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Alchemy Index
Treatise on Metallic Medicine
by
Joseph Du Chesne
A Collection of the Most Precious and Rare Secrets,
Taken from the Manuscripts of the late Monsieur Joseph Du Chesne,
Sieur de la Violette,
Officer and Physician in Ordinary to the King.
Paris, 1641
Produced by RAMS (Restoration of Alchemical Manuscripts Society)
Contents
Chapter I -- The True Preparation of Philosophical Salt for a General Solvent and a Universal Medicine ~ A Good Way to Freeze the Spirits of Brandy and to make a Chemical Concordance with an Astronomical One, that is, to Join the Terrestrial Aquafortis with Aereated and Celestial Brandy (Water of Life), which is a Marvelous Solvent ~ Another Wonderful Solvent ~ Another Solvent, Which is the Ardent Metallic Water ~ Another Universal Solvent, Called Philosophical Vinegar ~ Philosophical Water for Dissolving the Two Luminaries ~ A Solvent for all Kinds of Precious Stones ~ Extraction of Oils and Tinctures from Minerals.
Chapter II -- Gold -- The Way to Make Potable Gold, According to the Method of Raymond Lully ~ Use of the Preceding Philosophical Sulphur ~ Another Use of the Same Philosophical Sulphur ~ Another Use of the Same ~ Second Method of Making Potable Gold ~ Third Method ~ Fourth Method ~ Fifth Method ~ Sixth Method ~ Seventh Method ~ Eighth Method ~ Ninth method ~ Tenth Method. ~ The Gold Oil of Rudelius, Physician of Scueberg in Misnia ~ Another Oil of Gold, According to the Special Method of the Sieur de la Violette ~ Essence and Tincture of Gold Sudorific Gold ~ Purgative Gold ~ Gold of Life Vegetable Gold ~ Calcined Philosophical Gold .
Chapter III -- Silver -- A Good Preparation of Luna for the Diseases of the Brain ~ Another Preparation ~ Moon Oil ~ Moon Mercury ~ Calcination of Luna
Chapter IV -- Iron -- Preparation of Iron called Crocus Martis ~ Regulus of Mars ~ Tincture of Mars ~ Salt or Crystal of Mars.
Chapter V -- Copper -- The Way of Extracting the Vitriol of Venus ~ Mercury of Venus.
Chapter VI -- Tin -- Specific Remedy Extracted from Flowers of Tin against Cramps of the Womb ~ An Excellent Powder for Flushing the Eyes, Prepared with Tin.
Chapter VII -- Lead -- Preparation of Saturn which is Efficient against the Lepra of Humans and Metallic Bodies, and of which an Oily Solvent can be made ~ Another Solvent of Gold by Crystals of Saturn ~ Oil of Saturn ~ Another Excellent Oil of Saturn Flowers of Saturn which are a Specific Remedy for Opthalmias. ~ Extraction of the Mercury of Saturn ~ Another Method of Extracting the Mercury of Saturn ~ A Method of making the Glass of Saturn.
Chapter VIII -- Mercury -- Purification of Mercury ~ Another Purification of Mercury ~ Sublimation of Mercury ~ Another Sublimation of Mercury ~ Another Excellent Precipitate of Mercury ~ Precipitate of Mercury without Aquafortis ~ Red Precipitate of Mercury by Means of Gold ~ Red Mercury Precipitated by Means of Quicklime ~ Mercury Precipitated in all Kinds of Colors ~ Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated Mercury ~ Another Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated Mercury ~ Mineral Turpeth ~ Another Mineral Turpeth ~ Another Mineral Turpeth by a Flemish Physician ~ Essencified Mercury ~ Mercurial Brandy ~ Another Mercurial Brandy ~ Sweet Oil of Mercury ~ Another Excellent Sweet Oil of Mercury ~ Mercurial Water ~ Another Mercurial Water ~ Another Mercurial Water or Virgin’s Milk of Sublimated Mercury.
Chapter IX -- Antimony -- Elixir of Antimony ~ Essence of Antimony ~ Another Essence of Antimony ~ Antimony Precipitate ~ Sudorific of Antimony ~ Crocus or Sulphur of Antimony (Hepar Antimon) ~ Mixed Tincture of Antimony ~ Flowers of Antimony ~ Regulus of Antimony ~ Crystals of Antimony ~ Salt of Antimony ~ Oil of Antimony ~ Another Oil of Antimony ~ Mercury of Antimony.
Chapter X -- Vitriol -- The Magistery of Vitriol ~ Separation and Conjunction of the Elements of Vitriol for a Universal Medicine ~ Extraction of Vitriol from all Metals ~ Extraction of the Sulphur of Vitriol ~ Crocus Martis of Vitriol ~ An Excellent Oil of Vitriol ~ Oil of Vitriol and Salt Together ~ Sweet Oil of Vitriol ~ Another Sweet Oil of Vitriol.
Chapter XI -- Sulphur -- Sovereign Balsam of Sulphur for all Lung Diseases ~ Flowers of Sulphur ~ Mortification of the Sulphur ~ Tincture of Red Sulphur ~ Oil of Red Sulphur for the Pest ~ Another Oil of Red Sulphur.
Chapter XII -- Arsenic -- Preparation of the Arsenic~ Sublimation of Arsenic.
Chapter XIII -- Cinnabar -- Mineral Cinnabar ~ Extraction of Mercury from Common Cinnabar ~ Cinnabar of Antimony.
Chapter XIV -- Precious Stones -- Essence of Corals and Pearls ~ Dissolution of Pearls with the Vinegar of Saturn ~ Magistery of Pearls and Corals Essence of Medicinal Stones ~ Essence of Hematite ~ Essence of Hyacinth ~ Oil of Crystal for Calculi.
Chapter XV -- Crystal.
Chapter XVI -- Talc -- Preparation of Talc for Reducing it to Oil ~ Another Oil of Talc ~ Another Excellent Oil of Talc.
Chapter XVII - - Special Secrets -- The Author's Anti-Podagral (Anti-Gout) Water ~ The True Laudanum or Nepenthe of the Author ~ The Author's Elixir or Mercury of Life (Mercury Brandy) ~ The Author's Panacea ~ The Great Panacea or the Polychrest Anodyne of Montanus.
The Printer to the Reader ~
The esteem in which all of Europe held the late Sieur de la Violette, whose writings make him immortal as long as science has credit, has made me believe absolutely that what came from his hand could not be investigated with too much care or received with only general approbation. Heaven does not perform miracles every day, nor does Nature bring forth such great men of genius to whom she reveals her secrets. Here is the rarest she has, and I can say without boasting that nothing can be added to this compilation, as well as other writings issued from this same study, if you on your part evidence as much interest in this book as it has merits and as I have eagerness to serve you. Farewell.
Chapter I
The True Preparation of Philosophical Salt for a General Solvent
and a Universal Medicine; A Good Way to Freeze the Spirits of Brandy and
to make a Chemical Concordance with an Astronomical One, that is, to Join
the Terrestrial Aquafortis with Aerated and Celestial Brandy (Water of
Life), which is a Marvelous Solvent; Another Wonderful Solvent; another
Solvent, Which is the Ardent Metallic Water
The True Preparation of Philosophical Salt for a General Solvent and a Universal Medicine ~
Take pebbles that are as white and lucid as those which are found along the Lake of Geneva and the banks of some rivers. Pulverize them coarsely, then put six parts of this with one part of Sun or Moon calx, made either with Mercury, with aqua fort, or some other way. Melt this mixture over a fire such as is used to make artificial stones, and your matter will be converted into a mass like a ball of glass, which pulverize subtly. After that, put your powder in a well-stoppered glass vessel and digest it in a sand fire for eight days. In this way the sulphur will burst forth sooner from the earth and will more easily sublimate. Accordingly, you will sublimate the sulphur of your materia in a well-luted and well-stoppered cucurbite, and when it is sublimated, you will separate it and keep it apart. (See Geber 's Liquor Silicis -- HW Nintzl, ed.)
The earth that does not sublimate and stays at the bottom of the vessel is solid and black, but it will become beautiful, white and almost of the consistency of salt by means of the reverberation, in the course of which you will see it take on all kinds of colors. After this earth has been reverberated at your discretion, pour on it some excellent vinegar, macerate them together for 24 hours, and the vinegar will attract the salt that is in the earth and which is the true root of metals.
Thereafter, separate the thus impregnated vinegar by inclination, and pour it again on the same earth which you had previously reverberated. Once more impregnate your vinegar and let it digest as before. Finally, separate this vinegar and again reverberate your earth, upon which you must pour some more vinegar. Proceed thus three or four times. Then separate all your vinegars, evaporate them at a slow fire till one-third has been consumed. Now put your glass in a cold cellar where small stones will be formed which can truly be called the Philosophical Salt of metals. This is a secret where the curiosity of so many philosophers has not been successful. They only found in it a shameful confusion after efforts that were as long as they were useless.
After the last separation of the vinegar, take your earth, which you will still find moist, and put it in a humid place for 4 or 5 weeks or more. From there, put it in a furnace over a fire of hot ashes or lukewarm sand, where lime is used [i.e., solar lime or lunar lime; substitute calx for lime -- HWN] and you will see emerge from this earth the spirits or the salt flowers in the form of transparent crystals. Separate them carefully from your earth, dissolve them in vinegar, and if you evaporate one-third of this vinegar, you will make crystals as before. The earth that remains after the separation of the crystals must once more be wetted with some vinegar, so as to make it moist. Put it in a humid place for 4 or 5 weeks, as before, and from there remove it to a slow ash or sand fire, and salt flowers or crystals will form for, the second time. You must repeat this several times, as in this way the mineral salt will grow and increase from day to day.
The same effect can be noticed in the vitriol mines or when working with saltpeter, for in this way salt is extracted every day from the earth of nitre and vitriol. This applies to the true salts extracted philosophically from Sol and Luna. Indeed, it is such an extraordinary secret that it would be criminal to despise it, since it is a medicine as sovereign as it is general, and which can unquestionably be considered the masterpiece of all chemical operations, because this salt dissolves immediately in every liquid no matter which, and by its admirable effect penetrates all kinds of bodies, dissolving, driving away, and healing anything malignant and injurious.
The author seems to have touched on this point in the Treatise he has written on the Medicine of the Ancient Philosophers, when he speaks as follows:
What door to the Garden of the Hesperides have I opened by speaking so clearly about saltpeter? What free access have I given to the stupid and ignorant which should only be given to scholars and lovers of the Muses? Therefore, in order to prevent your being deceived by taking my words literally, know that saltpeter or the fusible salt of the philosophers, which has at all braes given alchemy its name, is not common saltpeter. Nevertheless, its composition and its wonderful nature are like the patron or the Lesbian rule of our Work: After this, I can say that I have spoken more clearly and more openly than any of those who came before me.
A Good Way to Freeze the Spirits of Brandy and to make a Chemical Concordance with an Astronomcal One, that is, to Join the Terrestrial Aquafortis with Aereated and Celestial Brandy (Water of Life), which is a Marvelous Solvent ~
Take some vitriol of Cyprus or of Hungary, the latter being second in quality, 2 lbs; sublimated Mercury and common cinnabar or antimony, 1 lb each. Distill them in the usual manner. Take 1 lb of this aquafortis and distill it again with fresh cinnabar or sublimated Mercury. Do this three times, removing the feces each time, until the water is quite clear. Put it aside and take care that it does not get spoiled from exposure to the air. This done, take 8 oz of the feces of the first aquafortis which contains the vitriol, put on it 1-1/2 lb marc weight of a very excellent brandy rectified 7 times. This is to be pulverized, well mixed, and put to digest in moisture in a well-closed vessel and distilled with a small fire to begin with. Then, at the end, use a strong fire till all the spirits have come out. Note that the feces of the aquafortis will be red as corals and will be reduced to vapors, even if you were using cinnabar of antimony.
Take a large retort or a glass cucurbite immersed in cold water and attached with a cork or arranged in such a way that it can neither lean to one side nor to the other and stays immersed in the said water. After that, take two small even bottles and put into each of them 1 oz of these waters, filling them completely. Then put one after another in a vessel and you will see a great bubbling up. Let it settle and add to it two other phials of the same size as the others, full of the same water. Again the same bubbling will arise. Continue thus to gradually join all your waters to the last drop. Thereafter let it settle, and digest everything in the cold state for 24 hours: then distill your waters in the B. M.. They will leave you a salt at the bottom like ice or gum. Note that you must not distill to dryness, and the said salt must stay liquid. Now cohobate what you have distilled (by repeated distillations) till your distilled water has no more power and has left all its spirits conjoined with the salt, and then the work of your plant salt will be accomplished. Note that you must carefully store this weak water to use it for the dissolution of bodies.
As to the salt, dry it very gently in a small retort, closed and stoppered in such a way that the spirits cannot exhale, and when your matter is dry, you must seal the retort hermetically to better preserve your salt.
Another Wonderful Solvent ~
Take cinnabar of antimony, composed of even parts of crude antimony and sublimated Mercury driven through the degrees of the fire. With the first degree, a gum will appear, and with the second -- which will be a double fire above and below -- the materia will sublimate as much on the sides as on the neck of the retort. Thus you will produce a beautiful cinnabar, of which take 1 part; also 1 part each of vitriol and saltpeter. Put everything together in a retort with a long neck, on an ash-fire, till all the moisture is exhaled.
Now stopper your retort well with cotton, continue the fire of your sublimation by degrees for 24 hours, and the matter will all sublimate into a mass white as snow, having the form of hair. Take this mass and imbibe it with oil of tartar on a marble or glass mortar till it turns into a soft paste.
Put it in a big tall alembic to which its head is attached, lute it, and keep it in B. M. for 6 or 7 days, during which time your materia will turn into liquid Mercury. It is the Mercury of the sulphur of antimony and can pass through leather.
Now add to this Philosophical Mercury an equal quantity of common Mercury that has not been prepared in any way. These two Mercuries, mixed together and put in a proper vessel, are put in the warm Horse's Belly for 6 days. Then distill them on an ash-fire, and the quicksilver will distill in the form of water which is the true mercurial water. Keep it separate.
Thereafter take what is left at the bottom of the vessel in the form of a crystalline salt. Dissolve it in B. M. with some good brandy. What is left is a permanent and clear oil of quicksilver. Thus you will have two different liquids of mercurial oils, made in two different ways, which are the keys for opening the metals of the Sun and the Moon, of which you will be able to prepare the great medicines for the health and conservation of human bodies.
Another Solvent, Which is the Ardent Metallic Water ~
Make an amalgam of 2 oz of tin with as much common Mercury, in the usual manner. Crush this amalgam with an equal part of sublimated Mercury, put everything into a glass in a damp place, and one part will turn into water in a few days.
Amalgamate 6 oz of Saturn with 6 oz of common Mercury, to which add as much sublimated Mercury as the weight of the two together, that is, 12 oz; pulverize it and put it together with your tin paste. In a short time, the whole will dissolve into a soft paste covered by a cloudy water and mixed with some revivified Mercury. Press this partly sticky and watery solution through a cloth, by which you will separate the liquid Mercury. The rest of the cloudy water is to be put into an alembic to be distilled in sand. By giving fire by degrees, you will see some transparent water come out, which keep separate. Then, by increasing the fire, the rest of the materia will be abundantly sublimated at the head, like needles or tufts of wool, of a sweet taste, and this sublimate is the true Salt of Saturn.
This downy and soft materia must be mixed with its water, and by means of repeated digestions and distillations an ardent metallic brandy (water of life) can be extracted from it, or this downy materia can be melted in a good spirit of wine (alcohol). Then you can put Salt of gold or silver in one or the other of these two waters, as much as your water can dissolve. Digest everything and observe the method by which the menstruum are made, that is, the rectifications and cohobations, to turn it into a metallic ardent water which will be a true natural solvent, for Nature loves Nature and rejoices in Nature, as the philosophers say. With these small crystals and the downy substance a great medicine can be made of it. It you imbibe this substance with oil of tartar and follow the way we have described above concerning the Mercury of antimony, you can even true your downy substance into liquid Mercury, which is still an admirable secret.
In fact, I am giving you here many fine keys and open to you a field that is very favorable for further philosophizing.
Another Universal Solvent, Called Philosophical Vinegar ~
Take 3 quarts of good vinegar, the strongest you can find. After distilling it twice, put it on 3 lbs of well-calcined salt of tartar, then distill it strongly to make it surrender all its spirits. By this you will draw out one-third of your materia which will be capable of dissolving pearls. Into the remaining two-thirds put another 2 lbs of salt of tartar and distill as above.
As soon as you have distilled one-third, put it aside to be used later to dissolve coral and calcined antimony. Add yet another pound of fresh salt of tartar to the leftovers in the vessel, and distill again. Continue your distillation in this way to the end, till all your spirits have been drawn out. Then you will have a marvelous solvent for all kinds of calcined metals and for extracting their salts, oils, and even the Mercuries. Therefore, if you have dissolved some metal in this water and have extracted its salt, remember to distill two parts of it after the required digestions and to put the rest in a cold spot so that small pieces of ice may form, which you must separate by inclination. After that, wash them several times either with common water or with brandy, and finally try to resolve them by moisture, so as to transform them into oils.
Philosophical Water for Dissolving the Two Luminaries ~
Take nitre and sal ammoniac, 1 lb of each: small river pebbles, pulverized, half a pound. Mix everything well and throw them into a glazed earthenware vessel, pierced on the sides, only, 1 oz at a time. This done, immediately stopper the hole with a damp cloth. First the spirits will rise and the water will distill. After this, open the hole and throw in yet another ounce of your powder. Continue with this till you have a reasonable quantity of water which you must carefully preserve as, by an occult property, this water dissolves the two luminaries and turns one into a bright red and the other into a sapphire color. If you wish to get a fine oil from your dissolved salt, even redder than blood, you will do so successfully if you separate the water from it by a gentle distillation. Do this till you obtain an oily substance. Repeat this three times, always putting your water back into the vessel. It will finally come out without any taste, leaving, as I have said, the finest golden oil in the world at the bottom of the vessel. If you pour on it fresh water for the fourth time, you will see the solar oil rise very red and very beautiful through the alembic. To separate the phlegm of this last solvent from the oily substance, put everything in a cold cellar, and there small pieces of red ice-like crystals will form. Continue as long as that congealing takes place, for in this way you will more easily preserve the phlegm. Besides, as these crystals melt in common water, you can still pass them through the alembic and extract from them the tincture with the spirit of salt, which will leave the body of your gold at the bottom of your vessel as white as the Moon, and will give you an excellent tincture for all hopeless illnesses.
A Solvent for all Kinds of Precious Stones ~
Take some of the freshest quicklime, pulverize it coarsely in a glass vessel and pour upon it some excellent spirit of wine which must be without phlegm, test the cal be spoiled. Let it float over it by three or four fingers' breadth, then let it digest in the cold till the lime has absorbed the spirit of wine and is completely fermented by it. After that, cover the vessel with a head to separate in B. M. the spirit of wine, which will be sweet and almost insipid, because the cal will have retained the sal ammoniac of the spirit of wine. This done, put some more good spirit of wine on the marc at the bottom of the vessel and digest and distill as before, continuing doing this till the lime refuses to absorb more spirit of wine. It will be the sign that it has taken as much of it as it needs. You must distill the last imbibition at a slow fire, however, and this time the spirit of wine will come out as sharp and biting as it was formerly. As to the rest of the materia, put it together with its weight in bole or tripod, and distill everything with a strong fire, like that used to prepare the spirit of salt. In this way you will extract a very powerful solvent, capable of dissolving crystals, pearls, and all kinds of precious stones.
Extraction of Oils and Tinctures from Minerals ~
Take some good pumice stone, the whitest that can be found, powder it subtly, then saturate it with some good distilled vinegar, and desiccate it. You must repeat this four times, and the last time you must reverberate it with a flame fire that must not be strong, to prevent it from melting. Now cement with this powder some laminae that are well rid of any metal whatever, even of the Sun, and this by stratification in a reverberation degree of the fire or of any other kind, for 24 hours, and your powder will assume the color of the metal. Repeat this cementing till it has eaten away your metallic laminae. Now take your colored powders and put them five times in distilled vinegar vitalized with saltpeter, taking 4 oz of the said salt to 1 lb of this vinegar. Leave this vinegar and this salt to putrefy together in a retort, through which distill thereafter your vinegar with a strong fire, cohobating it till it has removed almost all the feces. When the vinegar has been thus prepared, put your colored pumice stone into it. It will lose all its tincture. Leave everything in the Horse's Belly for two weeks, and during this time your vinegar will draw out the color of your pumice stone: Then empty it and add other vinegar. Continue doing this till the extraction of the color is completed. After that, let your menstruum exhale in the bath, and it will leave the tincture of your metal at the bottom. If you wish to exalt it further, you will have to pour on your tincture some excellent brandy which you must putrefy so as to attract the soul of the metallic and mineral tinctures that you wish to obtain.
Chapter II
Gold
The Way to Make Potable Gold, According to the Method of Raymond
Lully ~ Use of the Preceding Philosophical Sulphur ~ Another
Use of the Same Philosophical Sulphur ~ Another Use of the Same ~ Second
Method of Making Potable Gold ~ Third Method ~ Fourth Method
~ Fifth Method ~ Sixth Method ~ Seventh Method ~ Eighth Method ~ Ninth
method ~ Tenth Method. ~ The Gold Oil of Rudelius, Physician of Scueberg
in Misnia ~ Another Oil of Gold, According to the Special Method of the
Sieur de la Violette ~ Essence and Tincture of Gold Sudorific Gold ~ Purgative
Gold ~ Gold of Life Vegetable Gold ~ Calcined Philosophical Gold.
The Way to Make Potable Gold, According to the Method of Raymond Lully ~
The great secret of the books of Raymond Lully, Asillius, and Zacharius in regard to the quintessence is the extraction of an excellent distilled spirit of wine by means of the great vessel sealed with cork and paper, at a slow fire.
When the spirit of wine has come out, the rest has to be distilled in large alembics till the feces begin to thicken. Put them aside in a clean vessel and continue your distillations till you have a large amount of spirit of wine, phlegm, and feces. Then take the feces which you have separated and put them into an alembic in a steam-bath to remove the rest of their moisture, so that they stay at the bottom of your receptacle like melted pitch. Put the feces that have been thus thickened back into another alembic, together with their phlegm which floats above them by four fingers' breadth. Keep them for four hours on a small fire to extract their tincture, consisting of combustible sulphur and the impurities of the wine. When your phlegm is colored, empty it gently by inclination, then put fresh phlegm on it and continue doing this till it is no longer colored and your earth is left white and crystalline at the bottom. If you should run out of phlegm, you can get some more by separating the colored substance from the tincture. When you do this, there will remain at the bottom some sulphur, or better, some blood red oil which you must carefully preserve. Note that this preparation of the feces could be made just as well with simple ablutions continued till their earth stays at the bottom in the form of lapilli, as it happens when you purify common tartar to make crystals thereof.
The thus prepared feces are put into small long-necked cucurbits, together with their heads and receivers, which you must hermetically seal after pouring redistilled brandy on them. Boil and distill them for 6 hours on a small ash-fire, then put the distillate back into the vessel and leave it there for an hour. After this, empty all this liquid by inclination as carefully as you can, so as not to disturb anything. Now pour some more of your redistilled brandy over the feces, continuing doing this till they become black and no longer smoke on silver foil. To benefit from the waters that you have obtained from your earth by inclination, you must put them into carefully closed containers in a cold place, lest they evaporate, because this water is the animated Philosophical Water.
Now gather up all your earths and put them in a sealed long-necked retort. Bury it in sand and calcine it at a medium-sublimation fire, keeping it in the athanor for 6 whole days, after which your earths will be white and very well calcined. Thereafter take your earth and divide it between two cucurbites of the proper size, upon which pour one-fourth of their weight of the animated water of which we have just spoken. After attaching the heads and receptacles, keep them first for one day in a lukewarm B. M., then put them for two days on an ash-fire, to distill them slowly. The water that will distill will be tasteless and powerless, having left its spirit and all its virtue to its calcined earth. Other animated water must now be put on it, always keeping the same proportion of which I spoke above, continuing the digestion at the B. M. and the distillation with ashes till each earth has absorbed its animated water and has become volatile. You will easily recognize it by the test of the red-hot silver foil, when you will see your earths go up in smoke. If they are not totally evaporated, the preceding operation must be repeated and continued till the substance is completely exhaled. In the opinion of the great Lully, the earth thus prepared is the true Sulphur and the true Philosophical Mercury.
When you see on the foil that your earth has become completely volatile, put it into two small sealed alembics, together with their receptacles, and give them a slow sublimation fire for one day, increasing it by degrees till the 4th day, when the white fumes no longer appear in the vessel and your materia strongly adheres to the sides like foliated earth. It will be beautiful, clear, and transparent like pearls and talcum. Pulverize it in a small marble mortar and pour on it some distilled sulphurous spirit, not all at once but in gradual sprinklings. Finally, put it in a strong athanor for 3 or 4 days, during which time it will receive its perfect decoction and will turn into a pearly substance which will be the radical balsam of metals and each time an extract of a plant nature.
Use of the Preceding Philosophical Sulphur ~
Take 2 or 3 oz of the earth of which we have just spoken and which is called Philosophical Sulphur, add to it 6 oz of excellent spirit of wine extracted as above, and put it in a long-necked retort. Heat it for 34 hours in the B. M., and when everything has turned into an azure-blue water, pour into it 5 oz of prepared Sun which will suddenly dissolve, reddening at the same time the water of its solvent. After that, distill this solution 6 times in the Bath, each time pouring the water back on the feces. Finally, distill with an ash-fire, and your gold will rise with the water, leaving the Philosophical Sulphur at the bottom of the receptacle. Keep it for other dissolutions. Repeat once more the distillation in the B. M., and the tincture of the Sun will stay at the bottom of the alembic, together with the extracting agent, as a liquid and a precious oil which some alchemists dissolve again with the animated menstruum of the Philosophical Sulphur.and pass through the beak-head of the vessel, so as to turn it into true potable gold and a universal medicine.
Another Use of the Same Philosophical Sulphur ~
Dissolve in B. M. 4 oz of our Sulphur in 2 lb of the brandy of which we have spoken, then distill it on ashes. Pour 6 oz of this distilled water on 1 oz of calcined Sun, always adding fresh water, so as to obtain a complete dissolution. When it is done, circulate it in a Pelican in the Bath, or else in the Horse's Belly, for 40 days, and you will have a most precious liquid. If you separate the humor from it on a small ash-fire, your Sol will remain at the bottom of your vessel, like the other.
Another Use of the Same ~
Reduce the Sun in Mercury and calcine it with common aqua fortis, extracting the water and pouring it back three times on the feces. To finish this work properly, put the feces in a crucible on live coal till they turn all red and do not smoke any longer. Then your gold is perfectly calcined or precipitated, and all you have to do is wash it several times with dew water. When this gold lime has been thus prepared, put it in a vessel and pour over it 4 times as much good brandy. Cohobate 7 times in B. M., the last time with a small ash-fire, after which your Sun, at the bottom, will be turned into as fine a liquid as the others, and even more subtle.
Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Choose the best tartar of Montpellier and calcine it to perfect whiteness, but take care that it does not melt. Take 1 lb of the tartar thus prepared and pour on it 2 oz of very fine brandy. Then distill everything in an alembic in a steam-bath; and as the tartar retains in itself the spirits and the sal ammoniac of the brandy, your distillate will be tasteless. After this first distillation, you must pour on it 2 or 3 oz more of the same water and redistill as before, and you must continue distilling in this way little by little till your brandy comes out with the same strength as you had put it in, because that is a sure sign that your tartar has absorbed as much fire and spirits of the brandy as it needs. Being full of these volatile spirits, it can be elevated by sublimation into a substance which the philosophers call terra foliata (foliated earth). This done, take 4 oz of the thus alcoholized tartar and half a pound of a strong brandy, put them together and circulate them in a proper vessel. Then your brandy will take on the color of the sky and will be capable of dissolving gold in a perfect dissolution. In this way you will have a plant solvent that is less harmful that all the others.
Before putting Sol in this solvent, it must be amalgamated with Mercury. This amalgam must be put into aquafortis where your Sun will calcine into an impalpable powder. Wash it well in order to remove the salt and the spirits which the aqua fort may have left with it. Now mix this calx with twice as much sublimated flowers of sulphur and put everything into two earthenware bowls. Your Sulphur will evaporate and leave a spongy and very subtle gold at the bottom. Put it into your heavenly water and set it in B. M., and you will surely see the dissolution of your gold in twice 24 hours. It will be the true potable Sol, not only suitable for ordinary diseases but even for all kinds of lepra.
Second Method of Making Potable Gold ~
First, prepare salt in the usual way. Take good tripoli and good brick, 2 or 3 lbs each, according to the size of your retort which must be made of good clay that can stand the fire without bursting. Put your materia into this vessel, subtly pulverized and mixed together. Know that your retort must have a hole at the back, opposite its neck and beak, so that a blowpipe can be put there and enter by two fingers' breadth to blow out the fumes of the salt in the body of the receptacle. You must also lute your retort with its receptacle which must be quite big and ample, such as is used to make oil of vitriol. Besides, you must put on a small stove a container filled with water, such as a small retort, which is called a small fire, increasing it every two hours, without using the blower while the spirits of the salt are rising of themselves. Use it only when they no longer pass and when the new spirit rises up in smoke. That spirit must be pushed to the bottom of the receptacle by the action of the blower, which you must continue to the end of the smoke. When all the spirit has passed (it can be recognized by the drops that begin to distill), it has to be rectified and separated from the water of the blower that has passed with it. When that is done, you will have a very white spirit, very fine, which you must keep apart in good phials of Lorraine, because it calcines the other glasses.
After having thus extracted your spirit of Salt, take gold leaves and amalgamate them with twice as much common Mercury, previously purified with salt and vinegar. When your amalgam is thus made, put it in a small sublimating vessel to evaporate there half of the Mercury. Thereafter crush your amalgam in a glass or marble mortar, adding one quarter of the flowers of Sulphur. Put everything in a crucible luted with another. Mercury and the Sulphur will disappear, and your Sun will remain calcined. There are some who repeat this operation three times, but once is enough.
Put this solar call in a long-necked retort of Lorraine glass, putting over it four fingers' breadth of your spirit of Salt, and set it to digest on hot ashes for one day. During this time your spirit will extract the tincture of Sol, and when it is well tinged with it, pour it into a retort by inclination. Again, put some of your spirit over the salt and leave it to digest as before till it is well colored. Then pour it together with the other into the same retort, and continue this procedure to the entire dissolution of your Sol and till you do not see anything at the bottom of the retort but white feces.
Take your retort in which your colored spirits are gathered and put it on a small fire to distill slowly with three or four cohobations, till the spirits come out weak and without strength. Then take some fresh spirit and put it on the materia left in the retort. Distill several times as before until your Sol rises and goes over into the receptacle, together with spirit. Now decrease your fire and make it so small that your Sol cannot rise with the spirit but stays alone at the bottom of the retort as a red salt or a thick congealed oil. Finally it must be covered with so strong a brandy that it burns everything in the test. Dissolve your gold salt with that by putting then together to digest. If the dissolution is not complete the first time, repeat the process by keeping to that used for the operation with the spirit of Salt.
When your last dissolution is done, distill your yellow brandy through the retort, and your tincture of Sol will rise, or at least after several repetitions. Note that if all of Sol did not rise after several distillations, it would be a sign that the spirit of Salt did not have the strength to decorporate as required, and you would therefore have to put some fresh spirit of Salt on the body of the gold, and again do as before.
When Sol has completely risen, separate the brandy from it, and pass the same water three or four times over its body. Finally, it will remain by itself at the bottom of the vessel as a yellow oil, which has nevertheless the power to tinge red.
Note that this gold solution mixes with common water without its body being revivified, that is, without reverting to its metallic body.
To rid your solar oil of any tartness that the spirit of Salt may have given it, you must pour some oil of tartar on it, which will so well correct the strange taste of the Salt that your potable gold will be of such a sweet and pleasant taste as liquorice.
Third Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Calcine gold three times with Mercury and Sulphur, in the manner about which we have already spoken. Take some excellent spirit of Salt, well prepared and rectified, to extract the tincture from your gold calx, because it is characteristic of the spirit of Salt that it extracts the Sulphur or the red tincture from this noble metal and leaves its white body at the bottom of the vessel. The infusion of this spirit into your materia must be repeated as often as necessary to complete the extraction of all of the tincture. Now bring all your liquids together in an alembic pot, to separate the spirit of Salt from them by distilling them to dryness. After this operation you will find at the bottom of your receptacle a very light and very red powder, almost like Mars saffron. Put it in a retort, pour some good spirit of vitriol over it, or rather some good oil distilled from all of the substance of the same mineral -- or at least from some that has been slightly calcined, redistilled, and digested to the point where it does not contain any feces, so that the oil is quite pure, quite tart, quite white, and quite clear. This oil will be such as is required to extract all the color from the crocus of our Sun, by the conjunction of which it loses all its tartness and becomes perfectly mild. Keep this oil of solar vitriol and depend on it as an extraordinary remedy, of which the dose of 4 or 5 drops in white wine or bouillon does wonders for the cure of the strangest diseases.
Fourth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Take hold and dissolve it in the Philosophical Water that dissolves the two luminaries and which is composed of nitre and sal ammoniac, as we said above. After thus dissolving your Sun, distill the solution to the consistency of syrup. Then pour some more Water on and distill again as above, doing this three times. You will see that the waters come out of the alembic insipid, as they leave there their spirits with the body of the Sun.
But in order to pass the Sun through the retort or the alembic, some fresh solvent must again be poured on it which, animated by the solar spirit, will do admirable thing for the health, and especially for the cure of lepra.
Having thus calcined your gold, throw it into common water together with its solvent, and when everything is mixed, put some Mercury into it. It will cause an Eclipse of the Sun, if you digest it cold for some time, as it will attract all of the solar body. Separate the water from it by inclination and wash the amalgam of these two bodies several times to soften their tartness and to separate all the spirits from the Philosophical Water.
Having done this, press the Mercury through a leather in which your solar calx will stay behind as an amalgam. Put it in the fire, that is, in a flat basin, to let the Mercury evaporate, and you will be left with a calx of crocus or solar cinnabar, impalpable and quite red. From it the tincture of the Sun can be extracted with some spirit of Salt, and of the spirit of Salt saturated with this tincture give three or four drops, which will do wonders for all inveterate diseases.
Fifth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Distill some good spirit of vitriol and pour it over Jupiter on a strong ash-fire, and you will extract from it the most beautiful yellow water in the world. Leave it for a whole night in an open bottle. The following day, pour it on gold leaves put at the bottom of a glass alembic, and add to it an equal amount of very fine brandy which must be at least half dephlegmatized. Now distill your brandy in B. M., then your solvent on ashes, in the same alembic. If your Sol has not yet turned into oil at the bottom of your receptacle, pour some more of your solvent and your brandy on it. Repeat this till your gold turns into oil with the first force of the solvents. On this oil put the solvent alone, without the brandy. It will take on the color of the oil which has many uses, as it is given for all diseases of the lungs, the stomach, and the heart, in short, for all kinds of illnesses and infirmities. One spoonful or half a spoonful is given, according t the strength of the sick person. It is also excellent for the prolongation of life and the prevention of all kinds of diseases if one of these doses is taken during three days in bouillon or otherwise. This liquid is so harmless that it can even be given to three-day old babies. If you wish to give it in the form of oil, take only one drop in bouillon or distilled melissa.
Sixth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Take honeycomb of the month of May, of a good consistency, put it in a well-stoppered retort and let it stand for 20 days. Then put it in B.M. and keep it there for 5 days, after which it will be pure and flowing. When in this state, press it through a cloth and distill the strained matter three times in a small alembic on a slow fire. In addition, powder some gold leaves on a marble slab. Take 1 oz of it, upon which pour 4 oz. of your honey water in a retort. Keep it well closed in B. M. for 10 days, and during this time a wonderful oil will form out of the quintessence of the honey and the gold. To do this perfectly, put it in an alembic to convert your Sun into calx by distillation on an ash-fire. Now wash it carefully several times with pure well water and three times with dew water. In short, put some good brandy on this purified calx and distill everything in B. M. in the same alembic up to 7 times. In this way your metal will be radically turned into oil which will in fact be turbid, but you can also purify it first by fire and then by dew water, to make it suitable for the preservation of health and the cure of many diseases.
Seventh Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Calcine pumice stone in the most recent dew water you can find, and make a cement of the powder of this stone with the gold call, prepared with aquafortis, or salt, or Mercury, as you learnt before. Put your cement for 24 hours in a reverberation fire, and in this fire your Stone will extract a purple color from the Sun, which is no other than the true tincture of gold. Powder this colored stone and then pass it through a very fine strainer. To separate the substance of the gold from that of the pumice stone, pour some fine brandy over all this powder which you have rectified by distilling it over excellent honey of Narbonne. Your water will attract all the tincture, provided you give it several infusions of brandy till it no longer gets colored. When the tincture has been thus extracted from these waters, separate it by a gentle distillation to the consistency of oil. You will be left with a potable tincture whose color will be enhanced as it ages. Give one drop of it on a tablet of sugar, or in wine or bouillon, and you will restore the life of invalids.
Eighth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Get some good Roman vitriol, or rather vitriol of Cyprus or Hungary, and put it in a glazed earthenware pot on an ash-fire to let the moisture of the vitriol evaporate. To finish calcining it well, put it in a well covered and well-luted earthenware pot on a live coal fire, where it has to stay for less than 4 hours to allow it to calcine perfectly. If it does not look calcined enough, cover the pot once more and put it back on the fire till it becomes as red as blood. After this preparation, without which this work cannot be accomplished, put the vitriolic cal, called colcothar (the caput mortuum!) into a well-luted retort on a reverberation fire. You will extract three substances, the last of which will be the oil, of which there will only be very little. Into this oil of vitriol, which you will pour into a small alembic pot, throw the gold leaves folded into rolls and keep them on the fire for one hour or more, to be dissolved and made potable. And while these leaves are thus being dissolved, pour on them some oil of cloves and camphor, that is, to 2 oz of oil of vitriol, for instance, take 1 oz of oil of cloves and 1 oz of prepared oil of camphor, as we will tell you below. You will notice that as soon as you have mixed your oils of cloves and camphor with the vitriolic solution of your gold, the receptacle will get heated and a great boiling will arise due to the antipathy of the spirits of these three oils. While this is taking place, put your substances in the cold, and when they have somewhat recovered, you can put them *on the fire to distill and to successively separate these three liquids, the last of which to be distilled being the oil of gold and the true potable gold.
Regarding the usable oil of camphor of which we have spoken, it is made as follows: Take camphor, pulverize it and dissolve it on a slow fire in oil of sweet almonds. When it is completely dissolved, pour on this oil a reasonable amount of good spirit of wine, and then pass everything through the beak of an alembic, on a sand-fire. Your oil of camphor will come out beautiful, clear, and quite suitable for the above-mentioned operation.
Ninth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Take good pulverized candied sugar, melt it on fire, then imbibe glowing bricks with it. When they are well imbibed, put them in a retort or in an alembic to be distilled on a slow fire. Then you will obtain a very efficacious oil. Not only can its acridity dissolve several solid bodies, but even the body of the Sun, if prepared with Mercury, aqua fortis, and Sulphur sublimated according to the Art, can easily be dissolved when it is put to digest for some time in B. M. or in the Horse's Belly. Finally, it can turn into oil if the liquid of the sugar is gently distilled in the same bath, which leaves behind it the oil of the Sun or the potable gold, the easiest and most harmless potable gold that our Art has yet prepared.
Tenth Method of Making Potable Gold ~
Take 1 oz of gold and 16 oz of Regulus of antimony. Melt the Regulus, and during the fusion, throw the Sun on it". Leave them together on the fire for a quarter of an hour, without blowing. At the end of this time, remove your materia, powder it, and put it into two crucibles, well sealed, lest your materia, powder it, and put it into two crucibles, well sealed, lest something might escape. Leave it for a whole day on the fire of a wind furnace, and such a fire will cause your materia to become almost black. Let it cool and crush it thereafter. Then put it on the furnace and increase the fire. If the materia can be easily crushed, it is a sign that the cement must be renewed and the 4th degree of fire be given. In this way you will obtain a fine white powder, upon which you must pour distilled vinegar. It will extract as brown color from this powder by means of the digestion, and if you distill it in the Bath, there will be left at the bottom of your vessel a red oil, almost of the color of rubes.
Another Gold Oil, According to the Special Method of the Sieur de la Violette ~
Take 2 lbs of melted salt, 1-1/2 lbs of fine saltpeter, remelt everything in a big crucible, and throw on it 1 lb of pulverized Tripoli, stirring the materia well. Then put it in a marble mortar and pulverize it completely. Note that if you can obtain some of those white pebbles from the Lake of Geneva of which we have already spoken, or some of those transparent flints, calcined and pulverized as is usually done by throwing them into the water, those things, I say, would be much better than the tripoli. Proceed with this mixture as above, extract the spirits through an earthenware retort, as is done with those of the aqua fortis. This water, which may be called the spirit, or rather the quintessence of common salt and niter, must be rectified in B. M. with 10 or 12 cohobations, putting the distillation over the marc, so as to extract from it that part of the water that does not have any characteristics at all of the nature of the Fire and which is called the watery phlegm. This operation must be continued till, for example, there is only half a pound or a little more left of 2 lbs of liquid. Then your spirit is marvelously purified, heavy, and separated from all its superfluous wateriness.
This done, take one part of the Regulus of antimony prepared with Mars, and 2 parts of sublimated Mercury. Pulverize them and put them together in a retort to extract from them a gummy liquid. Dissolve it in moisture, and redistill it again through the retort to extract from it a clear and heavy oil like Mercury. This will be happily accomplished, provided you separate the first moisture during distillation.
This clear and dephlegmatized oil is put into a suitably large retort, and the spirit of Salt, which you had previously preserved, is also put into the receptacle. Then join the retort to its receptacle; lute them together t he prevent anything from escaping. Give a sand-fire by degrees, and you will extract a mercurial liquid form the retort. Falling upon the salt, it will cause a big and strange effervescence, of which you must not be surprised. This distillation finished, remove the receptacle all at once and pour cold water into it to somewhat restrain the great ardor of the spirits. Afterwards, put them into a small alembic together with its head and its receptacle. Placed on cold sand, the materia will distill during three days without fire, after which you can give fire to finish the distillation of the liquid. However, you will observe that a white powder will rise which you must put aside for other uses. As to the mercurial liquid, pour it into strong well-stoppered bottles, carefully buried in wet sand, lest it evaporate because of the great fire by which it is animated.
In addition, prepare a philosophical water of sal ammoniac and saltpeter, as I showed you above. Into 4 oz of this water pour at most 15 drops of your mercurial water, which will be an extractor for drawing out the tincture from one oz of gold, amalgamated with two parts of Regulus. When it has extracted all the tincture, separate it gently by inclination, and add again so much that only a white body remains. Do this in B. M. with very low heat.
Collect all these colored waters and distill in the Bath what is most clear. Put the rest in a retort, drive it, and finally give it strong fire, so as to sublimate the Sun at the neck of the retort. It will be brilliant and radiant like a ruby and will turn into an oil whose uses are admirable.
If you put equal parts of the said mercurial water and oil of vitriol or of sulphur together and extract the liquid through a retort, you will have an oil that coagulates in the cold and dissolves in a warm hand or in any other low heat, and is suitable for dissolving the Sun and the Moon.
Essence and Tincture of Gold ~
Make an aqua regia with common salt, or sal ammoniac, or spirit of Salt. Add to 12 oz of this water 4 oz of specially prepared sublimate, which has been sublimated 7 times in the same way it was sublimated the first time, that is, it must be mixed with fresh vitriol in the usual proportion, so that it is completely saturated with it. Having thus mixed these things, let them digest together for 4 or 5 days, then distill and drive the spirits till the Mercury sublimates. If you carry this operation out like a good artist, you will have very excellent mercurial water which dissolves and opens Sol wonderfully well, for it you put gold into it- keeping everything in putrefaction three times, each time separating the phlegm from the solvent your materia will be well opened. To open it to the utmost degree, however, some fresh mercurial water must be poured over your materia, and it is even necessary to cohobate it up to three times. After this, give a good sublimations fire, and you will see your Sun rise over your alembic, red as blood, exalted, volatile, and well suited to turn into, tincture with the help of the alcoholized animated vegetable spirit, and capable of achieving the last exaltation of gold. You could also make it with the same aqua regia if instead of the sublimated Mercury you took the same amount of gum and mercurial oil that is extracted when making the Mercury of life, and proceeded as above till your Sol became volatile, for it is in this that the whole secret of this operation consists. After extracting your solar tincture in this way, you will get ahead even more by adding to 3 parts of this volatile gold 1 part of Mercury of the same luminary, extracted with revivifying salts. Thus you will obtain a perfect medicine, the effects of which are sovereign and infallible for all diseases.
Sudorific Gold ~
Make an aqua regia in the usual way, and in this water dissolve gold leaves or filings, or gold in small laminae. Then pour upon it, drop by drop, your solution of a fine oil of tartar made by the dissolution of its salt. All at once, a great effervescence will arise from the union of these two liquids. This shows that your oil of tartar must not be poured on in one go, but only drop by drop, as we have said, making small effervescences each time. Continue in this way till the materia no longer bubbles up. Put the container with your materia in a cold place for a while, and your calcined Sun will precipitate to the bottom of the vessel. When you see it in this state, pour all the water off, gently, by inclination, and wash the residues with warm water. After that, dry them in the heat of the sun or in a drying closet, in such a way that the materia cannot burst into flames, because, being dry, it is as easily ignited as gun powder, not only by the least bit of heat but even simply by motion. This happens at the bottom, contrary to gun powder which pushes upward. This is so much so that if you were to put some of this powder on a very thick piece of wood and set fire to it, it would make such an effort that it would pierce the wood completely. Therefore, one could do wonders with it, if it were easy to carry it without it going up in flames, which it does by simply being disturbed.
Such is the solar materia with which the philosophers teach us to compose the great Sudorific which they call Burning Gold and which they use with precaution and in the following manner. Take 4 or 5 grains of your gold calx, put it in a silver spoon filled with a fine spirit of wine. Thereafter, set fire to it while keeping the spoon quite straight. By covering it with a bell-shaped glass, sublimate your Sun. During this sublimation you will observe a small noise and a small dark cloud around the glass. Seeing this, put some more brandy on the same powder and continue as before repeating the same operation for a whole day, so as to obtain a reasonable quantity of your sublimated Sun, which will be of a very subtle consistency and sky blue. Scrape it with feathers and preserve it Carefully. If you give 2 or 3 grains of it on sugar or jam or in a suitable liquid, you will purge the sick in an extraordinary way by a thick and unctuous perspiration, which will drive away all kinds of putrid fevers and pestilences, and even the most stubborn and lamentable diseases.
I have several times observed that this gold powder, before being sublimated and without any preparation other than that of being simply precipitated with oil of tartar, is an incredible remedy for pestilences, if one gives a few grains 24 hours after being attacked. It drives away the poison through the perspiration, and is quite successful, provided one rests in bed and does not move.
Besides, if you consider the great effects of this solar calx and the ease with which it catches fire, you will perhaps think that it would be suitable to make the Philosophical Fire, which the Trevisan (Bernard of Treviso) valued so much, and which he kept so secret.
Purgative Gold ~
Take some oil made of equal parts of purified antimony, sublimated Mercury, and oil of salt extracted in the usual way. Put them together in accordance with the Art, then distill them, and put some gold into the liquid that you extract from them. You will see it dissolve all of a sudden. This liquid, or solution of the Sun, is mixed with a little sugar or some good tasting jam, and it will do admirable works if you give of it at your discretion according to the age and the strength of the sick. If the liquid of this gold solution is drawn through the alembic, a powder will be left at the bottom of the vessel. As it retains the mercurial virtues of antimony and the sublimate, it can be given, either in substance or as an infusion, as a purgative medicine, after it has been sweetened.
Or, if you precipitate the whole solution into cold water as soon as it is prepared, you will make of it a coagulate that is much more excellent than the usual ones, because it will contain the gold calx. Having been made milder by various ablutions, it will be a great purgative remedy, whether you give it in substance or as an infusion with some suitable liquid.
Gold of Life ~
Gold of Life, or Life Gold, is made with 1 part of pure gold and 4 parts of Mercury, amalgamated and dissolved together in common aquafortis, because Mercury dissolves in that water and the Sun is precipitated into powder. Now distill the aquafortis to dryness, so that everything may precipitate to the bottom. Put fresh aquafortis, on the dry matter, distil again, and repeat this two or three times. Finally, pile this substance to calcine it completely. To drive away all the sharpness of the aqua fortis, wash your call first with spring water, then with fine brandy, and you will have a miraculous precipitate. If you give of it only one or 2 drams, with 2 drams of essence of aloe and as much essence of myrrh, separately extracted, and one dram of essence of theriac, you will drive away the plague, inducing abundant perspiration, and you will make a purgative and sometimes a most excellent emetic.
If one wishes, one can. extract a salt or a very fine essence from this solar precipitate if, after softening it by several ablutions with common water, one puts it to digest for some time in vinegar. You can prepare an excellent medicine from it. After precipitating it with oil of tartar -- as must be done to extract its essence -- soften it yet more with common water, and finally with good spirit of wine.
Vegetable Gold ~
Take 1 dram of gold filings or gold calcined in any way you like, and 3 drams of lunar filings or lunar calx, 12 oz of Mercury of common cinnabar or of cinnabar made of antimony and sublimated. Put everything together in a big retort, and after stoppering it only with cotton, put it on a fire of moderate heat. You will see your materia grow from day to day in the form of leaves or sheets, and it will happen in less than 3 weeks, and will give you as much pleasure as amazement on seeing it. You will be able to turn it into a fine composition for health.
Calcined Philosophical Gold ~
Amalgamate 1 oz of gold with 7 oz of well-purified Mercury, stir them well on the fire with a stick, and after removing the materia from the fire, continue stirring it for a quarter of an hour. Then throw it into a bowl of cold water. After this, wash your materia with vinegar and water, then dry it in a clean cloth, and finally put it into 1 lb of gold aquafortis, keeping it in a retort above the fire till the Mercury is dissolved and your gold fails to the bottom as cola or impalpable powder. Put the latter in another retort with vinegar and boil it there for 6 hours. After that, pour the vinegar off and replace it with water which must again stay on the fire to sweeten your substance. Continue putting fresh water on it till all the spirits of the aquafortis are out. Thereafter, mix your powder with 6 oz of good prepared common salt, put it in a crucible covered by another pierced crucible, and set it in a small furnace filled with live coal. Keep it there for 24 hours, then let the fire die above the crucibles. Finally, separate the salt with several ablutions of boiling water, and your gold will be left pure and clean, prepared and calcined according to the method of the philosophers.
Here you have several good methods of extracting the spirits of gold
and the tinctures, and to turn them into a potable essence. We could glue
you several further descriptions which are contained in the writings of
your author, who knew (as he himself says in his tetrade) more than 50
methods, but we will merely present these here, with the promise that we
will soon inform you of the
others.
Chapter III
Silver
A Good Preparation of Luna for the Diseases of the Brain ~ Another
Preparation ~ Moon Oil ~ Moon Mercury ~ Calcination of Luna
A Good Preparation of Luna for the Diseases of the Brain ~
To prepare the Moon and to make of it a suitable remedy against the worst diseases of the brain, it must be calcined philosophically and then dissolved in fine oil of Cyprus, which alone has the power to liquify perfect metals without the help of saltpeter. When you have dissolved the Moon, evaporate or distill half of the dissolved materia and put the rest in a cold place, where small pieces of Moon crystals will form. You can dissolve them in oil of sage, and use them for mental derangement and other illnesses of this nature.
Another Preparation ~
A certain philosopher friend of mine and a great personality prepares an excellent remedy with the Moon in the following way: He calcines silver laminae with sulphur, putting them layer upon layer in two crucibles, careful that the sulphur does not ignite. To make the sulphur become black as coal, he separates it from the Moon filings with water, and afterwards finds his filings black calcined and ready to turn into a subtle cal when ground in a mortar. When he has prepared this calx, he puts it in a retort and pours some water over it. Then he distills and cohobates several times. He says that in this way the spirit of the Moon goes over partly with the water, and if only a few spoonfuls of this water are given to patients suffering from mental troubles, melancholy (depression) of other infirmities of the brain, they provide wonderful relief.
Moon Oil ~
Take laminae of the Moon cut into small pieces, and dissolve them in aquafortis rectified with salt of tartar or composed of the same salt. When your Moon is dissolved in this water, pour some good brandy on it and then let it stand for 24 hour's in a cold and humid place. During this time, some small crystals will form at the bottom. In addition, take some whites of egg, distill them, and in this distilled water digest your crystals for 2 or 3 days.
Then put everything into an alembic, distill in the Bath, and at the bottom of the vessel a very precious silver oil will be left.
Moon Mercury ~
The Moon Mercury is extracted in various ways. Sometimes long and tedious triturations of common Mercury with the Moon are used till everything passes through a chamois leather in the form of quicksilver. Sometimes silver calx is used, made with common Mercury imbibed with oil of tartar and vinegar animated with sal ammoniac. It is afterwards revived by the hot water that separates the salts from the Moon calx, causing the Mercury to appear. This method is much better than that of the putrefactions performed by others in the reviving salts, which they sublimate afterwards. Actually, the Moon Mercury can well be extracted in this way but only in very small amounts.
To extract Mercury more easily from silver, take very thin silver laminae, put them in a retort and pour on them a plant resuscitator calcined to whiteness, and on this put some Flying Eagle and sal ammoniac. The proportion is such that on 3 oz of Moon laminae enough plant resuscitator is put to cover the laminae, also 3 oz of Flying Eagle and 1-1/2 oz of sal ammoniac. Put everything in an earthenware pot on a fire which you must control according to the Art. You will find at the bottom your completely corroded Moon which will have left you 2 oz of liquid Mercury, or at least 1-1/2 oz, if you work regularly.
Calcination of Luna ~
Amalgamate 1 oz of cupeled Luna filings or sheets with 8 oz of purified Mercury. Grind this with common salt prepared in one hour in a Wooden mortar, then remove the salt with ablutions of common water. This done, grind the same materia again for 1 hour with very clean simple water. After that, put salt in the water and grind this amalgam again for 1 hour. Repeat the same thing with water alone, then with-salt, continuing this process up to 20 times. The last time, leave the salt and put everything in a big crucible on live coal, stirring and grinding this mixture continually till the Mercury is completely exhaled from it. Finally, wash the remaining substance with warm water to purify the salt, and you will find at the bottom of your vessel a very subtle Moon calx, very white, and such as must be the Philosophical calx of metals.
Chapter IV
Iron ~
Preparation of Iron Called Crocus Martis ~ Regulus of Mars ~ Tincture
of Mars ~ Salt or Crystals of Mars
Preparation of Iron Called Crocus Martis ~
Take steel filings or very thin sheets and pour urine or common water on them. In a short time rust will form over the matter. As soon as you see it appear, throw your steel into boiling water which will attract all the rust if you stir the water for some time with your hands, as by such stirring you will separate what is most subtle. Do this several times to remove a good amount of the rust. Now take this materia and put it in a crucible in a wind furnace, and suddenly your Mars will get red. It will be very easy to dissolve it in an aqua fortis made of 2 parts of vitriol, 1 of common salt, and 2 of bole. If you leave your red steel in this water for 4 or 5 days, it will dissolve completely. If you separate the water from it with the alembic and raise the fire at the end, your salt will without fail sublimate and, put in a humid place, will turn into a very precious red oil.
Regulus of Mars ~
The Regulus can be prepared in various ways, but this one is considered
the best: Take 4 oz of horse-shoe nails, put them in a crucible on a fierce
fire to bring them to a red heat, then pour on them 8 oz of antimony with
a little saltpeter, and all this will easily melt into water without the
addition of tartar, as is usually done. Now break the crucible, and you
w
find the Regulus at the bottom. Melt it once more with 1 oz of saltpeter,
then melt it again twice, and you will find 4 or 5 oz of very fine Regulus
which will bear the impression of the star of Mars.
Tincture of Mars ~
Take some of the aforesaid Regulus of Mars, any quantity you like, and with Etampes sand or pumice stone, prepared in the way we have already indicated, put layer upon layer in a lured crucible. Then put it to calcine on a reverberation fire for 24 hours. When cold, powder all your materia and pour good white vinegar on it to extract its tincture, which will make your vinegar bright red and the most beautiful in the world. Give one spoonful of it in bouillon to women suffering from leukorrhea or the flux of maternal blood. This same remedy is also useful for stopping all kinds of hemorrhages and overflowings of the blood. With this Mars Regulus all metals can be adjusted to extract their tincture according to the method which we have prescribed, so as to make of it a remedy for an infinite number of diseases.
Salt or Crystals of Mars ~
Take some clinker, powder it as subtly as possible, then reverberate it for 24 hours and pour on it some good distilled vinegar to extract the salt or the crystal from your materia. When your extractor is colored, pour it off by inclination and replace it with some fresh. When you have enough tinged vinegar, distill it to dryness, and you will find a yellowish substance at the bottom of your vessel, which is the desired salt. You can, if you wish, make it as white as snow by again pouring fresh vinegar on it and letting it digest and distill as before till your salt is quite white and crystalline, and the vinegar comes out as tasteless as water. If you give 1 or 2 spoonfuls of this water and about 5 or 6 grains of this salt, you will produce an incredible effect against jaundice, dropsy, cachexia (general debility), chlorosis or greensickness, and other similar diseases. What appears to be most wonderful is that this operation is done without. Violence and does not manifest by any other effect than that of the urine.
Chapter V
Copper
The Way of Extracting the Vitriol of Venus ~ Mercury of Venus
The Way of Extracting the Vitriol of Venus ~
The vitriol extracted from copper is considered by all philosophers the best of all, as much for human as for metallic bodies.
The method of extraction requires that one take the best copper calcined
with sulphur, or some verdigris, or good aes ustum. One or another of these
three prepared coppers is put in vinegar to extract its salt and crystals.
Thereafter, the vinegar is evaporated to dryness. The materia left at the
bottom of the vessel is what is called the vitriol of Venus.
It can be further prepared. Sometimes its oil is extracted, which is
chiefly used for the precipitation of the Mercury of Venus. When the latter
is precipitated, it serves as an excellent sudorific and bezoardic against
all kinds of pestilences when only one or two grains are given.
Mercury of Venus ~
The shortest preparation of this Mercury is to take 1 part of the purest and freshest copper filings one can find, 2 parts of sublimated sal ammoniac, and as much or some more of salt of gold. These three are powdered as subtly as possible, and when mixed are put in a big flask which is buried in the sand and given a double fire, that is, above and under it, till the materia melts like wax. Then remove your flask from the sand and the fire, throw it into a vessel full of fresh water, and all of a sudden your Mercury flows in the water clear and clean and of a greenish color.
Take this Mercury of Venus, put it in an alembic pot, pour some good spirit of sulphur or vitriol upon it, keep it digesting for some time, then distill it. Put the distillate back on your copper marc and redistill. Continue this operation till your materia takes on the color of worries (black). To make it more harmless, sweeten it and rid it of the impressions of the salt by washing it several times with the proper waters. If this operation is done exactly, you will have in hand one of the greatest sudorific remedies against the plague, of which the dose is only a single grain, or at most two, with some suitable liquid.
Chapter VI
Tin
Specific Remedy Extracted from Flowers of Tin against Cramps of the
Womb ~ An Excellent Remedy for Flushing the Eyes, Prepared with Tin
Specific Remedy Extracted from Flowers of Tin against Cramps of the Womb ~
The flowers of Jupiter must be extracted with an earthenware vessel, made up of several small pots. Put one on top of the other and seal them in such a way that they form only one body and one tube. Into this kind of vessel throw the Jupiter filings little by little, together with pulverized saltpeter. But before throwing this substance, your vessel must be brought to a red heat, and you will immediately see the spirit of the saltpeter rise, which will soon distill in the lower vessels. If you carry this procedure out according to the Art, you will cause Jupiter to sublimate in the form of flowers, and finally you will see it distill in the other vessels that are underneath, so that you can extract at least 1/2 lb of spirit from 1 lb of Jupiter. However, I would not advise you to go as far as to extract this spirit, but you should rather stop at gathering the flowers as soon as they appear when they seem to be attached to the vessel white as snow. Do not give them time to melt, but distill them from below with the power of the fire, as in these flowers Jupiter is prepared in such a way that its salt can be extracted with vinegar. It can be used for many medicinal and metallic works, especially as this salt, when dissolved in moisture, turns into a wonderful oil for all female illnesses. If you give only 4 to 6 drops in some melissa cordial, or in any other suitable liquid, you will immediately stop all cramps of the womb.
An Excellent Remedy for Flushing the Eyes, Prepared with Tin ~
Before using the particular remedy for flushing the eyes, ore has to use general ones and work, especially on the removal of the primary cause and the stopping of the discharges that fall from the brain on this noble part. Thereafter, bath the eyes of the patient with the water which you wil1 prepare in the following way:
Melt fine tin over a slow fire and stir it as soon as it is completely melted into calx. This done, take 4 oz of this calx of Jupiter, 2 oz of Alexandrian tutty [crude zinc oxide – HWN], and 2 oz of crystal powder, mix these 3 powders, and put them in a crucible in the center of a strong coal fire. Leave it there till the fire has reached a white heat. Then remove your sparkling crucible and pour the materia, now completely kindled, into distilled vinegar out by inclination and put the materia into another crucible to make it red hot on the live coal, as before. Finally, quench it in vinegar, as above. But take note that the redness of the second ignition must be great and that the substance which is put on the fire a second time must be powdered, with the result that it is so dry and hot as to absorb in two times half of the distilled vinegar. As this materia has been extinguished twice, you must now let it rest for some time to let it settle at the bottom. Then evaporate the vinegar from it on a small ash-fire and a pasty substance will be left. Pour dew water upon it, rising above it by two or three fingers' breadth. Put it in a well-luted retort on an ordinary bath, and circulate it for 2 or 3 days. After this time, you will find a water which is, specific and suitable for all flushings of the sight, and this cure is all the more wonderful as it can be done in a few days. All that is necessary is to bathe the eyes 4 or 5 times to remove the cause of those tears which prevent the beauty of their function.
Chapter VII
Lead
Preparation of Saturn which is Efficient against the Lepra of Humans
and Metallic Bodies, and of which an Oily Solvent can be made ~ Another
Solvent of Gold by Crystals of Saturn ~ Oil of Saturn ~ Another Excellent
Oil of Saturn Flowers of Saturn which are a Specific Remedy for Opthalmias.
~ Extraction of the Mercury of Saturn ~ Another Method of Extracting the
Mercury of Saturn ~ A Method of making the Glass of Saturn.
Preparation of Saturn which is Efficient against the Lepra of Human and Metallic Bodies, and of which an Oily Solvent can be made ~
Distill a large quantity of good vinegar, till you have a cask full of it, because it is the basis and the foundation of this Work. To strengthen it more, distill it several times over the feces, then mix everything you have distilled with as much other non-dephlegmatized vinegar, and let them go over together, so that the distillate will become all the more efficacious. The dregs that remain at the bottom are put in a retort over a good, fire by means of which one can extract an excellent oil from them, which can burn of its own and dissolve all kinds of minerals.
After preparing this solvent, take 80 lbs of powdered litharge -- and NOT white lead or minium of lead calx (oxide), as several artists do, especially Isaac Hollandus. Take, I say, this litharge and put it in several big and very strong flasks. Pour on it as much of your vinegar that it will overfloat by 6 fingers' breadth, and then put it on an ash-fire. Extract the salt of Saturn by a slow digestion, and on the feces that are left after the extraction of the salt and the crystals, pour once more the same amount of menstruum as indicated above. Continue doing this till all your litharge has turned into crystals which are, properly speaking, what the philosophers call the Chaos or the metallic materia prima.
On this crystalline substance, again put for the last time fresh distilled vinegar. Dissolve it over a slow fire and filter it, so as to obtain a perfectly pure and flawless menstruum which, after: passing through the steam-bath, will leave a substance that melts like wax at the bottom of the alembic. It hardens in the cold as it melts in the heat. Thereafter, divide this melting substance among several alembics and little by little pour fresh menstruum upon it, as if to feed and water it only. Do this by first pouring on only two drops, then three, then five, then seven, increasing the amount in this way till the materia does not absorb any more. You will recognize this when you see the solvent coming out as acid as it was at the beginning. Therefore, whenever you distill your imbibed materia, take care that you continue till the phlegma is as acid as before, because this is how the child refuses the nurse's milk when its stomach is full. When the materia has been prepared in this way and converted into an excellent and precious gum, digest it in the steam bath for 30 or 40 days, till it becomes black and has a bad smell like that of liquid pitch. It is from this liquid and black pitch that you must extract, by the same bath, an excellent phlegma which can serve as a proper menstruum for extracting a precious salt from calcined earth, as we will write later. Owing to the continual distillation that you will make of the said pitch on sand, and by finally giving a strong fire above and below through the usual degrees up to a very violent fire, you will extract a red and quite ' thick oil which, together with the preceding distillations, will constitute as strong and violent a water as that extracted from wine, and will have the same great power. The philosophers call it water of life (brandy) of Saturn. Its substance is so pure and subtle that it must be kept in a well-closed vessel lest it evaporate.
To complete the perfection of this solvent, this water of life of Saturn must be put in a gentle bath, in a long-necked alembic, where the purest spirit of this water will rise imperceptibly till you see the appearance of some lines and filaments through the glass of the head. It is an infallible sign that all of the spirit has risen, and you must therefore stop this distillation and extract this first precious spirit. Preserve it carefully in a cold place and in a well-sealed container. After this spirit, a milky phlegma will appear in a stronger bath. It will be much better for washing your calcined materia than the first of which we spoke above. Finally, by a stronger degree of fire and after changing the receptacle, you will still separate an ardent spirit which will first come out white and watery, then red and oily, but it will be heavy and lie at the bottom of the receptacle. However, if you wish, you can make it go over with a stronger fire.
In regard to the earth or the feces that are left at the bottom of the retorts as a black powder, they can also be dissolved with some fresh distilled vinegar and thus turn into new lapilli of a sticky and gummy consistency, and finally, by means of the above-mentioned digestions and distillations, into wonderfully active and burning spirits. There are some who divide this earth into two, but although Isaac (Hollandus) himself adopts this division, I am nevertheless of the opinion that the best and shortest method is to calcine all the earth together and to reverberate it by a gentle flame till it becomes yellow like ochre. When this earth has become yellow due to the cohobation of the phlegmas, the salt can again be separated from it, according to the ordinary rules and operations of the Art.
Having achieved the extraction of this rare and precious salt, take the first salt which you have little by little extracted and which you have preserved. Pour it on 1 oz of the last salt, repeating this imbibition till 1 oz of this salt weighs 3 or 4 oz and has retained the weight of the sal ammoniac of this spirit, till finally the volatile exceeds the filed. If you work this process exactly, you will find an excellent earth at the bottom. Sublimate it in a very clear and well sealed glass vessel, and you will have the pleasure of seeing in it the sublimation of a Philosophical Mercury in the form of a fine talc, which you must keep as a most valuable substance.
To crown this work, take 1 part of this Mercury and add it to 4 parts of the above-mentioned spirit or to as much ardent spirit to make of them a solvent for the Sun and the Moon, such as the philosophers imagined were capable of turning them into spirit without destroying their bodies or losing ' their characteristics. Therefore, wonderful works can be made with this truly philosophical solvent, both for the health of human and of metallic bodies. It can even be made with coral and litharge, and in that case you will without doubt make the finest and most harmless of all solvents.
Another Solvent of Gold by Crystals of Saturn ~
Take minium, or better, litharge. Dissolve it twice in vinegar then filter and congeal it. Repeat this operation of dissolving, filtering, and congealing three times. When at the last time you have congealed to the consistency of oil, put your congelation in a cold place for 8 or 10 days, during which time small ice-like crystals will form. Remove alt their humor by inclination and dry them very gently near the fire on a piece of cloth. After that, put the thus dried pieces of crystals in an alembic pot with some good brandy, three times rectified on common salt prepared and melted, each time renewing the same salt or rather passing it over sulphur or vitriol. Then set everything to digest in the bath for 3 or 4 days. Finally, distill this brandy thus rectified over the pieces of crystal of which we have spoken, to the consistency of honey or oil. That done, coagulate your materia again into small crystal cubes and crush them with calcined gold, that is, 6 weights of ice cubes to 1 of gold. Now put everything into a well-closed retort in the horse's Belly for 40 days. Then put your vessel on an ash-fire to gently distill all the moisture from it. By putting it on sand afterwards, extract the oil with much white smoke which the philosophers call menstruals. Do this by raising the fire according to the degrees of the Art.
To bring this work to a happy end, take all the oil and put it in a small alembic in a very gentle B. M., first to extract the brandy and secondly the phlegma, which you can discern from the brandy by the tears that fall into the receptacle. Now take this brandy and, pour it on the feces of your oil, and leave both thus in the bath for 1 or 2 days, till your water is colored. Thereafter, distill your colored water, pour it back on the materia, and distill it again. Continue distilling and putting your water back on the feces of the oil till you have extracted all the tincture. If the waters extracted from your oil were not sufficient for the complete extraction of your tincture, put them back in a gentle bath to draw out one-third which is to be used once more for extracting the rest of the tincture contained in the feces of your oil, by the above-indicated process. Finally, withdraw from your bath all your tinged brandy (which can always be useful), and you will find a golden oil at the bottom, excellent for health when flavored with oil of cinnamon and given with the specific waters for the diseases you wish to fight with its power.
Oil of Saturn ~
Take lead calx and dissolve it in good vinegar, then filter and evaporate 3 parts of your vinegar with a slow fire. Let the rest coagulate for 24 hours, or in the air if it is in winter, during which time the salt of the lead turns into (crystals) ice cubes. Then separate your vinegar by inclination and put the crystals on a small ash-fire to separate them from the rest of the vinegar, which you may have left. This operation is done by means of the bath, till your crystals are left completely dry-When in, this state put them, after powdering them, in a flask and-pour on them fresh vinegar of the same strength as the previous. Then dissolve, filter, and evaporate 2 of the 3 parts of your menstruum. Finally, let small pieces of crystals form in the cold air or in a cold cellar, as before. Thereafter, distill the rest of your vinegar in a retort and at a slow fire to begin with, then at such a degree of heat that a red oil appears. When this happens, take immediately another receptacle, and by increasing the flame-fire, you will extract all the oil of Saturn, which has various properties for the medicine of human bodies and that of metals.
Another Excellent Oil of Saturn ~
Extract the calcined salt of Saturn or of white lead according to the method of the Art, then dissolve, filter, and coagulate it with h common water till it is perfectly clear and crystalline. Now put it to circulate for some time in B.M. with a good spirit of wine, in order to make it purer than it is after ordinary preparations. Finally, it has to be put back in the same bath with dew water and be circulated as before. The thus prepared salt turns into a precious oil of which 4 or 5 drops only, mixed with a suitable liquid, are a very great and very powerful remedy for all internal inflammations, pneumonias, pleurisies, liver complaints, fevers, and the like. Its powers are even greater because they put an end to all inflammations and heal even ophthalmias if a little of this oil is mixed with tutty [crude zinc oxide – HWN]. It is also excellent for all kinds of cankerous ulcers.
Flowers of Saturn which are a Specific Remedy for Opthalmias ~
Prepare a clay vessel made up of 8 or 9 little pots, put one upon the other, as we said in the chapter on tin. After the vessel is red-hot, throw some lead filings mixed with saltpeter through the tube, little by little. Then you will see the spirit of saltpeter distill through the beak of the first pot counting from the bottom, and the sweetness of Saturn will rise in the other, upper vessels in the form of flowers, of which you can make a salt with vinegar. When this salt is turned into oil, you will have an excellent remedy for ophthalmia and all diseases of the eye.
Extraction of the Mercury of Saturn ~
Take 2 lbs of minium, such as it is, when it can easily be converted into glass. Put it in a crucible in the midst of a strong fire and imbibe it 6 or 7 times with good vinegar. Then add to the thus prepared minium an equal amount of crude tartar, and finally distill this mixture of minium and tartar through the retort for 12 hours, but take care to make the fire strong from the beginning. You will have 17 oz of Mercury in your receptacle which must be half filled with cold water. At the bottom of the retort there will be real gold. One can reasonably imagine that it is the gold which the philosophers call the fired grain separated from its vie: curt', and in fact such. a Saturnian Mercury is much lighter and brisker than vulgar mercury.
Another Method of Extraction the Mercury of Saturn ~
Mix 2 lbs of minium with as much good tartar, and put them in a glazed pot pierced by small holes at the bottom. Put this pot on another that is neither glazed nor pierced, and put it underground to serve as a receptacle, but only after you have carefully luted the joints and put some fresh water at the bottom to attract the Mercury and prevent the breakage of the vessel. Finally, cover the pot that contains the materia with another very tightly luted pot and give it a moderate fire for the first 6 hours, then a stronger fire for the next 6, and finally a very strong fire during the last 6 hours -- and you will find the Mercury of Saturn at the bottom of your receptacle.
A Method of Making the Glass of Saturn ~
Saturn is a metal whose effects are so great and wonderful for the health of human bodies that it can not only do great things in the state in which we have just prepared it but also if it is vitrified by means of calcinations according to the rules of the true philosophy. Because glass is the extreme degree and the ultimate perfection to which all things can be brought by the Art, you must therefore not doubt that the glass of lead has in itself not only a very pure substance but, in addition, an abundance of salt, even greater than can be found in any other metal. This is so because Saturn abounds so much in salt that the other two Principles, which are the liquids and the sulphurs, disappear completely, with the result that usually only the pure salt is left behind. Often it exceeds the weight of the metal from which it is extracted by more than half. That is why the philosophers who seek the Mercury and the Sulphur of Saturn cry out so loud, Cavete, cavete a vitrificatione" (beware of the vitrification). This teaches us that all metals which contain more Salt than the other two Principles can be entirely vitrified. Among these there is Saturn which, being better provided with Salt than with Mercury and Sulphur, can easily turn into glass. This does not mean that the other metals cannot also be turned into glass by the length and the power of a continual fire. The exception is gold, which, being of a more perfect nature than the other metals cannot also be turned into glass by the length and the power of a continual fire and due to the great equality and combination of the Elements it contains, can in no way be turned into glass, because it is so richly composed of Water, Earth, and Air that nothing can produce in it any alteration of rust or corruption, and even fire cannot impress any change on its mass. This is all the more so as it is of a fiery nature and that instead of being destroyed by fire, it is rather preserved by it, according to this axiom of Nature: Like things love and preserve their like.
In regard to iron, it is not absolutely Impossible to vitrify it, although it can only be turned into glass with great difficulty. This is so because it contains much more Sulphur, which has a fiery nature, than Salt which, as we have said, is the basis of all vitrifications. Salt having an earthy nature, is purified by the continual power of the fire and can easily turn into glass and a pellucid and transparent nature.
It is hardly less difficult to turn silver into glass than iron, because it is of a very fixed substance, and it only occurs if it is partly driven to this perfection by the addition of salts and the length of strong fires. Even then it does not become real glass but rather a stone of a hyacinth color. The violence of the fire will have caused it to lose its own sapphire color, because it is volatile and not completely fixed like the substance of silver.
But let us return to our Saturn which is the foundation for making all kinds of artificial stones, after the artists have turned it into small pieces of ice with the help of the acid plant solvent. Now then, the glass of Saturn is made as follows:
Take 4 parts of minium, 1 part of Etamps sand or small white river pebbles, well-calcined. Put them in a crucible over a strong fire, and you will promptly make glass that is yellow in color and of a transparent nature, which can give good ingress to medicines that are too fixed and too dry, consequently deprived of their inceration.
Note that this glass of Saturn is in no way composed of a mixture of pebbles or of anything else that could be added to its vitrification, but that it is such by its own nature. To prove it, do as follows: Restore the metallic nature that it had before, and without calcining it at all; put it, all lead that it is, in a tightly luted crucible in the furnace of a glassmaker or a potter. After removing your materia, grind what has not vitrified the first time, and put it back in the furnace to be reverberated again. Continue doing this 3 or 4 times, and you will find that your Saturn has completely turned into a very beautiful glass, quite suitable for making precious stones. If you wish to avoid pulverizing your materia so often, you have only to put it in the fire of the glassmaker, and at the end of the 5 or 6 days that it has been in this continual fire, it will not fail to become vitrified just as well as by any other method.
I think that if one were to sublimate this glass of Saturn with sal ammoniac, it could be melted with a candle and thus be turned into transparent wax. Also, if this same glass were first powdered and then mired with camphor or amber or with some other resin or sulphurous and transparent gum, one could make beautiful and pellucid sealing wax from it, which would in truth only be suitable for Lords, as it would be extremely costly.
Chapter VIII
Mercury
Purification of Mercury ~ Another Purification of Mercury ~ Sublimation
of Mercury ~ Another Sublimation of Mercury ~ Another Excellent Precipitate
of Mercury ~ Precipitate of Mercury without Aquafortis ~ Red Precipitate
of Mercury by Means of Gold ~ Red Mercury Precipitated by Means of Quicklime
~ Mercury Precipitated in all Kinds of Colors ~ Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated
Mercury ~ Another Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated Mercury ~ Mineral
Turpeth ~ Another Mineral Turpeth ~ Another Mineral Turpeth by a Flemish
Physician ~ Essencified Mercury ~ Mercurial Brandy ~ Another Mercurial
Brandy ~ Sweet Oil of Mercury ~ Another Excellent Sweet Oil of Mercury
~ Mercurial Water ~ Another Mercurial Water ~ Another Mercurial Water or
Virgin’s Milk of Sublimated Mercury.
Purification of Mercury ~
Take good sublimated Mercury and dissolve it in aquafortis made of equal parts of moderately calcined vitriol and saltpeter. When your Mercury is well dissolved, put the solution into a small alembic to separate the three parts on a small ash-fire. After that, uncover your curcurbit and put it completely uncovered in a bowl filled with water to the rim of the materia. Then put everything in a very cold and very humid cellar. At the end of 6 days, you will find your Mercury which will mostly have turned into small pieces of (crystals) ice. The rest will remain separate in the form of a black earth which is nothing but the slag and the useless feces.
Another Purification of Mercury ~
Take common Mercury and sublimate it 10 times, but the salt and the
vitriol must be renewed each time, and it must also be well washed with
boiling water after each sublimation. All foreign things attached to Mercury
will thereby be dissolved, such as the spirit of vitriol and salt. In addition,
this water will cleanse it of its poisonousness and blackness. As a result,
after these 10 sublimations and 10 ablutions it will become exceedingly
pure and flawless, and consequently suitable for all beautiful chemical
operations.
Sublimation of Mercury ~
Take some good strong Mercury, quite flawless and carefully selected, mortify it with aquafortis and turn it into small pieces of crystals (ice). Put 4 lbs of these crystals together with 2 lbs of salt and 4 lbs of either Hungarian or Cyprian vitriol. When everything is well mixed together and the Mercury can no longer be discerned, put it into two good earthenware pots, tightly fitting and carefully luted, of which the upper must be pierced above. Alter they are well installed on a sublimation furnace, give fire by degrees, and when the matter no longer exhales any phlegma, it will be the sign that al' of the Mercury will rise. You will recognize it on an iron knife or a copper foil. Then stopper the hole with some paper, stir your coal fire and make it very strong for 8 or 9 hours, and for 3 hours afterwards make a flame-fire with wood. At the end you will have a very fine sublimate, a white flour which will have risen to the highest point, and a liquid Mercury that has revived.
Separate them and then calcine the liquid Mercury together with that
which has risen like white flour in fresh aquafortis. Imbibe also the sublimate
with fresh aquafortis. Finally, take everything and mix it with fresh salt
and fresh crude vitriol, in the same proportion as above, then put your
materia back into the same earthenware pots as before and give fire through
the degrees of sublimation. At last, take the sublimate, the one that you
will find hard and firm, and also the one in the form of flour or a white
powder, crush both with an equal amount of vitriol, which must be prepared
in such a way that after being dephlegmatized and imbibed with its own
phlegm by repeated distillations, it finally turns into philosophical colcothar
(caput mortuum or death's head).
When this sublimate and this colcothar are well milled, they are put
together into a glass bottle, or better, into a very big flask, and buried
in the sand in a sublimation furnace. Now increase the fire so much that
the vessel will finally be red-hot, and in 6 or 7 hours your Mercury will
rise very beautiful and very crystalline, carrying with it the best essence
or the best sulphur of vitriol. Continue thus till your Mercury does not
absorb any more, which you will recognize by the weight of your sublimate:
After it has been completely prepared, it no longer increases as before,
because until then the sublimate, absorbing the spirits of vitriol and
salt, had increased in weight by 2 oz, or at least by 1-1/2 oz. Take note
of this, as it is the true weight and the true measure of the philosophers
and sages, which they never wished to reveal and always kept secret.
Another Sublimation of Mercury ~
Calcine 2 lbs of Roman vitriol over a very slow fire, or better, take Hungarian vitriol. Put this vitriol into a glazed earthenware bowl, always stirring it with a spatula, lest the drying vitriol adhere to the sides of the bowl. When it looks like a paste, gradually pour it into 1 lb of good Mercury of cinnabar through a linen cloth, and blend everything so well together that the Mercury can no longer be seen. Then add to it 1 lb of prepared common salt, grind everything well together on a marble slab, and put this mixture into two bowls. Give the same degrees of fire as we have said in regard to the preceding sublimation, and you will make a very fine sublimate. Now add fresh materia to this sublimate and resublimate it as above, up to 7 times. It is not necessary to add salt to the last sublimations, it being sufficient to add philosophically desiccated vitriol, that is, imbibed with its phlegma by several distillations. In this way you will make one of the finest and most perfect sublimates in the world.
Excellent Precipitate of Mercury ~
To make an excellent precipitate of Mercury, take 2 parts of oil of vitriol or sulphur and 1 of Mercury, cinnabar, or silver. Dissolve the m together with a slow heat, and when you have dissolved 1/2 1b of Mercury in 1 lb of oil, add 4 oz of sea salt or colcothar salt, according to some alchemists, or of salt of tartar, which is the only one capable of softening the aquafortis and the sharp spirits of vitriol. By adding some common spring water, the Mercury is precipitated to the bottom in the form of a fine coagulate. Now it is washed with as much soft water that it becomes pleasant to the taste. Then add a stimulating water, and finally some brandy which is to be burnt over it and an excellent precipitate will be left. Others, after adding one or another of the salts of which we have spoken, pour into it spring water distilled to dryness. They renew these distillations several times with common water, and when the materia is dry at the bottom of the alembic, they sublimate it, because in this sublimation the Mercury attracts the sharp spirit of vitriol, so that it cannot disappear in any distillation. Consequently, it is held in suspicion by the medical doctors and is dangerous for the sick. Therefore they pass it through the whites of egg. However, the first method of these precipitates seems to me to be the best.
There are others who pass the aquafortis frequently over the Mercury, as we will explain later in connection with the turpeth mineral of the Flemish (Hollandus?) As far as I am concerned, I would prefer to sublimate Mercury by precipitating it with the oil of sulphur and putting on it prepared sea salt, so as to let the Mercury be saturated with the fire of Nature. Then, with the same water, that is, the Mercury of Luna, I would make of my true Mercury of life an excellent remedy for the poxes, scrofula, and all other deplorable diseases.
Another Excellent Precipitate of Mercury, Composed and Used by the Sieur de la Violette ~
Dissolve some Mercury in a very special aquafortis made of true Hungarian vitriol, good saltpeter, and those small Hungarian garnets that are full of solar sulphur. Pass the water 3 or 4 times over the feces till it takes on the color of a highly-colored hyacinth and is saturated with the sulphur of the aforesaid garnets because, when you throw your Mercury into this water, it attracts the solar sulphur of these garnets, and in this way you will make of it an excellent remedy, while it would otherwise be more harmful than useful. The Mercury to be precipitated must necessarily be that of cinnabar or of antimony. Dissolve it in this aqua fortis till it is completely changed into water. Now precipitate it in spring water in which you have previously dissolved some prepared common salt, or better, the salt extracted from the colcothar. You will suddenly see your Mercury coagulate at the bottom. Thereafter, pour off the clear water by inclination and wash the coagulate with as much soft water that no sharpness is left. Now boil this soft calx with coral brandy, then wash everything with dew water, and when the materia is quite dry, pour some good spirit of wine over it, burning it on the matter to dryness. The same white calx or the same coagulate can be made with common aquafortis, then precipitated into salt water, and finally softened and dried. This last precipitate can be used for cancer and external ulcers, but I would not give any of it internally, unless it were first sublimated and resublimated several times.
The best precipitation of Mercury is made with, the oils of common salt or nitre, or with the acidifies of sulphur and vitriol, which are the true mountain vinegars whose effects, even when joined to those of Mercury, are not as harmful or emetic as those of sal ammoniac or distilled vinegar, which can only be removed with difficulty, even if they are washed by several and different ablutions. Therefore, if you wish to precipitate the Mercurv of cinnabar or antimony with the above-mentioned oils, take 2 parts of one of these oils to I part of Mercury, put everything in a flask on a slow fire till all of the Mercury is dissolved and has completely turned into water. Thereafter, first pour on it 3 or 4 oz of good prepared salt, and secondly, spring water, so as to coagulate your Mercury into a white coagulate. Then soften it as much as you can by passing it several times through stimulating waters and finally through brandy, and thus you will make an excellent precipitate of Mercury. There are some who sublimate it on prepared salt and the soft sublimate, and thus get a very useful purgative from it.
Precipitate of Mercury without Aquafortis ~
Take quicksilver and gold, make an amalgam of them as the goldsmiths do, then separate the Mercury as much as possible through a leather. Put the matter that did not pass in a flask which, sealed or not, is put in an athanor where your materia will soon rise to the top of the glass and will gradually become red. Take care not to increase the fire, lest the Mercury evaporate before it is completely digested. In this way you will have a Mercury precipitated by gold, whose powers are wonderful and quite numerous. The main ones are the following:
First, this powder is excellent for the cure of gout, if you give once a Month half a dram with 2 oz of bugloss preserve in the form of pills. It is also wonderful for venereal diseases, because if you give only 4 or 6 grains with some preserve or wine for 8 days, you will completely cure syphilis.
If you use silver instead of gold when making your amalgam, and you give 4 grains of it together with betony or melissa preserve, you will assuredly cure mental derangements, melancholy (depression) and even epilepsy, provided you add to this precipitate some peony water.
Red Precipitate of Mercury by Means of Gold ~
Take 6 parts of Mercury of cinnabar or some other, 1 part of calcined gold. Amalgamate them together and put only 1-1/2 oz in each flask on a continuous athanor fire. They must not be hermetically closed, to allow the humor of Mercury to evaporate. In three weeks at most you will see the most beautiful red precipitate and the most useful for health that can be imagined.
Red Mercury Precipitated by Means of Quicklime ~
With the help of quicklime that has only been coarsely ground one day, it is possible to make an extremely red precipitate of common Mercury. The method of making it well is to put common Mercury in an alembic and upon it enough of this new cal to cover the Mercury by 4 fingers' breadth. Give fire by degrees, to make it come out into the receptacle half filled with water. The Mercury will leave a portion of its substance intermixed with that of the ca1x. Then take what has passed into the receptacle, which you will find much purer and more flawless than before. Wipe it clean and put it back into the alembic, in such a way that it sinks to the bottom, which will easily happen owing to its heaviness. Raise the fire further by degrees and repeat this operation 6 or 7 times, for the more you repeat it, the better the result will be, because Mercury will always decrease in weight. Finally, take this matter, that is, the calx at the bottom of the alembic, and dissolve it in a big bowl of water, stirring it by hand and making the lightest part come out, in the same way as minium is prepared. By several ablutions your calx will pass from one earthenware pot to another, with the result that at the bottom of your bowl only the Mercury precipitated by the spirits of the salt will remain as red as field poppies.
Mercury Precipitated in all Kinds of Colors ~
Mercury can be precipitated in any color one wishes if, after dissolving it in aqua fortis, you throw into it all the things that can precipitate and color it. Thus you will make it white as milk if you throw sea salt in the aquafortis that has dissolved it. You will make it quite red if you throw urine into the same aquafortis. You can make it tan-colored red by pouring on oil or salt of tartar, and you will make it become quite green by putting some salt of Venus (copper) into it. In short, you can metamorphose it into all the colors you wish with the various salts whose properties are taught by philosophy.
Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated Mercury ~
First you must make an aqua fortis of saltpeter, alum, and vitriol, 1-1/2 oz of each. After it is well dephlegmatized, dissolve in 2 lbs of this water 1 oz of antimony; of talcum, cinnabar, and sulphur 1-1/2 oz each; of the sublimate, the verdigris, and the Crocus Martis 1/2 oz each. When everything has been soaking for 24 hours, remove all the water with a very strong fire till all the spirits have passed. After having well dephlegmatized it, dissolve very good Mercury in it, which will precipitate at the 4th distillation, and if you raise the fire for the last, you will find your Mercury at the bottom of the alembic, turned into a very red and fixed powder. You can soften it with several ablutions of fresh water, and if you wish to make it wonderful for the health and even for chemical works, pour up to 9 times tartarized brandy over it, till it comes out insipid or soft. Instead of common Mercury, some take Mercury of cinnabar which they revivify or else weaken with sulphur, resuscitating it afterwards with brandy or brandy of tartar.
Another Diaphoretic and Fixed Precipitated Mercury ~
You must well purify the amount of Mercury of antimony or of cinnabar that you wish to take, then precipitate it all by itself by putting it on the fire in a flask of good glass, hermetically closed, letting it thus gently boil in an athanor for 20 or 25 days, or the time needed to precipitate it completely. After that, dissolve it in twice distilled vinegar, pouring fresh distilled vinegar over the precipitated mercury till it is completely dissolved. When you have reduced it to this condition, put it in a glass bowl with a flat and quite smooth bottom, so that it settles in the center quite congealed, discarding around it the evil-smelling excrements and scoriae which are not homogeneous.
In the meantime, rectify a good oil of the Green Lion and pass it three times through the beak of the vessel, together with its spirit. The fourth time, pass the oil alone through the alembic with a moderately hot ash-fire, and what will stay in it is the germ or the salt of the oil, which is quite suitable for extracting the spirit of gold. What has come out is the phlegma which we need to soften our Mercury. This phlegma, or this rectified oil, is put on the purified Mercury, so as to float over the materia by 3 fingers' breadth. This must be done in a small glass alembic on a moderate and temperate ash-fire. Keep your vessel on it for 7 hours, then separate your oil by distillation according to the degrees of the Art, and your Mercury will be left congealed in whiteness at the bottom of the vessel.
Put the same oil back on the congealed Mercury, distill it again, and continue doing this till the oil has lost all its power. When this has happened, strengthen the stomach of the Ostrich with some fresh liquid of the Green Lion, digesting it as often as you did before, and repeat this till the rectified -Mercury becomes blood red. This done, take this rubified Mercury and powder it subtly in a hermetically sealed flask of very strong glass. Keeping it in an athanor on a suitable fire, you will have a fixed Mercury in 7 days, which can be called the true diaphoretic Mercury and can be used as an excellent remedy for several great diseases.
Mineral Turpeth ~
Take Mercury of cinnabar or antimony, put it in a flask, pour on it enough oil of vitriol to overfloat it by 2 or 3 fingers' breadth, and leave everything in the cold till the Mercury turns into calx. Distill this Gala to a liquid through the retort or the alembic, pour some more fresh oil of vitriol, on it, then distill. Now again pour some fresh oil on it and distill once more. Do this 4 or 5 times, and you will find a yellow powder. After it is well dried, wash it carefully with common water to remove its acrimony, then finally add some spirit of wine and distill. If you wish to make it more harmless and perfect, pour some dew water on it and distill it like the spirit of wine. Thus you will have an excellent turpeth, of which the dose is 6 to 12 grains at most.
Another Mineral Turpeth ~
Take 1 oz of rolled gold leaf and 12 oz of Mercury, dissolve the gold in aqua regia and the Mercury in common aquafortis. Unite these two solutions, and an Eclipse with result. Thereafter distill by degree, and increase it at the end as much as you can. Break your retort, pulverize the precipitated substance at the bottom, put the latter back into an another retort, and pour all the water that you have distilled 3 or 4 times over it.
The last time, increase your fire to make everything rise that can be sublimated. Take only what is at the bottom, powder it and put it in a crucible over live coal to expel the spirits of the aquafortis as much as possible. Take this powder, triturate it well on a marble slab and then in a glass mortar, pound it with common distilled water, and you will see some grease floating over your powder. Pour it out and preserve it. Repeat this ablution with fresh water till nothing greasy floats on top and your water comes out as soft as when you poured it on. This water is such that it you touch cankerous or syphilitic ulcers with it, it will consume the dead flesh by pricking the live a little, and will certainly cure them.
In regard to the remaining powder, take care to wash it with cordial waters and finally with the theriacal water of Paracelsus, which he makes with theriac, myrrh, saffron, and brandy, because your powder will draw out their fragrance and will become more restorative because of it. This powder is used to cause a mild vomiting, which is necessary for the treatment of syphilis and the poxes, and it will cause at least 7 or 8 movements of the bowel, if you give 6 or 7 grains in substance with some rose preserves. Occasionally, its action continues to the following day, and therefore the second dose must not be given till the third day, as the latter will not only purge till the following day but sometimes for three or four days more. Accordingly, you must not administer any while it is working and must wait with the third dose till the purgation of the second is over, at Which time you can confidently give the third, which will purge for many days. By this method the Naples sickness (cholera) is cured, even if it were accompanied by a thousand ulcers, for even the first dose stops all pain, and the others cut the root of the illness.
Another Mineral Turpeth by a Flemish Physician ~
He makes his mineral turpeth by precipitating Mercury into a good oil of vitriol or sulphur, well dephlegmatized, passing this oil twice or three times over the Mercury. To soften it greatly, he washes it with various waters and turns it as he pleases either into a purgative or a sudorific. To make it purgative, he mixes it with scammony or some other cathartic, and he gives only a few grains of this mixture. To make it sudorific, however, he fixes it by the addition of saltpeter which he ignites and washes with several ablutions. The ordinary dose is 18 grains, and the extraordinary 1 scruple, which is given to those one wishes to perspire a great deal.
Essencified Mercury ~
Take common Mercury, purify it well beforehand by distilling it 3 or 4 times through the retort with crude Montpellier tartar. Then make a precipitate with aquafortis, cohobate it three times, the last time giving a strong fire to drive out all the spirits. Now dissolve it in vinegar, and continue pouring fresh on till the matter is completely dissolved. Do this on an ash-fire, where you will finally distill the vinegar to dryness. Upon this dry matter pour common water and distill it. Repeat this 4 times, each time renewing the water, then distill it to dryness and put your dried materia for, two weeks to digest with spirit of wine. After this time, separate this spirit by distillation, but be careful not to open the vessel before twice 24 hours, because during this time the matter will dissolve completely. Crystals will form at the neck of the retort, and at the bottom of the retort you will find an ash-colored oil in which you can dissolve the call of the Sun according to the Art, that is, I part of the gold cal in 3 parts of oil. After that, it congeals into a red powder in an athanor within 20 days. Of this powder one gives the dose of 1-1 /2 grains in wine. It purges from below and through perspiration, and one can cure syphilis, dropsy, and several other illnesses.
Mercurial Brandy ~
Take 4 oz of antimony, some tin and some lead, of each half a pound. Melt the tin and the lead in a crucible, then add the antimony, and when everything is quite hot, add 1 lb of tartar and 1 lb of saltpeter. Pulverize and make a Regulus. When cold, cast it into an ingot, pulverize this materia and put it in a retort with a sand-fire. Add 2 parts of sublimate. Now attach a big receptacle and increase the fire, so that nothing can come out any longer. Note that there will be some revivified antimony at the bottom of the receptacle, which you must separate. To gather the mercurial brandy, one has only to pour water into the receptacle, and it will immediately turn white. Pour everything into a big earthenware pot, and after, your flowers have settled at the bottom and the water has cleared, pour this water off and replace it with fresh one till it becomes tasteless. Then your mercurial brandy is ready. It can even be better prepared for the sick by cooking it for 3 or 4 days in a hermetically closed flask on very hot sand, then burning on it 7 or 8 times very carefully rectified brandy. (ordinary brandy, Not mercurial brandy). The dose is from 2 to 4 grains in some preserve, and is given for scrofula, syphilis, ulcers, worms, and other illnesses.
Another Mercurial Brandy ~
Take some good Mercury sublimated with vitriol in the way we have taught. Dissolve it in aquafortis made of vitriol and saltpeter, distill it to dryness, and then give a good sublimation fire. Take what has been sublimated, dissolve it again in fresh aquafortis, distill and resublimate it immediately. Continue doing this till there are no more feces at the bottom. You must always separate the latter, and by these repeated dissolutions and sublimations you will prepare a sublimate teat is very beautiful, transparent, and crystalline, whose feces are as beautiful as the sublimate. By this process you will obtain a quintessence of Mercury. Some make it in another way by sublimating the Mercury 7 times with salt, without using aquafortis. I find, however, that the Mercury always takes the spirits of vitriol away, becoming abundantly saturated with them, and this is what you have to watch out for as the most important thing. When you have turned this sublimate into such a quintessence, put it in a hermetically sealed flask in an athanor fire or a fire that does not exceed the heat of the sun, and calcine it for 20 days. Thereafter, put the thus calcined powder in an alembic in a steam bath, making sure that the water does not touch the alembic. Your sublimated Mercury will dissolve and distill into a mercurial water or Virgin's Milk, with which the spirit of vitriol will go over, which is a wonderful solvent.
Another Excellent Sweet Oil of Mercury ~
Take some gum of Mercury brandy, saturated as much as possible with the fire of Nature. Distill and purify it just once. With this clear, heavy and mercurial liquid which coagulates in the cold. into crystals, mix some excellent spirit of salt previously circulated with good spirit of wine. Then separate it from your chilled mercurial materia till it is completely dissolved and no longer freezes. When it is in this state, take this mixture and put it to putrefy in B. M. or in the Horse's Belly for 42 days, which is one philosophical month. During this time you will see wonders happen with the, colors. Thus your pungent materia will become soft (sweet) through the conjunction of the spirit of salt and the digestion in heat, and it will of itself become a great and sovereign medicine. As it is not emetic, it is very excellent for health. The normal dose is 2 or 3 drops in any suitable liquid, or mixed with some syrup or pleasant preserve.
Mercurial Water ~
Take 1 1b of good sublimated Mercury, 12 oz of crude antimony; grind, mix, and put everything together in a retort on ashes, in a fire of degrees, and you will distill a substance like milk. Distill this milk separately and you will extract a clear water. Put this water in an alembic and remove its phlegma in the bath. Then you will find at the bottom a mineral mercurial water which dissolves all bodies and causes the Sun to pass through the alembic. Instead of crude antimony, take some Regulus, and you will do better.
Another Mercurial Water ~
Take 1 lb of good sublimate, 1 lb of sublimated sal ammoniac, mix them, sublimate them 4 or 5 times, each time pouring the sublimate back over the feces, then grind them together. Remember to mate the sublimation in a big retort attached to a fairly big jar for receiving the sal ammoniac and everything that goes over. Keep this materia moist in order to dissolve it, and when it is dissolved, distill it as an aquafortis. Then take the feces, pound them and resublimate them with a quarter of the sal ammoniac. Keep it moist again and distill it, then add the waters of which you will have a large amount and which are really mercurial waters.
Chapter IX
Antimony
Elixir of Antimony ~ Essence of Antimony ~ Another Essence of Antimony
~ Antimony Precipitate ~ Sudorific of Antimony ~ Crocus or
Sulphur of Antimony (Hepar Antimon) ~ Mixed Tincture of Antimony ~ Flowers
of Antimony ~ Regulus of Antimony ~ Crystals of Antimony ~ Salt of Antimony
~ Oil of Antimony ~ Another Oil of Antimony ~ Mercury of Antimony.
Elixir of Antimony ~
Antimony is hermaphroditic, male and female, of both natures, Sulphur and, Mercury, fixed and volatile, the first-born of the metallic nature, middle substance between Mercury and metal, the only natural solvent and natural fire with which all things can be mixed, the Dragon and the devouring Lion, the solvent and the coagulant. In this substance are expressed the juice and the blood, because it is the Red Lion of which Paracelsus speaks, which is nothing else but this precious materia of which a pure susbstance is extracted by separating all its impurities, both by the operations that follow the trails of Nature and by various ablutions, as we will show in the Great Triad of Paracelsus
Therefore, in order to carry out this Work, you must first of all separate the Regulus, add as little saltpeter as possible, melt this Regulus, pulverize it and wash it as often with its water that no blackness is left, so that, when you pound it again, it stays heavy, quite white and flawless like silver, because when it is in this state it can be amalgamated with the perfect bodies.
Take 1 part of this Regulus, 2 parts of gold gone through antimony in the normal manner, 4 parts of sublimated Mercury, prepared as it is shown in the chapter on Mercury. It must be so well prepared and so well purified of its salts and all its arsenical spirits, that you could give some of it orally without any inconvenience. The gold must be mixed with the melted Regulus, as in this way it will be calcined by a philosophical calcination. Add also the sublimated Mercury. Make one single body of these three well purified and cleansed substances, a triad or chemical concordance. By sublimation you will turn these three into one and the same substance, because, as Arnold of Villanova says: ...which is done by repeated sublimations, in which consists the whole secret of the ancients; but the moderns, like Paracelsus, add to it the astronomical concordance of the wine. Thus is made a great Elixir and a universal medicine for the health of human bodies.
Essence of Antimony ~
It must be calcined by itself, in an earthenware pot over the fire, always stirring it with an iron spatula and taking care that it does not melt before it turns greyish-white. If it were to curdle -- which must be prevented as much as possible -- it has to be powdered again and immediately calcined, as in this way the arsenical and poisonous part of the antimony will vanish. Take this calx of antimony, powder it subtly and extract its salt with very strong vinegar. When your menstruum takes on a hyacinth color, pour it off by inclination and add fresh one, and continue doing this till it is no more colored. All these tinctures must be put in an alembic on an ash-fire till they are evaporated to dryness. Regarding the materia or the salt which is left over after the extraction of the vinegar, wash it with distilled water to soften your materia as much as possible. If it is put together with hardboiled whites of egg, it will immediately be converted into an oil suitable for the cure of all rodent and cankerous ulcers.
But we must proceed further and pour some excellent spirit of wine on this materia softened by ablutions, which will become red like a ruby in the course of the digestion and distillation which you will make of it. Pour so much spirit of wine back on the materia that will not attract any more tincture. After its perfect calcination, separate the spirit of wine, and you will be left with a red powder that is wonderful in its effects. Give 7 or 8 grains of it to purify the mass of the blood, renew and restore the person, cure lepra, the poxes, scrofula, in short, the physical and spiritual (mental) diseases, epilepsies, dropsies, etc.
To go even further with the same remedy, take some of this red powder and circulate it immediately in a Pelican with a very good spirit of wine, then heat everything on a very strong fire. A quite red oil will be the result, endowed with greater virtues than the powder which has now been separated from its impurities. The oil is quite spiritual, quite positive, and quite active.
Another Essence of Antimony ~
Subtly pulverize 1 lb of antimony and incorporate it with 8 oz of saltpeter. After this, calcine it in a crucible over hot ashes