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Alchemy Index
Joannes AGRICOLA , P. & M.D.
Treatise on Gold
Commentaries, Notes, and Observations
Regarding the Chymical Medicine
of Johannes Poppius
Source: Adam McLean's Alchemy Website @ www.levity.com ~ Commentariorum, Notarum, Observationum & Animadversionum in Johannis Poppii chymische Medicin, darinnen alle Process mit fleiss examinirt, von den Irrungen corrigirt, und mit etlich hundert newen Processen, geheimen Handgriffen, aus eigener Erfahrung vermehrt und illustrirt, Auch der rechte und warhafftige Gebrauch der Artzeneyen, mit etlich hundert Historien verificirt, Darneben was in Chirurgia und Alchimia oder transmutatione metallorum damit zu verrichten gründlichen offenbahret allen Standes-Personen, Medicis, Chirurgis, Chymicis, Balbirern, Feld-Scherern, Ross-ärtzten, Goldschmieden, und allen Haus-Wirthen hochnützlich zu lesen und zu gebrauchen. Leipzig. 1638-39. Johann Agricola [1589-1643]. Translated by Leone Muller (1988); Transcribed by Mark House.
Title page
Dedication
To the Reader
Chapter 1: How to extract the Gold's Virtue and to prepare a wholesome Medicine
Chapter 2: Gold Oil.
Chapter 3: Oil of Gold Prepared in the Common Way.
Chapter 4: Another Process for the Preparation of Oil of Gold.
Chapter 4: How to Prepare the Quintessence of Gold.
Chapter 5: A Common Way of Making Potable Gold.
Chapter 6: How the Purging ( ) is to be prepared.
Chapter 7: How to Prepare Diaphoretic Gold.
Chapter 8: How to Prepare a Mercurium Vivum from Gold and Other Metals.
Chapter 9: How to Prepare Vitriol from Gold.
Wherein all processes are carefully examined, corrected of errors, and augmented and illustrated by several hundred new processes and secret manipulations taken from his own experience,
Where also the right use of medicines is verified by several hundred case histories,in addition to a complete revelation of what is to be done with them in surgery, and alchemy, or the transmutations of metals.For all persons of respectability, physicians, surgeons, chymists, barbers, army-surgeons, horse-doctors, goldsmiths, and all householders most useful to read and use. Oportet sapietiam transferre ad medicinam, & medicinam ad sapientiam. Medicus enim Philosophus est Deo aequalis.
With the Privileges of His Roman Imperial Majesty and the Elector of Saxony.
Leipzig, Publ. by Thomas Schurer's heirs and Matthias Gotzen.
Printed by Gregorius Ritzschen in the year 1638.
Dedication
To His Serene Highness Highborn Prince adn Lord
Lord Frederick
Heir of Norway
Duke of Holstein/Schleswig/Ditmarschen and Stormarn, etc.
Count of Oldenburg and Delinenhorst, etc.;
My Gracious Sovereign and Lord:Your Serene Highness, HIghborn Prince
Your Princely Grace is at all times assured of my most humble obedient services.i. ~ Most Gracious Prince. How miserable the life of all men is and how quickly it closes like a garment, does not require much proof. Aside from daily experience, it is testified to by the entire Holy Scripture. True, it could be somehow endured if it were only miserable and painful outside our body, due to the vicissitudes of fortune, but it is a much greater pity that we must experience so much misery in our body that we can often not have a single healthy hour in our whole life. Therefore we must eat our tear-drenched bread with great sighing and hurting, and finally also end our life in unspeakable pain, which can be and must be the greatest misfortune in this world.
When therefore our dear forefathers considered what noble gift of God health is, they indicated it by a proverb, saying: Health is better than all wealth. Conversely, it follows that illness and physical pain are the greatest misfortune. That this must be so, and it is not contradicted by the proverb of our ancestors, and is confirmed by what our eyes see. Let us look about ourselves, not only in the big cities where there are well organized hospitals and infirmaries, but also in almost all villages, even houses, and see how the great and mighty diseases and pains are raging against men, behaving like evil spirits, and causing many persons to lose their wits and reason. Therefore God causes us to recognize that we must delve into ourselves, learning to know ourselves, lest we anger our Creator further by deliberate sinning. Rather should we beg Him with a fervent prayer to give us also a healthy body aside from a sane rational soul. This has also been known by the honorable pagans, who said: we pray for a healthy mind in a healthy soul.
If only we pray to God to take from us all kinds of illnesses, He will be merciful and gentle. And just as He provided a physician against our eternal destruction, namely His Son Jesus Christ, to heal and cure our souls, He has also shown His kindness to us in a peculiar way by creating the bodily medicines out of the earth, then leaving them to men to be used to advantage, so that we should also have a Nepenthes in our mortality - about which Homer has likewise said wonderful things - enabling us to drive away not only every depression and and sadness wth these high arcana, but also all illnesses. Those who had been striving for made much good progress in the Art, have been held in high esteem above all others - the pagans even bestowed divine honors on them - as may be seen from the true case histories which we render in abbreviated form, as those concerned do not wish to become known.
But when this noble Art reached its true flowering, the weeds soon appeared which wanted to suppress the good seed.
Therefore many spoilers, misleaders and butchers of honest men appeared who attempted to obscure the good either from a lack of understanding or from untimely arrogance.
ii. ~ Now we find that also mighty Kings, Princes, and Lords were engaged in this Art, considering it the highest good next to the soul's salvation. In particular, the Egyptians had been blessed with special knowledge in it above all other nations. They were not just satisfied with the general preparation of medicines but reflected deeper on the matter, dissected the subjects correctly and extracted their essences. They separated the pure from the impure, and they were the inventors of the true Chymia, or the
Art of Spagyrics. In it they excelled to such an extent that all the books on the subject cannot relate enough of them.
That is also why Moses had been so far instructed in the Egyptian Arts that he could burn the Golden Calf with fire, which as one of the greatest wonders and is not to be esteemed so little as others may think of it. For it is such a stable creature of God that it cannot be destroyed by any element.
As we read, Moses destroyed it and threw it on the water. This destroying and burning is the noblest work in hermetic medicine.
Long before Moses' time, Hermes had been famous in the medical art. He had been the very oldest philosopher, physician, and priest, according to whom the whole Nature was divided into three parts or kingdoms: the vegetable, the animal, and the mineral. In these three kingdoms man has now to look for the pearl of his health and also for acquiring the genuine Nepenthes.
True, many learned men of rank have endeavored to raise this embedded treasure and use it for the health of the human body.
They also did their share with great praise and were great wonderworkers in their time but, aside from the Egyptians, they tackled and assiduously investigated only one kingdom, namely the vegetable realm. They prepared their medicines from it, although they did their separation of the pure from the impure in the accepted vulgar way. But they left the other two kingdoms almost completely aside and perhaps did not believe that in them was hidden a treasure for human health. They contented themselves with plants and also drove away severe diseases in their time, while herbs had a much greater power in their countries than nowadays and diseases had not reached such a degree of exaltation as at present. Necessity, therefore, has compelled us to seek further and to invent medicines that are more potent than the diseases. It cannot be contradicted that if the medicine stands in the same degree as the disease, and Nature cannot help the medicine, no successful cure can result. That is why our dear ancestors wanted also to search through the other two kingdoms to get to know and solve their secrets, just as there have always been noble geniuses, both in previous times and in ours, who applied their talent with particular zeal. Mankind cannot thank them enough, especially those who brought the noble Art Chymia to our lands and planted it there. I could enumerate a whole catalog of them.
But as I well know that your Serene Highness is a prince highly talented by God, endowed with all the qualities, and having a great knowledge, it is unnecessary to make a long introduction. In my youth imagined and planned - with God's help and for the benefit of my neighbor - also to learn something useful in this Art. Thus, through God's guidance, I chanced upon the laudable art of medicine and devoted myself to it. Therefore I did not permit myself to become deterred from learning something by any troubles, expenses, sour and very dangerous travels but had been looking for learned men in all lands, listened to them and carried on conversations with them till at last I had, as the saying is, absolved my studies and attained the degree of Doctor. What I learned and understood in my youth I have afterwards applied to my fellowman in my practice - and I am mentioning it without boasting - I have been successful.
iii. ~ However, in addition to my practice, I have not omitted to work in the laboratories of chymists, using a good part of my assets for it, which work has been graciously blessed by God and has endowed me with glorious secrets. So as not to bury the benefits granted to me by God in ungratefulness but to turn to them to great usefulness. Also seeing how many misleading process-books fill almost the whole world, giving the noble Art of Chymia nothing but a bad name, I could no longer keep silent about those misleading authors. To bring to light but a small part for the benefit of the process to be in my work, and I hope that the reader will sense in them my special diligence and sincerity.
But aside from this, I must also admit that not everything has been elaborated as well as it might have been. It was not a lack of goodwill but the terrible war that has hindered me from doing so, to my great damage. All my belongings were robbed, smashed, and completely spoiled, so that hardly one book was left to me. Thus I have also so often been hindered from continuing with this work by the invasions that I felt inclined to stop everything, and I would have done so if some distinguished, learned men, highly experienced in medicine, had not encouraged and urged me to publish. Consequently, I have finished the work and given it to be printed. I am sure that learned men will not
be displeased that because in addition to the careful preparation of medicines I have also revealed, as clearly as sunlight, their use by actual case histories. I well know that there are some Zoili (critics) [Zoilus was a proverbially stern critic of Homer] who will not omit to slander this. Therefore it is necessary for me to look around for a patron who would stop their mouth.
Now I have sufficiently known for several years what a peculiar love Your Serene Highness has for noble medicine, on account of which Your Highness also has attained immortal fame within and without Christendom; in particular, what a special love Your Grace has, out of Your innate Princely affection, for the true chymical medicines and how highly You esteem them. Therefore I could not refrain from obediently and humbly offering Your Serene Highness the First Part of this work and to choose You as particular Patron and Protector, not doubting that Your Grace would look upon this work with benevolent eyes and receive and accept it from me unworthy man with favor.
I wish I could offer Your Serene Highness a greater work, but the bad times have not allowed me to do so, much less let me reveal all my labors and studies at this time. Perhaps God will send better times and grant me secure tranquility to take care of this high work more assiduously, so that what is missing in this work can be replaced in future ones.
May God grant Your Serene Highness, for the benefit of the Evangelical Christendom, a long life, steady health, together with every wellbeing, and I commend myself obediently and humbly to Your Lordship's gracious and mighty patronage, also remaining Yours submissively and obediently.
Leipzig, 12 July 1638.
Your Serene Highness's
Humble and obedient Servant,
Joannes Agricola, P. & M.
D.p.t. Practicus in Leipzig.
To The Kind Reader
iv. ~ Kind, dear reader. There is an old proverb: He who builds a road must allow himself to be judged by everybody. Thus I have no doubt that my book will suffer the same fate and that different verdicts will be pronounced on it. One man will say that I am doing what another had already done long ago, and that this process is so well known that it is unnecessary to waste so much paper on it. Another will state the contrary, saying that it is wrong to throw pearls before the sows and to put food into the mouth of every ungrateful crow; that one should keep those arcana secret and not make them too common. But these two judges should know that they are both wrong. The first must not think that I have patched this work together from other authors like a beggar's coat, adorning myself with other peoples feathers. If I had wanted to do that, I would not have undertaken to explain and elucidate Poppius as a signpost. True, I must admit that many books on distillations and processes are available and that almost the whole world is filled with them, but how incorrect they are and how badly a beginner fares with them is proven by the experience, unfortunately. I remember what happened to me in my youth when I wasted time and much money on such a wrong process.
Many a man may well write a process that is clear enough to an experienced chymist, no matter how obscure it is. To a beginner, however, it is not only of no use but rather confusing and damaging - as some of our author's also are - and he gets so mixed up with them that he can never get out of this labyrinth unless he obtains an Ariadne's thread. That is why many are induced to abandon the chymical works altogether, keeping only to the roving vagrants, and giving the poor patients no matter what, exposing them to mortal danger - and I know many of them.
Also, the lazy apothecaries are doing this in general. They do not prepare their distillates themselves but buy them wherever they can obtain them cheap enough, be they prepared as they may, as very many instances are known to me in this country. I could relate the sad story of what happened to a good and learned man with the Mercurio Vitae (the Mercury of Life) which turned into the Mercurio Mortis (Mercury of Death). This is therefore not one of the least reasons that moved me to publish this writing and to faithfully communicate to all and sundry the processes which they can follow without any danger and without incurring any expenses. All manipulations are so clear that it is impossible to make them clearer. As I have experienced it in my work, I do not doubt that others who have but a slight knowledge of the degrees of the fire, can copy them.
But the others should know that no violence is done to Nature by this publication, for the great works of God must be revealed. If it is not done by me, it is done by someone else, and everyone can trust me that I have not done this because of ambition but rather upon the impulse received from God and honest men, also because of great pity with the patients. For what I have seen, experienced, and made with my own hands during my various travels in high-class important laboratories and in my own practice, I can communicate in full truth to my fellowman who does not possess the means that I have had.
v. ~ Thereby the wonders of God will become manifest, and the poor suffering fellowman is served in accordance with the First Commandment of God. Such is the love of our fellowman that we are to show towards him. Tell me, someone, if I see a man lying in the road laden with heavy trouble, am I doing right or not if I help him? In many pharmacies I do not find any prepared arcanum with which I could serve him. Therefore I must let him lie there in his great trouble for lack of the right medicament. But if I had a special secret in my house and could drive his sickness away with it, tell me, would I not thereby perform a Christian and God-pleasing work on this man? I believe so indeed, for God wills it and Nature teaches us the same. If I or someone else does not reveal such devices, the patient must die. Therefore, God becomes angry if we do not reflect on the wonders of Nature through negligence, since for every illness the good God has put its specific antidote into Nature, and has commanded the faithful spagyricist or physician to extract it.
Accordingly, those are greatly mistaken who either begrudge their fellowman those arcana or do not want to learn to prepare them through negligence. They may well say that neither Hippocrates nor Galen knew anything of these things, although they had been great physicians. Why, then, should I bother about them? Yes, it is indeed true that Hippocrates and Galen were distinguished men, but it does not follow that God had bestowed His Mercy on them alone, and that His might had not perhaps withheld anything from them that he could not reveal to us in this century. Whoever thinks this way is a blasphemer of God's Majesty, and I do not doubt that after us still much greater secrets will come to light, as Paracelsus has predicted, which will also obscure our own. For it is certain that before the end of the world everything will be revealed, as Christ the great physician himself testifies. It would indeed be the greatest nonsense for Christians, and no one must take offense at Galen's words when he writes in Lib.2, De Pulsibus: Mosen multa dixisse, sed pauca probasse.
But if God does not wish to grant His high secrets, neither will that man obtain them from such writings, no matter how clear they are, because God has many means to hide them from the unworthy. It is not enough for a man to read such things, he must also implore God for understanding and blessing. And there is no doubt, if Chymia had been known at the time of Hippocrates and Galen, they would not have spared any trouble to learn it. But who can say that Hippocrates and Galen knew and cured every and sundry illnesses? Nobody will be able to affirm this, for in our time we find many illnesses of which the dear ancient ones did not know in their century, as I could mention a whole catalog full. Likewise, there are many diseases in the foreign isles of our time which are not known to us who are living in this region of the world, as I myself noted and observed in my many travels of which I will write a special treatise in the future.
And granted that the above physicians cured all diseases in their time, it must still be remembered that illnesses had then not reached such a high degree as now when man's nature is ever more weakened and the balsam of Nature is too powerless to drive them out. There is no need for a proof of this, for Hippocrates shows that in his time eunuchs and woman had no podagra. Look around now, and ask especially in Austria and Moravia, and you will learn if these people have no podagra. Yes I might find some in Thuringia and Meissen. It can therefore not be denied that at that time man's nature had been much stronger and could drive out all such superfluities through her emunctories. Nowadays she does not do it, and one has to resort to good medicines to help Nature.
vi. ~ For if I am to cure podagra, the medicine must stand in a higher degree than the sickness, otherwise it will not be overcome but remain uncured. That is how the common proverb originated: Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram. But if I have a medicament that stands in a degree higher than the sickness, I can drive it out at its root, annulling the aforesaid proverb. It is those degrees that must be learned in the spagyric and chymical schools and must be produced with coal. But here the oxen are standing at the mountain, here no one wants to put his delicate hands and ring-decked fingers into the ashes, or wake one or more nights. Everyone thinks, if the apothecary does not wish to prepare it, let him leave it. But with this a physician's conscience cannot be clear, for how can he say that this medicament can cure the patient, not knowing if it has been prepared left or right (meaning: correctly or wrongly).
True, it would sometimes be possible to bear patience with those lazy people, if only they did not stamp on the experienced spagyricists and slander them so miserably before those who are inexperienced in the Art, including high potentates and Princes. And supposing that occasionally a mistake is made by an itinerant practitioner, should the child therefore be thrown out with the bath? Certainly not. One should look at the roving vagrants and distinguish between them and learned men who have studied their foundations and are also well experienced in the practice.
But so as to make it known for what I am responsible in this work or what advantage there may be derived therefrom, the kind reader should know that I first put down the author's text as is. After that, I analyze it, reminding the reader where it is right or wrong and if the works proceed as the author promises. In the third place, I indicate my experience or the work which I have made with my own hands and found to be right in the fire and I communicate faithfully what was the result. These processes may be boldly followed, and the reader may certainly believe that not a single process will be found that has not been frequently elaborated and found right. Although one or another way also be found in other authors, I have experimented with it and have myself verified it in the fire.
Only, I must remind the reader that such works also require a chymist somewhat experienced with fire, although these are common works, a beginner here receives very fine directives and manipulations, enabling him to make good progress, provided he will regulate the fire correctly, neither too much nor too little. Much depends on this. If I have an opportunity to do so and if this work does not become too big, I will draw the most necessary ovens at the end, indicating which are used for the most necessary works. Then a beginner can install them himself, or have them installed. A beginner must know that the quantity of furnaces does not help much. If he has a Balneum Mariae, a Balneum vaporosum, an ash - or sand oven, a reverberating furnace, and a big furnace without cupels,, he has enough to start. Afterwards, when he wants to prepare very subtle things, his work will teach him what kind of furnaces he needs and how he should have them built. Now and again he will find many formulas for them in authors and chymists.
Fourthly, after the description of the preparation he will also find the right use of the medicines, how he should apply them as internal medicine and for surgery. And this is not just said without any further comments, as is the case with nearly all other writers, but when it is said that this or that medicine is good for this or that effect, it is followed by a case history, indicating with what person, in what case it has been used, what it achieved, and how it was applied; also, what other medicines had to be used. It is not enough to say this serves for that. The Topica do not accomplish everything by themselves but the universalia must also be taken into account, as I have here taken special care to see to it that the right appropriate methods be taken. This care will be found in few authors, and in this a student has almost an extract of the whole medicine, both in theory and practice. How much work this has cost me, every intelligent person can easily judge for himself. I do not remember that a similar work has appeared, for my book contains such cases and odd histories that you will not easily find the like of them in any handbook. And the cure is not only oriented towards the hermetic practice but the theory is joined thereto, so that together they form a right harmony.
Barbers, army surgeons, and other surgeons will herein find such manipulations that they could not find any better ones, provided they will apply themselves and work with care. Householders will here have items of house medicine which they can safely use in emergencies, especially if they live far from a physician. From the case histories and examples quoted, they can see if their case is applicable to the medicine, or the medicine to their need. Therefore I have introduced hundreds of histories, for many a man learns more from them than he can sometimes learn in several years from practitioners. If I had not been worried that the work might become too lengthy, I would have related a few hundred more histories, since for every sickness or every remedy three or four could have been indicated. But this will be saved for another occasion, provided God will extend my life, and whatever is laking here concerning the Wonder Medicine will be put in my Chirurgia which, if it pleases God, will soon follow.
Fifthly. In this work it can also be seen if a possibility can be found in Nature for transmuting one metal into another. Regarding this, there is much arguing pro and contra, but experience is the arbiter of all these things. I myself must admit that it is of little use for Particulars, though one cannot deny in general that the possibility exists. What experience has taught me, I have revealed, as may be seen from every work. I have not written it with the aim of promising golden mountains but have only done it to show the opponent what is possible with Nature. Whoever does not wish to try it out for pleasure, let him refrain from doing it for gain. For a mistake can very easily occur, and then the desired effect does not follow and all labor is lost. But whoever uses it as a medicine cannot lose much by such an experiment. What has been said about the transmutation of metals has only been done incidentally, as the context proves.
Sixth point. Many wonderful secret medicines are indicated for special diseases, which show what amazing things they can do and which are, as it were, a bridge for the Specifics, to allow them to reach their enemy and attack it. For most sicknesses the entire perfect method of a right and complete cure is given, and those cures are applicable to nearly all individuals and constitutions. Nor is the like often found in other authors. May God help that it will serve for His own praise and glory, for the great relief of the poor patients and the needy, and for the instruction of the studying youth. I hope to have served all these hereby.
I for my person do not doubt that this work will be received by many with gratitude. But those who are all too clever and fancy they know everything, do not require such instruction. Thereby, however, they betray themselves, so that they, as Terence says: Intelligendo nihil intelligant (Understanding they understand nothing).
viii. ~ Aside from this, I beg the sowlike - grunting mysochymists and Lucians not to blow their noses too hard about it, else they might bleed to death, and their great wit might even be turned into foolishness because of the freeing of their brain and liver. For whoever wants to be too smart, behind him the fool generally peeps out, and he should remember that all gifts come from God. He distributes them in a wonderful way according to His Will. One should first read and then judge. If then there is nothing to it, he can condemn. In addition, Alchymia is not a new poem, as many imagine, but was known in Egypt long before Moses's times, as may be seen from all credible histories. Whoever wishes, may read Diodorum Siculum, Cael; Rhod. and others. He will find how experienced in Chymia the Egyptians had been, also that Moses had been educated in all the arts of the Egyptians. Nor did they consider their imagined gods to be true Gods in their hearts, except the common man whom they humbugged, but many had a different understanding of them, as may clearly be seen in the Poimandres of Hermes. He recognized one God only, Creator of heaven and earth. This is beautifully told in the Hieroglyphicis Aegypto Graecis of Dr. Michael Majerus (Maier), which is a special pleasure to see and read.
As this work has become somewhat lengthy and a special order has to be made in its presentation, I have divided the whole treatise in two parts. In the first I have engaged in anatomizing the metals only, so that they should stand and be found in their own repository. In the second, the minerals and vegetables are together, likewise in their proper order. We have called on God that He may grant us His Grace for Christ's sake. Amen.
Chapter 1
How to Extract the Gold's Virtue and to Prepare a Wholesome Medicine
All true chymists and philosophers write that common corporeal gold is of not much use in man's body if it is only ingested as such, for no metallic body can be of use if it is not previously dissolved and reduced to the prima materia. We have an example in corals. The virtue of corals is not in the stone or the body but in their red color. If the corals are to release their power, a separation must first occur through a dissolution, and the redness must be separated from the body. Tincture the body is a shell which is left behind quite white, but the essence of the corals, which is quite red, afterwards perfectly accomplishes its effect in man's body because the obstruction has been separated from it (that is, from the stone and the body). Thus you should also deal with gold, silver, iron, lead, and other metals. If they are to bear fruit, they must likewise be separated from their bodies, that is, from their inner earth or slime, to allow their radical moisture to operate quite unhindered in man's body. Before, its power could not accomplish it, as the bodies were still held by their metallic slime and earth. Consequently, whoever wants to do something useful in medicine must see to it that he first dissolve and open his metallic body, then extract its soul and essence, and the work will then not result in no fruit.
Orator U C Note ~
In his book De praeparationibus medicamentorum Chymicorum (On the preparations of chymical medicaments), the author writes a short preface and thinks that all medicaments that come from the mineral family, apart from their legitimate preparation, are of no use, and so it is and it is the truth. Nevertheless, the old Arab and Greek physicians used metals thus raw and praised them highly, especially in the Electuariis de Gemmis, Exhilerante Galeni, although some, yes, the majority, doubt that this writing is one of Galen's. According to him, the metals, especially gold, rejoice man's heart and his vital spirits, drive away melancholy, and thus arouse in man a good and desired condition.
But as to give here my view as well, I am certain that raw metals, without prior preparation, help little or nothing at all. Our natural warmth is far too weak to be able to cook and prepare the metals in such a way that they can penetrate to the heart through the small veins and finally throughout the body, imparting their effect. Even so, some are convinced that metals are supposed to have been eaten and digested by chickens, just as Pliny wrote in his time that if a hen were fed with gold leaf, it would transform the gold into an essence in its stomach. And thus, if it were eaten, the chicken would bring man great strength and health. Some also believed that in our time and wrote wonders about it, how gold veins are supposed to have shown up in the chicken livers, which is ridiculous. I am surprised that it did not also lay golden eggs, like Aesop's hen! Then they would have become mighty rich people in a short time, especially if they had bred as many chickens as in Egypt, where they are hatched in a specially arranged oven, and 20,000 creep out all at once. They could have laid many eggs, thus producing several million gold for a poor man. Let anyone who wishes believe this, but experience has taught me differently. I have tried it at different times and very carefully attended to the chickens. But after several days of feeding the chickens with gold leaf, I found nothing but --- salve honore --- gilt muck. I had therefore spent my money very badly.
I had the chickens slaughtered, wanting to know if the gold seed in them had perhaps grown so big that they could henceforth excrete nothing but gold. But less than nothing was to be found, while the chickens had eaten more than two ducats of gold. I felt sad because my Art did not progress.
This, however, I have seen. A chicken belonging to a Count had swallowed a big pearl. When the chicken was cut open after several hours, the pearl was indeed found in the stomach but its lustre was all gone, as if it had been reverberated in the fire. This stands to reason, because pearls have not got the same fixation as metals, especially not as gold and silver, which are most indestructible. Experience proves that no element can destroy Gold, and although some Aquae Chrysuleae (gold waters) can corrode it and dissolve it into water, there is nevertheless no destruction. If the waters are again distilled off it, the Gold is left just as good as before. But if a pearl is thus dissolved, it can no longer be brought into its body, that is, become a pearl, although many chat of it, pretending one could thus make one big pearl from many small ones. True, a body, also one of mother of pearl, can put be put together, but one cannot give it the right lustre of pearls.
Gold, however, stays shining, also after its dissolution. I will admit, however, that gold did appear in the stomach of the chicken as if it had undergone an alteration, but it was in fact nothing except that it got ready for exit together with the other excrements. It seems so very incredible that gold-veins have supposedly been seen in the liver. From where did those veins come? Either they allowed the gold leaves to move entire to the liver through the veins, or they had to grow out of the blood - none of which can be true. If the gold had been digested, part of it would have turned into blood and should have been communicated further to the other organs by the liver. If the blood had then immediately reversed into gold, it would follow that the whole chicken, which takes its nourishment and increase in weight solely from the blood, would have turned into gold. One could then have wished that he had had chickens as big as aurochses or elephants - then the gold of the century would have appeared in the world.
I am also convinced that raw, unprepared metals are more harmful than useful to man. Because of their heaviness they enter the abdominal folds, mingle with the tartar, thus increasing the pain, as could be proven by many examples. Although I can remember that I knew a furrier in Weiss, the region of the Enns river in Austria, who, when he felt a discomfort in his stomach, got hold of some iron filings, ate a good amount of them and cured himself thereby. Matthiolus and Mizaldus also remember such meals and report that they agreed well with the people. True, there are good reasons for this, as iron is sooner destroyed than other metal. I would nevertheless not like to use it. For we cannot know what kind of a work Nature intended to make of it, whether it was supposed to become a tree or a metal, which the Farmer discusses quite well and reasonably in Arcanum aperta arconorum arcanissimorum, and also thoroughly instructs his disciple in it. Of the same opinion is also the luminous most noble Sendivogius, who philosophizes wonderfully and thoroughly about it in his treatises.
True, it is certain and undeniable that if metals are to be brought into their essentials, they must be dissolved into Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. However, these are not the prima materia but the materia secunda ex prima orta (the second matter originated in the first). Of what use would it be to us if they were to revert directly into their chaos? We could not do anything with them. Nature, however, does with them as she pleases, which the artist cannot copy. For him it must be enough to stay with the predestined and predetermined materia, and to extract and prepare from it its true essence. But how that is done, about that all keep silent and do not wish to come forth. But if you do not have the prima materia of the metals, you will never radically open the gold, and this prima materia is the bolt before the door of many fine geniuses, preventing them from entering the shrine of Nature. Dear Lord! How many have tortured themselves and tried to find this key, but they sooner died searching than that they found it. Many a man has been delayed by the name of prima materia, which he did not correctly understand, searching for a key that would bring the ( ) into the prima materia or chaos. As I have indicated above, this would be of no use to me, but with the other materia prima I can afterwards make what I want. In this there is hidden a great secret, especially if one wishes to bring out the substantialia.
When they hear of the Principles, many believe that they will turn into a Mercurius currens, a special Salt, and a separate Sulphur. They take great pains to get the process for obtaining these Principles, and do not save any expense. I have found a distinguished man who had in his possession a whole pound of liquid Mercury of Gold, but he achieved no more with it than that he prepared with it a precipitate. How much expense this had caused him is easy to guess, let alone how much labor was involved. He did believe that because he had the liquid Mercury of the Sun, he had already won the party and was on the right way according to the philosophers, as they declare unanimously that one has to prepare the Mercury. This has led many of them astray into an eternal labyrinth, out of which they cannot find a way. They could not believe that this Mercury also has its hypostatic principles. But the Philosophical Mercury is a simple body, and with it a Mercury is made, as the philosophers say: Fac Mercurium per Mercurium. (Make Mercury through Mercury). Yes, they say, our Mercury is our gold, and our gold dissolves common gold. These are strange sayings, which appear absurd to Aristotelian philosophers and totally contrary to Nature. Nevertheless, it is the pure truth, and it can be depicted by a coarse example by taking a vulgar (common) Mercury, adding to it filed or granulated lead, and setting it to digest for some time. The lead will also turn into a Mercury and pass with it through the leather. It can also be sublimated with it.
When some men saw this, they immediately fell for it and imagined that they were now holding the fox's tail and it could no longer escape. Thus they also undertook this processing of the gold, but their miserable work revealed how much they had been mistaken and that the writings of the philosophers are not to be understood superficially according to the letter.
I must admit that at the beginning of my labors I had also believed that either vulgar Mercury or at least the liquid Mercury of the ( ) had to be infallible, according to what is written. Therefore, I tried to make the Mercury of the ( ) with vulgar Mercury. I spent a long time on it, till it went as quickly through the leather as common Mercury. When I finally succeeded, the vulgar Mercury and the gold were nevertheless left as they had been previously. And supposing it had turned into a liquid Mercury, it would not have helped me because at that time I did not understand things better.
But if I set it to digest and proceeded as the philosophers teach, various colors appeared, black, white, yellow, and red. Following the last, however, a ridiculous mouse was born, and I had nothing more than a precipitate for the French (V.D.) and other diseases. Therefore, I went away chapfallen. Without doubt, Poppius' opinion is the same, just like the common erroneous view of most laboratory workers, because he tried to explain this dissolution by the example of the corals, which, however, does not fit in every case. Tincture alicujus corporis extractio (the extraction of the tincture of a body) is something else than resolutio corporis in sua principia sive in primam materiam (the resolution of a body into its principles or into prima materia).
Regarding corals, however, it is true and certain that their best power is contained in the tincture and that the body is not good for anything, which is not just simply true. I must admit that the chief virtue resides in the color or tincture, but it does not therefore follow that there is also nothing in the other bodies. The tincture of the corals is their least part. One pound yields but a little, and if we treat the work quite subtly, we can hardly obtain half a dram of the true tincture of essentials, as Mr. Lauremberg also writes in Animaadversionibus & Notis ad Aphorismos Angeli Salae, where we can read him further, and where he convincingly presents his views to Angelo Salae. I myself must applaud Mr. D. Lauremberg and admit that the tincture in precious stones and corals is so scanty that it makes me wonder that so little can be extracted. Therefore many believe that it is impossible for the Art to extract a tincture, but they are mistaken. The tincture may well be extracted, but it is impossible to obtain it in great quantity.
Consequently, we can infer what is to be thought of the tincture sold in pharmacies, where they have big vats full of it. It is nothing but a mere brandy, slightly colored during digestions or due to the acid with which the corals are dissolved and which is still contained in it! Yet a great fuss is made about it, whereby both the physician who does not know better and the patient are cheated. But the tincture of corals is such a beautiful ruby-red juice, and there is so little of it, that one beholds it with amazement. I myself have seen very little of it aside from what I observed in Kassel in the Princely Pharmacy and in Marburg with Dr. Johann Hartmann. A single grain of this tincture does more than a whole pound of the common. If our author's opinion were true, namely, that the body of corals is good for nothing and only deserves to be poured away, it would follow that the Salt of corals and the magistery were of no use at all. Experience, however, has proven it to be quite different. I have learned in practice that if a magistery of corals is especially well prepared, it is a mighty tonic for the heart. If this only came from the tincture, there would be little hope in it.
Although I must admit that the greatest power is in the tincture, one must not therefore throw the body away altogether, because it can be so beautifully prepared that it results in very great virtues. Its crystalline Salt --- with which was as a ruby. From the body I made the Salt which was as clear and crystalline as diamonds can never be. When I had it in its last solution, I again added to it its own tincture, drew the superfluous liquid off per balneum until it looked quite dry. Now this crystalline Salt turned as red as blood and as transparent as crystal, which was not only a special pleasure for my eyes but in addition made me happy, thinking this process could possibly also be applied to the higher metals. I am still of opinion that if the tincture were extracted with a proper menstruum, the body changed into a transparent one, and that tincture were again added to it, it might well turn in to something. An experienced chymist could try it, perhaps his work would be a good investment. Consequently, the body of corals should not be completely rejected.
I have extracted from the above-mentioned pound more than four Lots of pure crystalline Salt. Of course, a clumsy laboratory worker can handle it so badly that he spoils everything, and that afterwards nothing else can be prepared from it. For we find not a few of those inexperienced laboratory workers who spoil more than they bring to a good end, especially when they follow their own fantasies. What I am saying is not at all to be understood as if I esteemed and approved the prepared coral powder of the common apothecaries, much less praise and hold in high regard the powdered corals administered by the would-be intelligent females. They cannot do anything in medicine and are no better than if one had swallowed a handful of sand. They go to the stomach and out again through the behind. Only faith must do its best, or else nobody would believe that such red corals are a medicine.Experience, however, shows what good one can hope of them. Whoever wishes to scour his stomach and intestines with them, as dishes and pans are scrubbed, let him do it, but I do not want such a scrubbing.
With the body of corals of which the tincture has already been extracted, a Spiritus can be prepared which burns like a brandy and can be used for many things in medicine. But how to bring each into its added will be shown according to the author's instructions and illustrated by my own experience. Therefore, we will each time start with the text, or the preparation and its use, while I indicate my preparation in the note and observation, so that no one who wants to copy it will go wrong, and thus we are beginning with the oil of gold.
Chapter 2
Gold Oil
Fine gold, 2,3,4, Lots, or as much as you like. It must first be poured three times through antimony, each time driving the antimony off on a cupel, as goldsmiths and refiners know how to do. Of that Basil of the Benedictine Order says as follows: The Grey Wolf must eat the Lion, which must be devoured by it three times, after first purifying itself and cleansing its eyes with the Wolf's blood, so that they shine brightly. The Wolf is the antimony; the Lion, however, the pure gold. When now the gold has thus been purified, have it beaten thin like paper. Make of it round, rolled-up rolls that can be put into a separator. Pour on it Aquam Regis (King's water) that has previously been conjoined with the sublimated ammonia during distillation and rectification. This water must stand two fingers' high above the gold. Now close the mouth of the retort, so that the spirits do not vanish. Set the glass in warm ashes and dissolve it in the Balneum and gently distill the moisture off it. Then refine it strongly in the sand till the corrosive or sharpness has altogether gone over the head. The gold will be left at the bottom of the vessel like a brown powder or dust.
This powder must afterwards be reverberated, closed, in a steady fire, day and night for 13 weeks. the heat must be such that the gold neither flows nor melts. In the heat the gold will stew in its own juice, so that it will thereafter in the second dissolution drop its earth and metallic slime. After that, take one-third of the subtle gold calx and pour its own water over it. It is a crystalline, transparent, mineral water, quite pure and delicate, which Paracelsus calls the Green Lion and Basil, Aquam Solventem (Dissolving water). Take nine parts, everything closed in a phial, let it circulate for three weeks in a vapor-fire, and the gold will turn into oil, leaving its slime and earth behind. Regarding this metallic earth, its virtue is to dry in surgery and also to heal, especially every fluid damage. This preparation is done according to the chymical and not to the common method.
Aside from the rational soul, God has made no more wonderful creature than gold. It is such an excellent body that does not know anything of destruction from any element. Therefore it was called by the Arabs fortitudo omnis fortitudinis (strength of all strengths). But for a long time it had only been misused, and nobody could believe that God had enclosed a medicine in this wonder-creature. The ancient Greeks only used it for the luxury of their life. This was only because they did not know the noble Art of Chymia, which can prepare it into a medicine. For this reason the Arabs reflected a little more deeply on this matter and discovered that in it there must lie a great power and a Universal Medicine.
Avicenna, Geber, Arnold of Villanova and similar witnesses can be found now and again, which all goes to prove that gold is the very noblest subject in the whole world. This has not only been confirmed by the philosophers and physicians but its test and effect have proven the truth of what they stated. Just as the aforementioned Arnold of Villanova cured with it the King of Naples, who had suffered from lepra and restored him to full health. If I wished to name all the sick who were cured by gold, it would result in a big, immense work. Let those see to it how they can one day take the responsibility for writing against their conscience and negating everything the learned physicians have left in their writings and experience has proven true, of whom Eratus is not one of the least. He issued a public treatise or dialogue against it, and as nothing could be found in it but wrong assumptions and hypothesis, it is not worth answering it, although he has already been refuted by many and his worthless arguments have been pointed out to him. Of such men the whole country is full nowadays. They do not wish to admit that there are such mighty virtues in gold and other metals, though experience has taught us differently. Those fellows can never answer for it, for they are doing violence to God and Nature, while they should thank God profusely for this noble subject and not only use it out of greed, vanity, and arrogance - because it was not created for that purpose - but rather for the maintenance of man and his body which is subject to all kinds of diseases. In gold there is such a congenial combination of elements that it must incontestably follow that the very best medicine can be prepared with it, provided we ourselves apply us and do not begrudge a little effort.
We could actually have patience with those people if they only kept their opinions to themselves, but they must be blamed for so greatly playing down and slandering those wonderful medicines before others. They speak of them like the blind man of colors, just as recently an old, otherwise quite experienced physician told me to my face that metallic medicines are pure poison. But when I asked by what principle he could prove it, he replied that they were altogether harmful to man because of their poisonous origin. I had to laugh and did not consider this reasoning worthy of an answer. I only said that no old woman would have so little intelligence that she could not refute that reasoning. Therefore it is totally wrong to revile and slander those noble medicaments, which they do not understand. Cardanus and Scaliger were also of that opinion. Nevertheless, Cardanus had to admit willy-nilly that he had seen an important test made with potable gold. Scaliger, likewise, changed his opinion after he got better informed.
If only our cocky critics would do the same! Then many a man would work harder in this work than he does, and many more secret things would be revealed which stay unpublished due to the slandering. True, it would be unfair to stick all arcana on the nose of the ungrateful world. Therefore the true philosophers have not without reason depicted gold by a circle with a point in the center, thereby showing its great perfection. They also compare it to the heavenly sun, for just as the sun refreshes all sublunar things with its heat, so gold likewise refreshens all human organs, especially the heart. And just as the sun is the king of the planets, so gold is the king of metals, and the heart is the king among the human organs. These three have a great affinity for each other. Only the external look of the gold rejoices the heart of the misers, and in order to obtain gold enough they are using all kinds of means, also against their conscience. They often resort to such means as cost them their health and life, and they do not pay attention to it no matter how great the danger may be.
Now we will turn to the preparation of aurum potabile (potable gold). A great deal could here be said of the true potable gold, and there is hardly any chymist, yes, hardly any common laboratory worker, who would not know a special and secret preparation. In addition, many a man utters such nonsense that one must rightly laugh at it, and we can now and then also read about such fantasies. Yet all are very much mistaken, just as I recently saw someone who wanted to prepare potable gold with ear wax! Regarding that, I think it would have been much better if he had taken monkey wax. Then, someone tried to make potable gold with pigeon dirt, but it remained gold as before, and the dirt also remained what it had been. There is indeed nothing in the world so crazy that one does not find people who dare process it to gold according to their fool's head. They boast a great deal about it, but finally the unhappy ending shows up their foolish beginning. This is certain and true: gold may be prepared as anyone wishes, without the universal menstruum of the ancient ones --- it is yet not the ancients' aurum, for their gold is a different gold.
I can imagine that Basil Valentine means antimony by the term Grey Wolf - much less Paracelsus. Although many call antimony the Grey Wolf, it is only to be understood figuratively and is only enigmatically true. Is it that antimony, or the Grey Wolf, refines gold and adds a beautiful lustre to it? But how does it help the Philosophical Work? For all philosophers admit unanimously that their gold is no common gold. Yes, their gold dissolves gold. If then it is not common gold, how can it be processed through antimony? Common gold is dead and powerless, unless it be dissolved through the prima materia out of which it was born, and be born a second time. Only then will it really become Philosophical Gold and aurum potable, a small dose of which can drive away all sicknesses in a short time.
Yet this must not be understood as if I wanted to deny all the gold's virtues. No, because experience proves that common gold has mighty effects in many sicknesses. The gold of Hermes, however, and that of other philosophers is a medicine that cures all sicknesses, no matter where they come from. Like fire it penetrates the whole body, cleansing it of all superfluities and restoring it to the highest degree of health. Whoever achieves it is extremely happy. On this preparation many tons (?) of gold have been squandered, while nothing has been accomplished except thereby learning to distill a little. That is why artificial furnaces, instruments, and glasses have been invented, so that, if the ancients were now to raise again and see them, they would not know for what purpose to use them. It is undeniable that the Art has advanced so much that Hermes himself would be surprised and could not do what modern Artists do. But this is what we are lacking: that we can nevertheless not achieve what they knew, as we can further read in Sendivogius.
Without doubt, in his Liber de Tinctura Physicorum (Book of Physical Tinctures) Paracelsus understands quite a different Green Lion than the author imagines, for it is not born in the general manner of lions but appears ex sputo Lunae (out of the spittle of Luna), which was likewise invulnerable. The philosophers have written entire books about it. Especially in the Rosarium it is often said that there are three things that do the work, Leo viridis (Green Lion), aqua foetida (evil-smelling water), and fumus albus (white steam). This Green Lion has made many men crazy, nam illa viriditas vertitur in aurum nostrum (for that greenness changes into our gold). So we hear clear enough that the Green Lion is quite another thing, but each interprets the philosophers' sayings according to his understanding. If we then ask what the philosophers really meant thereby, they stand there not knowing whether to say white or black.
This Lion quarrels with the Dragon and is wounded and devoured by it, because of which the Dragon must also burst. But when they putrefy together, a sweet medicine results, like that of Samson's lion, which can cure all diseases.
It is regarding this Lion that many wonderful and beautiful processes have been undertaken with gold, many dangerous sicknesses cured by it, but nevertheless it is also true that it is quite unlike the true Philosophical Gold, and that it cannot be compared with it at all. Even if the gold were prepared in such a way that it could never again be reduced into a body - which can be done, and many boast about it although the proof is surely lacking - it is still only a Particular medicament and no such a Universal one as the true philosophers' potable gold should be. Thus all philosophers say that their gold is not yet corporeal or in a metallic body, either by Nature or through fire, but that it is soft, does not resemble gold either in substance or external form, and that it contains its own water by which it is dissolved without the addition of anything else. This water must never be separated from it but stay with it forever, and it is coagulated with it. These seem to be sheer paradoxes but in truth they are pure apodictica and no fantasy, as many may think they are.
For the water of the philosophers is also their gold, which dissolves and coagulates itself, also their only menstruum acetum acerrimum (most acid), and not the spirit of wine or another corrosive water as Augurellus understood Lully's Solvent Water or Mercury, when he wrote about in Lib. I, Chrysopae.
Whoever does not find these properties in his gold is no doubt far from the right way and cannot hope for a good ending of his work, may he labor as hard as he likes. For gold is water and yet is none, but it can easily be turned into water if the Artist wishes. Many a man might think that these are odd notions, namely, that the gold of the philosophers is simultaneously their menstruum, solvent water, and Mercury, and yet it is the pure truth. It can and must not be otherwise, anyone may believe it or not. Aside from this, the highest truth remains that if its own water does not remain with it, the gold is worth very little. Many will think that that must be a strange gold that can dissolve other gold. Yes, it dissolves itself, and it is the Dragon that devours and revives itself. It is the Phoenix that burns itself and rises from the ashes much more beautiful than before. For if gold is sown into its field, it grows and multiplies itself, bringing a thousandfold fruit for the maintenance of man's life.
But where this water can be found is kept very secret by the philosophers. They say that it must be fetched from India. True, it is easiest to get it in India, as the best gold mines are there. Experience has shown us, however, that an Indian crow brought this water to Germany in its pouch and poured it on a mountain. Thus a fountain is said to have sprung up from it which provides enough of this water, and at present it is as easy to obtain it in this country as in India. One has to be careful, however, to find the right fountain, as there are many other fountains around it that contain poison. The water is precisely of the kind which Pegasus (a winged horse that caused the stream Hippocrene to spring from Mount Helion with a blow of his hoof) beat out of Parnassus with its hoof, or which the mountain Nostacris in Arcadia (typist: please note that it is Arcadia and not Akkadia) pushed out of a rock and which cannot be kept in any other vessel than the horn of a horse.
Each may reflect himself on what this strange water may be. Let it suffice to say where this water can be found and what qualities it has. And I will add something one has to carefully note about this water and by which it can be recognized: It lights and burns itself, simultaneously burning the gold. This may well be the fiery means whereby Moses burnt the Golden Calf to ashes and gave of it to drink to the children of Israel in that water. If you cannot find this water which burns itself and turns into red ashes, you may surely believe that you will achieve nothing in this secret. It is gold and at the same time water and fire. It is hot and cold, like Jove's Hammonius fountain, moist and dry, it wets and dries again.
True, the author thinks in this process that we should pour our own crystalline-mineral water on it, but he does not indicate what kind of water it must be, or if gold contains in itself, or if it is to be obtained from another source. Many have been laid astray by this water, so that they achieved little with this process. Even if they had obtained this mineral-crystalline water --- which is made by two different processes --- and had added it to the gold, it is yet not the right handle and the right key for opening this strong lock and house, even if it were broken down ever so subtly into its atoms. For as long as it is not processed in such a way as to be dissolved into its prima materia, it is not the true philosophical dissolution. The author's mineral water will never accomplish this, even if it were left mixed with it in the digestion till Doomsday. It does not do anything the gold except that it gets calcined. Finally it separates again from it, which the Philosophical Water never does, as has already been said. If it has once mingled with gold or silver, it cannot be separated from either in all eternity. Both become one single water, the water of life and health, rendering all creatures fertile. It is like the water in the country near Suessa (town in Latium) which renders those fertile who drink of it, be they men or women. If, on the contrary, a woman, cow, dog, or sheep drinks of the river Aphrodisios, it makes them infertile. This water, however, also makes old withered trees fertile again, if it is poured to their core through a hole drilled into them and the hole is again tightly closed with a plug.
The author instructs us to let the water circulate with the gold for three weeks, but before doing so it has to be reverberated for 13 weeks, which is a long and tiresome work. It is also dangerous, as in reverberating we can easily overlook that it flows back again into a body, when a great deal of calx is produced. If this happens, the previous pains and labor are totally lost. Therefore I cannot advise any beginning laboratory worker to spend much time and work on this process - reverberating requires much labor and coal. He may well think that this process is quite philosophical, but it is as common as the others that are now and then found in the authors of books on alchemy. Of those processes Ulstadius has many in his work Coelum Philosophorum (The Heaven of the Philosophers), from which one can take some, just as Libavius has compiled a whole hodgepodge from other authors. Likewise, D. Andreas Brentius, though the works of Brentius must not all be despised. They contain very fine manipulations which I myself have used in part.
Before this, I also prepared it according to the author's instructions. When it was ready, I finally coagulated it. The mineral water of which he speaks evaporated, leaving me only a fine subtle gold calx which I added to silver in flux. It tinged it into gold, but I had little gain from it as I obtained no more gold than I had used in the preparation. Pains, labor, Aqua Regis, and other expenses were lost. Nor could I tinge with it as the gold had not been radically opened, much less perfectly. In that condition it cannot give more to its needy neighbor than it has itself. If, however, it had entered its mother's womb a second time in a good Nicodemic manner and had been born again, it could have brought fruit a hundred fold, as Sendivogius expressly writes in his Alegoria, at the end of his twelve treatises. Many indeed read it but the least number of them understand it, believing that if only they could bring gold into a liquid form, they would have a tincture. Yes they may well get a tincture but it is no good, and the Artist will not be able to get rid of his hunger with it. Yes, he will in addition be obliged to add of his own gold and lose it, and this work is not for any poor fellow, as one does not obtain a good medicine with it.
But whoever hopes to get rich thereby is greatly mistaken and is led astray. I, too, was struck in this error at the beginning of my laboratory work and believed the dissolved gold would immediately become the Philosophers' Stone - but what I did get is not worth boasting about. Even so, I learned many a good thing from it by experience. Nevertheless, it is not to be despised completely. It is a rudimentary beginning and the proof that the transmutation of metals is no poem, as many pretend, or that it is the devil's work. They shout so much and so loud about the transmutation that it would not be surprising if the whole world had become deaf from it. This, however, is done without understanding, because they speak according to their lights and believe that because they do not succeed, it is also impossible for others.
It is and remains indeed a genuine Art, whether you or I know it or not. I have seen with my own eyes, at two different places, how to transform tin into good gold, and in great quantity. Once it was done by an Englishman in Salzburg, in my presence and that of a medical doctor. I myself took the gold to the mint and had Ducats made of it. It was not only gold to all appearance, as the sophists are used to make, but the stablest gold in all tests. After that, I saw such gold in Italy, in a convent where a monk transmuted two pounds of lead into the best gold by means of a few grains of some red powder.
Whoever does not wish to believe those experiments, let him read Hoghelande, Elias the Artist, and others. Then the light will shine into his eyes, unless he has no eyes like the moles. It is customary to say: Manus nostrae oculatae sunt, credunt quod vidunt (Our hands have eyes and believe what they see). If one also does not believe those, I do not know what advice to give, since Thomas says: If I see the marks of the nails, I will believe. So many people have seen it, and yet it is not believed. Such a person must have a stubborn coarse donkey brain, not worth looking at a sincere Philosopher, far less speaking and conversing with him. The hide of ignorance stays in front of those fellows' eyes, and although we tell them ever so often that so many proofs have been given at various places - and that that gold is still there at this moment - they will nevertheless say that it was not natural but was done as a work of the devil who, they say, did some bedazzlement, thus cheating people.
Yes, those fellows may well have been blinded by the devil, rendering them incapable of seeing what wonders God has put in Nature. And this objection is not valid: that God alone can change Nature. That is indeed true and will remain true. To this one should reply that the Philosophers do not alter Nature in the least, for then it would follow that an ox would turn into a man, a man into a wolf, as happens with the Laps through sorcery. They only remove the accidents of the metals to be transformed, as they differ not by species but solely by their accidents.
This is mighty thoroughly discussed in Quercetanus Contra Aubertum. What is lacking in my treatise, the kind reader may discover in that work. I only touch upon the truth in a few words and prove that the transmutation of metals is true and has its foundation in Nature. Of course, I do not wish to force anyone to believe me --- the Art remains true irrespective of whether you believe in it or not - and by your not believing it is neither balled over nor destroyed.
Now then, as we do not deal expressly with it, we do not wish to stop further at this but return to our process, examining our potable gold more closely and seeing how we can usefully apply it as a medicine. We will also consider how it can be separated without danger and be liberated from the strong fetters in which it had been caught. As God has closed it so tightly, a mighty treasure must doubtlessly lie hidden in it, and to prevent thieves from robbing it and causing damage with it, the Lord God has preserved it so carefully, and it is rightly called Lillium inter spinas (the lily among thorns).
In the vegetables (plants) there are no such great virtues. Therefore they have no such strong fetters. Experience shows that they rarely retain their powers more than a year. Then their virtue evanesces, as may be seen in old seeds. Then their multiplying power is extinguished, and such corn never rises and brings fruit. Gold, however, and the higher minerals never suffer, and if gold were to lie for a thousand years in water-rotten earth, it would not lose any of its power. Likewise Mercury. Acrid fumes do not harm it much, but it passes through them like a brave hero, without detriment to its capability, not heeding any danger. This cannot be said of any vegetable, be its name what it may. It is solely the right key that is lacking, and this key is also the bride for whom one dances. Whoever finds this key must fervently thank Gold for it in his heart every day, for he will posses everything his heart may desire.
But returning to the author's crystalline-mineral water, his key - it is prepared of vitriol and tartar, and with it he says he opens the firm fetters of gold. There is probably something to it, but it does not do the opening. It is far too weak, it cannot enter the chamber where the treasure is hidden but must stay outside. But this it does: it makes the gold very subtle and turns it into the very finest atoms, so that it can thereafter be made potable and its enormous virtues can be extracted. This is not done by the crystalline water alone. There exist various other menstrua to achieve it, as will be shown in the following process and my Notes. They will accomplish precisely what the author's water is supposed to do, and this process does not require as much time in reverberating and digesting, consequently will save much expense. And you are not struck with any one author's process, especially as you have understood from the discussion led until now that this is not the kind of menstruum of which the Philosophers write.
I esteem them equally highly --- you can use one or another - but nevertheless it cannot be denied that one is better than another. One is much easier, more akin to human nature, and not so corrosive. The sharp corrosive spirits mix so much with the gold that they cannot easily be removed, as I have already indicated. It happened to me myself that I could not remove them by any means except through reduction. f those menstrua I say that you should guard and beware of, for they spoil the good and turn a teriac into a poison. Consequently, gold cannot be taken into the body without danger, of which Penotus also reminds us and warns us against, saying: If the gold solutions to be put or dripped on silver, they must be red and not black, which the common solutions nearly all are. They are not to be despised or discarded, as Quercetanus also requires, just as other chymists whom one should rightly follow.
I must relate that I recently saw some clear water at a friend's. It transformed filed gold --- not dissolved in Aqua Regis --- into a bloodred liquid through a good digestion. After it stood in digestion for one month, the water disappeared and the gold rose in the glass as if some fermented paste were rising, which was a pleasure to see. When it was given stronger fire afterwards, it settled down again, and the glass looked as if some gold leaf had laid in it. Nothing rose anymore. It was fixed and stable. My friend opened the glass and weighed it, it had increased in weight due to the menstruum. He poured some more of the water over it and set it back, closed, in digestion. The gold united again with it and was as red as blood and quite fireproof. When it was taken out, I took two grains and put them into a glass of warm wine. It dissolved very quickly and tinged the wine bloodred, which was amazing to see. The wine became somewhat sweet from it. I am of the opinion that if ever a right tincture was prepared from gold, this was it.
I can truthfully say that during my lifetime I have seen much regarding the preparation of potable gold, and have also experienced as much myself as any man of my age, but nothing more beautiful has come to my attention. One could not notice any suspicion of any corrosive in the menstruum, but it was quite pleasant in taste, almost like wine about to become somewhat "hard". Gold melts in it like butter near a fire or in the hot sun. Nor did it leave any White Earth in the solution, as the solutions for the magistery generally do. It was a thick, red liquid and finally a powder, at first brownred, the bloodred. But whether it could do anything in the transmutation of metals, I cannot say, for I have not tried it, nor have I seen it tried. y friend only gave me a little of it, which I afterwards used for the sick - to my great astonishment, because it was especially effective in extremely serious and dangerous sicknesses.
But what kind of water this was and of what it consisted, the practitioner did not tell me at the time. I can quite easily believe, however, that it must be made of a substance closely akin to gold. I have concluded so, because when I put just one drop of this water in a silver spoon, it soon resulted in a golden tincture, many hundred times more beautiful than the rubedo (redness) or sulphur of antimony. Although the latter also tinges silver, it is not quite pure but blackish-yellow. This one, however, was as pure as if a goldsmith had gilded it, and yet the water was as clear and white as crystal.
If, then, someone knew its prima materia, I believed, he would not be far from the Universal Menstruum, since it dissolves gold without any violence. This is a characteristic of a true philosophical menstruum, as Sendivogius and others attest to, for like associates with like. Although he was otherwise my great friend, I could not persuade him to entrust me with the composition of this water. When I asked him about it, he always replied that I had seen enough, and if I opened the eyes of intelligence just a little, I would certainly find it and know what qualities it has. They would show me if I was right or wrong. If I had been smart, I would secretly have made a projection to try if this tincture was also effective in the tingeing of metals. I would then have been sure that this was the true Menstruum and Philosophical Mercury. But it is said: Cogitationes posteriores sapientiores, or God did not want me to know it yet but wants to be ever implored for it. It looks as if it were a mean thing but in truth it is the greatest secret of all Nature.
This I consider a sure potable gold, for nothing corrosive was used in its preparation but everything went on quite smoothly, and the solution and final coagulation were like blood. Of course, one can find some solutions that also turn out red, but the menstruum used is somewhat sharp. It is the reason why Angelus Sala was moved to state in his Aphorisms that it is impossible to change gold into a liquid without a corrosive. This applies to the proceedings of the common laboratory workers, but it does not follow that it is impossible to find in Nature a menstruum capable of dissolving gold without Violence and suspicion of corrosion and reverting it into the prima materia. Because Angelus Sala did not know or believe, should it therefore not be true! It is not right of such a chymist simply to make such a statement, for if I and someone else do not know something, does it therefore follow that it does not exist in Nature?
Garzias ab hortis mentions in his Indian Observations that the Indians have a water in which gold will soften, so that it can then be formed by hand into anything they wish. Afterwards it will again become hard as before, which is no small wonder. He does not say, however, if it is a natural water or one prepared artificially. Be that as it may, it would seem that it could not be a corrosive water, otherwise the gold would not only become soft but it could in addition not be thus manipulated by hand. What will Sala reply now?
I do not doubt that this water is prepared by Art, but it is done from a substance that loves gold and has a special affinity for it, or else it could not achieve such a feat. Thus H.D. Laurenbergius also relates that he knows such a water that gently melts gold without any suspicion of corrosives, like ice in hot water. If then this is true --- and there is no doubt it is --- it must certainly follow that gold, without Sala's objection --- can be opened and reduced into its prima materia without a corrosive. Whoever is endowed by God with so much good fortune that he can accomplish this, may well thank Him and be happy that he has such a treasure which cannot be paid with any amount of gold, for no sickness can be so severe that he cannot cure it, and he will thus become a wonderworker through it.
Aside from this unique water, nothing can be found that could accomplish this, no matter what it is called, be it spirit of salt or wine - it does not do it. But this should not be understood as if I wanted to reject all preparations of potable gold. Not at all. This writing is only to indicate that there are two dissolutions of gold. One is done quite gently and without violence through melting, whereby the gold is so much dissolved that it can never again be changed into a Body. This is the philosophical, natural, and friendly dissolution. The other is done in various ways with different menstrua and calcinations, by Mercury, Sulphur, various salts, etc. It is called violent because gold is thereby not changed into the prima materi but only into extremely fine atoms, and through them gold can again be reduced.
Yet, aside from the Universal Menstruum, there still exist other means to bring gold so far that it can never be smelted into another Body. This has its special reasons, but it does not follow that gold has been changed into the true prima materia. Even so, a fine medicine has been made with it, as will be seen later in my Notes. I consider it highly and have also often used it to great advantage in my practice. One must take care, however, not to be tempted by the multiple processes, thus achieving no more than a leprous gold calx and doing more harm than good. Those who do that would do much better to leave gold in peace. Although they know and have read that gold contains a powerful medicine, they do not know how to deal with it properly. If the shells can be removed and the core extracted, one has an arcanum with which nothing in Nature can be compared, as has already been mentioned above where it is written that gold is constituted in such a way that it cannot be destroyed by any element.
But someone might here object: "I hear much talk and discussion about it, and you only open your mouth wide but do not put anything into it, or you want to wash the pelt, but without wetting it. Therefore I cannot achieve a right preparation and am getting quite confused or even suspicious, for the process of Poppius is boring and obscure, and I cannot trust other processes - of which one can now and then find whole fodders - especially as I hear that the dissolution is so hard to handle".
To this I reply: It is indeed true that many written things can be found in almost all books and that nevertheless hardly anybody can reach the desired goal, and that in the end effort, labor, and expenses are lost, as I have myself experienced not once but frequently. Thus I had at first put so much faith in Libavius that I believed his words were nothing but Gospel truths. I worked according to the processes he had compiled but achieved nothing but the sowing of effort and the reaping of misfortune. Even when I burnt myself several times, I did not want to stop because I could not imagine that such a man could have written and published so many untested things --- especially because he examined and severely censured other men's works.
What I found to be true, however, is very little, and my Vulcan (fire) would in no way go along with such precepts. Therefore, I did not obtain enough to bring forth a louse. Of such writers there are more. They write either too obscurely or in a veiled manner, so that even Oedipus could not guess their meaning, or their processes have only sprung from their own brain and have never been tested. This has spoiled many a natural talent and scared it from working in the laboratory. It would be better if they stopped writing.
So that the beginning laboratory worker and kind reader do not also waste work, time, and money, as I did, I will here indicate a process which I have worked with my own hands and also found good for my patients in many sicknesses. Just as in the following processes I will not present anything that I have not performed myself, assisted by my collaborators. I will honestly report what they accomplished in various diseases, hoping that young students about to begin their practice will be greatly served by it. I do not remember that similar book with such a method has seen the light of day, for in the practice one can see what a specific medicine can do. Now we will proceed with our process for making potable gold.
Take some of the best purified gold, as much as you like, have a goldsmith laminate it very thin, the thinner the better. Cut it as big as a Thaler (old coin like the Dollar), the cut round pieces from a stag's antlers, as big and thick as half a Thaler, take a cement can no wider than the pieces of antlers or half a Thaler, so that only the pieces fit in. One can also make it of good clay, as one pleases. At the bottom of the can put one finger's width of sand or gypsum, which is better. On it put a piece of antlers, upon that a piece of your gold, above it again a piece of antlers, then again gold. Put everything layer upon layer, as the chymists say, till the can is full or till you have used all your gold. Again, put gypsum upon it till the can is quite full, close the can with good lute, let it dry, then set it in a medium strong cementing fire, at first very gentle, then finally so strong that the can will well glow for one hour or four. Let it cool, open the can, and you will find the gold calcined almost flesh-colored.
This work must be repeated three times. The gold will become quite soft and can be pounded and rubbed. Now mix it with calcined antlers and reverberate it on a cupel but not too strongly, for a whole day. The gold will turn almost the color of bricks. Then it is correctly and well calcined, and you may be sure that you cannot get a better calcination. It will become so subtle that it can easily be used in medicines for several sicknesses without any further preparation, for this calx is sweet and not contaminated by any corrosives.
Upon this beautiful pure calx pour the following prepared menstruum. It will extract its tincture in a few hours like blood, leaving its metallic slime behind. Pour the menstruum off, pour fresh one upon it till all of the tincture is extracted and nothing but a dead earth is left. Nor is that to be thrown out, because it has a special power for drying and cleansing all discharging damages, so that they heal all the sooner. Distill your menstruum down to dryness through sand, and a purple-colored tincture will be left in the glass. Upon that pour a good spirit of wine. How that is to be correctly prepared will be found further on in the Treatise on Tartar. Better, use some quintessence of salt. How to make that will also be taught under its title. Set it closed to digest and it will extract a yet purer tincture. Distill the spirit of wine to half, and you will have a wonderful potable gold. Or, if you pour some quintessence of salt over it, you can leave it such as, without distilling it and use it as a medicine, because the essence of salt is by itself a fine medicine, also without gold, as will also be shown in its proper place.
Even if this potable gold is one of the best kinds there are and does its share with glory in many sicknesses, it can still be processed higher, so that one grain accomplishes more than ten do otherwise. Although this preparation looks bad, it is quite philosophical, and as can be seen, does not contain anything corrosive. Neither Salt, Mercury nor Sulphur is added to this calcination, and although it is said that the volatile salt of stag's antlers (carbonate of ammonia) calcines gold, it is true but is no harmful corrosive. By itself it is a wonderful poison-eliminating medicine, which can be taken into the body without harm or damage. In addition, it does not mix with gold in such a way as to stay with it, as the corrosive spirits are want to do - which may be seen by its taste and weight - but the glowing disappears, leaving the gold behind pure and only calcined. I am of opinion that a better calcination cannot be found in the common works than this. Therefore a student may follow it quite assuredly, provided he knows just a little of how to deal with the fire, so as not to make it too hot and smelt the gold into a Body. If he did, all his work and trouble would be lost. If he prevents the smelting, he has already won, and thereafter the subsequent work will proceed without trouble and hindrance.
How this potable gold is to be heightened in its virtue, I will also show. Whoever cares, can do it, he will not regret it. Although it requires some time, it is yet a wonderful work and help in need. Therefore the physicians can see hereby how sincerely I am operating and that I do not hide the manipulations needed to obtain such a medicine or, as others do, withhold what is most necessary and keep silent about it.
Take therefore 1 lb. of the best purified live Mercury (how it has to be prepared will subsequently also be indicated in its chapter), pour over it 1 lb. of the best rectified oil of vitriol, let it digest closed till the Mercury is altogether dissolved. Distill the oil from it quite strongly and finally give it so much fire that it can sublimate up, then it will rise very white and crystalline. Some black feces will be left at the bottom of the glass. Pour those off as they are good for nothing, remove the sublimate, put it back in a retort and pour the oil of vitriol over it. Let it dissolve again, and when this is done, again distill the oil off it and sublimate the Mercury. It will rise even more beautifully than before. You must repeat this work till the Mercury appears bright, transparent, and clear as crystal. Then it is well prepared for this purpose.
Now take 2 Lots of it, and 1 Lot of the previous liquid or potable gold, mix them well, enclose them together in a phial,set that in a vapor fire, and in 20 days, at most 25 days, it will turn quite black and look like melted pitch. Thereafter set it in ashes or sand, and it will become grey-white-yellow and finally red like blood and transparent like a ruby. Thus you will get a medicine like which there is none better in virtues, and it is a true panacea for use in almost all sicknesses, especially where strength is required. It does its effect without any discomfort and almost through imperceptible perspiration, as will be shown in the description of its operation.
After the calcination of the gold, I thought of a special menstruum. Now I will also show you how it is to be prepared to make the work and the process perfect. It depends on the best manipulation, and this is what is to be done: Take a good amount of boy's urine, distill it to half, pour away what is left, and put the distillate again in a retort. Again distill it to half, and do this work three times. With the subtle spirit a beautiful, transparent, shining salt will rise. Rinse all the salt with the spirit out of the alembic, weigh this spirit, mix it with the same amount of the best spirit of wine, let it gently putrefy together for 8 days, then distill it, and you will have a wonderful menstruum for all metals, minerals, and precious stones. With this you can obtain the true tincture of gold.
Do not believe that you will get a better and surer process in authors, though they talk a lot about it and every small shopkeeper praises his goods. Finally you will nevertheless discover for whose benefit their singing is. You must not ask or doubt if this process works or not. You have already heard from me that I do not want to write anything that my eyes have not seen or my hands have not worked, for I do not take these processes from mute books, as many have done. I wish to make a gift to and serve the studying youth with what Vulcan (fire), has given me. Writing is no art nowadays, but to invent processes and verify them in the fire is difficult, and it often happens that one must say, "of that we could not think". If now there is one who does not learn anything by my labors, he will understand and learn it much less from other writings, let him be assured of that.
We must now also explain how and for what this noble medicine is to be used, and how we can apply it to advantage. First, this potable gold is a special treasure and arcanum for keeping the human body from many sicknesses. It greatly strengthens the heart and all spirits. Administer 5 grains of it in water at room temperature. It goes through the body like smoke and preserves it, so that it can be kept from all possible sicknesses till the end of life. It is truly a great blessing of God not having to spend one's life on the sickbed. Wealthy people should have it specially prepared for them to assure them of good health in addition to their wealth. Of what use are riches and property to a man if he is sick, lame, and in bad health, and does not enjoy either food or drink? Truly, health is better than all wealth. Whoever despises those remedies despises God's goodness, for God has not only created money and properties for the sustenance of man but has also given the medicines, so that man might be better equipped for his profession. But I know many who would rather hang themselves than spend 100 Thalers for their health, and they are living so miserably that they are of no use either to themselves or to others. I consider this a great punishment of God.
For example, I have known some rich sows in this country who said that they would rather be sick than poor. Although they were rich enough, they did not get so much enjoyment from their wealth that they could eat one morsel with delight in a full quarter of a year, because of their sicknesses. Oh! May God preserve us from such "hospital wealth!" I would rather guard cows than lead such a miserable life with so many riches, since no man knows that he must finally leave all his belongings here, being unable to take anything along with him from this world. They must be fools, yes, maniacs, to have such thoughts. The body has indeed been created in the likeness of God. Although money and assets are also a great gift of God, the body is yet more than all that and has only been created for the purpose of being maintained and of serving our fellowman with it. Whoever then wants to end his life in good health till God calls him, can achieve it by this arcanum and frequent praying to God.
It is a special medicine for the stroke which it helps enormously. It does not put the physician to shame, unless the stroke affected the heart immediately and finished it. Otherwise, if there is still a little hope left, it does its work amazingly well.
I tried it for the first time on a noblewoman in Polten, Austria, and found it to be good. There lived a noble widow who had a sanguinary complexion and was full-blooded. She fainted at dinner, fell over, let hands and feet flop down, and began a death rattle. Her attendant saw that it was a stroke. Just at that time there was no physician in town, and as I had some business with Herr von Greuss in Walde --- which is located not far from the town Polten - the patient's servant at once came there and asked Frau von Greuss for advice. She immediately left to see the widow, and I accompanied her.
When we arrived, we found that she was lying there without consciousness and movement, rustling all the time. I opened her mouth with a wooden instrument and poured some of the potable gold into her in some water of lilies of the valley. I sat her upright and gave her the dose once more, seeing to it that she kept it down, which was the case. Meanwhile, I had her rubbed very strongly with towels. After about half an hour she moved her eyes. I felt that the spirits were ready to return and put some sneezing powder made of lilies of the valley and tobacco into her nose through a quill. all at once she began to sneeze and opened her eyes, but she could not yet recognize anyone, nor could she speak. I now took some teriac, mixed it with a few drops of this potable gold, and after again opening her mouth with the instrument, I coated her upper palate with it. This I did once every half hour, and thus almost the whole night went by. Toward morning I again gave her 6 drops in water of lilies of the valley. Thereafter she became alive again, in one instant so to speak, at the surprise of all present, although she had trouble lifting her arms. I put some more teriac on her palate and opened a vein for her in the morning. Her blood was so thick that it could hardly get out of the vein. She felt increasingly better and also began to speak. I had the following decoctum made for the external members and had her rubbed with it.
Antistroke
decoction Rx. Rad. Aaronis
Pyrethri
Enulae camp. a. j Lot.
Urticae minor, ji Lot.
Castorehi
Myrrhae rub.
Mastichis an. j. Lot.
Aloe succtrinae, ji. Lot.
Piperis longi, jii.
Rosimarini
Salviae acut. an., ji. Lot.
Flor. Lavendul., ji. Lot.
Bacc, Juniperi
Sem. Erucae an. ji. Lot.I had these boiled for her in white wine and had her arms and legs vigorously rubbed with it. She recovered thus her health in three days and lived thereafter hale and healthy for a few more years. I had to leave one or three doses of this potable gold with her which she was going to keep as a special treasure and use only in case of emergency. Afterwards, everybody wanted to know with what I had cured this dangerous sickness. I could tell of more such cures, but one is enough. I only relate this to show what potable gold can do and how it was applied, so that a practitioner can do the same in a similar case, unless special circumstances require a different procedure. It is therefore not without reason that I describe and report the circumstances so carefully.
If one requires a strong tonic in epidemic diseases, such as in pestilential and spotted fevers, it can be this potable gold, for it not only strengthens the heart powerfully but also drives the poison out through perspiration. Thus it cleanses all the blood of infection, as I have experienced in many places with many persons. When in June and July of 1613 there was a strong outbreak of the pestilential fever in Morea, also called Peloponnesus, in the town of Modon and other places, including Candia, and people frequently died of it, I and my travelling companions survived and preserved ourselves from that poison with this potable gold. I have also cured many Turks of this sickness, which afterwards was greatly to my advantage in the course of my peregrinations in oriental places. Because of it, I received good recommendations from one place to another, so that I could promote my planned travels and finish them the sooner, as I was not only escorted safely but also made some honest money thereby. Whoever, therefore, is infected with such a contagious disease, let him not wait but take 7,8,9, drops of this potable gold in some spirit of citrus fruit. It will immediately cause the perspiration to flow and bring peace to the heart. As a prevention, take 5 drops early in the morning, once a week, and thereupon perspire a little. Those who have no spirit of citrus fruit may take it in a little wine.
It is an excellent remedy for palpitations and chlorosis, which mostly trouble young girls. Nothing better can be found in Nature, as it does away with the complaints in a few days. Some time ago, I cured a young girl of 14 years in Leipzig. She was so greatly troubled by this sickness that she could no longer walk through her room. I did not give her more than 3 doses of 6 drops each time, in extract of balm.
Her symptoms disappeared, her menses occurred, and thus she recovered her health. It is an excellent remedy for activating the menses. To such persons one gives, four days before the New Moon, 5,6,7,8 drops in either extract of balm or extract of saving (red cedar, juniper). If necessary, the body can be cleansed with the common purgatives. To do this, there is nothing better than the following pills. As a special arcanum, they remove the obstructions of the uterus, and not many like them can be found.
Special Pills for the Menses
Rx.Extract. ex Baccis Lauri
Sabinae
Flor. Centaur. min.
Calendulae an. ji. Lot.
Salis Melissae
Sabinae an. j. Lot.
Olei Sabinae j. Lot.
Borrac. Vener jii. Lot.
Croci orient.
Mass. pil. Aloe phang. ji. Lot.
fiat massa pilularum cum oleo cinamoni. (for the pills).Of this one gives morning and evening one scruple in one go, at the usual time. This composition is recommended for everybody. Following this, one gives the potable gold. It is said that wealthy women have these two arcana in their family medicine-chest, enabling them to prevent many a misfortune. It is indeed put so clearly before their eyes that they cannot go wrong.
In the case of a difficult birth, I know nothing better. It does not only accelerate the living birth but also the still birth and the afterbirth. At this one might be surprised. I saw it happen in 1612 with a Countess in Styria. She had been in labor for three days and as a result was exhausted. The child in her was dead, and everybody expected her to give up the ghost. Her husband did not spare any means. As I found myself about the same time at the Inn of that locality and heard how everybody lamented and felt sorry for the Countess I opened my travelling medicine-chest and sent her 10 drops by the innkeeper's wife, to be taken only in a little wine. As soon as she had taken it, she was in labor pains again, although they had already stopped completely. After about a quarter of an hour, the baby was born and the afterbirth followed. Thus the woman was kept alive. Her husband soon came to me at the inn, asking if I was the man who had sent something to drink to his wife. I said yes, and he asked me to do him the favor of driving home with him, as he wanted to show his gratitude to me. And as my advice was further required, I was ready to give it.
I drove to his home with him and spent the night there. I was taken to the woman in childbed. She was so weak that she could not speak. I gave her 9 more drops in a little Malvasian (wine) and ordered her to be kept alone during the night, though care should be taken that she did not sleep too deeply. She rested very well and gently. When she awoke toward morning, she asked for me. I went to her and she thanked me, saying that next to God I was her life's extension. She begged me to stay with her for eight days, but as my travels did not permit it, I excused myself. Then she pulled a diamond ring from her finger and gave it to me. Her husband, with great thanks and joy, rewarded me very generously, and I stayed there for another half day. The Countess was feeling fine, and so I was graciously allowed to leave and also acquired --- let there be no envious talk about it - a famous reputation. My name has become honorably known in all Austria, where physicians are somewhat more highly esteemed than in this country.
For cancer it is a powerful remedy, as it takes it out from the center to the circumference, provided one does not wait too long before it spreads into all the veins and corrodes them. If it reaches that stage, we cannot hope for a cure, but if it has not got the upper hand, it can well be cured with this medicine. Thus, in 1619, I had as a patient a wealthy woman who had previously tried many things. I also tried for three months but it did not help her, nor did the remedies which had done much for others --- they were all in vain. Therefore I proposed to make potable gold for her, as I knew no other remedy for her cure. She was glad that I could suggest yet another remedy and procured to this end 5 Lots of fine gold. I prepared it according to the prescribed process and gave her 5 drops in a little warm wine three times a week. But she had to perspire a little after each time she drank it, as it is a diaphoreticum (perspiration-inducing) all by itself, even without any other means.
When had taken the potable gold for some time, it greatly purified her blood, so that it became noticeable: the cancer did not eat further all around as it did when she used the other medicaments. It stood still and cleared up. Likewise, the woman's pain became less day after day. On the outside I only put Sal Saturni (salt of lead) in it. The pain stopped altogether, but the cancer did not disappear quite so fast. She, however, did not pay any attention to it but moved about as she pleased, taking care of her household as before. She had no further complaints to the end of her life and lived after this cure for six more years. She was a woman 46 years of age.
This cure should be well remembered, for most physicians consider cancer incurable. But why is it considered incurable? Not because of actual malice or a defect in the medicine, but only because of the physicians' laziness. They do not wish to prepare those medicines, as will be shown further in another place.
In the same year, in Leipzig, I cured a wealthy man of his dizzy spells. he could not safely go down a star without someone walking next to him and holding him firmly to prevent him from falling. This was so serious that he once fell from his chair. Because of his frequent dizziness he was afraid of a stroke. To him I also gave this potable gold, but only once a week, and I prescribed for him a solution with which he had to wash his head once every eight days. After the washing, I also prescribed for him a balsam which he had to rub on the upper spinal cord, both temples, his nose and nape. In this way he was cured of this sickness with the help of God, at the age of 55. The solution, however, was prepared as follows:
Rx. Rad, paeoniae
Caryophylat.
Zedoriae an. j. Lot.
Flor. primulae veris
Lavendulae
Tiliae
Anthos
Rosar. rub. an. ji. Lot.
Fol. majoren.
Rosis marin.
Melissae
Lauri
Salviae an. j. Lot.
Thuris opt.
Succiniam j. LotEverything to be boiled into a lixiviate. With this he had to wash his head and quickly dry it again at a coal fire. The balsam was prepared from the following oils and used as written above:
Rx. Olei Mosch. per expression, facti jii. Lot.
destill. Bensoini
Caryophyll. an. ji. Lot.
Rosar.
Cinnamoni
Citri an. ji. Lot.
Majoran
Rutae
Succini albi an. ji. Lot.
Moschi
Ambrae gris. an. ji. Lot.
Ladani opt. jii. Lot - to be mixed according to the Art to prepare the balsam.This balsam cannot only be used to great advantage for dizzy spells but also for strokes and other serious head disorders, as will be further reported in another place.
If you wish to use this potable gold for the maintenance of your health, take 8 drops within 14 days in a perspiration-inducing liquid, and perspire somewhat thereafter. It is always better perspire a little after taking the medicine than to use it such as without anything else, for in sweating the blood is cleansed and everything impure is eliminated with the perspiration. Children, however, must take it only once in 4 weeks, and only 3 drops in one go. Likewise those who are over 50 years of age. Those who are over 60 can use it once in 14 days, because in old age bad moistures collect which must be driven out. In this way man can be kept hale and healthy to his last hour.
I knew a winegrower in Croatia. That man was 136 years old, at least, as he told me, and looked like someone about 60. He had a grandson whom I also saw, aged 72 years. He admitted that as long as he could remember he had never been sick, because he still tended to his vineyards in his great age, was hoeing there, and did all his work as well as a youngster, and not even one finger was hurting him. He related to me many stories of the Turks which had taken place in Croatia, and the man had such a remarkable memory that I could not wonder enough at it. I asked what was the reason that he had grown so old and had always been in good health. He told me he had some earth which he dug up on a special mountain, that he was taking a pinch of it every morning in a tablespoon of brandy, and that that had kept him so long - in addition to God. He showed it to me. It was red as blood and like grease and stuck on one's fingers. I took it to be sealed or Lemnian earth or solar fat (axungia Solis), as there were various mines in the same locality.
As I had no time to go myself to the mountain with the man - for it was a good two miles away - not very far from the Turkish fortress of Petrinja - I could not obtain any of it to take along with me to test it to see if a Solar Spirit (Spiritus Solis) was hidden in it. But it must undoubtedly have been a solar spirit, else it would not have had such power. And this was especially noteworthy: If this earth was put in brandy, it melted almost completely in it. It is sure that Hungary and the kingdoms belonging to it had been especially rich in various goldish ores - and it is almost everywhere - but they cannot all be cultivated due to the Turkish danger. I had seen in Sohl that the Turks had invaded the country and taken away with them over 200 miners, men and women. One hears of that everywhere in the Walachia and in the Croatia, and in those places there still lies hidden a great treasure. When one gets to Macedonia and Thrace, especially around Philippopl, one can find the terra sigillata (sealed earth) at various places in different colors, red and white, which are also used by the Turks for various sicknesses. I myself have collected some of it and brought it back with me to Germany. I do not relate these stories without a special reason, for they prove that there is a special power in the solar spirit of gold for maintaining life, strengthening and increasing the vital spirits, thus obtaining the desired health. Therefore Geber says not unjustly: In the Sun and the Salt of Nature is everything. Now enough said of this for this time. We will proceed further to other preparations.
Chapter 3
Oil of Gold Prepared in the Common Way
Gold purified through antimony, 1 Lot. Dissolve it into a gold-colored oil in a circulated oil of salt. When the gold is totally dissolved, pour oil of wine over it, not the common one obtained from tartar but that which is distilled from the best wine which still has its mother and lees. This done, the oil of gold will in one moment be changed into a blood red oil, like a beautiful transparent ruby. Now add to it 6 Lots of good spirit of wine to one part of this oil, set it in mild ashes, put a well luted alembic on it and begin distilling, at first gently, finally stronger. The gold will rise bloodred over the alembic, giving off a lovely lustre. Now it is prepared.
Note ~
This process may well be short but it has many difficulties in it. It is not so easy to tinge as many believe and as the words look because it requires two strong requisites, namely, the circulated salt-oil and oil of wine, and it takes a great deal of trouble and work before the oil of wine is made. The author has not indicated how it is to be prepared, but in the treatise on tartar he has written about it. However, it is just as little the correct one as that of which he warns us in this process. But I have added the right preparation, obtained by my experience, which can be found in my Note, where the kind reader can look it up. It must not be made from the feces of the wine, as the author indicates, but from the purest wine, if anything good is to be done with it, as experience teaches. For the pure oil of wine mixes with the wine. That which is made of the feces of wine, however, may well mix with it but it does not take its essentials over the retort. Whether this be a right solution, I let everybody see for himself.
What has just been said of the oil of wine also applies to the circulated oil of salt. If the gold is to be rightly opened, it must be the circulated quintessence of the salt --- but how it is to be prepared, the author does not indicate here either; although he has a description of the oil of salt under that title, it is also bad and according to the common manner. I have added a preparation taken from my own experience, which can also be found there.
But in order to make the process soon available, uncurtailed, to a beginner, I have not spared the effort of adding it also here. If anything were perhaps lacking in one place, he could find the discrepancy compensated in another. It takes a lot of industry and time to get it right. To make it right, however, the process must be done as follows:
Have a retort made for you that has a tube at the back of the bottom. It must be quite narrow below, somewhat wider above. Fill it completely with stone-salt, such as is hewn in the mountains of Salzburg, Austria, and in Styria. Wall it in a furnace, lute a receiver in front but make a small hole between the joints with a quill, to give it air when the spirits move. Now give fire per degrees till the salt flows in the retort like water, which you can easily notice. Then let a few drops of water drip inside through the tubes, and the salt spirits will soon rise, penetrating forcibly into the receiver. Now you must give them some air through the small holes but close them up soon again, and they will move all the quicker, and it is so nice to see. You must continue doing this till all the salt changes into spirit. Take all the spirit and rectify it to remove the phlegma.
Of this spirit take 1 lb., add to it as much melted salt, knead it under potter's clay and turn it into little balls. Let them dry in the air and distill them trough a retort, as is customary. You will obtain a beautiful yellow-green spirit. Take the caput mortuum (death's head) out of the retort, powder it, and lixiviate the salt from it with lukewarm rain water, filter and coagulate it, dissolve it again and coagulate it. You must repeat this till the salt has become as beautifully transparent as crystal and flows like wax.
Add it to the spirit and let both well unite in the digestion. Now you have a fine spirit of salt that dissolves gold rightly and liquifies it. Aside from doing this, it is also a good spirit for use in medicine, and the common spirit can never equal its performance. True, it requires a lot of work but it pays the effort well, as everyone who uses it in such work will see for himself. The gold calx will also become as beautifully brown as if it had been calcined for some time with Mercury and Sulphur.
Thomas Kessler of Strasbourg also indicates a fine manner of making the spirit of salt with bellows: One has to have a retort made of good clay. It must have a tube at the back into which the bellows are directed, to enable the wind to get directly into the center of the retort, driving the spirit into the receiver. True, it is a fine piece of workmanship, but does not yield much. The retort must strongly glow for three hours before one begins with the bellows. I tried it, but when I saw that it would not yield much, I did as follows:
I had a retort made with two tubes, one in the center and one bellow at the bottom, as the figure shows. Through tube (a) I let the water drop in as indicated in the previous process, and quickly closed the hole up. After that, I directed the bellows into tube (b),and as soon as the cold water had dripped inside, I worked the bellows. An observer would have had great fun seeing how frequently and wonderfully the spirits ran into the receiver, and of what colors they were. It all goes fast, but the bellows must be glued to the tube to prevent the spirits from running out backwards. Therefore, it must be fitted with a long iron tube at the beak, so that it does not burn. The furnace must also be arranged accordingly, to let the tube stick out far enough. Likewise that which is supposed to stick out above. In this way things will go very well. It is possible to prepare a good amount in one day, because the air of the bellows does not permit the spirits to fall down again, to be united again with the Body, as happens otherwise. For they must go - but the receiver must be big enough, or else it is not without danger, as anyone will easily agree. For if the spirits force their way out and do not find enough room, they break the receiver, as happened to myself, not knowing that they are so violent and push almost like the spirit of tartar.
If someone cannot work this process of the spirit of salt for lack of the right instruments, and yet would need it, let him take 1 lb. of crushed salt and 2 lbs. of coaldust, mix them well together and distill them in the common way through a retort. He will also obtain a good spirit, but it must be well rectified once or three times to rid it if its feces. He can also use it in the dissolution of the Sun, as our author would have it.
The reason why I here describe the spirit of salt in so many ways is so that the laboratory worker be instructed how important the menstrua are. Often a single bad manipulation hinders a great work, and those who will only use a common spirit of salt, as the distillers sell, will no doubt work in vain and achieve nothing useful. It is the same with the oil of wine whose preparation, as already mentioned, you will find further on. The better the wine, the more wonderful the oil will be. You can use Spanish wine and will obtain all the more, as experience has taught me. But his you must take careful note of: If you have distilled once, you must repeat it once or several times. Then you will get a good medicament, for the often repeated process turns the work into a subtle medicine.
When you have driven all the gold over the alembic, put it in a cold place for some time, such as a cool cellar, and in time beautiful transparent crystals, like rubies, will sprout. You can take those out with a wooden pair of tongs, and dry them on paper. There are very few of them, as the Body does not all rise in one go over the alembic. Therefore the Death's Head can be taken out, reverberated with sulphur flowers, and the gold calx will become quite pure. Pour again some spirit of salt of salt and oil of wine over that, and proceed as before. The entire Body will finally rise over the alembic. More will be reported on this at another place when we will deal with other preparations.
These crystals still have another advantage: Take one part of them, add 3 parts of Mercury of Saturn optim. purified, set it together in sand in a phial and give it a graduated fire. Mercury will precipitate in a short time, and it will not only result in a fine medicine but also in a sample of gold, so that you can see with your own eyes that the Mercury of lead can thereby be turned into gold. It can either be melted with borax or melted and assayed by the cupel with lead. Thus you will certainly find that it is no empty talk, although some would deny that it is a proof. It might well be so, as the crystals made of gold can again be brought back into a Body and provide a gold proof. It is easy to answer this by first observing the weight of the crystals, then that of the added Mercury and the prepared gold. In this way you will see if you have an excess or not. I am of opinion that there will be some, but I do not say that it will be of great importance in regard to all costs incurred, because it does cost something to prepare the Mercury of lead. Thus, these crystals also do not just cost a little, yet one can nevertheless prove thereby that it is possible to make a transmutation without the Universal Tincture. Whoever wishes, can try it, he will not work in vain, nor will he lose much thereby, and the gold will turn out quite beautiful, more beautiful than that from the Hungarian mines, of which I once had 3 ounces together.
Nor is this oil of gold to be despised, because it is of great usefulness in medicine if properly applied. Whatever I have learned, I will reveal. It may well be that others have also tried it for other sicknesses, but I have mostly used this composition for the French disease (venereal disease), when it strongly drove the poison out through perspiration, thus healing the infected persons.
First I tried it on a scholar who had a training school not far from Vienna in Austria. He was not satisfied with Germany but devoted himself to the French. ("The French" was the name given to syphilis). He had acquired it from a French "putain", or whore. He already had it to the highest degree: his hair was falling out, boils came out on his temples, spots were also on his thighs, and whatever other symptoms there are in such an infection. I did tell him that I was willing to cure him, but that it would be at great expense as the infection had already advanced so far. The woman with whom he was living offered to assume all the costs, if only he could be restored to good health. I thought they were sleeping together, and it looked to me as if she were also infected, but she did not say anything about it. I prepared this oil of gold for him, as I had received enough money for it, and gave him 6 drops a day in one dose, in some spirit of Lignum Sanctum (holy wood). I made him perspire to dryness in a bathroom, and when he had done this for four days, he got a rash over his body like the rind of a birchtree. He was very ugly to look at, as his blood was totally infected. I continued for 14 days, and it drove the disease out of his body most formidably. Then I made him take a bath in the following solution: 2 lbs. of sulphur, 4 lbs. of salt, 1 lb. of tartar. All this had to boil strongly in a kettle with water, till the water was quite whitish. In that he bathed four times, when the dirt fell off him and he became quite clean and healthy.
When children contract smallpox or the measles, they cannot be helped by any better remedy than this oil of gold, giving them once, twice, or three times each time 4 drops in a tablespoon of lentil broth. It will soon drive them out and off the heart, so that they are rid of the sickness in a few days.
Against dizzy spells it is likewise a wonderful expedient. With it I cured two wealthy persons in a short time, one a man, the other a woman, both belonging to the nobility of Thuringia. I did not give them more than 6 drops in a spoonful of swallow-water, continuing thus for 14 days. Externally, I had their temples rubbed with snake grease. Their dizziness disappeared, and one has to-date not noticed anything of it in them.
Nasal polyps are chased away very quickly, as I tried doing for a noble young lady in 1630. She was greatly troubled with it. I first put some spirit of Nieri on it until was everywhere sorely corroded, although it was sore enough by itself, greatly hindering her breathing and speaking. After that, she had to coat it every morning and evening with this oil, and it may well have still other virtues in medicine. But because I have no experience in that regard, I cannot give a true report on it. The kind reader will have to be content with the experiments I have related.
With this oil I still did something else: I took one Quentlein (1.66 gr.) of it, added to it 3 Quentlein oil or tincture of sweet antimony and congealed it in a phial to a fixed, darkred powder, which took four weeks. Finally I gave it a very strong fire and it flowed together in a glass. I removed it, pulverized it, and used it in many sicknesses. It also did its share amazingly well and was almost like a panacea.
I wanted to know if I could also put a golden-yellow coat on Luna (silver) in aquafort. I beat the calx down and edulcorated it, then added some of this medicine and set it in a gradation fire. The Luna calx turned brownred in 8 days, and red oildrops were hanging in the phial above the matter. I congealed it still longer, the drops vanished, and everything became red. On the very day I intended to take it out, the imperial invasion took place. Not only was the glass smashed but I was robbed of all my medicines, so that I cannot tell whether or not it would have resulted in something. Someone who has this medicament in stock should test it, he cannot lose much by doing so. I am of opinion that it would turn into something, especially because the ferment had been united to and congealed with the tincture of antimony. But I do not wish to be the cause that everybody embarks on goldmaking, because I myself cannot do it. I only say that Nature is wonderful in her works. Whoever reflects on them may well occasionally discover a secret. Often a bad and mean thing has so much in it that nobody would believe it.
Chapter 4
Another Process for the Preparation of Oil of Gold
Take purified gold, 2 Lots; quick silver, 8 Lots. Make of them an amalgam such as goldsmiths make when trying to gild. Put this ground gold in a leather and dry the quicksilver off it. The gold will be left in the leather like a white mass or dough. Put it in a crucible or cupel, mix it with three times as much sublimated sulphur, then set the cupel in a reverberating furnace till the sulphur and the mercury disappear completely and the gold is left in the cupel like a brown powder. This gold is as fluffy as a sponge. Put it in a glass, pour over it some oil of vitriol, which has been united with the White Swans, thereafter distill it to oil over the alembic. This oil must then be rectified with spirit of wine, strengthened by its oil. In this way one can also obtain a beautiful red oil.
Note ~
In this formula the author again shows us another process for making potable gold. Although he does not lack in processes, they are deficient in so far as gold cannot thereby be made truly potable. If there is a subject under the sun with which many processes have been undertaken, it is gold; and if there is one by which less has been accomplished, it is precisely gold. Therefore many have been induced to even bar gold from medicine. But those have not acted intelligently, for what fault is it of the pure and good gold that it is treated so wrongly? It would rather do away with such processes than it must submit to be tortured so badly as the daily works show more than enough. These Laboratory workers err all together in the sole key for opening its hard locks and fetters, for many works disclose an uncertain foundation. However, where there is no foundation, how can a stable house be built?
I remember a funny dreamer in Leipzig who pretended that gold, which is a pure fire, could not be opened or made potable except by another pure fire. In so saying he was not wrong, and it is so in truth. But I asked him what he understood by the fire that was to dissolve gold. He did not wish to tell me but said that it was a fire that only lights but does not burn. Now I well remembered that Paracelsus also wrote of such a fire, but whether that dreamer understood what was meant by it, I doubt very much, for in such a fire the angels and good spirits are also transformed.
I asked where he hoped to get this pure fire. Now it was difficult to get him to talk. Once I tried getting drunk, thinking that the wine was a sure betrayer of many secrets. It worked, and when he had become drunk and truthful, he let the art out of the bag and said that it was no other than the wil-o'-the-wisps, that they were such a pure fire. I would have loved to laugh at it but could not let him see what I thought till I had learned all his secrets. I also wanted to know how to catch them, but he did not wish to disclose this secret to me. But I did not think other than that this art would burst my stomach with laughter - or I already had the will-o'-the-wisps in my stomach and they wanted to get out again. I could not imagine that the old fool was serious, but he insisted solemnly. Then I thought how God could let a man fall down so much that he could imagine such absurdities. All that I found out - and that was also the reason why he had been called will-o'-the-wisp-catcher during his lifetime. I have met many other strange dreamers but none like him - but I cannot know if he ever caught a will-o'-the-wisp.
We must also examine the author's process. Many think very little of it, as the Gold must be amalgamated with Mercury and calcined with Sulphur. For they say that Mercury robs gold of its inherent moisture and that it becomes subsequently all too dry owing to its reverberation with the Sulphur. Whether this is true or not, I will indicate in the proper place, It may very well be that this calcination is not of very great benefit to medicine, but whether it is due to the fact that Mercury robs gold of its moisture, I will not dispute. So, it cannot be highly considered because of this, but the whole process appears suspect to me, and I believe the author has never worked it himself or achieved potable gold by it.
He wants to dissolve the gold with oil of vitriol and drive it thereby over the alembic, which gives me much to think about, because the corrosive oil of vitriol does not dissolve gold in such a way that it rises with it over the alembic. It is evident and requires no proof that the corrosive oil of vitriol fixes all volatile spirits and makes them stable, including sulphur, which becomes so fixed by it that no fire can light or burn it. If it does that, how then can it take gold, the stablest of all, along with it over the alembic? Here it is not important that some object and say that gold can be worked so far with other corrosive spirits that it rises into the alembic --- why should the spirit of vitriol not do the same? But the answer is easy to find: one corrosive spirit is not like another. I am here speaking of the corrosive spirit of vitriol and not of its sweet arcanum, of which something will also be said later. For I am well aware that from vitriol a menstruum can be prepared that can dissolve and take over the alembic not only gold but all other metals and precious stones. To do this, however, is not everybody's doing and ability, and it requires an experienced and learned Philosopher and not a common laboratory worker. The process also takes quite some time, and the White Swan must also be present, as the menstruum is useless without it.
But what kind of Swan this is, neither Basil nor Paracelsus has expressly stated, although Basil speaks about the Swan. But if it is to be understood literally, I very much dou