of Vitriol an Ebullition would rise in it and the red liquor would become clear and transparent as common water Because the Oil of Tartar is an alkali salt dissolved it breaks the edges of the acid which held up the Mercury imperceptible and serv'd as Finns to make it swim in the water so that this Mercury having nothing left to bear it up must needs precipitate by its own weight The same thing happens when spirit of Sal Armoniack is thrown upon the other part of the solution of sublimate Corrosive For this spirit being in like manner an alkali produces the same effect as the Oil of Tartar But although alkali's do all agree in this that they break and destroy acids nevertheless there is always some difference in their action And this evidently appears in those differently coloured precipitates for this diversity can be attributed only to this that they having in several manners wrought upon acids do dispose and modifie the parts of the precipitated body so as they may be capable of making different Refractions of Light These precipitates are no longer poisons though they come from sublimate Corrosive and there 's the same reason for it as there is for the precipitations for seeing that which gave the Corrosion was an acid when this acid is destroyed by such powerful alkali's as are spirit of Sal Armoniack and Oil of Tartar that which remains must become sweet When spirit of Vitriol is thrown upon the liquor of red precipitate there rises an Ebullition because the acid does penetrate the alkali salt of the Oil of Tartar and this alkali being destroyed the acid dissolves
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
It is given also in substance from two grains unto six An Emetick Syrup is prepared with the Glass of Antimony infused in the juice of Quinces or Lemons and Sugar If instead of these acid juices one should use Wine the Syrup would be the more Vomitive The dose of the one and the other Syrup is from two drachms to an ounce and a half and is given especially to nice persons and to Infants Remarks The Antimony must be Calcined within the Chimny and the vapours that fly from it must be avoided as being very injurious to the Breast This Calcination is performed to devest it of some gross Sulphurs that might hinder its Vitrification Some do add to this gray powder Borax others crude Antimony and others Sulphur that it may Vitrifie the more easily The Vitrification happens not until the parts of Antimony have been rendred more firm and stiff than they were before to the end the fiery particles passing and repassing through the matter may form the pores into a strait line so that they can remain in this condition when the Antimony is grown cold and it is the figure of these pores which causes the transparency because they suffer the light to pass through them directly The sulphur and antimony do help it to melt wherefore some do add them to the matter though in a small quantity and their volatile part flies away before the Vitrification The Borax does not only help the fusion but likewise serves to harden the matter when cold that the pores may the longer be preserved strait for although a great part of the sulphurs of Antimony flies away yet there remains enough still in the very substance of the glass which yet do not very long continue in their first position but shutting the pores of the matter do render it opake This accident does not happen to such glasses as contain no Sulphur because their parts being always preserved stiff and firm their pores do never become obstructed Glass of Antimony receiving more Calcination than the other preparations should consequently be less Vomitive by reason of the dispersion and loss of much Sulphur wherein its Vomitive virtue doth consist Nevertheless experience shews us the contrary for it works with more force as I have said and the reason of it is because no Salt is used in the making of this glass whereas in the other preparations Salt-peter is used which by its fixt parts hinders the activity of some part of the Sulphurs thus although there doth remain but a small quantity of Sulphur in the Glass of Antimony yet as little as there is being in great motion it causes a greater disposition to Vomit The Glass of Antimony may be corrected by Calcining it in a crucible with a third part of Salt-peter then washing it divers times with hot water it is to be dried This powder is not so strong in its operation as the Glass of Antimony because the Salt-peter has fixed some part of the Sulphurs of Antimony It works much like the Crocus metallorum of which I am to treat Liver of Antimony or Crocus Metallorum This preparation is an Antimony opened by Salt-peter and by fire which have made it half glass and which have given it a Liver-colour Take a pound of Antimony and so much Salt-peter powder them and mix them well together put this mixture into an Iron mortar and cover it with a tyle leave an open place nevertheless through which you may convey a coal of fire and take it out again the matter will flame and cause a great detonation which being over and the mortar grown cold strike against the bottom that the matter may fall down then separate the dross with a hammer from the shining part which is called Liver of Antimony from its colour To make the Emetick wine you must infuse an ounce of this Liver of Antimony in powder in a quart of White-wine four and twenty hours and so let it settle the Dose of this wine is from half an ounce to three ounces That which is called Crocus Metallorum is nothing but the Liver of Antimony washt several times with warm water and afterwards dried It is used as the Liver of Antimony to make the Emetick wine and it is given likewise in substance to Vomit strongly the dose is from two to eight grains Remarks This preparation is a more impure Glass of Antimony than that I described and consequently it is more opaque it works not so violently as the glass The Liver of Antimony hath a different strength according to the proportion of Niter that enters into it when there 's more Niter than Antimony it is the less Vomitive not only because great store of the Sulphurs of Antimony are lost in the strong detonation that it raises but also because there remains more fixt parts of the Salt-peter which do joyn and unite with the Sulphurs that remain in the matter Thus if instead of a pound of Salt-peter you should use twenty ounces as many do you 'd have a Liver of Antimony less Vomitive than that I described Now on the contrary when less Salt-peter than Antimony is used the Liver that proceeds from this mixture is not so Vomitive as that I now described the reason of it is that the Sulphurs of Antimony have not been sufficiently stirred by the Salt-peter in so little a quantity for Antimony becomes not Vomitive but only when it hath been sufficiently opened either by fire or some Salts The most convenient proportion then that can be observed to render the Liver of Antimony as Vomitive as may be is to take equal parts according to my description The strong detonation that happens when fire is put to the matter is not caused through the flagration of Salt-peter as almost every body hath thought through want of sufficient reflexion I shall prove in its proper place that it can never take flame and that its volatile parts do serve for a kind of Bellows or Vehicle to rarifie and exalt the Sulphurs of Antimony A Liver of Antimony is prepared with equal quantities of Antimony Niter and Sea-salt decrepitated and because these salts do give it a red colour like unto the Opale this preparation has been called Magnesia Opalina it is less Emetick than the other by reason of the addition of sea-salt which fixes the saline Sulphur of Antimony Several other ways of preparing the Liver of Antimony have been invented but I am contented with having given you the best of all and the easiest to prepare If you use ordinary salt-peter in this Operation you 'l obtain eight ounces and two drachms of Liver of Antimony but if you use purified salt-peter you 'l get but six ounces and a half This difference of quantity proceeds from the nature of salt-peter for the more volatile parts this Mineral salt contains the more apt it is to carry off some parts of the Antimony Now purified Salt-peter is much more volatile than the common sort
any ebullition or precipitation by the mixing acids with Lime-water Phagedenick Water This water is a mixture of Sublimate and Lime-water Put a pound of Quick-lime into a large earthen pan and quench it with seven or eight pints of hot water after the Lime hath infused five or six hours and is sunk to the bottom pour off the water by Inclination and Filtrate it this is called Lime-water To each pint of this water are added fifteen or twenty grains of Sublimate Corrosive in powder and the water presently turns yellow they are stirred together a good while in a glass or marble mortar and this water is used for cleansing old Ulcers it eats proud flesh and is likewise used in the Gangreen by adding Spirit of Wine to it and sometimes Spirit of Vitriol Remarks Lime-water changes the colour of Sublimate Corrosive because being an alkali it destroys some part of the acids which according as they are diversly mixed with the Mercury do give it different colours The precipitate of the Phagedenick water being washed and dried is esteemed by some to be a good Purgative in Venereal cases It is given in Pills for fear of blacking the Teeth the dose is from one grain to three it purges upward and downward and works much like Turbith mineral Caustick stones or Cauteries This operation is the salt of Gravelled ashes or the Lees of wine Calcined rendred more corrosive than it was before by the igneous parts of Quick-lime Put into a great earthen pan one part of Quick-lime and two parts of Gravelled ashes or Calcined Tartar powder and mix them pour good store of hot water upon your matter and leaving it in infusion five or six hours boil it a little afterwards pass that which is clear through brown paper and evaporate it in a Copper basin or earthen pan there will remain at bottom a salt which you must put over the fire in a Crucible it will dissolve and boil untill all the remaining humidity is evaporated When you find it at the bottom like to an Oil cast it into a basin and cut it into pieces while it is warm put these Cauteries quickly into a strong glass bottle stop it with wax and a bladder for the air would easily dissolve it into a liquor you must also take care to keep it in a dry place These Cauteries are the strongest of all that are made and they are but half an hour in making Remarks Gravelled ashes are only a Calcined Tartar for they are made by burning the Lees of wine but because these Lees by reason of their liquidity have fermented more than common Tartar the salt which is drawn from them is of a more penetrating nature than other Tartar and consequently is fitter to make Causticks with The Quick-lime does also help to make them much the stronger for the igneous parts which it contains do mix with this salt and make it the more active and corrosive You must not powder the Quick-lime for the little fiery bodies would then fly away before they could be received into the water When you Filtrate the solution you must put a cloth under the brown paper to support it otherwise it would be presently corroded Ten or twelve ounces of salt would be drawn from the Gravelled ashes alone but the slakt Lime retains a great deal of it If you have used in this operation sixteen ounces of gravelled ashes and eight ounces of quick-lime you will have eight ounces of your Causticks If you would have the Causticks in edges you must put a hot Iron Spatule into the Crucible whilst the matter is in Fusion and form the edges in a flat bason This Caustick salt is very easily dissolved and in the making of it you must not stay till it appears dry at the bottom of the vessel as you do for other salts for it remains still fluid though all the humidity of it be gone therefore you must put a little of it to cool that you may see whether it be in its due consistence The reason why it thus remains in Fusion is because it is full of little fiery bodies which it has taken from the Quick-lime and which have so disposed its parts to penetration for all solid bodies which are put in Fusion by fire do receive this liquid form for no other reason but because the little fiery bodies are become mixed with their parts and have set them into a great agitation If you should use lime that is slakt the Causticks would not so easily melt and if you draw the salt from Gravelled ashes alone it will coagulate in drying much as other salts do wherefore this Fusion of the Causticks must needs proceed from the fiery bodies which were contained in the Quick-lime Causticks may likewise be made divers other ways but this description will deserve a preference before others when you would have them be of a quick operation Inks called Sympathetical These operations are liquors of a different nature which do destroy one another the first is an infusion of Quick-lime and Orpin the second a water turned black by means of burned Cork and the third is a vinegar impregnated with Saturn Take an ounce of Quick-lime and half an ounce of Orpin powder and mix them put your mixture into a matrass and pour upon it five or six ounces of water that the water may be three fingers breadth above the powder stop your matrass with Cork Wax and a Bladder set it in digestion in a mild sand-heat ten or twelve hours shaking the matrass from time to time then let it settle the liquor becomes clear like common water Burn Cork and quench it in Aqua vitae then dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of water wherein you shall have melted a little Gumm Arabick in order to make an Ink as black as common Ink. You must separate the Cork that can't dissolve and if the Ink be not black enough add more Cork as before Get the Impregnation of Saturn made with Vinegar distil'd as I have shewn before or else dissolve so much salt of Saturn as a quantity of water is able to receive write on Paper with a new Pen dipt in this liquor take notice of the place where you writ and let it dry nothing at all will appear Write upon the invisible writing with the Ink made of burnt Cork and let it dry that which you had writ will appear as if it had been done with common Ink. Dip a little Cotton in the first liquor made of Lime and Orpin but the liquor must be first setled and clear rub the place you writ upon with this Cotton and that which appeared will presently disappear and that which was not seen will appear Another Experiment Take a Book four fingers breadth in bigness or bigger if you will write on the first leaf with your Impregnation of Saturn or else put a paper that you have writ upon between the leaves turn to t'other side of the Book and having
writ that if Aqua Regalis dissolves Gold and cannot dissolve Silver the reason of it is that the gross points of spirit of Niter or Aqua fortis are subtilized by the mixture of sal Armoniack and are rendred fit to enter into the small pores of Gold whereas the delicate Fabrick of these same points does not leave them the necessary strength nor motion to divide the parts of Silver whose pores are a great deal bigger But this way of arguing does not agree with experience for what likelihood is there that the points of spirit of Niter are so subtilized by the penetration and division of the parts of sal Armoniack or where shall we find any example that after a considerable effervescency of two salts met together in conflict the acidity grows sharper than it was before this is a thing that can never be proved On the contrary every body knows well enough that no effervescency happens but the acid is in part blunted or broken thereby Moreover the Argument supposes that spirit of Niter does break its subtilest points in violently contending with the Sal Armoniack since also that in sal Armoniack there are alkali salts whose property it is to destroy acids I could further add here that the conjunction of salt with spirit of Niter should of necessity render its points more gross than they were and that the Crystals which are drawn by aqua Regalis have their shape not so keen as those that are drawn by aqua Fortis But that which I have said is so probable in itself and so easie to be convinced of if a man takes never so little pains to consider it that I should but amuse my Reader to little purpose if I should offer to give any proofs of it Neither do I find it convenient to make a long discourse in explicating how Silver which has lesser pores is more susceptible of the impressions of Air and Fire than Gold which has larger seeing I have already supposed that the matter intercepted between the pores of Gold is more compact and consequently more hard to separate than that of Silver Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack This preparation is a volatile salt raised from sal Armoniack by the means of Quick-lime and dissolved into a liquor Take eight ounces of sal Armoniack and four and twenty ounces of Quick-lime powder them apart and when you haved mixed them in a mortar pour upon them four ounces of water and put it quickly into a Retort whose half must remain empty Set your Retort in a sand Furnace and fitting to it a great Receiver and luting the junctures exactly begin the distillation without fire for a quarter of an hour afterwards increasing it by little and little unto the second degree continue it until nothing more comes forth take off your Receiver and pour out the Spirit immediately into a Viol turning away your head as much as may be to avoid a very subtile vapour that continually rises from it Stop the bottle close with wax to keep the Spirit in you will have of it five ounces and six drachms It is an excellent Remedy for all diseases that proceed from Obstructions and corruption of humours such as Malignant feavers the Epilepsie Palsie Plague Small-pox c. It drives by perspiration or by Urine the dose is from six drops to twenty in a glass of Balm or Carduus water Remarks Quick-lime which is an alkali destroys the strength of the acid Sea-salt which in a manner bound up the volatile salts in the Sal Armoniack whence it comes to pass that as soon as Lime and Sal Armoniack are mixed together there exhales an unsufferable smell of Urine for the volatile salts coming forth abundantly do so fill the Nose and Mouth of the Artist that he would never be able to put the mixture into the Retort if he did not take good care to turn away his head while his hands are at work Water is added to it to liquifie these volatile salts for if there were nothing to moisten them they would suddenly sublime to the neck of the Retort and stopping it all together would break it to pieces You must stop the Retort with your hand so soon as you have poured the water into it and shaking it one minute you must hasten all you can to fit to it the Receiver and to lute well the junctures for the Quick-lime does presently grow hot so soon as its body is opened and this heat which is very considerable would spend the more volatile of the salts if there were no care taken to preserve them The Quick-lime being wetted does swell and take up a great deal of room wherefore the Retort must be filled but half full that there may remain room enough for the Spirits to rarefie in you must also use a large Receiver in which the vapours that rise in abundance may be able to circulate with ease This Spirit is nothing but a solution of volatile salts in water if you would sublime and separate it from the water you must put the liquor into a matrass with its head and proceed as I shall shew when I describe the volatile salt of Vipers but this salt being dry flies away more easily than when it continues dissolved in water so that it were better keep it as it is This is a stronger Spirit than that which is prepared with Salt of Tartar because the little fiery bodies of the Quick-lime which are mixed with it have quickned the motion of the volatile salts likewise these fiery particles are they that do hinder the coagulation of this Spirit with spirit of Wine when they are mixed together for there must be a cohaesion and repose of parts in order to make a Coagulum You must also have a care when you remove the Receiver not to hold your head over it for this volatile salt suffering a greater separation than before enters the Nose immmediately and hinders Respiration insomuch that several persons have been seen to fall in a swound by that means alone Now to avoid this accident you had best have ready a wet cloth to stop the Receiver with so soon as it is unluted This Spirit is an excellent Menstruum to make precipitations with it destroys acids exceeding well as do all other volatile alkalis it is used to precipitate Gold after it is dissolved It is good in those diseases I named because it opens the pores and drives the humours by perspiration or by Urine according to the disposition of bodies moreover as it is an alkali it destroys the acids which caused these diseases Again it sometimes causes sleep because it dulls the keenness of acid salts which entring into the little conduits of the Brain do cause perpetual watchings It is better give volatile Spirits in Sudorifick waters than broth because the broth being taken hot the heat would evaporate the better part of the volatile Spirits before a man could reach the Porringer to his mouth You
is used also in Unguents for the Itch. Remarks This Operation is intended only to rarefie the Sulphur that being become more open it may work the better Sulphur is proper against Infirmities of the Lungs when they proceed from a Viscosity that sticks to them because it deterges but if it should be given to such as are too much dried with a Feaver it proves very ill in that it raises a greater motion of the humours it cures Tettars and the Itch because opening the Pores it drives out the subtler part of the humor but yet the grosser part remaining within they do frequently return again You may use a glass head to fit upon the body If you mix one part of Sal Polychrestum with two pounds of Sulphur and sublime them together as those I have described you 'l have white flowers of Sulphur which are thought to be better for distempers of the Breast than those others they are given in the same dose This whiteness proceeds from a very exact attenuation which Sal Polychrestum gives to the Sulphur the Sal Polychrestum which remains at bottom of the Cucurbite may be Calcined and if you afterwards Purifie it by solution Evaporation and Filtration it will be as good as before Magistery of Sulphur This Operation is a Sulphur dissolved by an Alkali salt and precipitated by an acid Take four ounces of the Flower of Sulphur and twelve ounces of the Salt of Tartar or Salt-peter fixed by the coals put them into a large glazed pot and pour upon them six or seven pints of water Cover the pot and setting it on the fire make the matter boil five or six hours or until being become red the Sulphur is all dissolved Then Filtrate the dissolution and pour upon it by little and little distilled Vinegar or some other acid there will presently appear a Milk let it settle that a white powder may precipitate to the bottom of the vessel pour off by Inclination that which is clear and washing this powder five or six times with water dry it in the shade this is called the Magistery or Milk of Sulphur it is thought good for all diseases of the Lungs or Breast the dose is from six to sixteen grains in some convenient liquor Remarks Water alone is not able to dissolve such a gross body as Sulphur wherefore an Alkali salt is added to divide it into small imperceptible particles The acid liquor pierces the Alkali and by separating its parts makes it let go its hold so that the Sulphur gathers it self together and falls down to the bottom in a white powder This powder is washed to take away the impression of the Salt of Tartar and the acid that might remain among it after which it may be said to be a Flower of Sulphur Alcoholised The change of its yellow colour into a white comes from this that being more rarefied it hath a smoother surface then it had before to reflect the light in a direct line to our eyes This Operation may give us an Idea of what happens in Chylification and in Sanguification for after the same manner as the Sulphur does become white when it has been reduced into a Magistery or fine powder so the aliments having been fermented and their substance attenuated in our stomachs the Chyle receives a white colour and after the manner as the Sulphur when intirely dissolved does turn of a red colour so the parts of Chyle having been altogether exalted and dissolved by repeated circulations does become red and turn into bloud This bloud turns into a Pus and becomes white in Imposthumes because the acid which is found in them having as it were fixed and gathered together its insensible parts does make them recover again the colour of Chyle You must take care not to let there be any Silver vessel where this Operation is performed because the vapour which proceeds from Sulphur will make it black Fifteen grains of this powder will do as much as double the quantity of Flower of Sulphur for diseases of the Breast and it doth not heat so much Balsom of Sulphur This Operation is a solution of the oily parts of common Sulphur in oil of Turpentine Put into a small matrass an ounce and a half of Flower of Sulphur and pour upon it eight ounces of Oil of Turpentine place your matrass in sand and give it a digesting fire two hours afterwards encrease it a little for four hours and the Oil will take a red colour let the vessel cool then separate the clear Balsom from the Sulphur that could not dissolve This Balsom is excellent for Ulcers of the Lungs and Breast the dose is from one drop to six in some proper liquor This Balsom may be reduced to the consistence of an Unguent by evaporating some part of it and it is thus used to cleanse wounds and ulcers To make the Aniseed Balsom of Sulphur you must use the Oil drawn from Aniseed instead of the Oil of Turpentine and proceed as I have said it is more agreeable than the former and has less acrimony Remarks There is no need of a great fire for this Operation because Sulphur being a fat body doth easily incorporate with Oils and commonly gives them a red colour When you would have this Balsom taken in Potion you must dissolve it in a little yelk of an Egg that it may mix in waters or broths That which remains undissolved in the matrass is the acid or saline part of Sulphur and is found crystallized A Balsom of Sulphur may be likewise made with Oil of Linseed instead of the Oil of Turpentine for wounds Spirit of Sulphur This Spirit is the acid part of Sulphur turned into a liquor by fire Provide a great earthen pan and set in the middle of it a little earthen pan turn'd upside down and then another such pan on this filled with melted Sulphur cover both these Pans with a great glass tunnel made on purpose with a neck as long as that of a matrass and the bigness of a thumb fire the Sulphur and do not stop the hole of the tunnel but let the air come in to increase its burning for it would otherwise go out When your Sulphur is spent put new in its place and continue to do so until you find under the lower pan as much Spirit as you need keep it in a Viol. It is put into Juleps to give them an agreable acidity to qualifie the heat of continued Feavers and is a good diuretick Some do prescribe it for diseases of the Breast but because acids are apt to give a Cough it may therefore do more hurt than good to that part Remarks A great many Machines have been invented to draw the Spirit of Sulphur the ordinary one is the glass bell under which the Brimstone is burnt and the Spirits coagulating against its sides distil into an earthen pan that is set underneath after the same manner as I have shewed in the description of
CHAP. I. Of Jalap JAlap is a grayish root brought out of America cut into slices and dried it grows in the Province of Mechoacan and in several other places the best is that which is most compact and filled with Resinous veins It purges watery humors very well and is therefore usually given in the Dropsie and Gout the dose is from ten grains to a drachm in broth or White-wine Rosine or Magistery of Jalap This Operation is a solution of the oily or resinous part of Jalap made in Spirit of wine and precipitated by common water Put a pound of good Jalap grosly powdered into a large matrass pour upon it Spirit of wine Alcoholized until it be four fingers above the matter stop the matrass with another whose neck enters into it and luting the junctures with a wet bladder digest it three days in a sand-heat the Spirit of wine will receive a red Tincture decant it and then pour more upon the Jalap proceed as before and mixing your dissolutions filtrate them through brown paper Put that which you have filtred into a glass Cucurbite and distil in a vaporous bath two thirds of the Spirit of wine which may serve you another time for the same Operation Pour that which remains at the bottom of the Cucurbite into a large earthen Pan filled with water and it will turn into a milk which you must leave a day to settle and then separate the water by Inclination you 'l find the Rosine at bottom like unto Turpentine Wash it several times with water and dry it in the Sun it will grow hard like common Rosine powder it fine and it will become white Keep it in a Viol it purges Serosities It is given in Dropsies and for all Obstructions the dose is from four to twelve grains mixt in Electuary or else in Pills The Rosines of Turbith Scammony and Benjamin may be drawn after the same manner Remarks The Spirit of wine which is a Sulphur is likewise a very convenient Menstruum to extract Rosines which are gross Sulphurs you must use enough Spirit to dissolve all the Rosine and give it a sufficient time to open all the body of the Jalap after which a good part of the Spirit of wine is drawn off and may serve for the same use again provided you distil it with a very gentle fire for if you let it be too strong it will carry along with it good part of the Rosine A great deal of water is poured upon it to weaken the Spirit of wine which held the Rosine dissolved and then it revives again and its parts approaching one another there is made a kind of milk which clears up according as the Rosine precipitates If you have used sixteen ounces of Jalap you will draw an ounce and six drachms of Rosine well washed and dried From six ounces of good Scammony you draw five ounces of Rosine by the like preparation Some do evaporate the Spirit of wine and without using any Precipitation they find their Rosine in an Extract at the bottom of the vessel but then it becomes black like pitch All the Purgative virtue of the Jalap consists in the Rosine an Alkali salt may be drawn from the remainder but in a very small quantity You must observe to give the Rosine of Jalap always mixt with something else that may separate its parts for if it be taken alone it will be apt to adhere to the inward membrane of the Intestines and so cause Ulcers by its acrimonious quality Moreover Apothecaries should observe to mix it in a little yolk of an Egg when they would dissolve it in a Potion for it sticks to the mortar like Turpentine when it is humected by any aqueous liquor It may be likewise incorporated with some Electuary and then it easily dissolves Twelve grains of this Rosine work the same effect as a drachm of Jalap in substance It is not yet sufficiently known wherein the Purgative virtue of mixts doth consist to give it a right explication It is easily conceived that these effects do follow the Fermentation that the Remedy hath caused but no body can find what it is that makes this Remedy be Purgative rather than several others which seem to have as great a disposition as this to cause such Fermentation wherefore I shall not pretend to clear the knowledge of this Phaenomenon I shall only endeavour to give some reason for a very considerable difficulty which is to know how Hydragogues do work in our bodies and why they rather purge water than other humors A general reason that may be given of it is that all Hydragogue Remedies have more acrimony than other Purgatives and consequently they are better able to open the Lymphatick vessels But it may be further said that these Remedies do so cut and attenuate the Viscosities which are found in bodies that they make them be like water and there is no difficulty in conceiving this last reason when it is considered that these Remedies which do purge water are all of them Resinous or else salts for after the same manner as we see Sulphurs or Liquified salts dissolve Sulphureous bodies so do Rosines which are Sulphurs and salts dissolve Viscosities in the body which are compounded of a great deal of Sulphur But there is this difference between the effects of Salt and of Rosines that the Salt passing quick and making but little impression doth dissolve only that which is found in what is called the first Region of the body wherefore it purges but mildly whereas the Rosine by reason of its viscous hooked parts remains a longer time in the body and leasurely causes a Fermentation not only about the parts where it immediately works but operates on the brain and other remote places from whence it forces Phlegm to discharge it self into the Belly and this is that which causes Rosinous Hydragogues to purge more than Salts CHAP. II. Of Rhubarb RHubarb is a Purgative root brought from China It takes its name from Barbary where it hath grown in abundance it is likewise called Rheum The best sort is that which being broke appears of a Nutmeg colour within Its virtues are so many and so great that if they were sufficiently known and men could generally use it without that nauseousness which too commonly attends it mankind would have infinitely less need than they have of the Art of Physick in most cases and men might perhaps preserve themselves from most diseases without any other help Extract of Rhubarb This Extract is a separation of the purer parts of Rhubarb from the terrestrious Bruise six or eight ounces of good Rhubarb and steep it twelve hours warm in a sufficient quantity of Succory water so as the water may be four fingers above the Rhubarb let it just boil and pass the liquor through a cloth infuse the remainder in so much more Succory water as before then strain the Infusion and express it strongly mix your Impregnations or
Receiver Though the Guaiacum that is used be a very dry body yet abundance of liquor is drawn from it for if you put into the Retort four pounds of this Wood at sixteen ounces to the pound you 'l draw nine and thirty ounces of Spirit and Phlegm and five ounces and a half of Oil there will remain in the Retort nineteen ounces of coals from which you may draw half an ounce or six drachms of an Alkali salt The Oil of Guaiacum is acrimonious by reason of the Salts it has carried along with it and it is the gravity of these salts that does precipitate it to the bottom of the water The Oil of Box and most others that are drawn this same way do the like These sorts of Oil are good for the Tooth-ach because they stop the nerve with their ramous parts hindring thereby the air from entring Moreover by means of the acrimonious salts which they contain they do dissipate a phlegm which uses to get within the gum and causes the pain but yet by reason of their fetid smell men have much ado to take them into their mouth That which is called Spirit of Guaiacum is nothing but a dissolution of the Essential salt of the Plant in a little phlegm The fixt salt is an Alkali that works much like others of that kind nevertheless it is very probable that the fixt salts of Vegetables let them be never so much Calcined do always retain some particular virtue of the Plant they were drawn from If one would take the pains to Calcine the earth that remains he would obtain a salt though but very little of it CHAP. IV. Of Paper THE Papyrus of the Antients which gave the name to our PAPER was a tree growing in Aegypt near the river Nilus The bark of this tree was prepared and men did write upon it but our Paper is made of old rags or clouts which are beaten exceeding fine in Paper-mills and then put into the press in order to make Paper with them This Paper has some use in Physick pieces of it are lighted in a room and Hysterical women are made to receive the fume of it they are commonly relieved with this disagreeable smell as by many others of the like nature Oil and Spirit of Paper Fold white paper into little pellets and fill a great earthen Retort or glass one luted with them place your Retort in a Reverberatory furnace Fit to it a large capacious Receiver lute well the junctures give it a very little fire for two hours only to heat the Retort increase it with two or three coals and continue it so for two or three hours then quicken it to the third degree The Receiver will be filled with white clouds put out the fire when no more will come forth the operation will be ended in seven or eight hours When the vessels are cold unlute them pour what you find in the Receiver into a Tunnel lined with a coffin of brown paper the Spirit will pass through the filter and a thick black and ill-scented oil will remain within it keep the oil for use in a Viol. It is a very good remedy in deafness some drops of it are put into the ear with a little cotton from time to time it quiets the noise of the ear it is also good for Tettars and for the Itch the parts being anointed a little with it it cures the tooth-ach much like the Oil of Guaiacum it is good likewise to repress hysterical vapours women so affected are to smell to it You must rectifie the Spirit by distilling it in sand It is an Aperitive and may be given where there is occasion for a diuretick the dose is from six drops to twenty in some proper liquor Remarks The Vitriol and other drogues which are in Ink might alter the virtue of the Oil and Spirit of paper wherefore it is better to use clean than written paper The receiver must be large in order to give room to the vapours to circulate in for they come forth with that force that they would break the vessel if they had not room enough to play in you must manage the fire with prudence for if you make it too great the first hours the Spirits will break the Retort If you have used in this operation four and twenty ounces of paper you will draw two ounces and two drachms of Oil and thirteen ounces and a half of Spirit there will remain in the Retort seven ounces and a half of coals The Oil does not pass with the Spirit through the coffin in the tunnel because it is too thick its black colour and its ill smell do come from the fire It is good for deafness because that disease is often caused by a thick or phlegmatick humor which dries and hardens in the ear so as to stop the auditory nerve Now this Oil dissolves and rarefies this humor and disposes it the better to come out And this is the reason that it dissipates the noises in the ears for they were caused by winds which this humor had shut in The Spirit is very acid in comparison with other Spirits of Vegetables because it comes from an essential salt which has been put into a very considerable motion Again it is probable that by the many different forms which the flax and canvas have received in order to make cloth and afterwards Paper and by the fermentations which they may have received their fixed salt may be volatilized and become of the nature of that which is called Essential Now in the distillation all this salt has been dissolved into a liquor by the phlegm and turned into that which is called Spirit that which confirms me in this sentiment is that there can be hardly any fixed salt at all drawn from the coal which remains in the Retort wherefore the coal is thrown away as useless it takes fire exceeding easily by reason of a light soot that is fallen upon it and which gave it the black colour CHAP. V. Of Cinnamon CInnamon is the Bark of a Tree as large as an Olive Tree it grows in the East-Indies and is much like that which the Cassia Lignea is taken from but it is not the very same as some will needs think the best Cinnamon is that which has the strongest smell is quick upon the taste and of a reddish colour The Cassia Lignea differs from Cinnamon in that it is not so biting to the taste smells not so strong and becomes mucilaginous in the mouth when it is chewed which Cinnamon doth not do Both Cinnamon and Cassia Lignea are good to fortifie the stomach to help perspiration of gross humors to strengthen and rejoice the heart and in hysterical cases Oil or Essence of Cinnamon and its Aethereal water Bruise four pounds of good Cinnamon and infuse it in six quarts of hot water leave it in digestion in an earthen vessel well stopt two days pour the Infusion into a large Copper
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
they do put one drop of it into the aking tooth and this allaies the pain in a very little time by reason of the Opium but there is one thing to be apprehended from this use of Opiates and that is deafness some have thereby become deaf though indeed that rarely happens You may rectifie the Spirit of Cloves by distilling it in sand And when you have distilled two thirds of it you must keep it in a Viol well stopt and fling away the phlegm which remains at bottom of the Cucurbite The Spirit of Cloves is a good stomachick it is good to help concoction to comfort the heart to perspire ill humors and to provoke Seed the dose is from six drops to twenty in some convenient liquor CHAP. VIII Of Nutmegs NVtmeg is the fruit of a Tree as big as a Pear-Tree which grows in the Isle Banda in the West-Indies It is called Nucista Nux Moschata Myristica Vnguentaria and Aromatites While it is green it is clothed with two Barks but when it comes to maturity the uppermost chaps and lets the second appear which is tender and very fragrant This last Bark is called Mace and improperly the Flower of Nutmegs The best Nutmeg is that which is most weighty it is mixed in Carminative Hysterical Remedies Sometimes a sort of Nutmegs called Male-Nutmeg is found at the Druggist which differs from the common sort in that it is longer and weaker Oil of Nutmeg Take sixteen ounces of good Nutmegs beat them in a Mortar until they are almost in a Paste and put them upon a boulter cover them with a piece of strong Cloth and an earthen pan over that put your cloth over a kettle half filled with water and set the kettle upon the fire that the vapour of the water may gently warm the Nutmegs when you shall find upon touching the pan that it is so hot you cannot endure your hand upon it you must take off the boulter and putting the matter into a linnen cloth take its four corners and tye them quickly together put them into a press between a couple of warm plates set the pan underneath and there will come forth an Oil which congeals as it grows cold express the matter as strongly as you are able to draw out all the Oil then keep it in a pot well stopt this Oil is very stomachick being applyed outwardly or else given inwardly The dose is from four grains to ten in broth or some more convenient liquor It is commonly mixed with Oil of Mastich to chafe the Region of the stomach And this way the green Oils of Anis-seed Fennil Dill and Mace may be drawn Remarks The Nutmegs must be well beaten or else they will yield little Oil this way of warming them is called the Vaporous Bath The ordinary method is to heat the Nutmegs in a kettle and then express them strongly but because the warming them that way carries off a great deal of its volatile parts the Oil never proves so good as when made with the circumstances I have mentioned for thus the matter heats insensibly by the vapour of the water and alters not its virtue in the least and if any water doth mix with the Nutmegs it is easily separated from the Oil. They who desire to have it very fragrant may set it over a vessel of wine instead of water If you draw the Oil from sixteen ounces of Anis-seed the way I have described you may obtain from six drachms to nine drachms and a half of it according to the goodness of the Anis-seed you use this Oil will be of a green colour The Oils of Almonds Wall-nuts Gold seeds Hazle nuts Poppy and Behen must be only beaten and so put into the press without heating because they do yield their Oils very easily and because these Oils are often taken inwardly it is better to draw them without the help of fire to avoid the Empyreumatical impression it would otherwise take CHAP. IX Distillation of an Odoriferous Plant such as Balm its Extract and fixt Salt TAke a good quantity of Balm newly gathered when it is in its vigour beat it well in a Mortar and put it into a large earthen pot make a strong decoction of other Balm and pour of it into the pot enough to swet it sufficiently cover the pot and leave it two days indigestion then put the Matter into a large Copper Vesica and cover it with its Refrigeratory or Head Tin'd on the inside set it in a Furnace and fitting to it a Receiver lute the junctures with a wet bladder make a fire of the second degree under it and distil about half the water you poured upon the Balm then let the Vessels cool and unlute them You 'l find in the Receiver a very good Balm-water put it into a bottle and expose it to the Sun five or six days open then stop it and keep it for use It is used in Hysterical Maladies in the Palsie Apoplexy and Malignant Feavers it is given from two to six ounces Express through a linnen cloth strongly that which remains in the body and let the Expression settle filter it and evaporate the water with a gentle heat in an Earthen vessel until there remains an Extract in the consistence of thick hony 'T is a good remedy for such diseases as proceed from corrupt Humors it works by perspiration or by Urine the dose is from a Scrupule to a Drachm dissolved in its proper water Dry the Residence that remains after expression and burn it with good store of other Balm likewise dried you may obtain an Alkali salt from the ashes by a Lixivium the same way I spoke of concerning the salt of Guaiacum This Salt is Aperitive and Sudorifick the dose is from ten grains to a Scrupule in Balm-water The Water Extract and Salt of all Odoriferous Plants such as Sage Marjoram Time Mint Hyssop c. may be drawn after the same manner Remarks Perhaps some will think it strange that I add water for the distillation of Balm but those who use to work on this sort of Herbs do know well enough that being dry substances of themselves there is no good distilling them without first wetting them and besides the water that is added doth only serve to imbibe the volatile parts as the Fermentation operates and when the matter is heated the more spirituous part as being the lighter rises first and savours much less of the Empyreume than if the herb were distilled without first wetting it You must observe in these distillations to give a fire from the second to the third degree because if it were made too little none of the Essential or volatile Salt of the Plant would rise and if it were too strong the water would taste of the Empyreume wherefore to make a good distillation you must let one drop follow another slowly The waters so soon as they are distilled have commonly no great smell but when they have lain some time in the
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
Salt may bruise the Crude Tartar and wrapping it up in paper may Calcine it until it turns into a white mass after which they may draw the salt by a Lixivium as I said before I do commonly draw this way four ounces of very white and well purified salt of Tartar from each pound of red Tartar a little more may be drawn from white Tartar but it is no better than the other I have observed that when water is thrown upon the mass of Tartar newly Calcined it heats much like unslack'd Lime when wetted the reason of which is the same that I have given to explicate the Ebullition of Quick-lime in water all the difference is this that Tartar Calcined containing a great deal of Salt does more easily imbibe water than Quick-lime Some do Calcine salt of Tartar with a little sulphur to hinder it from dissolving so easily by the air and to render it the whiter but this is no good practice because the acid Spirit of sulphur destroys some part of the Alkali and this does come to happen by reason that the pores of this Salt by being thus Calcined are not so open as they were and the air therefore cannot so easily melt it If you would make Salt of Tartar and other Alkali fixt salts very white indeed you must Calcine them all alone in a great fire until they become white and then purifie them by Dissolution Filtration and Coagulation As for their proneness to dissolve this is natural to Alkali salts and cannot be taken from them but by destroying their nature Nor can I approve the addition of any quantity of Niter to the Calcination of Tartar as some do because the volatile parts of Niter being exalted the fixt do remain and by their acidity do diminish the virtue of Salt of Tartar Although the Salt of Tartar be tolerably white after the first purification yet if you do calcine threescore and four ounces of it and filtrate it as I have said you will draw still abundance of earthy matter and if in curiosity you should dry this earth you would find three ounces and a half of it Alkali salts are Aperitive in that they dissolve those slimy humors which caused Obstructions and it is for the same reason that Salt of Tartar does correct Senna and hinders it from griping for the substance of Senna being viscous this does rarefie it and make it work the quicker it may also serve to dissolve some viscous phlegm that sticks in the guts which as it is going off causes griping pains The liquor or Oil made per Deliquium is only a Salt of Tartar dissolved by the moisture of the Cellar If you would make it quickly you must dissolve the Salt of Tartar in as much Rain water well filtrated as is needful to turn it into a liquor It may be used like the former it cures Tettars and discusses Tumors because being an Alkali it sweetens the keen Salts which fomented these distempers When Salt of Tartar or its liquor is dissolved in water newly distilled from some green plant the water will turn green and the greener the plant is from which the water was distilled this salt does make the water so much the greener The water of Night-shade turns greener with it than Balm-water Balm-water greener than Eye-bright-water and so of the rest The reason of this effect proceeds from this that the Alkali salt of Tartar does rarefie and make appear many little parts of the plant which did rise with the water in the distillation and did not till then appear But the water must be sure to be distilled with a fire sufficiently great for if it should have been distilled in a Balneum or such like heat there would not appear the least shew of green though an Alkali salt were mixed with it Cherry-water Rose-water and many other distilled waters of fruits or flowers do give no colour by the addition of Salt of Tartar Tincture of Salt of Tartar This Operation is an exaltation of some parts of Salt of Tartar in Spirit of wine Melt in a good Crucible twenty ounces of Salt of Tartar in great fire and when it is in Fusion cover it with a Tile and put coals round it blow about it so as to raise a greater heat than if you were melting Gold continue this degree of fire about six hours or until your Salt of Tartar is of a red marble colour which you may know by thrusting the end of a Spatula into the Crucible for when it is drawn out you may look upon a little matter that is stuck to it then take out the Crucible with a pair of tongs and turn it upside down into a warm mortar the matter will coagulate in a little time powder it presently and put it into a matrass warmed before-hand pour upon it Spirit of wine Tartarized until it swims four fingers above the matter stop the matrass with another to make a double-vessel lute the junctures close with a wet bladder set your matrass in Sand and heat it with a gradual fire to make the Spirit of wine boil seven or eight hours during which time it will assume a red colour After that let the vessels cool and unlute them separate by Inclination this most fragrant Tincture and keep it in a Viol well stopt You may pour more Spirit of Wine on the remaining Salt of Tartar and proceed as before as long as it will draw out any Tincture The Tincture of the Salt of Tartar is an excellent Aperitive it purifies the bloud and resists malignity of humors It is used in the Scurvy the dose is from ten to thirty drops in some convenient liquor Remarks You must place the Crucible in the furnace upon a Tile for fear lest the wind which comes through the doors of the Ash-hole and fire-room might be apt to cool the bottom and hinder the Fusion of the Salt The Salt of Tartar having been a good while melted in the Crucible does flame when thrown upon lighted coals as easily as Salt-peter does This effect proceeds only from this that the fire has attenuated and volatilized the parts of this fixt salt so as to render them fit to exalt with the sulphur of coals Many have writ that it is sufficient to Calcine the Salt of Tartar two hours in a violent fire or until the Salt of Tartar becomes blewish but after having tried several times to make the Tincture according to this description I could never be able to do it it is true the Spirit of Wine will be a little Tinctured but it comes not near that which is necessary to call it the Tincture of Salt of Tartar for it should be red like wine and to make it so it is requisite to Calcine it as I have said and good store of it should be put into the Crucible because it diminishes exceedingly You must likewise take care to use Spirit of wine well rectified for if there should be any phlegm
is from Florida it hath been transplanted among us but our Countrey not being hot enough that which grows here is not so strong as the Tabaco that is brought out of America Tabaco either chewed or smoked now and then makes a great discharge of humors from the Head but if it be used too immoderately it is apt to cause several Diseases such as the Palsie and Apoplexy It is beaten and applied to tumors to discuss them it being full of Spirits which do rarifie them and open the pores It is likewise infused in common water and Tettars and other Itchings of the Skin are washed with this Infusion but you must have a care that the water be not too much charged with it for fear of giving a vomit Tabaco kills Serpents Vipers Lizards and such like Animals if you open a hole in their flesh and thrust a little bit into it or if you should smoke them with it Distillation of Tabaco Put into a Glass-Cucurbite eight ounces of good Tabaco cut small pour upon it about an equal weight of Phlegm of Vitriol cover the Cucurbite with its head and digest the matter in sand for a day fit to it a Receiver and distil about five ounces of liquor in a small fire keep it in a viol It is a powerful vomit the dose is from two drachms to six in some proper liquor it is likewise good for Tettars and the Itch being rubbed lightly with it Put that which remains in the Cucurbite into an earthen Retort or Glass one luted place it in a Furnace and fit to it a great Receiver and luting close the joints begin with a small fire to raise all the phlegm augment it by little and little and the Spirits will come forth confusedly with a black Oil continue the fire until there comes no more then let the vessels cool and unlute them pour that which you find in the Receiver into a Tunnel lined with brown paper the watry part will pass through while the black and fetid Oil remains in the filter keep it in a viol a drachm of it may be mixed with two ounces of Hogs-grease it is a good Remedy for the itch and for Tettars An Alkali salt may be drawn from the Coals that remain in the Retort after the same manner as the Salt of Guaiacum This salt is a Sudorifick the dose is from four grains to ten in some convenient liquor Remarks Tabaco is full of such piercing sulphurs and volatile salts that so soon as ever it is in the stomach it falls a pricking the Fibers and moving to vomit The Oil of Tabaco is so great a vomit that if one should but hold ones Nose a little over the Viol in which it is kept it would make one vomit One day I made a small Incision in the skin of a dog's thigh and thrusting in a little tent dipt in the Oil of Tabaco the dog immediately purged both upwards and downwards with a great deal of violence The fixt salt of Tabaco may be made as I have said but if you would have any quantity of it you must join a great deal of other Tabaco with it for receiving so little matter out of the Retort it would be hard to get a drachm of Salt CHAP. XIX Extractum Panchymagogum THIS Extract is a farrago of the purer substances of divers purgative and cordial medicines Take an ounce and a half of the Pulp of Coloquintida one ounce of the Pulvis Diarrhodon Abbatis so much good Agarick and two ounces of black Hellebore powder them all grosly and put them into a matrass pour upon it rain-rain-water distilled four fingers above the mixture Stop the matrass close and set it in digestion in hot sand or in horse dung three or four days and shake the vessel ever now and then After this pass your infusion through a cloth pour upon the residence a like quantity of the same liquor let it infuse as before then strain and express it strongly mix your infusions and let them settle until they become clear decant them and evaporate the liquor in an earthen pan in a sand-heat with a little fire to the consistence of a Syrop then mix with them half an ounce of Rosine of Scammony and two ounces of Extract of Aloes evaporate the whole to the consistence of an Extract It purges all the humors well the dose is from one scruple to two in Pills Remarks The flesh or pulp of Coloquintida is nothing but the apple it self cleansed from its Seeds It purges the Brain the best is that which is whitest and lightest The powder Diarrhodon Abbatis is Cordial and resists the malignity of humors it takes its name from the Rose which is its Basis The Agarick is a Rosinous Mushrom that grows on the Larix the best is the whiter lighter and most friable it is used for to purge the brain The root of black Hellebore is a very strong purger of Melancholy wherefore it is given to Hypochondriacal persons and even to the Maniacal it gives a vomit when taken alone but with this mixture it fixes downwards the white is a poison taken inwardly it is never used but for sneezing powders Scammony is a very Purgative resinous juyce the best is most friable and which being powdered hath a grey colour drawing towards white its Rosine is drawn from it as that of Jalap Aloes is said to purge Choler I have spoken of its virtues sufficiently already when I described its Extract Spirit of Wine is commonly used to make this Extract and it may seem to be so much the purer being drawn by this dissolvent rather than by a watry Menstruum for spirit of wine dissolves only the more Balsamick and purer part of mixt bodies but nevertheless I chuse rather to prefer the use of Dew or else Rain-water nay and even common water before Spirit of wine for several reasons First because in the evaporation of the liquidity of the Extract drawn by Spirit of wine a great many of the more subtile parts are lost which this dissolvent had volatilized And indeed it cannot be denied but some useful parts will evaporate let us use what dissolvent we please but it is plain there is no such great loss when watry menstruums are used as when Spirit of wine Now we should always prefer such menstruums as are best able to preserve the virtue of the mixt whose Extract we intend to draw The second is because Spirit of wine does always leave some impression of heat and acrimony in the Extracts it draws which the liquors that I use do not do The third is because Spirit of wine is not so convenient a menstruum to dissolve the salts which the Ingredients we use are full of and it is in this salt that their greatest virtue does consist Wherefore we ought to chuse such dissolvents as can best preserve the virtue of mixt bodies and such as are familiar to our nature We must use Spirit of wine to extract
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