CHAPTER V.

struggles.


After having described the variety of vessels and their uses, as well as the diversity of furnaces, we must speak of all the processes, both of the lut or the mortar used to manufacture the furnaces, and of the lut. which serves for the preservation of the vessels, & to mend & mend their fractures, & even to their mutual conjunction.

The lut which must be used for the construction of the stoves, must be made with clayey earth, which is not too greasy, lest it make cracks, & which is not too lean, nor too sandy, for fear that it does not have enough connection: it is necessary to soak this earth with water, in which we will have soaked horse droppings in good quantity & chimney soot, so that it communicates to the water a salt, which gives binding & resistance to fire. That if we want to use this same lut, to coat & to fight the vessels of glass or earth that we expose to the open fire, & mainly for the retortes, we will have to add common salt, or dead head of etching, crushed glass & iron flakes, that fall down the anvil when forging; & we will have a bed which will resist the fire so well, that it will be impenetrable to the vapours, until it serves as retort, when those of glass are melted by the length & the great violence of the fire of flame, that we gives on the end of the operations which one makes on the minerals. When we talked about the ships, we said that there were some that had to be joined together for a single operation; & that when the substances on which one works are subtle, penetrating & ethereal, it is necessary that the joints of the vessels be very precisely fought.

There must therefore be three kinds of luts, to join the vessels together, when they are not exposed to open fire; the first, is the lut, which is made with beaten egg whites & reduced in water by long stirring, in which you have to soak strips of linen, on which you have to powder quicklime, which is reduced to a subtle powder, then put another strip of wet cloth, then powder & continue like this up to three times; but note that you should never mix the quicklime powder with the water of the egg whites, especially since the secret fire of this lime would burn them & harden them, which is however a fault that many Artists commit: one can also dip pork's bladder, or that of beef, in the water of egg whites, without using lime, & mainly in the rectification & in the alcoholization of ardent spirits, which come from fermented things. The second read, is that which is made with starch, or with flour cooked and reduced to a porridge with common water: this lut suffices to fight the vessels, which do not contain such subtle matters. The third is nothing other than paper cut in strips, folded & soaked in water, which is placed around the top of the gourds, both to prevent the capital from crumpling the gourd, and to prevent the vapors from exhaling: this struggle only takes place when we evaporate and withdraw some menstruation, which cannot be useful for some other operation.

It is also necessary to make a good lut, for the fissures of the vessels & to join them together, when they must suffer a great violence of fire. There are two kinds. The first is that which is made with glass reduced to very subtle powder, karabé, or succin & borax, which must be soaked with muscilage of gum arabic, which will be applied to the joints of the vessels or to their breaks; & after this will be well dried, it will be necessary to pass a hot iron over it, which will give them a connection & an almost perfect union with the vessels. But if you don't want to take so much trouble, you simply have to make a lut with soft cheese, quicklime & rye flour, & experience will show that it is very excellent for this effect.

That if you adapt the neck of the retort to the container, for the distillation of strong waters & salt spirits, you must simply take common lut & dead head of vitriol or strong water, with a good handful of salt common, which must be kneaded well together with water, in which the salt will have been dissolved, & plug with this lut the space which joins the container & the retort together, & dry it at a slow heat, in order that it does not make splits; that if it happens to split, care must be taken to close the splits well, as they occur, because this is of great importance to prevent the exhalation of volatile spirits.

We can still legitimately add to all these struggles, the lut or the bucket of Hermes, which is nothing other than the melting of the glass, of which the neck of the vessel is made: it is necessary for this effect to give the fire of fusion little gradually, & when we see that the neck of the vessel begins to bend by the heat of the fire which melts the glass, you must have strong scissors, & cut the neck of this vessel at the place where the glass begins to flow: this makes a compression which unites the edges of the glass inseparably. That if you prefer to tighten it to a point, twisting the neck of the vessel little by little, you must then put the small end in the flame of the candle or the lamp, so that a small button is formed, which stops quite exactly a small hole, which usually remains at the end of the tortis, and which is almost imperceptible.

Now, as the vessels are not always made as we would like them to be, and as some part often needs to be removed, which can be inconvenient in the operations; it is also necessary to teach how this can be done without risking the vessel, which is done by breaking & breaking the glass also across it: this is done in three ways, namely, or by applying a hot iron to start the slit or crack, or by making three turns of sulfur wire around the neck of the vessel, if it is large & thick, or finally by heating & turning the vessel that one wants to break, in the flame of the lamp or of the candle, if he is small & thin; & when the glass is well heated by one of these three means, it must be wiped, & throw a few drops of cold water on it, which will make a crack,

CHAPTER VI.

From the explanation of the characters & terms, which the Authors have used in Chemistry.

As the ancient Sages hid the secrets of nature under shadows and obscurities, lest the ignorant vulgar profane the sacred Philosophy; the Hermetic Philosophers, who are the Chemists, have used it in the same way so as not to make their science common, and not to profane the admirable mysteries it contains: that is to say, they have made use of hieroglyphic marks and characters, as well as some terms which are unusual to others, to express many things, which are of the essence of the theory or practice of their art. Which is why we have judged it appropriate to explain, as much as we can, what these obscure marks and terms signify, so that when those curious about Chemistry come across them in ancient or modern Authors,
Chemists still use, besides all these marks, several obscure terms to hide their science, which seem very strange to novices in this art: this is why we must also explain some of the most hidden, for better let others know.

So they called Lili, the material for making some excellent tincture, whether of antimony, or something else; etching, Ostrich stomach; the sublimated armoniac salt, the prostrate eagle; the golden tint, the red lion; that of vitriol, the green lion; the two dragons, corrosive sublimated mercury & antimony; the butter of antimony, the envenomed foam of the two dragons; the tincture of antimony, dragon's blood; & when this tincture is coagulated, they named it wolf's jelly. They still call the redness that is in the vessel, when the spirit is distilled from the salt of nitre, the blood of the Salamander. They called the vine, the great vegetable; & tartar, the excrement of the juice of the plane of Janus, & many other names which are more or less enigmatic, which we will not report here, both because it would be useless & boring, and because they can be easily conceived & heard by reading & working, which are the two threads that can be drawn out of this maze. Thus we will end this Chapter & this first Book, to enter by the second of our second part, in the ingenious description that we will give of the work, of the preparation of the remedies, & of the excellent uses to which they can be applied. And the characters are explained in the attached Table. in the ingenious description that we will give of the work, of the preparation of the remedies, and of the excellent uses to which they can be applied.

And the characters are explained in the attached Table. in the ingenious description that we will give of the work, of the preparation of the remedies, and of the excellent uses to which they can be applied. And the characters are explained in the attached Table.

BOOK SECOND.
Chemical Operations.

CHAPTER I.

Observations for the separation & for the purification of the first five substances, after they have been drawn from the compounds.

Fire is a powerful agent & an equivocal cause, which easily elevates evaporable, sublimable & volatile substances, such as phlegm, spirit & oil. The phlegm is raised first, because it does not adhere much to the others, and that is why only a slow fire is needed for its extraction, just as a stronger fire is also needed to make take out the oil, because of its viscosity & its union with the salt; & the spirit still requires a more violent fire because of its gravity, since the spirits are only open salts, as the salts are only coagulated spirits. Sometimes the phlegm, the oil & the spirit rise confusedly together with a lot of salt, by the great violence & the vehemence of the fire; & even we often find a lot of earth,

We can therefore separate the phlegm , which comes out first by the heat of the bain-marie, or by some other analogous to it. It is separated from the oil by the funnel, because the oil floats; but it must be separated from the spirit by the temperate heat of a bain-marie, or some other similar; because this heat is able to make the phlegm rise, & cannot push the spirit upwards because of its gravity: a stronger fire is therefore needed to sublimate the spirit, like that of ashes, sand or filings , or even of some livelier heat, according to the particular nature of the spirit.

Salt and earth do not have a close bond together, which is why they can easily be separated by means of some aqueous liquor, which is the cleanest menstruation for dissolving salts and separating them from earth . : & as the earth is of an indissoluble nature, it rushes to the bottom by its gravity. After the salt has been separated in this way, the lye must be filtered, and the menses must evaporate until it forms a film in bowls of glass, earthenware or stoneware, then expose them to the cold to make the salt crystallize, which must be dried with a slow heat, then put in glass vases, which are well stoppered, in order to prevent them from being dissolved by the attraction of the humidity of the air.

But it should be noted that fiery spirits, which are made of fermented things, are even lighter than phlegm, and thus they are the first in their distillation or in their rectification. The example of this is familiar and remarkable in the way in which wine is made: for if one takes must to distil it, before it has been fermented, only phlegm will rise; because the spirit will remain bound & attached with the essential salt of this juice, which will thicken into a very sweet & very pleasant extract: instead of if one waits to distill this liquor, after the fermentation will have been made in the cellars, a burning spirit will be drawn first, the phlegm will follow, and at bottom only an ungrateful and bad extract will remain, because this essential salt of the must will have been volatilized in spirit by the action of fermentation.

The difference of the vessels & the various degrees of the fire, also serve a great deal to separate & reassemble these various substances, after they are untied from each other: for the bond being once broken, each withdraws apart; but when the fire intervenes, it turns and reduces everything into vapors and exhalations, which the Artists receive in various vessels, according to the diversity of these substances. Thus one easily separates the spirit from the oil by the funnel, whether it floats like the oils of flowers and seeds, or whether it goes to the bottom, like that which is drawn from aromatics and woods. But one separates the salt from the spirit only by a great and violent heat, because of the great sympathy, which is between the spirit and the salt:

Everyone will be able to gather from himself, on what we have said above, several other fine considerations concerning the distillations of the mixtures, which are abundant in salt, in spirit, or in oil, or in some other medium substance. between these three; but it is especially necessary to remark generally, that the animals & their parts require in the operations which one makes on their substance, only a very slow heat, because they are composed of an oil & a spirit , which are very volatile, & that the vegetables & their parts require a heat of a more exalted degree, according to the more or the less fixity that they have in them; but minerals, and especially the family of salts, require the most violent heat.
When oils, spirits and other substances rise confusedly together, they must be rectified, that is to say, purified by repeated distillation. Now the slow and light fire carries away and easily removes the phlegm from the salt, the salt hides itself in the bosom of the earth, and does not leave it until the spirit and the oil are separated from it. by the increase of the fire, which completes the disuniting of the compound by the violence of its action; & that being completed, water must be poured on the earth, which is usually & rather improperly called dead head; & this water resolves & dissolves the salt, after which the menstruation is evaporated, & the salt is found at the bottom of the vessel, transparent & crystalline, if it is an essential salt, which is always of the nature of nitre,

All these remarks are very necessary in practice, because we often only need one of these substances, which is separated from all the others: this is why it is necessary to know how to draw it from the mixture of the others, from as much as when the others are still joined to it, the effect which we desire, is prevented by the connection & the presence of the associated principles: because a part of the mixture can be astringent & coagulative; & the other will be dissolving & incisive, according to the diversity of the principles that make up this mixture: these parts remaining joined together, prejudicial to each other, so that when one intends to dissolve, one must know & knowing how to separate the dissolving principle apart, as one must take the coagulative principle to coagulate.

The first dissolutions always have some impurities, & ordinarily smell of empyreum, & mainly those which are made without addition of some menstruation with great fiery violence, like the voids that are drawn by the retort, which are filthy & filled with some portion of the volatile salt of the mixture, and sometimes of the fixed salt, which rises by the extreme action of the fire. This is why it is necessary to know the means of separating these various parts:

because if the oil which will have been distilled, is filled with these impurities, or that they acquired an empyreumatic smell; it must be rectified on alkali salts, as on the salt of tartar, or on gravel ashes, or even on the salt of hearth ashes: because the sympathy that there is between the salts, will cause them to join together, or to speak more philosophically, the fixed salts will kill by their action the volatile salts, which are ordinarily acidic, & thus the oil will rise clear, subtle, & without having that smell of smoke, & that the volatile salt carries with it like a kind of soot. That if the first rectification is not sufficient, it will have to be reiterated on other salts, or on the same salt which we will have already used, provided that we have previously made it redden in a crucible, to make it lose the impurity & the bad smell, which it had acquired in the first rectification.

It is necessary to separate the impurities of the spirits, by their rectification on grounds, which are deprived of all salt, or on ashes from which one will have extracted the salt by the washings: because if one rectified them on bodies which had salt in to them, this salt would retain a portion of the spirit; or if the spirit were more powerful, it would volatilize the salt, & sublimate it with itself, because of their mutual sympathy, which causes them to bind & unite very closely together. Those who have ignored the action, the reaction & the various fermentations that take place in the work of Chemistry, by means & by the mixture of salts & spirits, have erred, & have committed irreparable faults; as may be seen from the reading of the Chemical Practitioners.

One can purify the volatile salts, by dissolving them in their own spirits, after which they must be filtered to separate the heterogeneities, or foreign matter, then push them into low cucurbits, or into retorts, which have very wide necks. ; thus one will perform two operations at the same time: for one will rectify the spirit, and one will sublimate the volatile salt, which is nothing other than coagulated spirit, or a substance which is of an average nature between salts and his spirits, by the mixing of a small portion of the internal sulfur of the mixture from which he was drawn.

As regards essential salts, such as those obtained from the juices of green and succulent plants, where nitre and tartar predominate, which contain in them the principles which possess the essence and the principal virtue of the mixture; they must be purified either with distilled rainwater, or in water obtained from the juices of plants; then it is necessary to pass these solutions over the ashes of the hearth, or over those which will have been made by the calcination of the marc of the plants, which will have been pressed, so that this serves as a filtration, to remove the earthiness & the viscosities, which could prevent the crystallization of these salts: it is then necessary to evaporate what will have been poured, until the reduction of a quarter of all the humidity, then pour the rest into a terrine that will be put in a cold place,

As for the alkali or fixed salts, which are made by calcination, they must be purified by reverberating the ashes until they are gray or whitish; after that a lye is made of it which is filtered & evaporated until dry, if it is the salt of some plant that has been distilled, it will be necessary to repeat the dissolution of this first salt in the clean water of the this plant, so that what is spiritual & essential salt in this water, joins the fixed salt which will retain it, which will increase its virtue: it is even what will prevent this salt from being dissolved in the air as well. easily he would. If the salt has been thus prepared, it can be exposed to cold to crystallize it, after having been evaporated until it has a film; but if it is a simple lye, it must be evaporated until dry, after it has been filtered.

All that we have just said, must make it known that it is necessary to spare neither trouble nor work, to separate & to purify all these various substances; since it is something that is absolutely necessary, so that one is not contrary to the other, and so that we can use these beautiful remedies, according to the true indications of Medicine: for these substances being still joined together, sometimes harm more than they relieve, and this mixture prevents what can do for our intention, from acting according to the full extent of the virtue of the salt, the oil or the spirit, because the faculty of one of these things is prevented & reduced by the viscosity, or by the dryness of the other.

All these general remarks can be applied to all chemical preparations, which are made not only on animals and plants; but also to those which are made on minerals; & as much for those who work with metal, as for those who seek remedies to practice Medicine, who work only to satisfy their curiosity, & for the examination of physical truths.

CHAPTER II.

Apology of the remedies prepared according to the art of Chemistry.

I believed that it was necessary to discharge those who make a profession of Chemistry from the calumnies and the impositions that the ignorant of this beautiful Art impute to them, before making the description of the preparations of the remedies, of which the true doctors are concerned. serve; in order to precaution with defenses, & to furnish with reasons those who devote themselves to this science, against the weakness of their enemies. I say that these enemies of Chemists & of Chemistry are ignorant, because they are not only ignorant of the true preparation & the true effects of these remedies, but they are still further ignorant & of the nature & its effects, which can only be discovered by those who work on natural productions, & who anatomize exactly & curiously all the parts they contain in particular.

But before alleging the reasons that the Galenists & the Chemists can bring on both sides in the dispute & the lawsuit which is between them, it is necessary first to find a competent judge & able to decide the question; that is to say, this judge must have an exact knowledge of science and of the opinions of both sides. For a Galenist could not legitimately blame & refute the theory & practice of Chemistry, if he did not have a perfect knowledge of the two parts of this Art.

On the other hand, the Chemist cannot refute the error of the Galenists, if he does not have knowledge of their entire doctrine. But so that no one is scandalized, we must know that there is a great difference between the Galenists and the doctrine of Galen, & that it is not against this Author that Chemistry declaims, because it knows the extreme desire he had to be able to be a Chemist; since he sought with great avidity a science which would teach him to separate the various substances, of which the mixtures are composed.

But today such a person claims to be a Galenist, who has however never put his nose in the works of Galen; & such boasts of following the doctrine of Hippocrates, who however never examined its practice. It is therefore necessary to call Galenists, these Doctors who are so only in name, and who after having taken some writings in a University, which gives them the belief that Medicine is nothing other than a science of heat and heat. cold, go away after that in some city to practice there, where all their speeches are fabrics only of heat and coldness, all their maintenance and all their science preach only the more or the less of these first qualities . But the great Fernel, who was the ornament of his century, confesses & makes it appear, after having recognized this error, that there are many other virtues in the mixtures, above these first qualities, as he evidently shows at the end of his second Book,De abditis rerum causis , where he shows how one must derive the seminal virtue which is contained in things, and which is in truth the seat of all their activity.

It is therefore necessary to establish the Peripatetician Philosophy as judge of this controversy, provided that it is imbued with the fine knowledge of Galenic Medicine, as well as that of Chemical Medicine, so that no one is judge and party. For this purpose it is necessary to strip oneself of all the prejudices which one could have for one or the other of these two Arts, to submit them to the examination of reason, which is the touchstone, which discovers the goodness or the falsity of all the sciences.

The Galenists, as they have been portrayed, first blame the remedies, which have been prepared according to the art of Chemistry, for three causes. The first is, because these remedies can only be made by means of fire; the second, because they are obtained from minerals; & the third, because they act with too much violence.
This is what we must answer in order, & say first, that if we had to blame everything that passes through the fire, & everything that cannot be done without this means, the Cooks who prepare the food, & the Even apothecaries who prepare medicines according to their rules, would oppose it. Secondly, that all Chemical remedies are not derived from minerals, although they may be told that they use them themselves in their pharmacy; but that the greatest & the best part of the most excellent Chemical remedies are drawn from the family of animals & plants.

And for the third reason, it must be said that if there are some who act with violence, and the Chemical Physician uses them with judgment in some obstinate and desperate disease, that he does nothing in this except in imitation of that great Hippocrates, who used the hellebore, which is the most violent of all vegetables. If they object that this great Physician only used this remedy for want of having any other; one can also answer them reasonably, that Chemical Physicians only use these violent remedies for extreme illnesses, and that, quia extremismorbis extrema remedia .

It is, however, to be quite ignorant of Chemistry to say that all the remedies it produces are violent; for she works to prepare them in such a beautiful and necessary way, that they are more agreeable to the taste, more beneficial to the body, and less dangerous in their operations. And it is precisely in this that Chemical Pharmacy differs from Galenic Medicine, which prepares medicaments well, and which claims to correct their vice and violence; but it does not do so with the required perfection, since it does not separate the pure from the impure, nor the homogeneous from the heterogeneous. For who will not confess that a sick man will more cheerfully take a few grains of magisterium, scammony or jalap, or some pill of a panchymagogue extract, or finally a very small portion of a good preparation of mercury, which one can wrap in pleasant preserves, or in delicate jellies, or even dissolve them in some pleasant liquor, than to swallow a bowl of five or six drams of cassia or catholicum double? That he will take better courage three or four grains of some specific sudorific, like mineral besoard, than to swallow a glass of some solution of theriac, or of Solomon's opiate.

That he will be less repugnant to a broth in which one has dissolved a scruple of vitriolated tartar, than to a large glass of apozème, or some masterly syrup made in the ancient style, the recipes of which are usually the length of a foot and a half. than to swallow a bowl of five or six drams of cassia or catholicum double? That he will take better courage three or four grains of some specific sudorific, like mineral besoard, than to swallow a glass of some solution of theriac, or of Solomon's opiate. That he will be less repugnant to a broth in which one has dissolved a scruple of vitriolated tartar, than to a large glass of apozème, or some masterly syrup made in the ancient style, the recipes of which are usually the length of a foot and a half. than to swallow a bowl of five or six drams of cassia or catholicum double? That he will take better courage three or four grains of some specific sudorific, like mineral besoard, than to swallow a glass of some solution of theriac, or of Solomon's opiate. That he will be less repugnant to a broth in which one has dissolved a scruple of vitriolated tartar, than to a large glass of apozème, or some masterly syrup made in the ancient style, the recipes of which are usually the length of a foot and a half.

But it will also be said that although chemists boast of the sweetness and the pleasantness of their remedies, they must nevertheless admit that they are more dangerous than the others, because they are drawn from minerals. . It is true that Chemistry does not deny that it derives many remedies from the family of minerals; but she neither wants nor can admit that they are either poisonous or contrary to human nature, because it is a very high ignorance to affirm it in this way. For if the Ancients put them to use raw & without any preparation, as can be seen in Galen himself, in Dioscorides, in Pliny & in several other Authors. If modern gallery owners have also used it, like Rondelet who uses raw mercury in his pills against the pox. Mathiole who practiced antimony, that he calls par excellence the hand of God; if Gesnerus used vitriol, Fallopus steel filings, & Riolan & so many others sulfur, for lung diseases; for what reason will Chemists not be permitted to use these same remedies, when they have prepared and corrected them, and when they have stripped them of the malignity and the venom which they contained, by the separation of pure & impure; which is worth much more than the so-called correction of the Galenists, who try to tame the vice and the malignity of the mixtures, which the Ancients used, and which they still use, by the addition of some other body, which may have & which even has in itself its particular vice and its impurities, as is proved by the hellebore, the thitimal, the scammony, the colocynth, the agaric,

But to show more obviously how much this correction differs from that of chemists, it is usually compared to a fool and an ignorant cook, who, in order to make the guts he would like to prepare, more delicate and in better taste, would content himself with making them boil with fragrant herbs and aromatics, without having washed them, and without having removed the filth with which they are always full.
The Galenists will still continue, & will say that Chemical remedies are to be feared because of their acrimony; but they are answered to this, that if the use of acrid things must be banned from medicines, that it must be even more reasonably from food, and that salt must therefore be excluded from cooking and stews. , vinegar, verjuice, garlic, onions, mustard, pepper & all other sorts of groceries, just as many medicines should also be removed from their antidoraires. They also do not realize that they even shock Galen by this argument, which has placed the cantharides in the rank of medicines, which are fatal because of the corrosion they exert particularly on the bladder: he nevertheless orders them ,& his followers after him in small quantities, & have them taken in some suitable liquor, to induce urination, & hold them very sovereign for this purpose.

This is what the chemists do, who give their acrid remedies in small quantities in clean and specific liquors, to produce the effects they derive from their medicines. But to completely shut the mouths of the Galenists, it is necessary to prove to them that they use in their practice, however empirically, Chemical remedies, whether they are natural or whether they are artificial. For example, don't they use raw steel and mercury, as well as many other natural mixtures? Do they not also make use of the spirit of vitriol, the sour of sulphur, the mineral crystal, the cream and the crystals of tartar, the aperitif March saffron and the astringent, the salt of vitriol, & sugar from Saturn?

And though most of them know neither antimony nor time, nor the true method of giving this admirable remedy, they nevertheless give it secretly, usually masking it with some infusion of senna, or some small portion of their ordinary pills; for they mix emetic wine in their infusions, and emetic powder in their pills. But what is even more considerable & more remarkable is that the Galenists send their patients to the baths & to the mineral fountains, when they are at the end of their rollet, & when they no longer find anything in their method, which is capable of uprooting the evil which they have sometimes known: this practice makes them tacitly admit that there is in minerals a more powerful, more penetrating and more active virtue than in any of the other remedies which they had used before. The remedies which surgeons use every day, with very laudable success, still bear witness to the truth of what I am saying; for they are all composed of minerals and metals, and principally those which act with the most efficiency.

It is true that chemists also send their patients to mineral waters, and make them practice its use; but there is this difference between them and the Galenists, that the first use these remedies, because they distinctly know what sulphur, what salt, or what spirit predominates in the waters they order: which the last, who know only vaguely the virtue, which resides in these waters; & who only prescribe them because others have used them before them, noting that they are unable to reason about the effects they produce, & even less to prove the internal efficient causes of these same effects; since that belongs only to the Chemist, who can atomize mineral waters, and who can also demonstrate what they contain that is fixed or volatile. That if the Artist does not find his satisfaction in the examination that he makes of these waters, he will seek what to be satisfied by the work that he will do on the lands surrounding the mineral fountains; he will try to discover what metal abounds in the marcasites, which are usually formed in these places; after having found it, he will recognize which salt and which spirit is the most suitable for dissolving this metal, in order to unite it and mix it indivisibly with water: his spirit being instructed in this way, he will not fail to give relevant and demonstrative reasons for the effects and the cause of the virtues produced by mineral waters. That if someone says that the Galenists also account for these effects, and that they even attribute them to salt, to sulfur, or to the spirit which predominates in these waters: I answer that, that they never satisfy perfectly on this subject, by reasoning which they will have drawn from the knowledge which they will have taken from the School; but that they must have drawn these lights from the Chemical Authors; & that thus it will no longer be a Galenist who will speak, since he will reason only through the organ of the Chemists. Let us therefore conclude for Chemical remedies, & let us say that these are the real weapons, which a Physician must use to drive out & to tame the most rebellious diseases, & those even which pass for incurable, according to the practice & the ordinary remedies of Galenic medicine. So we end this Apology, saying that these marvelous medicines will always workcitius , tutius & jucundius .

CHAPTER III.

Of the faculties of the mixed ones, and of the various degrees of their qualities.

We must consider, after all that we have said above, what fruits we can gather from the separation of the five principles which can be drawn from compounds, for the establishment of the virtues and faculties of medicines, as well only for the degrees of their qualities. When, therefore, we have distinguished the diversity of substances, which the Artist can draw from natural things, and when we have noticed that some of them abound more or less in sulphur, in salt, in spirit, in earth or in phlegm, and that this is found in all the mixtures of the three families of nature, which are animals, plants, and minerals; it seems that one can legitimately determine something for the use of Medicine, to make recognize the virtues and the properties, which are specific to each of the parts which have been drawn from the mixed ones.

For as Ordinary Medicine has attributed everything to the various degrees of the first and second qualities; it is also necessary to make use this chapter of some medium, to make known the beginning of the truth of the specific virtues of each principle of the compound, so that what we will say here serve as introduction, to penetrate better into the thoughts of all the Authors who have written about it up to now: for one can say with certainty that what abounds in oil also holds qualities of oil; & that what abounds in spirit, comes from those of the spirit, & thus from the other constituent or separate parts. One could even insert here the catalog of all the mixtures, where sulfur predominates, as well as the compounds where the other principles abound. We could even further anatomize all natural bodies, to know precisely in what dose they participate in one or other of the five principles, and how much nature will have given to each of them in particular; & after working in this way, one could boast of knowing distinctly all the faculties of natural things. But as it is not only the work of the life of a single name, & that on the contrary, that of several Artists would not suffice; & that in addition to these considerations, several Volumes would be needed to contain the remarks that would be necessary for this purpose; we will content ourselves with saying something about it in passing, when we describe the work that can be done on each compound, so that we do not go beyond the limits that we have prescribed for ourselves,

To return then to the various degrees of the qualities of the mixtures, or of the five substances that can be drawn from them; let us first say that the oil heats up, or that it seems to do its work by means of heat, which is a quality more excellent than that which is called elementary. For example, we see a sensible effect, and which is known to all, which is that if we separate from wine its oil or its ethereal spirit, which is its sulphurous part and its volatile salt, exalted by the fermentation commonly called eau-de-vie; that what will remain will no longer be suitable for heating, and even less for communicating the quality that we attribute to oils and spirits; that if we join this portion of spirit or ethereal oil to its phlegm, we will also restore to it at the same time the same property of heating, which it had before; which obliges us to conclude, that the more a mixture abounds in ethereal oil & in volatile spirit, the more also it is capable of warming up, fortifying & increasing our spirits, as being the most analogous & the closest to nature. of the vital spirits, as also of that of the animal spirits, because it is this single portion of the mixture which can pass even into the last digestions.

The same judgment can be made in all that constitutes the vegetable kingdom;
for we can say that the different parts of plants have different degrees of quality, according to whether they have been more or less fermented, digested & cooked by the exterior heat of the Sun, & by that which is interior and essential to them, which is contained in their salt, which is the envelope of their fermentative and digestive spirit; & according as this salt is exalted by the actions of these two efficient causes; these parts of plants also have more or less efficacy and virtue. Thus the seed must hold the first place, because it is pushed to its perfection, & because it contains in itself the germ & the spermatic spirit, which can produce & multiply in its similar; & that it is also in the body of the seed, that nature has gathered, cooked, digested & concentrated all that there was of salt, sulfur & spirit in the whole body of the plant, as is proved by the distillation of the seeds, from which a large quantity of volatile salt is obtained, which does not is nothing other than these three principles volatilized, & united together by the interior heat of the plant, & by the exterior heat of the sun; & it is in this volatile salt that all the virtues of things are hidden, which is the cause of Helmont calling them the Lieutenant Generals of the Arcane.

It is then necessary to descend by degrees, to recognize the various degrees of the qualities of the other parts of the plants, by applying to them the reasoning which we have made on the seed; for the flower is less than the seed, & the leaf is less than the flower in virtue; the wood is worth less than the bark, and the fruit is worth more than the leaves of the trees, and so are the other parts of the vegetable, all of which will be valued according to whether they abound in oil, in spirit, in essential salt or in salt. volatile.

But it is necessary here to make a digression, and to notice the difference which is between the annual plants, and that which is between the perpetual plants; for there are some who have the seat of their virtue in the root; the others have it in the leaf, and most have it in the seed; this is why it is necessary to be an exact observer of all these circumstances, in order to make a sound judgment of them, and to examine them by the external senses and by reasoning, in order to make the necessary choice.

All that we have just noted can also be applied to the other principles for the distinction of the degrees of their faculties; because if we deprive, for example, a mixture of its salt, it will lose the desiccative, detergent, coagulative faculty, and all the other properties which come from salt. Now, it may be that a mixture will have two, three, four or five times more or less salt, spirit, sulphur, phlegm or earth, in comparison with another compound, which will be the reason and the rule of being able to subdivide the degrees of one's faculties; when we have discovered by work the abundance, or the lack of what produces virtue in natural things, because it is still hidden from us by the negligence of those who have written, and by the ignorance of these bastard physicists , who do not know their mother, nor the children she has produced: for we see that the juice of berberis, that of oranges and lemons, that sour wine and that which is distilled, that the spirit of vitriol, that of common salt, of nitre salt , tartar & that of many other similar ones, deserve to be attributed to them various degrees of qualities, because of the eminence of their actions, which come from the abundance or the defect of some principle, which is more or less refined, which makes it known that the mixed have more or less efficacy, action and virtue, according to the too much or the little of the efficient principles. This is why, one can rightly draw from the theory and the practice of Chemistry some true foundation, to adorn and to diversify Medicine, to straighten the Common Pharmacy, which is on the inclination of its ruin,

CHAPTER IV.

Of the order that we will keep in the description of Chemical aerations.

The Order that one holds to describe the five principles, which are drawn from all the mixtures, by means of the operations of Chemistry, can be given in two ways: because one can firstly, assemble in a treatise all the simple waters , or composed according to their species; in another, all the spirits: we could also make one for the oils in particular, and another for the salts, and so on for the other principles. We can also describe these five substances secondarily, according to the order in which we draw them from each individual that nature furnishes us. It will be this last order that we will follow, as the one that best satisfies the mind, and where there is less confusion: we will therefore give each mixture in particular a separate Chapter, in which we will make an exact description of the nature of this mixture,

And to do things with some method, we'll start with meteors, where we'll talk about rain, dew, honey, wax & manna. After which, we will teach the preparations which are made on the animals and on their parts. We will continue on the plants, where we will show how it is necessary to anatomize all the part of this ample & rich family; to finally end with minerals, & by the examination that we will make of what is essential in stones, salts, marcasites & metals, from which we will separate the most fixed & hardest parts, in order to draw the marvelous remedies, which are enclosed in the center of these true products of the earth.

CHAPTER V.

Dew & rain.

As chemists cannot extract or dissolve, without some liquor which is specific to these two actions, to draw the virtue of things (they usually call the liquor which they use to dissolve & extract a menstruum; and it will be from this single word that we will use in all the operations that we will describe): as, I say, they cannot do without menstruation, so they searched with great care and work, to find one that was not endowed with no particular quality, and which was suitable for all sorts of mixtures; although the particular menses they possess are destined for the extraction & for the dissolution of some compounds. The Artists did not believe they could better achieve their goal,

It is not necessary for us to repeat that dew and rain are two meteors, since we have spoken of them in the first part of this Treatise on Chemistry: it will be enough for us to say that rainwater must be collected during the space of night days before the equinox of March & eight days after, because at that time the air is completely filled with true celestial seeds, which are intended for the renewal of all natural productions; & when the water was raised from the earth, & when it was deprived of the various ferments with which it had been filled by the various generations, which had been made in & above the earth by its means; it falls back to earth through the air, where it is replenished with a pure spirit, and which is indifferent to being made of all things.

So let us take a large quantity of rainwater at that time, put it in some wooden tub that is clean, in a place that is wide open and where the air is well permeable, & let it ferment, so that it makes a sediment of the coarsest impurities, which it could have acquired from the roofs & the canals which receive it & supply it to us; it will also cast a kind of foam upwards, which completes the purification of it completely. After that, let us fill stoneware jugs, bottles, or barrels with it, if we want to keep it as it is, since it is already suitable for many operations, and is more useful than no other species of water whatsoever, as we will show in the following practice, because it is more subtle than other waters,

But if you want to make this water more subtle & more capable of extracting the tinctures & the virtue of things, you have to distill it in the bladder with the Moor's head & the channel, which passes through the barrel, & not withdraw only two-thirds of what will be put in the vessel, & repeat this distillation, until one has reduced one hundred pints to ten, which will then be used for the extraction of the purgatives.

The same can be done with dew, which is even better than rainwater; it must be taken in the month of May, because it is then much more charged with the universal spirit, and it is filled with that spiritual salt which serves for the generation, maintenance, and nourishment of all beings.

CHAPTER VI.

Honey and wax.

It should not be found strange that the honey is here placed between the meteors, since the dew contributes much to its generation: for it thickens on the plants, after it is on them; it retains and condenses in itself the vapors that the plants continually exhale, which is done by the coolness of the night; & the heat of the sun digests & cooks the whole thing into honey & wax, which the bees will then collect, & carry it to their hives to serve them as food. We can draw a consequence from what we have said, why there is more honey in one season than in the other. The best honey is that which is yellowish-white, which is pleasant to taste & smell, which is neither too thin nor too thick, which is continuous in its parts, & which dissolves easily on the language. That of the young flies is better than that of the old ones, they make the water, the spirit, the oil, the salt and the tincture. We extract wax, which is an elastic substance, phlegm, spirit, butter, oil and a very small portion of flowers, which are nothing but the volatile salt of this mixture.

§. 1. The way to draw the princes of honey.

It is necessary to take some honey, and put it in a glass, earthenware or sandstone curcurbite, and put on top about two ounces of hemp, or tow, to prevent the honey from rising in the capital by its boiling. , & luter the joints with two strips of paper, which are coated with glue made with flour & water cooked together. We put the curcurbite in the sand, we will heat it slowly, in order to draw the water by this first degree of fire; then we will change the container, and we will increase the fire, to bring up a second water, which will turn yellow, and which will contain the spirit; & increasing the fire still further, a red spirit will come out with the oil, which will have to be separated by the funnel & rectified the spirit. What remains at the bottom of the curcurbite must be calcined in a lamppost,

One & the other of the waters of honey, namely the clear & the yellow, are very useful to cleanse & to clean the eyes, & mainly to remove the sussusions & the stains: they are also useful can make believe the hair; the spirit is a great depilatory, because being taken from six to fifteen or twenty drops, in aperitif waters, or in a decoction of nettle and burdock roots, it opens the obstructions, pushes the urine, & flushes out gravel, glue & mucus from the kidneys & bladder. If the oil of honey is circulated in the spirit of wine, for the space of twenty or thirty days, it becomes very soft & very pleasant, it serves admirably to heal arquebusades, & to monify & clean gnawing & canker ulcers. : it is an excellent remedy to soothe the pains of taste; as well as can remove stains from the face, if mixed with camphor oil.

§. 2. To make vinous mead & honey vinegar.

It is necessary to take a part of very good honey, and night parts of purified rainwater, or of river water, which one will have left to rest for a few days, in order to strip it of its impurities; & boil them slowly until half is consumed, after having skimmed it very carefully. Half the liquor must then be put in a cask, to which must be added on a thirty-pint cask one ounce of tartar salt & two ounces of tincture of this salt, to aid in the fermentation, which will be completed in the philosophical month, which is forty days: but observe that it is necessary to fill the barrel every day, to replace what the fermentative spirit pushes out: that being finished, it is necessary to put the barrel in the cellar, & the butcher as it's necessary ; then we can use it as a drink,

But, when you want to make vinegar from honey, you have to take from the barrel, in which you will have put the honey half cooked with the water, a nouet filled with arugula seed, which is coarsely beaten, then put the barrel in a warm place, if it is in winter; but if it is in summer, it must be exposed to the heat of the sun, until the liquor ceases to boil and ferment, and it changes gradually and slowly into a very good vinegar, which can be can distill like the other; it will be an excellent menstruation for the dissolution of the pebbles, & for that of all the other stones, even when they would not have been calcined beforehand; this is what Quercetan calls in his works the Philosophical Vinegar.

§. 3. To make tincture of honey.

This tincture is not one of the least remedies that are drawn from this meteor, both because of the particular virtue of this mixture, and for that of menstruation, which is used for the extraction of the faculties of this celestial manna, which contains much more efficacy than those who believe that it is easily changed into bile have imagined, because of this false axiom of the School, which makes them pass for true, that omnia dulcia facile bilescunt ; because they do not understand that these changes are not made in us by the mixture of humours, but by the various fermentations, which have their origin in the ventricle, and that the leaven which causes them, is either healthy or diseased , according to the good or bad ideas, which the spirit of life, which is in men, will have conceived. Let us therefore return to our subject, and let us say that honey is one of the substances in the world which contains the most of the universal spirit, and that it is also the one which is most capable of being reduced to the nature of this agent. general of the world, to draw from it beautiful remedies for Medicine; provided that we retain something of its specification, which makes it useful and sensitive to us.

It is therefore necessary to choose the best and the finest honey that can be found, according to the marks that we have given, and mix one part with three parts of the cleanest and purest sand that can be had, in a marble mortar, & beat them together, until you make a mass that can be reduced to balls of such size that they can fit into a long-necked matrass. After having put them in there, it is necessary to pour over the spirit of very subtle wine, as long as the menses surpasses the matter by three or four fingers; then you have to put on another matrass, which enters the neck of the first two fingerbreadths or so, you then have to fight the joints of the vessels of two strips of beef or pork bladder, which have been soaked in white d 'egg, which will have been reduced to water by violent and frequent agitation; & that this remark & ​​this way of fighting the joints of the vessels suffice for all the operations which will follow. Let the matrass be tied to the lid of the bain-marie, to suspend it in the steam, and let the honey be digested in this way with its menstruation, until the spirit of wine is well imprinted, well tinted & well charged with the interior sulfur of this mixture, which this spirit will attract by the analogy which is between it and this principle. That being in this state, it is necessary to let cool the vessels, then to open them & to filter the tincture by the paper, & to withdraw it in a small curcurbite, which one will cover with its capital; we will fight very exactly the joints, & we will adapt a clean container, then we will remove half of the alcohol from the wine in the very slow heat of the bain-marie;

the bath being cooled, it is necessary to open the vessels and carefully keep what will be left of the tincture in a vial, which has a narrow orifice, and which is well stoppered with cork which has been dipped in boiling wax, to plug the pores & cover it with a double wet bladder & a paper, so that nothing can exhale from this remedy, because of its parts, & that we can use it if necessary.

The use of this tincture is almost divine in affections of the chest, which are caused by slow and viscous serums, which are collected in the capacity of the thorax; because it has the virtue of subtilizing them & dissolving them, because it strengthens the patient sufficiently to make him spit out what harmed him, where he drives it out & puts it out by urine, by sweat, or by perspiration insensible, which are the ordinary good effects produced by remedies, which approach the universal. It is these rare medicines that show the truth of this beautiful maxim, which says that natura corroborata est omnium morborum medicatrix. The dose of this tincture is from a quarter of a spoonful to a whole spoonful, for people who are advanced in age, and from five drops to twenty for children. It can be given on its own, or mixed in decoctions, or in specific & appropriate waters for the disease, friend are those of coltsfoot flower, butterbur roots, white horehound & adoring, as also in that of bayes of juniper & roots of enula, because all these simples abound in penetrating & volatile spirit: it can also be given in broths, or in the ordinary drink of the patient.

§. 4. To draw oil from wax.

We can extract from the wax, as well as from many other mixtures, a phlegm, an acid spirit, a void, and the flowers, which we have said are its volatile salt. But as the other substances, except the oil, are not of much use in Medicine, we will not stop at their descriptions: we will content ourselves only with giving a way of making wax oil which is useful, easy & compensatory.

Take a pound of yellow wax, which is very fragrant and clean of all filth; let it be melted at a very slow heat, in a copper basin, which has a lid that just closes it; & when you have some other operation on the fire, you have to take coals all red, & drown them one after the other in the melted wax, until they are well soaked in the wax, & that they be suffocated & filled; you must continue in this way until all the wax has entered the coals, with the precaution nevertheless of covering the basin every time you put hot coals in it, in order to prevent the wax from igniting. Next, you have to grind the coals into a coarse powder, and mix them with their equal weight of decrepit salt; put this mixture in a glass retort, which has a third of its capacity empty; then put the retorte in the sand, & adapt a fairly large container to its neck, which must be wrestled exactly with bladder & egg white: we will let the lut dry; then the fire will be given by degrees, until the vapors cease by themselves, which usually happens in the space of fifteen or twenty hours: the whole being cooled, it is necessary to separate the oil, which is still filthy & thick, like butter from the aqueous liquor, & reserve part of it in this consistency, to use it externally; but the rest must be rectified in a low cucurbit, & mix it with three or four pounds of white wine & four ounces of tartar salt, put the cucurbit in the ashes, & distill with all the precision that is required, for the rectification of a very subtle oil: one will have in this way a wax oil as clear, as fluid & as penetrating as the spirit of wine, & which possesses very particular virtues, both for the interior and for the the outside. It is given internally from six to twelve drops in some diuretic liquor, for the retention of urine; thus one can give it for this effect in water of parsley & in that of sassafras wood, even in the decoction of nephritic wood. It is very resolving when applied externally, which makes it excellent for dissolving scirrhous and oedematous tumors. It is also very good for restoring movement to crippled and paralytic limbs, and for remedying all cold affections of the nervous parts:

Butter or coarse oil, which has been reserved without rectification, heals the fissures of frostbite; it welds & scars the slits of the end of the breasts.
One can rectify the aqueous liquor, and one will find that a quarter is a spirit of salt, which is not less good than that which is distilled by itself.

CHAPTER VII.

Manna.

Pliny rightly calls manna the honey of the air, which contains within itself a celestial nature. 'a dew, or a pleasant liquor, which falls at the time of the equinoxes, on the branches and on the leaves of the trees; from there, on the grass, on the stones, and sometimes on the earth itself, which condenses in a short time, and which appears lumpy like gum.

We usually choose that which is oriental, such as the Persian or the Syriac; but one can legitimately be satisfied with that which comes from Calabria, which forms part of the kingdom of Naples; it must be recent & white; for when she scorches, it is a proof that she is beginning to grow old, and that she has lost the celestial and spirituous part, in which her virtue consisted.

To make the spirit of manna.

Take as much as you want of well-chosen manna, put it in a glass curcurbite, which you will cover with its capital, & fight them together exactly, then you will put it in the ashes, & give a very slow fire, after having adapted a container at the beak of the still, and an insipid spirit will come out of it, which has very notable virtues; because it is an excellent sudorific, and which can be given happily, as much in pestilential and malignant fevers, as in all other common fevers; this spirit makes you sweat profusely, and expels the excrement of the last digestions, as can be noticed by the extreme stench of the sweat it provokes. The dose is from half a teaspoon to a whole.

This spirit has moreover a quite particular virtue, which is to dissolve sulphur, from which one can draw by this means a yellow tincture, which is not one of the least remedies for the chest and for the principal parts which it contains; for this tincture is like a restorative balm, to correct the defect of the lungs, and to preserve their action; it can be given from two to twelve drops, in purified and prepared shopping juice, as we will teach in the Chapter on Vegetables.

We can still make manna water which will be laxative & sudorific all together. For this effect, it is necessary to take apart well-chosen manna & two parts well-pure nitre; then having mixed them together, they must be put in an ox's bladder, or in that of a pig, which one or the other is very clean; then it is necessary to tie the top of the bladder very exactly, & suspend it in boiling water, until the whole is dissolved: it will be necessary to distil this solution in the same way as we have said of the spirit; & we will have an insipid water, which loosens the stomach, & which also makes you sweat copiously: the dose, is from one drachma to six, in a broth, or in some pectoral decoction. This remedy can be used to evoke the superfluous serums which ordinarily cause rheumatism.

CHAPTER VIII.

Animals.

The Treatise on Animals, is a part of the Chemical Pharmacy, which contains the remedies derived from animals, & the way to prepare them. Now, as Chemistry has for its object all natural things; so she works on animals and on man himself, who is the most perfect of all. But as the scope of an abbreviation does not suffer from making a very exact enumeration of the perfect terrestrial animals, nor that of the birds, nor that of the fishes and insects, which are the four classes of this great, beautiful and ample family of animals; so we will content ourselves first with making a few observations on the nature of animals in general, and on the choice that the Artist must make of them, when he wants to draw from them the marvelous medicines they contain, for the relief of human misery. From there we will move on to the operations, which are carried out on some of these animals, which will serve as an example and a guide, to work on all the others which are of the same nature.

We will therefore say in passing, that as all animals are composed of a substance more volatile, more subtle and more airy than the plants on which they feed; that also they do not have in their artificial resolution so much earth, nor so many diversities of substance: so much so that one can draw from them only three medicines, which are very effective, namely the spirit, the salt volatile & oil. We will waste no time in disputing whether the forms of these animals are spiritual or material, because these are disputes which are more curious than they are useful. We will only say that the Artist must choose the healthiest animals to draw his remedies from, whether they are of a mediocre age, so that the parties may have acquired the firmness & perfection that is required; for we know that animals die every day as they age, after they have passed a certain point of perfection, which is their no longer, according to the nature prescribed to each of them for their duration. The animal must also die a violent death, and mainly that it has been strangled, because this suffocation concentrates the spirits in the parts, and prevents their dissipation; and that it is in the conservation of this flame and this vital light that the virtue of animals and their parts resides and is properly fixed, as is proved by the history that Bartholin relates in his centuries, of this who arrived in Montpellier: It is that a woman having bought the flesh of an animal recently killed, & which was still quite smoking, hung it in the room where she slept; waking up at night, she was surprised to see a great light in her room, although the moon was not shining;

she was frightened by it, not being able to imagine where it could come from; she finally recognized that it came from the flesh she had hung on the fang, and the next day told her neighbors about it, who wanted to see this thing which seemed incredible to them; but the sight of them confirmed the truth: a piece of this luminous flesh was carried to the late Monseigneur le Prince, Lieutenant General for His Majesty in the Province of Languedoc, in the year 1641, who gradually lost his light, as he approached its corruption. This truth cannot be contradicted in this dead flesh; & all the Curious will experience, when it pleases them, that sparks of light come out of living animals, if they take the trouble to rub the hair of a cat against the hair in a very dark place, which does not It is only too sufficient to verify more and more, that light is not only the principle of composition in all things, but that it is also the principle of their conservation, and principally of that of life. The preceding story reminds me of the complaint made by the Butcher boys at Sedan, that entering at night the place where the animals are killed, they saw extraordinary lights, which they superstitiously related to apparitions of demons, & were frightened by them, of which I am an eyewitness; but when there was a lighted candle in the place, the light disappeared; which shows that it came only from the flesh of animals, which had been newly killed.

§. 1. Of man .

The Artist draws from man, who is either male or female, various substances on which he works, either during his life or after his death. We derive from the male and the female during their life the following; namely, hair, milk, afterbirth, urine, blood & bladder stone. One also extracts from them after their death, or the whole body, or its parts, which are the muscles or the flesh, the axon or fat, the bones and the skull. It is from these different parts that the Artist will draw remedies, as we are going to teach exactly one after the other, which must serve as an example for the similar work, which can be done on other animals. & on their parts. There are, however, still many other parts in animals, which are useful to Medicine; but as they are not ordinarily subject to chemical operations, so we have not deemed it necessary to report on them in this Chapter, which is only a small part of the Abrégé de la Chimie.

§. 2. Hair .

To extract any remedy from the hair, it must be distilled, so as not to lose anything;for by this operation, the spirit and the oil are extracted from it, and the ashes are preserved, which is done in this way. Take hair from the male or the female, as they are found at the Wigmakers, & fill a glass retort with it, rather than earth, because of the subtlety of the spirits that come out of it, & put it in the oven, which we we will call a sand bowl, to which you will adapt a large container, the joints of which you will fight exactly; & when the lut is dry, you will begin to give a moderate fire, which you will gradually increase, until the vapors will begin to enter in abundance in the container; then continue the fire according to this same degree, until nothing more comes out of the retort, & that the container begins to become clear of itself; then push the fire with more violence, so that nothing remains, and that the calcination of what remains in the retort is completed perfectly; then cease the fire, & let the vessels cool, you will find in the receptacle two different substances, which are the armoniacal spirit of the hair, & the oil which is nothing other than the sulfurized portion of this mixture, mixed with the coarsest volatile salt. We can use these two substances in Medicine, after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his & that the calcination of what remains in the retort is completed perfectly; then cease the fire, & let the vessels cool, you will find in the receptacle two different substances, which are the armoniacal spirit of the hair, & the oil which is nothing other than the sulfurized portion of this mixture, mixed with the coarsest volatile salt. We can use these two substances in Medicine, after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his & that the calcination of what remains in the retort is completed perfectly; then cease the fire, & let the vessels cool, you will find in the receptacle two different substances, which are the armoniacal spirit of the hair, & the oil which is nothing other than the sulfurized portion of this mixture, mixed with the coarsest volatile salt. We can use these two substances in Medicine, after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his you will find in the container two different substances, which are the armoniacal spirit of the hair, and the oil which is nothing other than the sulphurous portion of this mixture, mixed with the coarsest of the volatile salt. We can use these two substances in Medicine, after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his you will find in the container two different substances, which are the armoniacal spirit of the hair, and the oil which is nothing other than the sulphurous portion of this mixture, mixed with the coarsest of the volatile salt.

We can use these two substances in Medicine, after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his after having separated them; but it will nevertheless be necessary to rectify them, namely the spirit in a bain-marie on other hairs, which are cut very thin in a small curcurbite, covered with its capital with all the required precautions; & the oil on his own ashes, but on ash fire, giving moderate heat at first.

The spirit of hair is not given before, both because of its bad smell and its bad taste, and also because Art draws from other parts of man other spirits, which are less disagreeable. for use. We therefore only use it mixed with honey, to anoint the parts where the hair is in too small a quantity, or those from which they have fallen. The oil is excellent, for radically eradicating scabs in whatever place they are located, if one makes a lime with a little salt of Saturn, and applies some on it, after having purged the patient with some remedy that evacuates serums. The ash being mixed in the form of cerate with mutton tallow, produces beautiful effects, to smooth over dislocations, and to strengthen the dislocated or dislocated limb. We can also add that whole hair is a very quick remedy to stop the flow of blood from wounds, from the nose, and even the immoderate flow of women.

§. 3. Milk .

Woman's milk is in itself a very excellent remedy for the eyes, either to soothe the pain and to remove the inflammation, either that of the substance of the eye itself, or that which comes from small ulcers which are made on the eyelids, or in the corners of the eyes: one can substitute some other kind of milk, when one cannot have that of a woman. But it has vitriolic water, which is distilled with woman's milk or with some other milk, either that of a cow, donkey or goat, which can always be ready, and which does wonders to remove the evils of eyes: it is done this way.

Take powdered milk & white vitriol, of each equal part; put them together in a glass curcurbite, with all the adjustment required for distillation; then draw the water from it into the furnace of the ashes with a graduated heat, until the white clouds appear: after which, it is necessary to finish the fire, so that the water does not become corrosive: this water corrects the redness of the eyes, & removes the inflammation of them in a marvelous way.

§. 4. Of the arrears .

Can prepare some remedy from the afterbirth, one must have one that comes from the first childbirth of a male, that the woman from whom it will come be of a moderate age, as from eighteen years to thirty-five; whether the woman is healthy, of black or chestnut hair; it is necessary to except the red ones, that if one cannot have some of the first, that it is always of a male, if it is possible; but if the need arises, we can even use the one that follows a girl; for to speak truly, the male and the female are nourished by the same blood and in the same body, there is only the difference in strength and vigour.

So take an afterwork with the required conditions, put it in a glass curcurbite, & distill it in BM until dry, & reserve the water in a bottle, which is well stoppered with a cork that has been soaked in melted wax. That if what remains at the bottom of the curcurbite is not dry enough to be powdered, it must be dried in triple paper at a moderate heat; but note that it must not be turned over by distilling it any more than by drying it, so that the spirits and the volatile salt are concentrated, because it is properly this salt which constitutes the virtue of the powder which we have to do.

Eau d'arrierefaix is ​​an excellent cosmetic, which gently cleanses the skin of the hands and face, which also unites wrinkles and erases spots, provided that a little pearl salt and a little borax. But it is also very excellent for bringing out the afterweight, when the work of the woman has been long & difficult, & there has been weakness, provided that one mixes with this water the weight of half a -drachma of the powder of the body from which it was taken, or the same weight of a desiccated eel's liver with its gall, which is a remedy which never fails in its effect.

The powder of the afterweight given by weight from one scruple, to two or three, is a sovereign remedy against epilepsy, either in its own water, or in that of peony flowers, lily of the valley flowers, or in that of tillot flowers, it is necessary to give seven continuous days fasting in the course of the Moon.
That if we calcine the after-work in an unglazed earthen pot, which is well covered & well fought; the ashes will be a specific remedy against scrofula & against goiters, if given during the last quarter of the Moon, the weight of half a drachma in water of male alder every morning on an empty stomach.

§. 5. Urine .

Although urine is an excrement that we reject every day, yet it contains a salt which is quite mysterious, and which possesses virtues which are known to only a few people. Its name or its stench must not frighten the Artist, who will have known its properties; that is proper only to those who boast of having eminently knowledge of Pharmacy and its preparations, without daring to blacken their hands, nor separate the different parts which compose things. And to generally prove how much medicinal virtues urine has, we will only say in passing that it dries up the scrape when washed with this newly rendered liquor; that it resolves tumors being applied warmly; that it monifies, cleanses & cleans wounds & poisonous ulcers;

that it prevents gangrene; that it opens & releases the belly gently & without cuts, if one gives it in enemas before that it is cooled; because otherwise she would be deprived of her volatile spirit, in which resides her chief virtue; that it prevents, or at least that it weakens the attacks of tertian fever, if it is applied warmly to the pulses & frontally; that it heals the ulcers of the ears, if poured into them, that it removes the redness and the itching of the eyes, if one distils them in their corners; that it removes the trembling of the limbs, if they are washed, being mixed with the spirit of wine; that it resolves & dissipates the tumor & swelling of the uvula when gargled; & finally, it soothes the pains caused by meteorisms of the spleen, if applied to it, being reduced to a poultice made with ashes. That if urine is like a treasure for diseases from without, it is no less effective for those from within; for it is excellent for removing obstructions of the liver, spleen & bladder from gall, for preserving from the plague, for curing incipient dropsy, & for removing jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the attack. being reduced to a poultice made from ashes. That if urine is like a treasure for diseases from without, it is no less effective for those from within; for it is excellent for removing obstructions of the liver, spleen & bladder from gall, for preserving from the plague, for curing incipient dropsy, & for removing jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the fit.

being reduced to a poultice made from ashes. That if urine is like a treasure for diseases from without, it is no less effective for those from within; for it is excellent for removing obstructions of the liver, spleen & bladder from gall, for preserving from the plague, for curing incipient dropsy, & for removing jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the attack. it is no less efficacious for those within; for it is excellent for removing obstructions of the liver, spleen & bladder from gall, for preserving from the plague, for curing incipient dropsy, & for removing jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the fit.

it is no less efficacious for those within; for it is excellent for removing obstructions of the liver, spleen & bladder from gall, for preserving from the plague, for curing incipient dropsy, & for removing jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the fit. & to remove jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the fit. & to remove jaundice; until then even that there are some who have observed that the urine of the husband is very specific, to make the woman lean her back in a long & difficult labor; and that experience shows that it produces surprising effects for the cure of tertian fevers, if a brand new glass is given from the first movements of the fit.

We have advanced all that is above, only to show how much urine well prepared & separated from its coarse impurities, will be more excellent & will produce better effects, than when it is still corporeal; as also to prove more and more, that all that the mixed have of virtue comes only from their spirit and their salts.

Those who want to use urine, will take, if they can, that of young men, adolescents, or that of children from the age of ten to fifteen, who are healthy and who drink. some wine ; that if that is not possible, they will take as much as they can get, for urine always has its spirits and its salt; it will however have less & will be coarser; but the experience of the work will show that the same remedies will be found there, either to use it as medicine outside or inside, or to make the following operations.

§. 6. To make the igneous spirit of urine & its volatile salt .

Take thirty or forty pints of urine, which has the conditions we have said, & evaporate it slowly, until the consistency of syrup; put what you have left in a curcurbite, which is one cubit high, which you will cover with its capital and which you will fight very exactly, put your vessel in a bain-marie or in ashes, to draw out the spirit and the salt volatile by distillation: if it is in a bain-marie, it must be boiling; but if it is with ashes, it will be necessary to graduate the fire with more precaution. Thus you will have a spirit which will coagulate into volatile salt in the still, which coagulates in the cold, and which resolves into liquor at the slightest heat. But it should be noted that the urine should only be evaporated when it is new; for if it had been fermented or digested,
One can also distil the spirit of urine in a still in a boiling water bath without evaporating it; but it will have to be rectified.

One can still distill the spirit of urine without apparent fire, which is a marvelous operation, which is done thus: one must evaporate the urine very slowly up to two-thirds, after which put three or four fingers from the top of good quicklime in a cucurbit; & pour your evaporated urine on this lime, quickly cover the vessel with its capital, & adapt a container to it; thus you will have spirit of urine in a short time & without fire, which will be very subtle & very volatile, which will not yield as much in goodness to those who will have been made in another way: those who will have the retort open from Glauber, will distill it more easily & in greater quantity. It is very difficult to keep the salt volatile of urine, because of its subtlety & the penetrability of its parts; this is why it is necessary to digest it with one's own mind, & to unite them together, to preserve them in a vial which has a narrow mouth, which has no stopper other than glass, & a double wet bladder on top.

This volatile saline spirit, or spiritual salt, has virtues which are almost innumerable; for it is first of all very sovereign in alleviating the pains of all parts of the body, and principally those of the joints, when it is mixed with some suitable liquor. It opens more than any other remedy all the tartar obstructions of the entrails and the mesentery; this is why its use is admirable in scurvy & in all hypochondriacal diseases, in the bad fermentations that occur in the stomach, & in the two kinds of jaundice: it is no less good for attenuating & to dissolve sand & phlegm, which form in the kidneys or in the bladder. It can even be made a very excellent remedy against epilepsy, apoplexy,

Take vitriol, which has been purified by various solutions, filtrations & crystallizations made with distilled rainwater, or what would be even better, with that of dew; soak it with the spirit of urine, until it floats only matter; block the vessel very exactly, and put it to digest for eight or ten days; after which put the digested matter in a high curcurbite & distill it in ashes until dry, & you will have a very excellent cephalic, which cures migraine & other pains of the head by smell alone; & which reconciles sleep, if held for a little while under the nose. You have to put what will remain in the bottom of the cucurbite, in a retort that you will put in the sand with its container well fought, & you will still draw from it the volatile salt & a kind of brown oil, which is not contemptible in Medicine & in metal; you can also make a solution of what remains, which you will filter, evaporate & crystallize into a salt, which will be a real stomachic to drive out harmful viscosities & superfluities, which usually attach to the walls of the stomach, we give in broth or hot beer. The dose is from night up to twenty grains, & even up to half a drachma. which will be a real stomachic to chase away harmful viscosities & superfluities, which usually attach to the walls of the stomach, it is given in broth or in hot beer. The dose is from night up to twenty grains, & even up to half a drachma. which will be a real stomachic to chase away harmful viscosities & superfluities, which usually attach to the walls of the stomach, it is given in broth or in hot beer. The dose is from night up to twenty grains, & even up to half a drachma.

The dose of the spirit of urine is from two drops to twelve or fifteen in emulsions, in broths, or in some other suitable liquors; that of the volatile salt, is from two grains to ten, in the same way as the spirit.
§. 7. To make water, oil, spirit, volatile & fixed salt from human blood .

Take in the month of May a good quantity of blood from some young men, who usually bleed at that time, and put it to distill in the ashes in a large glass curcurbite; but you have to put two or three handfuls of hemp over the blood, to prevent it from rising in the capital, which you will have to fight exactly, & adapt a container to it: you have to graduate the fire with judgment, & above all prevent the mass that remains, does not burn, but only dries out. Thus you will have the water & the spirit, which will have to be rectified in a bain-marie; the water will be used to extract the salt from the calcined dead head; the mind can be kept as it is, to use it against decrepit illness & against the convulsions of little children, the dose is from half a drachma to a whole drachma; it is also specific for the same ailments, by mixing flowers of lily of the valley and lavender, to extract the tincture. It will however be better to cohober it with the retort, on what will have remained in the curcurbite, up to nine times, or until it has acquired a ruby ​​color, and the oil comes out at the end. with the volatile salt, which will adhere to the neck of the retort, or to the walls of the container, which must be mixed with the spirit, & rectified & joined together by the distillation that you will do in a bain-marie. It is this spirit imbued with its volatile salt, which is so much praised for the cure of paralysis, taken internally from six to ten drops, in broths, or in a decoction of squine root, or in the White wine.

It is necessary to finish calcining with the fire of the wheel, what will have remained in the retort, then to extract the salt from it with the water which one will have drawn from the blood; the solution must be filtered, evaporated & left to crystallize the salt, which must be kept for what follows.

Take the oil distilled from the blood, & rectify it on colcotar with sand in a retorte, until it is subtle & penetrating; mix the fixed salt with this oil & digest them together, until they are well united; thus you will have a balm, which does wonders to soothe the pain of the drops of the feet & hands, & to remove the swelling & the redness; but what is best is that this remedy softens, dissipates & resolves the tophes & the knots of the taste buds; as well as those of the pox, provided that they have been purged beforehand with good remedies drawn from mercury or antimony.

It will however not always be necessary to stop at the spring season to have blood, because one will be able to take it in the other seasons of the year, if the necessity requires it. One can also use the blood of deer, goat, pig, ox or sheep, which can be distilled in the same way as human blood; for their digestions take place in the same way as in perfect animals; & their blood is endowed with the same faculties, except that that of men is more subtle, because of the delicacy of its food.

§. 8.To make salt & bladder stone elixir .

It is an admirable thing that what causes so many ills to men is nevertheless capable of serving them as a remedy; this is seen in the stone of the bladder, which may be given without further preparation, than to be powdered, by weight from a scruple to a drachm in white wine, or in a decoction of burdock root & of burning nettle, to dissolve & to bring out the gravel & mucus from the kidneys & the bladder; but the recipes obtained from it by chemical preparation have much more virtue and act with much more promptness.

So take a part of stones from the bladder, and powder them, which you will join with two parts of pulverized beech charcoal; put them together in a crucible, which you will fight, & calcine them with the fire of wheel or the fire of street lamp, five or six hours during; & when the crucible will be cooled, grind what remains, & make a lye of it with some diuretic water, or with phlegm of saltpetre or alum, which you will filter & evaporate it until it has a film, then put it to crystallize in a cold place, & continue like this until you have drawn out all the salt; that if it was not clear enough, it should be put in a crucible, then reddened in the fire without putting it into fusion; it must be purified by several dissolutions, filiations, evaporations & crystallizations. This well-dried salt must be put in a vial, which must be tightly stoppered, lest it be moistened by the attraction of air. The dose of this salt, is from four grains up to eight in suitable liquors, to facilitate the excretion of urine; as also to dissolve & bring out sand & phlegm, which are ordinarily the occasional cause of the generation & fermentation of stone in the kidneys, or in the bladder.

But if you want to make an essence or an elixir of it, which is even more effective than this salt, you will have to calcine the stone with its equal weight of very pure saltpeter in a good crucible, on a wheel fire during the space of six o'clock ; then the salt must be extracted from the mass with simple wine spirit, which must be filtered, evaporated & crystallized; & when the crystals are dried out, they must be digested for twelve days in a steaming vessel in a bain-marie, with rectified spirit of wine; after which put a capital on the vessel, & remove the spirit of wine in the heat of the bath water, & cohobe it so many times, that you reduce the salt into a subtle & clear liquor, which you will keep preciously. It is necessary to give from five drops to ten,

The Artist must not make any difficulty in using nitre to calcine the calculus, lest its salt join that of this stone: for besides all that is volatile, d acrid & corrosive in nitre, vanishes by calcination; it is that what remains with the calcined stone, being reduced to the universal nature by the action of the fire, can only increase the virtue of this remedy, rather than diminish it.
After having finished dealing with the things which are drawn from man during his life, we must complete this Chapter, by the examination which we will make of those which we draw from him after his death; & we will begin with the flesh, which provides us with many fine preparations, as the sequel will show.
§.9. Of human flesh & its preparations .

The mummy which is prepared with the flesh of the microcosm, is one of the most excellent remedies which are drawn from the parts of man. But because the mummy is abhorred by some, and it is neither known nor conceived by others; it is not proper to say anything of its differences, before coming to the description of its true preparation.

Those of the Ancients who have most learnedly written mumie, mark only four kinds. The first is that of the Arabs, which is nothing other than a liquor, which has come from bodies which have been embalmed with myrrh, aloe & natural balsam, which have been mixed, dissolved & united with the substance of the flesh of the embalmed body, which contained in them the spirit and the volatile salt, which are the mumia and balsamic part, which compose with the myrrh, the aloe and the balsam, this first kind of mumie of the Ancient , which really would not be to be rejected, if it were possible to recover it: but one does not find any at all at present.

The second is the mumie of the Egyptians, which is a thickened and dried liquor, taken from the bodies, which have been candied and filled with a balm, which is usually called Asphalt or Pissasphalt. Now, as the sulfurs are of an incorruptible nature, it is also by their means & by their balsamic faculty, that dead bodies are preserved from corruption: this second does not approach the first, & is only proper for outdoors; because it could not draw from the corpse the virtues of average life, which had remained in its parts, because of the compact solidity and the tightening of the parts of these sulphurous bitumens, which are dry and friable.

The third, is quite ridiculous & despicable, because it is nothing other than artificial pissaphalt, that is to say, black pitch mixed with bitumen, & boiled with liquor that comes out dead bodies of slaves, to give him the cadaverous smell; & it is this third kind that one usually finds in Grocers, who supply it to Apothecaries, who are deceived by the smell of this falsified & sophisticated drug. I learned what I have just said from a Jew from Alexandria in Egypt, who made fun of the credulity and ignorance of Christians.

The fourth kind of mumie, and the one which is the best and the least sophisticated, is that of human bodies, which happen to have been desiccated in the sands of Libya: for there are sometimes whole caravans, which are buried in these tables, when some contrary wind blows, which raises the sand, & which covers them unexpectedly & in an instant, I said that this fourth was the best, because it is simple, & this sudden suffocation concentrates the minds in all parts, because of the surprise & fear that the Travelers conceive, which according to the words of Virgil:

Membra quatit gelidusque coit formidine sanguis .

And that, moreover, the sudden exsiccation which takes place, either by the heat of the sand, or by the irradiation of the Sun, communicates some astral virtue, which cannot be given by any other way of acting whatsoever. . Those who have this last mumie, will use it to make the preparations that will follow: but as one does not always find these dead bodies thus dried, and the remedies that one draws from them are very necessary; the Artist can substitute a fifth kind of mumie, which is what Paracelsus calls mumiam patibuli , and which can legitimately be called the modern mumie, which he will prepare in this way.

§. 10.Preparation of the modern mummy .

It is necessary to have the body of some young man of the age of twenty-five or thirty, who has been strangled, from which one will dissect the muscles, without loss of their common membrane; after having thus separated them, they must be soaked in the spirit of wine, then suspended in a place, where the air is permeable and very dry, in order to dry them out, and to concentrate in their fibers what is there is volatile salt and spirit, and that there is only the serous and useless part which is exhaled. That if the weather is humid, these muscles should be hung in a fireplace, & perfumed them every day three or four times with a small fire made of juniper wood, which has its branches with its leaves and its berries, until until they are dry, like the flesh of corned beef, which ships are loaded for long voyages. Thus you will have a mumie, who will in no way yield to the fourth in kindness, and whom I esteem even more, because we are assured of her preparation; that one can moreover have some more easily, & that it seems that the spirits, the volatile salt & the mummial & balsamic part, must have been better preserved there, because the flesh has not been dried with so much great heat.

§. 11.To make the balm of the mummy of the moderns .

Take a pound of the fifth mumie, crush it in the mortar with a wooden pestle, until it is reduced to very fine fibers, which must be cut very finely with scissors, then put it in a long-necked matrass, & pour over it olive oil imprinted with the spirit of turpentine, which is properly its ethereal oil, until it floats three or four fingers deep; seal the vessel hermetically, & put it to digest in the manure, or in sawdust in the steam of the bath, during the space of a philosophical month which is forty days, without stopping the heat.

After which open the vessel, pour the matter into a cucurbit, which you will put in a bain-marie without covering it, and thus let the stench it will have contracted exhale, & that the whole mummy is dissolved; then pour the whole thing through the cotton, & put this solution to digest in a bain-marie in a meeting vessel, with an equal part of rectified spirit of wine, in which you will have dissolved two ounces of old theriac, & mixed an ounce of flesh of powdered vipers, for the space of three weeks; at the end of this time, you remove the blind still, & cover the curcurbite with a spouted capital, & remove the spirit of wine in the very slow heat of the bath, & pour what remains through the cotton; so you will have a very effective helmet, which you can use inside & outside. in which you will have dissolved two ounces of old theriac, and mixed one ounce of powdered viper flesh, for the space of three weeks; at the end of this time, you remove the blind still, & cover the curcurbite with a spouted capital, & remove the spirit of wine in the very slow heat of the bath, & pour what remains through the cotton; so you will have a very effective helmet, which you can use inside & outside. in which you will have dissolved two ounces of old theriac, and mixed one ounce of powdered viper flesh, for the space of three weeks; at the end of this time, you remove the blind still, & cover the curcurbite with a spouted capital, & remove the spirit of wine in the very slow heat of the bath, & pour what remains through the cotton; so you will have a very effective helmet, which you can use inside & outside.

It is a very excellent internal remedy against all poisonous diseases, & particularly against pestilential ones & all those which are of their nature. It is also very good to give to those who have fallen and who have clotted blood in the body, to the paralytics, to those who have contracted and atrophied limbs, to pleuretics and to all other diseases, where the sweat is necessary:

​​this is why it is appropriate to cover the sick well, to whom it will be given. The dose is from one drachma to three, in broths, or in tincture of sassafras, or juniper berry.

But one cannot sufficiently extol the beautiful effects it produces for the exterior; for it is a balm, which is even preferable to natural balm, to soothe all the external pains which come from the cold, or from some wind enclosed in the spaces of the muscles; as also against those which are occasioned by sprains and bruises; it is also necessary to anoint with it the paralytic members, the contracted and atrophied parts, that is to say, which do not receive any nourishment; it is also necessary to rub the places of the body, which are painful, where nevertheless one does not see any swelling or redness; but note that there are some at the same time internally, so that the internal heat co-operates with the external; because it is necessary to cover the patient, & to leave him in rest for a few hours, in order to provoke sweating,

§. 12.How to Prepare & Distill Human Axunge .

The axunge or human fat, is of itself, without further preparation, an external remedy which is very considerable; for it strengthens the weak parts & dissipates their external dryness; it soothes their pains, resolves their contractions, & restores the action & movement of the nervous parts, softens the hardness of the scars, fills the pits, & restores the unevenness of the skin, left by the venom of the smallpox .

The first preparation is simple & common; because it only needs to be cut up & boiled with white wine, until the pieces are well fried, & the humidity of the wine has evaporated; then press it between two pewter plates, which have been heated, & keep this axunge for the need.

The second preparation, is when one wants to make an innocuous, resolving & cooling liniment of it, which one can very usefully use for swellings, inflammations, hardnesses, & other accidents, which usually happen to wounds & ulcers, or by the intemperance of the patient, or by the incompetence and negligence of the badly experienced surgeon. To do this, take phlegm of vitriol or alum, which are imbued with their acid spirit, about half a pound; put it to digest in the sand with about two ounces of washed & dried litharge, which will have to be stirred often; & when the liquor will be well charged, it will have to be filtered, & to make the liniment of it in the form of nuiritum. That if you wish to make it more specific, it will be necessary to add to it, as it is shaken, some portion of the tincture of myrrh & aloe,

The third & the last preparationof human fat, which I hold to be the most exact and the best, is distillation, which is practiced in this way. Take one part of human axunge, & two or three parts of decrepit salt, which you will track & mix well together; you will put this mixture in a glass retort, which you will place in the sand with its container, which is fought very exactly; then you will give the fire by degrees, until the bottom of the retorte reddens, which requires only about eight hours of time; thus you will have an oil of human axunge which will be very subtle, which is a sovereign remedy for reviving & for stretching the paralytic limbs, which are usually cold & atrophied, & this oil is better than the body from which it was drawn, to use it for everything to which we have said above that it was proper. That if we want to make this oil more penetrating & more subtle, it will have to be circulated in a bain-mariewith an equal part of spirit of wine for a few days, then rectify it by distilling it with ashes in a low-cut gourd; it will become by this means so penetrating and so subtle, that it can hardly be preserved in the glass, seeing that it becomes imperceptible as soon as it is applied, so penetrating is it.

The preparations which we have just described will serve as examples for all the other nulls, butters, fats & axunges, which will be made by this means more effective & more penetrating.

§. 13.To make the spirit, the oil & the volatile salt of the human bones & skull .
The preparation of the skull will be no different from that of the bones; this is why, we will not waste the time to make two descriptions of it: one & the other preparation is done like this.

Take human bones, which have been taken from a man who died violently, & which have not been buried nor boiled, nor put in quicklime, & have them sawed into pieces of a suitable size , which can enter a retort, which is struggled, & which is filled only up to two-thirds; you will put it in the lamppost closed to an open fire; & after having adapted & fought its container very exactly, you will cover the lamppost, & leave above it a hole of an inch and a half in diameter, which will serve as a register to govern the fire, which must be graduated moderately, until until all the white clouds have passed; then you have to change containers, or empty the matter that will be contained in the first, then fight it exactly, & continue & increase the fire, to drive out volatile oil & salt with the rest of the spirit; what to pursue until the container becomes clear of itself; what happens in the space of twelve hours, since the beginning of the operation.

But note that you must keep the sawdust from the bones, or have it filed or grated; so that it serves for the rectification of the spirit, the oil & the volatile salt. It is also necessary to calcine & reverberate until white over an open fire, between bricks, the pieces which have remained in the retort, so that they serve to stop & fix in some way the volatile salt, which cannot be kept otherwise. , because of its subtlety, as we will describe when speaking of the distillation & rectification of what comes out of stag's horn.

I cannot pass over in silence an experience, which I saw in the person of a Cornette, who had been wounded by a musketeer in the thigh, close to the knee, who had his leg & knee in such a bad situation after his healing, that the heel approached the buttock, which rendered him almost useless in his charge. But their Surgeon Major, who was German, undertook to restore the movement of the knee to him; & to achieve his ends, he made him take daily in broth, for six weeks, the weight of a drachma of the powder of the bones of the leg & thigh of a man, who had been dissected a few years ago; which gave him back not only the bending movement of the knees, but which put him in a better position before the six weeks were over, to make arms, to play tennis & to ride a horse. Which should point out, that this powder can only have produced such a rare effect, because of the volatile, spiritual & penetrating salt it contained, since the material part could never pass into the back digestions, I have not reported this History, only to better make people believe & to better make people understand the effects produced by the remedies that are extracted from the bones and the human skull, by the distillation which separates the pure from the impure. One gives the spirit and the volatile salt of the human skull, for the cure of epilepsy in water of flowers of tillot, of lily of the valley or of poeone. That of the bones is also given with happy success, to rehabilitate the shortened and desiccated limbs, provided that they are also rubbed with the balm of the modern mummy. The oil of the skull and that of the bones can only be applied externally, to cleanse and to heal nasty and gnawing ulcers, provided that a little powdered colcotar is mixed therein, and that vulnerary potions are given. purgatives to the sick for two days in two days. The dose of the spirit, is from three drops up to ten; & that of the volatile salt stopped, from four grains to eight.

§. 14. How to properly prepare the remedies that come from the stag's horn .

Although we have given the model of doing all the Chemical operations, to draw the remedies from the parts of the animals; however as there are many who would have an aversion to working on the parts of some animals, which are in some way different from this one, & which have in them a greater portion of what may be useful to the cure of diseases: I thought it was necessary to describe exactly the good remedies, which are said to be deer's horn, which can legitimately be substituted for those prepared from human parts. For it must be admitted that there is something very beautiful and marvelous in the annual production of deer antler, which it renews every spring, like a species of vegetation. And to show this truth, it should be noted that the arms of this animal, only become useless and unbearable to him when he has fallen into poverty, as the huntsmen say, which is a rather physical way of speaking; for they mean that they lack good & sufficient food during the winter, when the ground is long covered with snow; & that thus, these poor animals no longer have natural spirits, nor moist radicals in large enough quantities, to grow into their wood, since they do not even have enough to sustain them & to maintain their life, since they are at that time thin and languorous. But when the rich season of spring gives them the tip of the grass & the buds of the shrubs of the coppice, they are as it were revived with a new fire so abundantly, that the sublimation of the spirits pushes up to their head, & gives them an itching that causes them to give birth to their old antlers, which are quite rare, spongy & deprived of their best & of their principal part, which is their spiritual volatile salt, in which consists all the medicinal virtue, which one wishes to draw from it: after which, they grow a new wood, which is soft at the beginning and completely filled with a very subtle blood, which hardens little by little, and which acquires all the required perfection.

What makes judge the necessity of the choice that one must make of the wood of this animal; because you must not take for your operations what will have been given birth; it should also not be taken before it has acquired its required firmness; it is even still necessary to neglect that which is approaching winter: but the real time to take it in its perfection, is between the two Feasts of Our Lady of August & September: it is at this time that it is sufficiently supplied with spirit, volatile salt & oil, to make the medicines that we are going to describe, the deer must have been killed, or taken by the dogs; but before coming to that, it is necessary to show how to distil deer's head water, when it is still tender & covered with its hair, because this water is of great virtue, & that she does not heat up so much as the other remedies that we will describe, because her spirits are still only embryonic, and they are neither cooked nor digested to their final perfection. the deer must have been killed, or taken by the dogs; but before coming to that, it is necessary to show how to distil deer's head water, when it is still tender & covered with its hair, because this water is of great virtue, & that she does not heat up so much as the other remedies that we will describe, because her spirits are still only embryonic, and they are neither cooked nor digested to their final perfection. the deer must have been killed, or taken by the dogs; but before coming to that, it is necessary to show how to distil deer's head water, when it is still tender & covered with its hair, because this water is of great virtue, & that she does not heat up so much as the other remedies that we will describe, because her spirits are still only embryonic, and they are neither cooked nor digested to their final perfection.

§. 15. How to distil deer horn, which is still soft to obtain deer head water .
It is necessary to take this new deer's antler to distil it, from the fifteenth of May, until the end of June; it must be cut in slices, half the thickness of a fingerbreadth, & lay them one on top of the other in a checkerboard pattern, in the bottom of a glass curcurbite which must be put in the bath -married ; & when everything is ready, you have to give fire until the water begins to distill, & continue the same heat until nothing more comes out: you can also put the curcurbite in the ashes, to finish drawing out the remaining moisture, so that the pieces are drier and can be better preserved. Some add wine, cinnamon, mace & a little saffron to this distillation, to make the water more effective; both to facilitate difficult births, than to bring out the afterbirth, when women have lost their strength; as well as to cleanse the womb of serums, with which its membranes were imbued during pregnancy, which cause with the blood that remains, the trenches that torment women in childbirth. The curious Apothecary will be able to do the simple and the compound, so that he can satisfy the intentions of the Physicians who want to use them. The dose of the simple, is from a half to one & two whole spoonfuls: one can even go further, because this water strengthens without altering & without overheating; besides being good for women in labour, it is no less excellent for all diseases which partake of venom.

Those who want to keep it for a long time, will add one and a half drams of powdered borax to each pound of this water; which will make it even better, since borax is of itself a specific, to facilitate childbirth. The dose of compound water should be less; for it is not necessary to go above two drams; it is a true counterpoison in all malignant and purpura fevers, and principally in measles and in smallpox.

It is not necessary to reject the pieces, which remained at the bottom of the vessel; on the contrary, they must be used in a very subtle powder by weight, from half a scruple to half a dragme, to kill the worms of children, even to prevent their formation; they must make this powder drink in a decoction of grated deer horn and ivory: this powder has no virtue except because the heat of the bain-marie has not been able to raise the volatile salt, which was in the strongest parts of these pieces.

§. 16.The Philosophical Preparation of Stag's Horn .

There are many Artists who believe that deer horn cannot be made soft & friable, so as to be able to easily powder it, without calcining it: but: how this calcination deprives it of its spirits & of its salt , the most experienced have found a way to make it a kind of philosophical calcination, which preserves its virtue; which should bring out the extreme difference that there is between the old Pharmacy, and that which is enlightened by the lights of Chemistry.

So take some well-chosen deer horn, and which is in its proper time; saw it in pieces the length of a span towards the extremities; then put two sticks across the top of the bladder, which is used for the distillation of spirits and waters, to which you will suspend with string the pieces of deer chitterlings, when you distill some cordial waters such as those of blessed thistle, ulmaria or small centaury; or what would be even better, when you distill some fermented materials, which must have by this means more penetrating & more subtle vapors, you must cover the bladder & give fire, as for the ordinary distillation of brandy; & the vapors will penetrate the deer's horn right down to its center, and will make it as friable as if it had been calcined over an open fire, and had been ground in porphyry; but it is necessary to continue the distillation four or five consecutive days, without opening the vessel; which is why the bladder must be pierced at the top on the side, in order to be able to put hot water in it as it decreases by distillation, and that the liquor must not half-foot approach to the material that is suspended. If it be objected that the vapors can remove with them the most subtle portion of the spirits of the deer's horn, we answer that it can; & that thus the cordial & sudorific waters, or the spirits distilled from the fermentation of juniper berries, or that of elderberry, will only have more virtue:
This deer's horn thus prepared is even more excellent than that which remained from the preceding distillation, both to fortify and to be diaphoretic, as well as to give to children to kill worms, and to prevent all the corruptions which are made. usually in their little stomach. The dose, is from half a scruple to half a dram & two scruples, in cordial & sudorific waters, or in some specific preserve, against all pestilential & venomous diseases.

§. 17. How to prepare the spirit, oil & volatile salt of deer horn .

Take as much deer horn as you please, whichever is of the condition that is required; saw it, or have it sawed in rows or talloles, to the thickness of two white crowns; fill a glass retort with it, which is struggled; put her on the closed lamppost over an open fire; & reduce the heat until the drops begin to fall one after the other into the container, which is well fought with wet bladder, & that you can count four between the interval that the drops will make while falling; continue & regulate the fire of this same equality, until the drops cease; then remove the container & empty it, then put it back, fight with good salted lut as it should be; & increase the heat by one degree, until the oil begins to distill, still with some spirit; & the volatile salt will begin to attach itself to the walls of the neck of the retort, & from there will pass in vapors into the body of the container, where it will attach itself in the form of stag horns & branches of trees, which are loaded with small frost or snow, which is an operation which is very pleasant to see; for even this volatile salt falls in the form of snow to the bottom of the vessel, which joins with the spirit which is below the oil. Continue the last degree of fire, until nothing more comes out of it, & the container appears clear without any steam.

which are laden with little frost or snow, which is an operation which is very pleasant to see; for even this volatile salt falls in the form of snow to the bottom of the vessel, which joins with the spirit which is below the oil. Continue the last degree of fire, until nothing more comes out of it, & the container appears clear without any steam. which are laden with little frost or snow, which is an operation which is very pleasant to see; for even this volatile salt falls in the form of snow to the bottom of the vessel, which joins with the spirit which is below the oil. Continue the last degree of fire, until nothing more comes out of it, & the container appears clear without any steam.

Now, it is not enough to have drawn these various substances from the deer's horn; you have to know how to rectify them, both to remove, as much as you can, the empyreumatic odor, and to separate their coarseness: & to begin with the first substance that came out of them, which is the spirit, it you have to grind it with ashes over a slow fire in a glass curcurbite, in which you will have put the height of three or four fingers, sawdust or grated deer horn; & this spirit will come out beautiful, clear, clean, & deprived of most of its bad smell; he who comes first is preferable to the last, because it is a volatile spirit, whose nature is always to rise first; the rest must be rejected as useless, and this rectified spirit must be put in a vial with a narrow mouth, which is tightly sealed. It is an excellent remedy, taken internally or applied externally; for it cleanses & rectifies the whole mass of blood from serous superfluities, through urine & sweat, as well as through insensible perspiration; this is why it is very specific against scurvy, against smallpox & against all the other diseases, which derive their origin from the deterioration of the blood; finally this volatile spirit can be worthily substituted for that which one could draw from all the parts of the other animals, to serve as an excellent medicine for all that we have said that the others were clean. But its use is also wonderful outside, because it cleans as if by a miracle all malignant, gnawing, cankerous & fistulous ulcers; if we wash them, or syringe them in: it is also used for recent wounds, either from fire, from cutting or thrusting; for he prevents any accident from happening: he is a friend of nature, which means that he helps this good mother in reuniting the parties; & as it is not his intention to cause suppuration, nor to make a collision of the flesh & the neighboring parts; this is also what this spirit prevents: but note that it is also necessary to give internally, from six drops to twelve in vulnerary potions, or in the drink of the patient. Finally, this spirit is nothing other than a volatile salt, which is in liquor, as volatile salt is only a firm and condensed spirit; which means that they can be given for each other, except that the dose of the volatile salt must be a little less than that of the spirit; so that the virtues that we attribute to one can be attributed to the other.

We have no other observation to give, to rectify the volatile salt & the oil, except that the operation must be done in a retort on deer horn grating, & with the same circumstances. for fire control. Thus you will have beautiful oil, clear & of a beautiful ruby ​​red, which will float the volatile salt which will have gone into the container, or which will be sublimated in the neck of the retort; one must dissolve the salt with one's own rectified spirit, by a solution made with the heat of lukewarm water to separate it from the oil; this solution will have to be filtered through the paper, which must be moistened with the spirit, before pouring anything into it, and you will have the oil apart and the salt in its own spirit, which is all the better for it, & which keeps better than if it were alone, except that we stop it and fix it, as we will teach below.

For this effect, it is necessary to put the solution of the spirit & the salt in a curcurbite in a bain-marie, to redistill the spirit & to sublimate the salt in the capital, or if you want by the retort: ​​it is impossible to keep this salt, so penetrating & subtle it is, that is why it must be stopped like this.
Take the rounds that have remained from the distillation, which are very black, & calcine them over an open fire until white; put a part of it in powder, which you will mix with its equal weight of volatile salt, which you will sublimate together, & thus start again with new deer horn calcined in whiteness up to four or five times, & you will have a salt volatile arrested that you can keep, transport & send with less risk than the spirit: nevertheless I advise to use rather the spirit filled & retorted drunk with the volatile salt, for all that we are going to say.

One could truly call this remedy a panacea, or a universal Medicine, by the marvelous effects which it is capable of producing; for it is very excellent against epilepsy, apoplexy, lethargy, & generally against all the diseases which are said to derive their origin from the brain: it removes all the obstructions of the liver, of the spleen, of the mesentery & of the pancreas . It resists all venoms, the plague & all kinds of fevers, without excluding any. It cleans the kidneys & the bladder, from which it evacuates all the slimes & mucus, which are the causes of the stone. It corrects all the vices of the ventricle, and principally its indigestions, which are worth the stench in the mouth; it is specific for the lungs, if digested with sulfur milk.

It soothes the immoderate belly flow, as also that of women, because it evacuates the superfluous serums which are the cause; but what is more marvelous & less conceivable is that it opens the constipated belly, & that it provokes the lunar purgations, because it restores all the natural forces to their state, & that it removes all the earthly and gross matters, which prevented its effect. I do not doubt that I will make myself ridiculous to all those who do not conceive the power and the sphere of activity of volatile salts; but I know besides, that those who will know with me, that this salt is the last envelope of the spirit & of the light, will not find it strange that I have attributed so many beautiful effects to this admirable remedy. because it evacuates the superfluous serums which are the cause; but what is more marvelous & less conceivable is that it opens the constipated belly, & that it provokes the lunar purgations, because it restores all the natural forces to their state, & that it removes all the earthly and gross matters, which prevented its effect. I do not doubt that I will make myself ridiculous to all those who do not conceive the power and the sphere of activity of volatile salts; but I know besides, that those who will know with me, that this salt is the last envelope of the spirit & of the light, will not find it strange that I have attributed so many beautiful effects to this admirable remedy. because it evacuates the superfluous serums which are the cause; but what is more marvelous & less conceivable is that it opens the constipated belly, & that it provokes the lunar purgations, because it restores all the natural forces to their state, & that it removes all the earthly and gross matters, which prevented its effect. I do not doubt that I will make myself ridiculous to all those who do not conceive the power and the sphere of activity of volatile salts; but I know besides, that those who will know with me, that this salt is the last envelope of the spirit & of the light, will not find it strange that I have attributed so many beautiful effects to this admirable remedy.

because it restores all the natural forces to their state, and removes all the earthly and gross matter, which prevented its effect. I do not doubt that I will make myself ridiculous to all those who do not conceive the power and the sphere of activity of volatile salts; but I know besides, that those who will know with me, that this salt is the last envelope of the spirit & of the light, will not find it strange that I have attributed so many beautiful effects to this admirable remedy. because it restores all the natural forces to their state, and removes all the earthly and gross matter, which prevented its effect. I do not doubt that I will make myself ridiculous to all those who do not conceive the power and the sphere of activity of volatile salts; but I know besides, that those who will know with me, that this salt is the last envelope of the spirit & of the light, will not find it strange that I have attributed so many beautiful effects to this admirable remedy.

But I must make this mystery understood, as far as I can, by describing what is done every day in the kitchen, for healthy people as well as for the sick. Don't we know that cooks can't make a bisque, or a good stew, if they don't use broth & juice from the best meats? Now, it is only through the volatile salt of the flesh that this pleasantness and this tickling of the palate is communicated. Are we not also making jellies, pressis, meat juices & consumables for the sick, of which we throw away the remains which are material & earthly, & which are exhausted of this salt which remains in the jellies, & which is the unique principle of freezing. These things are given to the patient, so that his stomach rather reduces the powers of these foods in action, and that it passes more suddenly into the substance of the parts by the ease of digestion. This is what the Artist does, when he prepares volatile salts, which are capable of revealing their virtues, especially as they penetrate all parts of our body,

Do we not also see that all Medicine, both ancient and modern, has introduced the deer's horn into all the cordial compositions it has prescribed; that she made a great state of the deer's heart bone, and that deer's horn jelly is still made every day, which serves rather to fortify the patient than to nourish him? But let's leave all this to the truth of experience, which is the real foundation of all the reasoning we have advanced.

§. 18. To make the tincture of the volatile salt of deer's horn .

Take the rectified volatile salt, put it in a meeting vessel, or what would be even better, put it in a pelican; pour twice its weight of wine alcohol on top, & put them extract & digest together in slow heat from the steam of the bath for twelve or fifteen days; if nevertheless all the salt was not dissolved, it will be necessary to remove what is dyed by inclination & pour alcohol over it, to complete the extraction & the dissolution. Thus you will have a tincture, which will be more exalted than the preceding remedies, which is good for all that we have said; but which, moreover, is a very excellent remedy and very present in apoplexy, by its subtlety which is so great that it can hardly be kept in the best stoppered vials.

The same thing can be done with the volatile salt fixed & as fixed; but it will not dissolve everything: the tincture will not be so, nor so effective, nor so penetrating; but it will be much more agreeable, & will not smell so bad. The dose of the first, is from three drops up to eight or nine. And that of the second, is from six drops to twelve.

§. 19. The manner of making elixir of properties, with the spirit of stag horn .
After having known, through repeated experiments, the admirable virtues of this great remedy, which Paracelsus calls par excellence Elixir proprietatis in the singular; we nevertheless believed the duty to call, Elixir of the properties in the plural, since it is very true that it has them without number; & particularly that which I have made, since I have been in England, where I have used the rectified spirit of stag's horn, charged & filled with its volatile salt, as much as it can dissolve, in place of spirit, or sulfur oil; which is done so.
Take very good saffron, the finest aloe succotrin, and myrrh, the most recent and the best chosen; of each of these balsamic things three ounces: cut the saffron very fine and small, & put the two others in fine powder; put them in a long-necked marras, which is two inches wide in diameter; pour on it ten ounces of well rectified deer horn spirit loaded with its volatile salt, as much as it can dissolve, & twenty ounces of alcoholic wine spirit on the salt of tartar; clog your vessel exactly with an encounter vessel, & wrestle it with egg white & flour, & a wet bladder on top; place this in the steamer of the bain-marie a little more than lukewarm, & digest it for three natural days: on the fourth day remove the encounter, & apply a still or capital proportionate to the neck of the matrass; very carefully wrestle the joints, fit a receptacle to the spout, & slowly withdraw about fifteen ounces of the liquor; & if the volatile salt has sublimated in the capital, dissolve with the distilled spirit, reject the whole in the marras, & digest it another three days; repeat the distillation up to twenty ounces, which you will still put back on your materials in digestion for three days: pure the last time, let cool & filter your elixir through cotton in a covered funnel, yes be placed on a narrow-necked flask , to prevent it from evaporating, and thus keep it if necessary in the same tightly stoppered vial. & slowly withdraw about fifteen ounces of the liquor; & if the volatile salt has sublimated in the capital, dissolve with the distilled spirit, reject the whole in the marras, & digest it another three days; repeat the distillation up to twenty ounces, which you will still put back on your materials in digestion for three days: pure the last time, let cool & filter your elixir through cotton in a covered funnel, yes be placed on a narrow-necked flask , to prevent it from evaporating, and thus keep it if necessary in the same tightly stoppered vial. & slowly withdraw about fifteen ounces of the liquor; & if the volatile salt has sublimated in the capital, dissolve with the distilled spirit, reject the whole in the marras, & digest it another three days; repeat the distillation up to twenty ounces, which you will still put back on your materials in digestion for three days: pure the last time, let cool & filter your elixir through cotton in a covered funnel, yes be placed on a narrow-necked flask , to prevent it from evaporating, and thus keep it if necessary in the same tightly stoppered vial. & digest it another three days; repeat the distillation up to twenty ounces, which you will still put back on your materials in digestion for three days: pure the last time, let cool & filter your elixir through cotton in a covered funnel, yes be placed on a narrow-necked flask , to prevent it from evaporating, and thus keep it if necessary in the same tightly stoppered vial. & digest it another three days; repeat the distillation up to twenty ounces, which you will still put back on your materials in digestion for three days: pure the last time, let cool & filter your elixir through cotton in a covered funnel, yes be placed on a narrow-necked flask , to prevent it from evaporating, and thus keep it if necessary in the same tightly stoppered vial.

It is without hyperbole that one can attribute to this noble & great remedy virtues & faculties as renovators; for saffron, aloe & myrrh extracted & exalted by the volatile salt of deer's horn, & by the alcoholic spirit of wine on the salt of tartar, can only produce very good effects, both for preservation only for catering. Wherefore, this remedy is very good in diseases, which alter the mass of blood, such as scurvy, jaundice & pale colors, in all obstructions of the body, against paralysis, contraction of nerves & atrophies; but above all, it is unparalleled against all irregularities & meteorisms of the womb & spleen. It must be taken on an empty stomach in white wine, the dose is from five drops to thirty:
§. 20. Preparations that make vipers .

We will close the Chapter on the chemical performance of animals, by examining the various remedies, which are drawn from vipers by the work of Chemistry: because this reptile has a very subtle and very effective volatile salt for the cure of several very obstinate diseases. Galen himself relates several stories of the healing of ladres, for having drunk wine, or vipers had been suffocated. Cardan also proves this truth in a consultation, which he sent to John, Archbishop of St. Andrew, in Scotland, in these words: fattens & restores them against all hope: it is necessary to take a well-chosen viper, cut off its head & tail, skin it, throw away the entrails & keep the fat apart: cut it in sections like an eel ; cook it in a sufficient quantity of water, with benzoin & salt, & add parsley leaves at the end: when it is well cooked, you must pour the broth, & cook a chicken in this broth; give bread soaked in this juice to the patient, & make him eat the chicken: continue seven consecutive days; but the patient must be in an oven, or in a very warm room, and anointed with the fat of the viper along the spine and the other joints, as well as the arteries of the feet and the hands & chest.

By this means the ulcers of the lungs are cured; because they are pushed to the outside & make him eat the chicken: continue seven consecutive days; but the patient must be in an oven, or in a very warm room, and anointed with the fat of the viper along the spine and the other joints, as well as the arteries of the feet and the hands & chest. By this means the ulcers of the lungs are cured; because they are pushed to the outside & make him eat the chicken: continue seven consecutive days; but the patient must be in an oven, or in a very warm room, and anointed with the fat of the viper along the spine and the other joints, as well as the arteries of the feet and the hands & chest. By this means the ulcers of the lungs are cured; because they are pushed to the outsidelaughing of the leather in tubercles & other irruptions which occur. Quercetan also speaks very favorably of vipers in his Dogmatic Pharmacopoeia. Several other Authors have followed the precedents; but it must be confessed that they all shocked against the same rock, since all believed that the viper was of itself, or poisonous entirely, or that it was so at least in some of its parts. But the experience reported by Galen must confuse the Ancients and the Moderns, since the viper was both alive and whole when it was suffocated in the wine which cures the rascals.

The English Ladies put Doctors to shame, since they make no difficulty in drinking wine, in which they have suffocated lively and whole vipers, in order to preserve their plumpness and playfulness, to prevent wrinkles & to maintain health. But what is even more remarkable is that the most famous Italian Courtesans protect themselves from venereal disease and its accidents by taking chicken broths in spring and autumn, with the flesh of vipers and squine. Only the famous Potter, and the very learned and very subtle Physician and Philosopher Helmont, have explained well in what consists the poison of vipers, which resides only in the sting of anger, which prints a poisoned idea in the animal's imagination.

Fabricius Hildanus, & several other serious, learned & famous authors, authorize by their observations the truth of the effects; but only the previous two have taught us the seat of poison,morta la bestia, morto il veneno , since man himself, the dog, the horse, the wolf, the cat, the weasel & several other animals, print no venom by their bites, except when they are angry , & that their imagination is plagued with the desire for revenge & rage.

This may be said in passing, to verify more and more, that all the virtue of things is lodged in spirits and in life, which are nothing other than a portion of the universal spirit and corporified light. Let us then come to the preparations which are on the vipers and on their parts.

§. 21. The way of drying vipers, to make powder & trochisques .

The choice of the vipers consists only in taking them some time after they have come out of their holes, so that they may be better fed; it matters little whether they are male or female, provided the female is not pregnant; it is necessary to take them in a place which is high and dry, and to reject those of the marshes and other aquatic places.

Take as many of these vipers as you will, or can; flay them & empty them of their entrails; reserve the heart & the liver: put them in a large glass curcurbit, so that you can arrange them on small sticks, so that they do not touch each other: adjust the curcurbit in the bath- marie, & thus dry the vipers after having powdered them with a little very pure nitre, & a little armoniacal fleur de sel; reserves the water that will come out of it, for the uses that we will describe below. Note that you have to turn the twelve o'clock vipers in twelve hours, in order to dry them out as well. Thus, you will have enough to make a real powder of vipers, which will not be by filaments, which you can give in your own water, in wine, or in cinnamon water, or sassafras, from a scruple to a drachma, in all fevers, and particularly in those which are pestilent and contagious; in the plague, & even against epilepsy & against apoplexy: but the other preparations which will follow are preferable to this powder.

That if you want to make trochisques of them, you must take other vipers, which you will flay and empty of their entrails; cut them into sections, & cook them with the water, which you will have withdrawn from the distillation, in a boiling bain-marie, in a gourd which is covered with its capital, until this broth has the consistency of goo ; it is with this jelly that you have to track the powder of the vipers in a marble mortar & reduce it to a paste, which you will form into trochisques with your hands anointed with balsams from Peru, oil of cloves, & that of nutmegs made by expression; those who want to do the theriac properly, will use these trochisques, instead of those required by the old dispensaries, which are only breadcrumbs and the flesh of vipers, deprived of all its faculties, which reside only in its volatile salt. The powder of these trochisques is preferable to simple powder, because they are imbued with the proper substance and virtue of the vipers, besides that the trochisques are less corrupted than the powder. The dose is from one half to two scruples, in the waters that we have said above.

§. 22. How to make the spirit, the oil, the volatile salt, the fixed volatile salt, the sublimation of this fixed salt & the fixed salt of vipers .

Justice forbids me to attribute to myself the manner of all the aforesaid operations, since it is too legitimately due to M. Zwelfer, Physician of the Emperor Leopold, who is still alive, and who was immortalized by the beauties, the learned and admirable remarks he made on the Pharmacopoeia of Ausbourg, in which he corrected the defects of the ancient Pharmacy and of the modern, with such a clear judgment and with such confirmed experience, that all those who follow & who will follow the work of the beautiful Pharmacy, will be eternally obliged to it.

I will simply say in passing, that I am the inventor of the operation, which revolatilizes the volatile salt of the vipers, after it will have been fixed by an acid; & as this excellent man wanted to bring his experiences to light to oblige posterity, so I did not want to hide the secret of this operation, since it will be very useful to poor patients, although this invention is not common, & that it is particular to me.

Take well-fed vipers, without distinction of sex; empty their entrails, separate the heart and the liver; dry them in an oven or in an oven which has not been sufficiently heated; & when they are very dry, you must put them into a coarse powder, & fill a glass retort with it, which you will put on the closed lamppost on the lid of an overturned earthen pot, on which you will have put two handfuls of ashes or sand, to serve as a lut for the retort & to prevent the first violence of the fire; cover the lamppost, fit a large receptacle to the neck of the retort, & give the fire by degrees, until the retort reddens, & the receptacle brightens even during the violence of the fire, which is a very evident sign , that all the vapors have come out; this is done in less than twelve hours. The whole being cooled, you will find three different substances in your container, which are the phlegm & the spirit mixed together, the black & smelly oil, & the volatile salt, which will adhere to the walls of the container. It is necessary to dissolve the volatile salt, which is around the vessel, with the spirituous liquor which is at the bottom; then it is necessary to separate this liquor from its oil by the filter: put the liquor imprinted with the volatile salt in a high cucurbite which you will cover with its capital, of which you will fight exactly the joints, & you will adjust a small matrass there for container; put your vessel in sand or ashes, and manage the fire well, lest the bitter and stinking water, which has dissolved the volatile salt, rise with it: when the sublimation is complete, you must curiously separate the salt & keep it in a vial, which has a waxed cork stopper, on which you must pour molten sulfur, if you want to keep this salt; otherwise, it will evaporate in a short time, because of the subtlety & penetrability of its volatile & airy substance.

It is this volatile salt, which possesses so many beautiful effects and so many rare virtues; because it prevents all the corruptions that are made in us: it opens all the obstructions in the human body, it resolves & takes away all kinds of fevers, & mainly the fourth, if it is given from six grains to ten in water of sassafras, or in that of juniper seeds or elderberry, an hour or two before the attack: it is also given in the plague & in rouies other contagious diseases, in emulsions made with the seeds of columbine, turnips & blessed thistle, to which we add almonds & pine nuts, sugar, & a little rose water or cinnamon. It still works wonders against epilepsy & against apoplexy: because it is a ferret, which penetrates to the depths of the marrow; it must be given for these diseases, in emulsions made with the waters of lily of the valley, of flowers of pceona or of tillot, the seeds of pceone, the kernels of the pits of cherries, peaches and apricots. The dose is always from six grains up to twelve.

But because this salt has a very ungrateful smell and a completely disagreeable taste, we have long sought a way to strip it of these two qualities; as also that of urine, that of succin, that of deer horn & that of the parts of the microcosm: but no one has been able to reach this perfection without depriving these volatile salts of their subtlety, & consequently of their penetrating & diaphoretic virtue. There was only the very learned and very experienced Mr. Zwelfer, who seemed to have succeeded in this useful and curious operation, after having vainly attempted many other different paths. But the increase in the dose of this salt makes it known that this purification fixes it in some way; & although it is stopped, & even more pleasant, nevertheless it is less effective.

§. 23. How to stop, fix & purify volatile salts .

Take such volatile salt as you please, put four ounces of it in a high curcurbite, which you will cover with its capital, which has a hole at the top the size of the pipe of a goose quill, read exactly the joints, & insert in the hole at the top of the capital, a quill, which you will stop with Spanish wax, or with lacquer; put a small container in the beak of the still, then pour drop by drop & very slowly some good spirit of common salt, well rectified without the volatile salt; & continue thus, until the noise & the fight of the acid spirit & the sulphurous volatile salt has passed; then you will see that a union has been made of these two different substances, which will be converted into liquor, which will have to be filtered, if it appears impure; Otherwise, it will only be necessary to plug the hole at the top of the capital with a glass stopper, which will be covered with a bladder dipped in egg white: it is then necessary to accommodate the vessel in a bain-marie, & remove the humidity until two-thirds, if you want crystal salt; if not, we will remove all the moisture until dry, & you will find four ounces of salt stopped & not fixed at the bottom of the curcurbite; & if you have noticed the weight of your spirit of salt, you will find as much insipid liquor, & which smells of empyreum in the receptacle. The salt has a good smell, a sour flavor and a saline taste, the dose of which is from half a scruple to a full scruple; it has the virtue of penetrating into the furthest parts of the first digestions, without any alteration of his virtue; it purifies the blood & resolves all the excrement, which seems to have already been suitable for our parts, & mainly for the taste buds: it drives out the urine, the sand, the gravel & the viscosities of the kidneys & the bladder; it evacuates all matters which cause melancholy affections; it resists rot better than any other remedy, it opens all sorts of obstructions, it cures all fevers; it is the real preservative & the real curative of the plague; & to complete in a word the rest of its virtues, it erases all bad impressions & bad ideas, which have given their character to the spirit of life, which is the true seat of health & disease. The dose may also be increased or decreased depending on age, strength, & the nature of the patient & the disease. But as Mr. Zwelfer knew the means of fixing the volatile salt, by means of an acid, to remove the bad odor and the bad taste; we must teach the means of withdrawing this acid, and resubliming the volatile salt, giving it back its original subtlety, and consequently increasing its penetrating virtue, without it once again acquiring any bad odor or bad taste.

§. 24. The Means of Resubliming Fixed Volatile Salt .

Take four ounces of stopped volatile salt, and mix it with one ounce of salt of tartar, made by calcination and which is well purified; put them in a small curcurbite in the ashes, cover the curcurbite with its capital, adapt a container to it, if the capital has a spout; for if he is blind, he will not be needed; fight the joints exactly, & give the fire by degrees, until sublimation is purchased: thus you will have the most subtle volatile salt that is in all nature, & which has a real analogy & a particular sympathy with our spirits, which are the subject of our natural heat & our radical humidity. But note when breading that all the alkalis have this property of killing acids, and of not harming volatile substances. The dose of this salt can only be from two grains to eight, because of its extreme subtlety, which is such that it is impossible to preserve it without being mixed with its own liquor, or without being reduced to essence, as we we will teach it below. It is specific to all the diseases that we have listed, and mainly that of deer's horn and that of vipers, which must be considered as one of the keys to Medicine.

§. 25. How to make the essence of vipers, with their true volatile salt .

Take about fifty or sixty hearts & livers of vipers, which will have been desiccated as we have said above, grind them into powder, & throw them into a meeting vessel, throw alcohol of wine over them, until 'till it floats six inches; cover the vessel & lute it exactly, then you will put it to digest in a vaporous bath for three or four days at a heat of digestion, in order to extract all the virtue from it; this passes, put it all in a curcurbite in a bain-marie, in order to distill the spirit at a slow heat, cohobe three times, & on the fourth, distill until dry; put in each pound of this spirit, one and a half ounces of the true volatile salt of vipers, a drachma of essencified ambergris, as we will say hereafter, a half drachma of cinnamon oil, & as much of the true essence of the outer skin of recent lemon rind: put all these things in a pelican, & circulate them together for eight days; then what to put this real essence in vials suitable for this precious remedy, which you stopper with all the necessary precautions. We can very legitimately attribute to this noble medicine all the virtues that we have given to the volatile salt alone: ​​it even has this best thing, that it is more pleasant, and that it can be better preserved than volatile salt: there is only to say more, that it is one of the greatest & most assured counterpoises in the world, & that it is worthy of the cabinet of the greatest Princes. The dose is from half scruples to two scruples, in wine, broths, or other suitable liquors.

§. 26. The manner of making simple theriacal salt, which is imbued with the alexitarian & comforting virtue of vipers .

The Ancients, & Quercetan after them, spoke of these salts, & held them in very particular esteem; but the ancient preparation & the correction made of it by this famous Physician, are rather worthy of compassion than of imitation, although the latter is worthy of praise, for having excelled in his time, & for having sought the truth as that he could; but as we have climbed on his shoulders, & as the work of modern Doctors, who apply themselves to the search for the secrets of nature, & our own experience, have taught us to do better, it is only fair that we share it to others.

So take two pounds of sea salt, which is clean and white, or the same amount of rock salt; dissolve them in ten pounds of well clarified river water, then add two dozen skinned vipers with their hearts & livers; boil them together in sand, until the vipers separate very easily from their bones; Squeeze it all, clarify it & filter it, then evaporate it in the steam of the boiling bath until dry, & reserve it for its uses in a tightly stoppered bottle. It is this salt that should be fed to the healthy and to the sick, to some as a preservative, and to others as a restorative. It is mainly in chronic illnesses, where it is necessary to purify the bulk of the blood, and to repair the defect of digestion, that this salt is very necessary. Those who want it tender even more specific & more stomachic, will add distilled oils of cinnamon, clove & nutmeg flower, which is mace, joined with a little powdered sugar, which will serve them as a uniting means for the mix well with the salt; one drachma of each of these is needed oils, with as much good essencified ambergris for each pound of salt: for that being so, this salt will be much more effective. Its dose will be from ten grains to half a drachma in broths in the morning on an empty stomach, to cleanse the stomach of all the preceding superfluities, which are ordinarily the occasional causes of our illnesses.

§. 27. The preparation of another theriacal salt, much more specific than the preceding .

Take scordium & recent centaury, half a pound of each of these herbs, roots of angelica, zedoary, contrayerva & esclepias, two ounces each; cut the beards & put the roots into a coarse powder, boil them together in a bain-marie in a meeting vessel, in ten pounds of the distilled waters of blessed thistle, & that of the juice of borage & bugloss: this being cooled , pour the decoction, then put it back in its vessel; add to it a dozen and a half of newly flayed vipers with their hearts & livers, as well as alkali salts, wormwood, blessed thistle, centaury & scordium, each eight ounces; close the ship & fight it, then boil it for half a day; & after the whole will be cooled, it must be clarified, filtered, & evaporated in the steam of the bath in a cucurbite covered with its capital until dry; thus you will have a rare and precious salt, and a water which will be endowed with many virtues; it is a remedy capable of uprooting all fevers, and it is truly specific in all epidemic, contagious and malignant diseases. The dose is from a scruple & a half drachma, to a whole drachma. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. & evaporate it in the steam of the bath in a cucurbite covered with its capital until dry; thus you will have a rare and precious salt, and a water which will be endowed with many virtues; it is a remedy capable of uprooting all fevers, and it is truly specific in all epidemic, contagious and malignant diseases. The dose is from a scruple & a half drachma, to a whole drachma. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. & evaporate it in the steam of the bath in a cucurbite covered with its capital until dry; thus you will have a rare and precious salt, and a water which will be endowed with many virtues; it is a remedy capable of uprooting all fevers, and it is truly specific in all epidemic, contagious and malignant diseases. The dose is from a scruple & a half drachma, to a whole drachma.

We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. & a water that will be endowed with many virtues; it is a remedy capable of uprooting all fevers, and it is truly specific in all epidemic, contagious and malignant diseases. The dose is from a scruple & a half drachma, to a whole drachma. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. & a water that will be endowed with many virtues; it is a remedy capable of uprooting all fevers, and it is truly specific in all epidemic, contagious and malignant diseases. The dose is from a scruple & a half drachma, to a whole drachma. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals. We can also add to this salt the same distilled nils and essencified ambergris, as we said in the preparation of the previous theriacal salt; it is by this operation that we end the Chapter on the chemical preparation of animals.

§. 28. Of the sponge & its chemical preparation .

We place the sponge between animals & plants, because it participates in the nature of both, since it has a kind of sensation, that it expands & that it is restricted in itself -even, when it is in the sea, where it enjoys an obscure life, which holds of the animal & the plant, so that one can legitimately call it, zoophyte or plantanimal. We will prove what we have just advanced, by the distillation of the sponge, which will provide us with a spirit, an oil & a volatile salt, of the same taste, the same smell, the same color, & the same figure , that the animals and their parts are supplied to us.

§. 29. How to distill the sponge .

Take as many sponges as you want, cut them small with the scissors; put them in a glass retort, which you will place at the closed lamppost; adapt a container that you will fight exactly: give the fire by degrees, as for the distillation of tartar, which you will continue by increasing it little by little, until the white & oily clouds come, & that you see that the volatile salt sublimates, & attaches itself to the interior walls of the container, continue the fire of the same degree as long as it lasts; & when the container becomes clear by itself, it is a clear sign that there is nothing more to claim, this is why the fire must be stopped; & when the whole will be cooled, it is necessary to separate the vessels & remove the spirit & the volatile salt together, & separate the oil from it through the funnel, or with cotton, & put it aside in a vial; put the spirit & the salt in a low curcurbite & with a narrow entrance, & rectify them with sand & keep them one with the other; also keep in a box the calcined sponge, which remained at the bottom of the retort, after the distillation, because it also has its uses in practice. It must not be doubted that the spirit, the volatile salt & the oil of the sponges, are excellent for opening, for attenuating & for resolving, since they are very subtle. This is why they can be used much more reasonably for the resolution of bronchoceles or boxes, than the sponge simply calcined, or dried and powdered. But in order to make everything fit together, we will use everything for the cure of this disease: it will therefore first be necessary to purge the patient with resin of jalap & scammonea; then, it is necessary to make tablets of four ounces of powdered sugar, with two drachmas of sponge calcined by distillation, three drachmas of astringent marsh bark, & a drachma of long pepper; it is necessary to reduce everything in mass, & to form tablets of it of the weight of a drachma and a half, which one will let dry; it is necessary to chew one every morning on an empty stomach, and make the patient drink over it, after having swallowed it, a small glass of slightly green red wine, in which one will have put from ten to twenty drops of the spirit of sponge imprinted with its volatile salt: it is necessary to continue three or four weeks, & we will see a very significant decrease in these inconvenient & unseemly tumors, which will have to be rubbed evening & morning, with a liniment made with laurel oil & a few drops of distilled sponge oil, & keep them covered with a plaster made with oxycroceum, & especially prevent getting cold in the guttural parts, & have care that the bettor has a free stomach; if not, we will give him, for two days one, half a dram of turnip pill when he goes to bed.

CHAPTER IX.

Plants and their chemical preparation .

It is in this Chapter that we will show that the persecutors of Chemistry are wrong to blame this fine Art, and thatthe reproaches that they make to the Artists, are with, since the preparations which we will describe, are able to make return the envious ones in themselves, & will make admit with most obstinate, that the old Pharmacy never produced anything of similar . It is on the various parts of this noble, of this pleasant, and of this ample family of plants, that the true Pharmacist will always find something to occupy himself with, to admire more and more the works of the Creator. But as the purpose of our Compendium does not allow us to examine and resolve all plants and their parts, we will content ourselves with giving one or two examples of the work that can be done, or on the whole plant, or on its parts, which are the roots, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits, the seeds, the barks, the woods, sheaths or bayes, juices, voids, tears, resins & gums. We will give a Section to each of these parts, in order to make the work better understood, & to act with less confusion.

But before going into the subject, I thought it necessary to say something about the abuses committed daily by the Apothecaries, who are not enlightened by the strips of Chemistry, and who are led only by the blind, who suffer & who admire all the faults of their bad preparation, for not knowing the nature of things, & not having understood physics well, which is the true door of medicine. Which means that we are not surprised if blind people who are led by other blind people fall together and cause so many people to fall into the pit with them every day. And as Germany has M. Zwelfer, Physician to the Emperor, who reformed the Pharmacy in the beautiful and learned remarks he made on the Pharmacopoeia of Ausbourg: so we have in France M. Ballot,

I want to make this truth appear by the example of distilled waters, and by that of syrups; because I know most certainly that it is principally in these two things that ordinary Apothecaries most often sin, either out of ignorance, or out of malice, or out of avarice, to the dishonor of Medicine and Physicians: in defiance of their profession, and what is even worse, to the great damage of the Republic.

§. 1. Distilled Waters First Discourse .

If things are not well known, it is impossible ever to be able to succeed well in their preparation, since it is on this knowledge that the good way of working absolutely depends. That if this is necessary in all the work of Chemistry, it is still much more advantageous in the operations which are carried out on plants, and mainly with regard to the way of distilling them, without them being deprived of their virtue; which means that I felt that it was necessary to give a general idea of ​​the nature of the plants, before speaking of their particular preparation.

We will not speak here of plants according to the taste of many, because we will not be following Botanical Authors, who have almost all left us only the external appearance of plants, and the various degrees of their qualities, without they have taken pains to teach us the differences of the inner nature of these same plants, and much less the true way of anatomizing them, to separate from them & to draw from them all that can help, & discard from them what is is unnecessary.
To begin with method, it is necessary that we make known the nature of the plants by themselves, by the division which we make of them, according to the degrees of their growth and their perpetuation: because they are perennial or annual; perennials are those whose roots attract the universal food to them at the two equinoxes. At the spring equinox, they attract what is necessary for them to grow and to vegetate, until the perfection of the plant, which ends in its flower and in the seed; & in that of autumn, they attract what is necessary for them, to replenish themselves from the exhaustion of all their forces, which the heat of the Sun & of the other Stars had drawn from them.

Now, we have not made this remark unnecessarily, since it is absolutely necessary to let the Artist know the time to take the plant with its root, or to leave it as useless; for if he needs the plant, a little after it comes out of the ground, he must meditate within himself, and make a judicious reflection, that this plant is not still provided with this spiritual and saline food, the principle of which is enclosed in the root, and thus its work will be useless on this plant; since what he will draw from it will not have the virtue that the Physician desires, and even less that which is required to act on the disease. He will therefore have recourse to the root which contains the volatile salt, which is the soul of the whole plant, and which possesses in itself the seminal virtue of its whole.

Which shows that when the plant is in its state, as we usually speak, the Artist must take it between flower and seed, if he wishes to have its entire virtue; for when it has reached this point, the stem, the leaf, the flowers, and the first seed, are still filled with vigor and virtue, which they communicate to the liquor that is drawn from it by distillation, which are a volatile mercury salt, and an embryonated sulphur, which contain all the virtue of the plant because what is drawn from it, is a spirituous water, which is preserved for a long time with the own taste and the own smell of its subject on which it is floats an ethereal & subtle oil, which is this embryonic sulphur, mixed with its mercury. But if the Artist waits until the plant has grown all its life into the seed, & that this sulphur, which was only embryonic, be activated & perfectly mature; he must then reject the root, the stem and the leaf, because they no longer have in themselves that virtue which they had before.

It is here that the Artist must meditate again, and that he must consult the way of acting of nature; because the seed being once perfect, it no longer has that mercurial and saline humidity, which made it possible to extract its virtue more easily: on the contrary, everything is united as in its center, & all the beautiful ideas that the spirit of the plant had explained during the various times of its vegetation, are joined together & enclosed under the bark of the core & the seed; & moreover, these seeds are of three different kinds: for some are mucilaginous& mucus; in the first, the mercurial salt and the sulfur are more fixed than volatile, and thus these seeds give their virtue only by means of the decoction; because as they are tenacious & sticky, this virtue does not rise in the distillation. The others are milked, of a white & tender substance, from which oil can be extracted by expression, if they are very ripe & well dried; but their best virtue can be drawn only when the emulsion or milk is extracted from them; for this second kind of seed is equally mixed with volatile salt and sulphur, which are easily communicated with water. The Artist should not hope to draw virtue from this kind of seed by distillation, any more than from the first. But there is the third kind of seed, which is quite oilseed& sulphurous, which communicates to the water no mucilage, nor any viscosity nor slowness, nor any whiteness: on the contrary, their substance is compact, arid & tightened by a sulphur, which predominates above the salt.

The Artist will distill this kind of seed, either alone or with addition; alone, if it is for the exterior; with addition, if it is to give interiorly to the patient the remedy which he will draw from it.

These three different seeds make it clear that the Chemical Apothecary must be well versed in natural science, in order to make the necessary observations on the fixed or volatile parts of the materials on which he operates, so as not to confuse his work unnecessarily.

We must apply the same theorems and the same remarks to annual plants, which are not preserved by their roots, but which must be renewed each year by their seed. Now, these two sorts of plants, either the perennials or the annuals, are as good as the seeds of three different genera. Know, those which are odorless; & of these, there are some which are as it were insipid, or which are acid or bitter, or mixed in several ways with these two flavors, or still others which have a separate taste, which is pungent & subtle; all these kinds of plants are green & tender, & their virtue appears from the beginning of their vegetation, because they abound in juice, which contains in itself an essential tartarous salt, which thickens with time & heat in a mucilage, from which it is very difficult to extract them; this is why it is necessary to take them, when they are still succulent & tender, so that their stem breaks & breaks easily while wanting to bend them.

The second kindplants, is quite opposed to the first; for the plant has little or no virtue at the beginning when it comes out of the ground, and for a long time afterwards; So when they are still green and tender, they have almost no taste or smell, they really smell only of grass, because superfluous humidity still predominates, and their virtue does not reside in an essential & tartarous salt; but this kind of plant carries along with its natural food a spirituous and volatile salt, mixed with a very subtle embryonic sulphur, which is not reduced in potency in action, and which does not appear either in taste or in smell, that after this superfluous moisture is cooked & digested by heat; then the virtue of these plants begins to make itself known by their smell & by their taste, but mainly by their smell. We must work on this second kind of plants, when the bottom of their stem begins to dry up, when they are still covered with flowers, and when they begin to show a little of their seed.

The third kindvegetables, is mixed with the first two, because they have taste from the first moment of their vegetation; but they have no odor, and even they hardly acquire any when they are in their perfection, or if they have any, it only appears when they are pressed, crushed, or that they are rubbed, because their sulfur is surmounted by a slow & grimy viscosity, which contains a lot of salt, which declares itself by a bitter & pungent taste or by a honeyed & sweet flavor: the virtue of this last kind does not can be well extracted, that the digestion or the fermentation did not precede: one must gather these plants, when they are still in flower, if they are bitter & odorless; but if they bear fruit, bayes, or grains, it is necessary to wait for their maturity,

Now, it would not be enough to have given these general notions, if we did not make some particular applications of them, which will serve as an example and as a guide, that we will make on each of these genera, whole plants or their parts. . We will therefore speak first of nitrous succulent plants, that is to say, of those which partake of a salt which is of the nature of saltpetre, or of this salt of the earth, which is the first principle of vegetation, & which seems to have received only a very small alteration in the body of these plants, except that it begins to participate in some portion of the tartar & its starch. The plants which are of this nature, parietaria , sumiterra , purslane , borage ,bugloss , mercuriale , nightshade , & finally generally all the succulent plants, which are neither acidic nor bitter in taste; but which only have a flavor mixed with a little acerbity, acidity and bitterness all together, which is a taste which approaches completely that of saltpetre.

§. 2. The preparation of nitrous succulent plants, to extract from them the juice, the liquor, the water, the extract, the essential nitro-tartarous salt, and the fixed salt .

Take a large quantity of one of these plants, which we have mentioned above, which must be beaten in bits with a mortar of stone, wood or marble, until it is reduced to a kind of mush, that is to say that the parts of the plant are well disunited & confused; so that whatever humor or juice it has, can be completely squeezed out by pressing it forcefully into a bag of horsehair, cheesecloth, or a new clear linen. When the whole thing is threshed & pressed, all the juice must be run through a corridor of slightly tighter canvas, then let it sit again, until it has been in some way purified of itself; then what, you must pour this juice gently by inclination into cucurbits, or peas from glass stills, which you will place in a bain-marie, if you want to have a good extract & weak water, because the heat of the bain-marie is not able to raise the essential nitrous salt of the plant; which causes this salt to remain at the bottom of the vessel mixed with the thickened juice, which is improperly called extract, when it is reduced to a somewhat thicker consistency.

But if you want water that lasts a long time and is enlivened by its spiritualized salt, you will have to place your cucurbits in the sand, because this degree of heat is capable of raising and volatilizing the purest and most subtle portion of the salt, & to make them rise at the end of the distillation among the last aqueous vapors: nevertheless it is especially necessary to take care very closely, that the heat is not too violent at the end, & that the material does not dry out completely. completely at the bottom of the curcurbite, & still much less that it comes to be attached & to burn. But before coming to the end of the operation, you must take care to take good care of the entity desiccation of your juice; because there are two separations, when the heat of the bain-marie or that of the sand,
when they want to use it in some disease, according to the nature and the virtue of the plant, on which one will have worked. And here are all the remarks necessary for the purification of the juice of succulent plants, for the distillation of their water, and for the way of obtaining the essential salt and the extract.

Let us now come to the preparation of their fixed salt: it is necessary to dry for this purpose, the marc or the residue of the expression of the bag, then then calcine it well & burn it well, until the whole is reduced to ashes greyish & whitish, which must be washed with common rain or river water, which must be filtered through fog paper, which is hardly stuck, so that the body of the glue does not prevent the liquor to pass very clear in a short time. After the first lye which is imprinted with the salt of the ashes of the plant is filtered, he skips pouring new water over the ashes, to complete drawing the rest of the salt, & thus continuing to wash & extract the salt, until the water comes out tasteless as it was poured into it,

But I must nevertheless prove the contrary by the story of what happened to me at Sedan, after having worked on fennel: for as I believed with the others, that these ashes, stripped of their salt, were quite useless, I had them thrown into a yard where manure and other filth were usually kept; I recognized by what happened the following year, that I was mistaken, for there was believed to be a great abundance of fennel in this yard, from which I obtained much distilled oil, after it had come to its perfection; which made me recognize, with that excellent Philosopher and Physician Helmont, that the average life of things does not perish so much as one imagines, and that according to this axiom of Philosophy, forma rerum non peruntbecause Art & the Artist only follow the good mother nature from afar, & that makes us well aware that we do not understand the least of its springs, & even less those that it uses secretly to get his way.

Let's come back to our subject, after a digression that I thought I had to make, since it was its own place. So after we have assembled all the well-filtered detergents, they must be evaporated in stoneware bowls on the sand, until they have a film, that is to say until you notice that the liquor begins to form a small crust above, because it is too loaded with salt; it is then necessary to begin to agitate & to gently stir the liqueur with a bistortier, or with a spatula, until the salt is all hurried. This salt must then be put in a crucible to reverberate it in the wind oven between the burning coals, until it becomes red on all sides, without it nevertheless melting, and that is what you have to be careful. This work being completed, it is necessary to take the crucible from the fire, to let it cool, and then to dissolve the salt in the water which will have been drawn from the plant, from which the salt comes, to filter it once more, in order to to purify it & restore to it the portion of the salt volatilized in the distillation. Then you have to put this solution in a glass curcurbite, which you have to cover with its capital, & remove the water from this salt in the sand, until it has a film, then you have to stop the fire & put the vessel in cold place to crystallize the salt, & continue in this way to remove the water from the sand, & to crystallize the salt, until all the salt has been removed, & you will have a pure & clean salt, of which one sic can be used as needed; but it serves mainly to put a portion of it in the water that has been drawn from its plant, in order to make it not only more active & more effective, but also in order to make it more durable, & that it will keep for several years without any loss of virtue. Two drachmas can be added for each pint of distilled water.

And as we have given the manner of purifying the fixed salts, also it is necessary that we give that of withdrawing & separating a certain viscous & colored slurry, which is mixed among the essential nitro-tartarous salts in their first crystallization. It is done in this way; he can dissolve them in common water, and pour them three or four times over a portion of the ashes of the plant from which they have been taken. This is done for two intentional purposes; because the Artist must not work without being able to understand why he does something, or why he does not do it. The first intention is, so that the essential salt, which is not yet pure, and which even is ordinarily found mixed among the extract, without having been able to take on the idea nor the character of salt, because of the hindrance of the viscosity of the thickened juices, take in passing through the ashes the fixed salt of its own body, which imprints it with the saline idea & causes it to crystallize easily after evaporation superfluous liquor. The second intention is, so that the ashes retain the thick & viscous bodies of the extract in them, & so that the water which is charged with the essential salt & the fixed salt of the ashes, passes clearer & purer by repeated percolation.

When this is finished, you must slowly evaporate your water in a sandstone terrine, not until it has a film, as we said when speaking of the fixed salts, but by evaporating two-thirds or three-quarters of the liqueur, which must be poured warmly into another terrine which is very clean, and this very gently without disturbing the bottom; so that if there had been some residence of some corpuscles by the action of heat, they would not mingle among the clear liquor, to prevent the purity of the crystallization of the salt. It will be necessary to withdraw the water which will float the crystals, & to reiterate the evaporation, until the consumption of half of the liquor, & to continue like this until you have withdrawn all your salt in crystals.

That if the artist is not satisfied with this purification, and the crystals do not have all the sharpness and transparency desired, he will put them all in a crucible, which is made of the least porous earth he can find. will be able, & that it melts its salt in the furnace with wind, so that the fire of the cast iron consumes all that can prevent the crystallization with all the neatness & the transparency required; after this salt is melted, it must be poured into a bronze mortar, which is clean and has been heated beforehand, so that the excessive heat of the melted salt does not cause it to crack; when it has cooled, it must be dissolved in a sufficient quantity of water which will have been distilled from the very grass from which the salt was extracted; but the quantity of water must not exceed that of salt, otherwise, one-third or one-half must be removed by distillation or evaporation; after which it is necessary to put the vessel in a cool place, & the crystals will become beautiful & clear, which will have the needles of a figure approaching that of saltpetre, & which will have about the same taste; it will be necessary to continue evaporating & crystallizing, until the water no longer produces salt. This essential salt must be dried between two papers, then put in a tightly stoppered vial to keep it as needed. This salt is capable of retaining the distilled water of the plant, as well as the fixed salt; & moreover it makes it diuretic, appetizing & cooling, much better than the common mineral crystal, which is made with saltpeter. It can be given in broths or in the patient's ordinary drink, as the prudent and learned Physician will deem necessary. The dose is from ten grains to a scruple.

§. 3. The preparation of succulent plants which have in them a volatile essential salt, to draw therefrom the water, the spirit, the juice, the liquor, the volatile essential salt, the extract & the fixed salt .

After having shown how to work on plants which have a nitro-tartarous salt, and having shown how the Artist must prepare them, it is necessary to continue to teach what there is of change of operation in those which are also succulent, but which have an acrid, pungent and aromatic taste, which possess in them a great abundance of volatile essential salt; as are all the genera of watercress , sium , sysymbrium , rockets , berle , coch'earia , mustardelle , all mustards , & generally all other plants of this nature, which are commonly called anti-scorbutic .

But as we have amply & sufficiently extended on the preparation of succulent plants, which have in them a nitro-tartarous juice, & as the operations which we have described, must serve as a rule & as an example for all the other succulent plants; we have nevertheless deemed it necessary to add a few remarks here, which concern the erasure of these plants, the time to pick them to have their own virtue, & to add again the way of making the spirits of these plants by using of fermentation, because we have not spoken of it above.

It must therefore first be observed that these aquatic or cultivated plants, from their birth, participate in a great tendency of essential salt, which is of a very subtle, penetrating & volatile nature, and that thus the Artist must work on these. here with more precaution & diligence than on the preceding ones. The reason is that the others did not have in them this saline, subtle & volatile spirit, which evaporates & flies away easily, if one does not take the time to preserve it; for if one stays too long working on these plants after they have been picked, this spirit easily heats up, & when the heat has volatilized it, it flies away, & the body of the plant remains rotten or useless .

It is therefore necessary to take this kind of vegetable, when it is newly mounted, & that it begins to form the umbels of its flowers, because it is in this true time that the essential salt of the plant is sufficiently exalted, & that it has acquired all the virtue that one hopes for, because if one expected more, all this efficiency would be concentrated in a short space in the seed, because of the heat of the plant and that of the season, as is evidently noticeable in the cultivation of garden cress. This suffices to serve as a warning to the Artist to take care when working on plants of this nature; for the rest, he will only have to behave, as we have taught above; if not that he must have regard to the preceding circumstances, and especially not to put the volatile essential salt of these plants in the crucible, otherwise all this salt would vanish,

§. 4. How to make the spirit of succulent plants, which have a volatile essential salt .

After having given all the observations necessary to work well on plants of this nature, we must complete the discourse which we have begun, by the way of making their volatile spirit well by means of fermentation, which must be carried out Thus.

Take as much as you like of one of these plants, and world it with everything earthly and foreign; beat it in a mortar of marble, stone or wood, & put it immediately in a large glass container, which is usually called a large balloon, & pour over it water which is between lukewarm & boiling, that the Cooks call for water to pluck, up to the eminence of half a foot, & then plug the neck of the balloon with a vessel of encounter: we will let this stand for about two hours, after which we must add new water, which is only dampened, in order to temper the heat of the first, until the Artist does not see, that the finger can feel the heat of the liquor; & this is what the most experienced in the theory & in the practice of Chemistry call human heat, & the true point of fermentation.

It is here exactly where the Chemical Operator needs his judgment, and where he must take the time for this gentle and amicable heat, because if this degree of heat exceeds, it too suddenly volatilizes the spirit and the subtle parts of the plant on which one works, which flies away & which vanishes easily, what a precaution that one brings to it, because the whole then converts into an ungrateful acid, which no longer has any volatile spirit in faith .

That if also this heat is less than it should be, it does not sufficiently help the leaven or the ferment, to dissolve & to divide the most solid parts of the plant, which still contain in them a centric salt, which contributes a lot to the perfection of the spirit that one claims to draw from this plant, and what more, it also does not aid in the disunity of the viscosity of the juice of the plant, which contains in itself the principal portion of the volatile essential salt, which is that which furnishes the spirit: nevertheless it is better to miss at least, than to sin. at most. When things are at this temperature, you must have brewer's yeast, its ferment or its ject, if you are in place for it; if not, it is necessary to leaven flour dissolved and mixed in water a little less than lukewarm, with about half a pound of leaven or leaven, which is used all over the world, to make the dough which is made bread, & when this leaven has swollen the liquor well, & it has made the flour rise to the top, one must be careful, when it comes to which contains in itself the principal portion of the essential volatile salt, which is that which furnishes the spirit: nevertheless it is better to lack at least, than to sin at most. When things are at this temperature, you must have brewer's yeast, its ferment or its ject, if you are in place for it; if not, it is necessary to leaven flour dissolved and mixed in water a little less than lukewarm, with about half a pound of leaven or leaven, which is used all over the world, to make the dough which is made bread, & when this leaven has swollen the liquor well, & it has made the flour rise to the top, one must be careful, when it comes to which contains in itself the principal portion of the essential volatile salt, which is that which furnishes the spirit: nevertheless it is better to lack at least, than to sin at most. When things are at this temperature, you must have brewer's yeast, its ferment or its ject, if you are in place for it; if not, it is necessary to leaven flour dissolved and mixed in water a little less than lukewarm, with about half a pound of leaven or leaven, which is used all over the world, to make the dough which is made bread, & when this leaven has swollen the liquor well, & it has made the flour rise to the top, one must be careful, when it comes to you must have brewer's yeast, its ferment or its ject, if you are in the place for it; if not, it is necessary to leaven flour dissolved and mixed in water a little less than lukewarm, with about half a pound of leaven or leaven, which is used all over the world, to make the dough which is made bread, & when this leaven has swollen the liquor well, & it has made the flour rise to the top, one must be careful, when it comes to you must have brewer's yeast, its ferment or its ject, if you are in the place for it; if not, it is necessary to leaven flour dissolved and mixed in water a little less than lukewarm, with about half a pound of leaven or leaven, which is used all over the world, to make the dough which is made bread, & when this leaven has swollen the liquor well, & it has made the flour rise to the top, one must be careful, when it comes tosplit from above; for it is the true sign that the fermenting spirit is sufficiently excited to be reduced from potency to act, and to be introduced into matter, which will be ready to be fermented.

But note that your vessel must not be more than halfway, otherwise everything would come out & flee because of the action of the ferment, which elevates the materials, & which agitates them by an interior movement, in which consists the power of nature & that of Art. When this violence has passed, the leaven must be left to act gently, until the Artist perceives that what the movement of the fermenting spirit had raised above, like a crust of all that was corporeal & of material, in order to serve him as a rampart & a defense against the escape & the evaporation of the spirits, which are in action, that this matter, I say, begins to lower itself & to to fall down by itself, because it is no longer supported by the activity of the spirits.

It is here again that the Artist must take the time appropriately; for he must distill his fermented matter as soon as this sign appears to him, unless he wishes to lose through his own negligence what nature and art have prepared for him; for this fermented spirit vanishes very easily at that time, and what remains is nothing more than an acid, useless and bad liquor. But when the Artist takes his time, and puts his fermented matter in the bladder which he covers with the Moor's head, he fights the joints very precisely, both that of the head and that of the canal. , that he will take care that the water in the barrel which serves as a refrigerator, to condense the vapors that rise, is kept very cool, and that he will give the fire by degrees, until the drops begin to fall & follow each other closely, & when it goes that way, he will have the judgment to close the registers of the stove, & to close the door of the fire exactly; then he will have by this means a volatile spirit, very subtle & very effective: he will only cease the fire when he tastes that what distills has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation.

If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. & that when it goes like this, he will have the judgment to close the registers of the furnace, & to close the door of the fire exactly; then he will have by this means a volatile spirit, very subtle & very effective: he will only cease the fire when he tastes that what distills has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. & that when it goes like this, he will have the judgment to close the registers of the furnace, & to close the door of the fire exactly; then he will have by this means a volatile spirit, very subtle & very effective: he will only cease the fire when he tastes that what distills has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. & to close the door of the fire exactly; then he will have by this means a volatile spirit, very subtle & very effective: he will only cease the fire when he tastes that what distills has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. & to close the door of the fire exactly; then he will have by this means a volatile spirit, very subtle & very effective: he will only cease the fire when he tastes that what distills has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm. has no more taste; which will be the true sign that will make him finish his operation. If he wants to rectify this spirit, he distills it again in a bain-marie: but if he has proceeded with the method we have described, he will not need rectification, because he will be able to separate the first spirit at part, & thus the second & the third, which will be different in virtue & in subtlety, because they will be more or less mixed with phlegm.

The virtues of this spirit are marvelous in all illnesses, which have their seat in fixed, crude & tartarized matters, because it dissolves these matters, that it resolves them & volatilizes them with great efficiency; but above all, the spirit of cochlearia, as also its volatile salt which is drawn from its juice, in the same way as that of the nitro-tartarous plants: for these are the two most powerful remedies, which the Learned have found against scorbutic illnesses, which prevail in maritime regions, and for which few people can protect themselves during long sea voyages. come from the alteration of the mass of the blood, whose whole substance is vitiated & degenerated into filthy & malignant serosity, whose venom imprinted in the membranous & nervous parts, causes weariness, vague pains, swellings & stains on the leather, which are all the marks of scurvy.

Now, as these diseases can only be cured by diaphoretics and diuretics, it is necessary to have recourse to the spirits and to the volatile salts of the anti-scorbutic plants, of which we have just spoken. The dose of the spirit is from six drops, up to twenty in broth, or in the ordinary drink of the patient: that of volatile salt is also from five, up to fifteen or twenty grains in the same liquors, or this which is even better, in water of the same plant. causes weariness, vague pains, swellings & stains on the leather, which are all the marks of scurvy. Now, as these diseases can only be cured by diaphoretics and diuretics, it is necessary to have recourse to the spirits and to the volatile salts of the anti-scorbutic plants, of which we have just spoken. The dose of the spirit is from six drops, up to twenty in broth, or in the ordinary drink of the patient: that of volatile salt is also from five, up to fifteen or twenty grains in the same liquors, or this which is even better, in water of the same plant.

causes weariness, vague pains, swellings & stains on the leather, which are all the marks of scurvy. Now, as these diseases can only be cured by diaphoretics and diuretics, it is necessary to have recourse to the spirits and to the volatile salts of the anti-scorbutic plants, of which we have just spoken. The dose of the spirit is from six drops, up to twenty in broth, or in the ordinary drink of the patient: that of volatile salt is also from five, up to fifteen or twenty grains in the same liquors, or this which is even better, in water of the same plant. it is necessary to have recourse to the spirits and volatile salts of the anti-scorbutic plants, of which we have just spoken. The dose of the spirit is from six drops, up to twenty in broth, or in the ordinary drink of the patient: that of volatile salt is also from five, up to fifteen or twenty grains in the same liquors, or this which is even better, in water of the same plant. it is necessary to have recourse to the spirits and volatile salts of the anti-scorbutic plants, of which we have just spoken. The dose of the spirit is from six drops, up to twenty in broth, or in the ordinary drink of the patient: that of volatile salt is also from five, up to fifteen or twenty grains in the same liquors, or this which is even better, in water of the same plant.

§. 5. Peculiar Way of Making Royal Anti-Scorbutic Water .

This water has produced so many beautiful effects, for the recovery of many people of all ages of both sexes, that I thought it necessary to communicate it to my compatriots, who feel scorbutic pain every day, without knowing either the source. , nor the remedies, which are capable of uprooting and curing them.

So take half a pound of mustard root, which is called raphanus rusticanus ; after it is very neat, it must be cut into small very thin slices & put them in a large glass curcurbite, & add three pounds of marine cochlearia & garden cochlearia, a pound & a half of garden cress & watercress, & a pound of this species of scabious, which is called mors-devil or sucisa, that the plants are very finely chopped; pour over it twelve pounds of brand new milk, and four pounds of Rhine wine, or some other clear and subtle white wine, distill the whole thing in a bain-marie, until it distills nothing more. Keep this water tightly stoppered in narrow-necked phials, so that the volatile spirit which makes it efficacious does not evaporate; this is why he skips taking care to cover the bottles with the wet bladder. This Royal water is admirable for rectifying the mass of the blood, & for tempering the heat of the lower abdomen & hypochondria; it hunts through urine & sensible perspiration & insensible; it restores the functions of the ventricle & gives appetite, which shows that it is specific against scurvy & against obstructions. We take it from two to six ounces, in the morning on an empty stomach, and as much in the afternoon, approximately every four or five hours: we can drink it and put it away two hours after drinking it. But as we added to the use of this water, that of specific tablets & pills against scurvy, it is also necessary that we give the description. & to temper the heat of the lower abdomen & hypochondria; it hunts through urine & sensible perspiration & insensible; it restores the functions of the ventricle & gives appetite, which shows that it is specific against scurvy & against obstructions.

We take it from two to six ounces, in the morning on an empty stomach, and as much in the afternoon, approximately every four or five hours: we can drink it and put it away two hours after drinking it. But as we added to the use of this water, that of specific tablets & pills against scurvy, it is also necessary that we give the description. & to temper the heat of the lower abdomen & hypochondria; it hunts through urine & sensible perspiration & insensible; it restores the functions of the ventricle & gives appetite, which shows that it is specific against scurvy & against obstructions. We take it from two to six ounces, in the morning on an empty stomach, and as much in the afternoon, approximately every four or five hours: we can drink it and put it away two hours after drinking it. But as we added to the use of this water, that of specific tablets & pills against scurvy, it is also necessary that we give the description. which shows that it is specific against scurvy & against obstructions. We take it from two to six ounces, in the morning on an empty stomach, and as much in the afternoon, approximately every four or five hours: we can drink it and put it away two hours after drinking it. But as we added to the use of this water, that of specific tablets & pills against scurvy, it is also necessary that we give the description. which shows that it is specific against scurvy & against obstructions. We take it from two to six ounces, in the morning on an empty stomach, and as much in the afternoon, approximately every four or five hours: we can drink it and put it away two hours after drinking it. But as we added to the use of this water, that of specific tablets & pills against scurvy, it is also necessary that we give the description.
§. 6. Anti-scorbutic tablets .

Take half an ounce of diaphoretic antimony, six drachmas of superficial rind of recent lemon, & one and a half drachmas of mace or nine of nutmeg, two ounces of peeled almonds, & one ounce of shelled pistachios; cut these four things into very small squares, & grind the diaphoretic well: then cook a pound of fine sugar into rosat sugar, with rose water & cinnamon; after that, break up your sugar a little, & add the species to it, mix everything equally; & when you are ready to throw your tablets, pour into the pan half a drachma of tincture of ambergris; cut the tablets of the weight of two or three drachmas: you must eat one in the morning & another in the evening, after having swallowed the water above.

§. 7. Anti-scorbutic pills .

Take two drachmas of very well-chosen rhubarb, three drachmas of very fine aloe succotrin, two and a half drachmas of recent & pure myrrh, two drachmas of tearful gum ammonia, a drachma of pure & fragrant saffron, four scruples of salt of tartar of senna: put each thing in powder apart, then mix them & reduce them in mass, by adding drop by drop, & one after the other, as much as it will be necessary of elixir of property with the spirit of deer's horn, & hematite stone liqueur, the preparation of which is in the Treatise on Stones. The dose of these pills, is from half a scruple to a drachma; you will form forty drachma pills of them, so that they dissolve more easily: they must be taken before the evening meal, or at bedtime, they do not disturb the digestion, & give no trenches; but they purge benignly: one can take two days one, or three in three days.

§. 8. How to make spirit & cochlearia extract .

As there are delicate people, who cannot take anti-scorbutic water in quantity; I found it appropriate to give the process, to make the spirit and the extract of cochlearia well, which are two excellent remedies against scurvy, and which are easy to take, because one is given in the white wine, & the other is given in the form of a bowl in bread to sing: they are thus made.

Take four pounds of mustard roots cut into very thin slices, six pounds of garden cochlearia seed, eight pounds of marine cochlearia, & ten pounds of garden cochlearia; you have to crush the seed in a bronze mortar, & chop the herbs very finely, & put the whole thing in the tinned copper bladder; then pour over it some good Rhine wine, or some other subtle white wine, until the species swim in it easily; cover the bladder with his Moor's head, fight the joints exactly; adapt a convenient container, & give fire as if to distil the spirit of wine; take care that the water in the refrigerator is always fresh, and change it if it gets hot. Separate what distills from time to time, & taste it; & when the spirit begins to no longer be good & strong, both on the nose and on the tongue, so don't mix it up anymore; but continue the fire, until the drops are quite tasteless; then cease the fire, & keep this spirit water apart, which will be used as it is, & will be given in greater quantity than the spirit, otherwise it will be used for another distillation.

We will therefore take the first spirit, which is very strong in white wine, from ten drops to thirty & forty drops; it purifies the mass of blood, by sweat & by insensible perspiration & by urine; but as this spirit penetrates even into the last digestions, & that it will ferret by its subtlety even in the last capillaries of the veins, the arteries & the lymphatic vessels, to extract & to correct these subtle, acrid & malignant serums, which cause scorbutic pains & eruptions; it is also necessary to cleanse the lower abdomen, & especially the spleen & the pancreas of terrestrial & coarse matter, through the stools, which will be easily done with the following extract.

§. 9. Cochlearia extract .

After you have finished the distillation of the spirit & the spirit water, you must open the bladder, & draw out all that will be in it; then you will pass the liquor through a sieve, & you will press the material as much as possible, dry the expression that you will burn, & extract the salt from it according to the art.

Then clarify the pressed liquor with egg whites, & slowly evaporate it with sand, until the consistency of a very thick syrup; & when you want to purge the scorbutics specifically, take from half a drachma up to three, & up to half an ounce of this extract, to which you will have added the salt that you will have extracted from the calcined materials, & add some powder of good rhubarb and that of senna, from ten grains to a drachma, that you will mix well; then have it taken in a bowl with some bread to sing, & you will drink a small dash of white wine on top, & two hours later a broth, or a good dash of what is called Posset in England, which is boiled milk with pippin potatoes cut into slices, and from which the cheese has been separated, by pouring a glass of white wine into it.

This purges very gently, & detaches the viscosities from the walls of the ventricle, removes the obstructions of the spleen, the mesentery & the pancreas, by means of the essential salt, which is in this extract, as its taste very sensibly manifests. which is boiled milk with pippin apples cut into slices, and from which the cheese has been separated, by pouring a glass of white wine into it. This purges very gently, & detaches the viscosities from the walls of the ventricle, removes the obstructions of the spleen, the mesentery & the pancreas, by means of the essential salt, which is in this extract, as its taste very sensibly manifests. which is boiled milk with pippin apples cut into slices, and from which the cheese has been separated, by pouring a glass of white wine into it. This purges very gently, & detaches the viscosities from the walls of the ventricle, removes the obstructions of the spleen, the mesentery & the pancreas, by means of the essential salt, which is in this extract, as its taste very sensibly manifests.

It will not be necessary to make a great speech apart, to explain how we will distill the small centaury , the absinthe , the rue , the lemon balm , the mint , the catnip , the flower of the tillot, & other plants of this nature, which have no moisture in them, when they are in a condition to be picked with their own virtue. It is only necessary to pound them coarsely in a mortar, after having cut them, & add ten pounds of water for each pound of the plant, which one wishes to ferment & distill to extract the spirit, & proceed with the rest, as we have said above, with all the rules & all the remarks, which are essentially necessary to make the fermentation succeed. But if we simply want to extract by distillation, only the ethereal oil and the spirit water of the plant, it is only necessary to distil this chopped and finely cut plant with ten pounds of water, for one pound of the plant, without any prior infusion, maceration,

There is, however, still another way of preserving plants of this nature & the flowers themselves, & of making them ferment without any addition, & it is here again where the Artist needs a great deal of circumspection: for one must not not omit any of the circumstances that we are going to describe, unless you want to waste your time & your trouble; this is therefore done in the following manner.
It is necessary to pick the plant or the flower, when they are in their perfection, it is necessary for that that the plant is between flower & seed; & if it is merely a flower, it must be in the vigor of its smell, & the leaves cling firmly to their tails: but besides that there is the principal remark, which is to pluck these things a little after sunrise, lest they be laden with dew, which would cause them to corrupt; they should also not be taken when it has rained the previous day, because they would have superfluous humidity, which would cause the same accident. When we have these plants or these flowers, thus conditioned, we must fill large stoneware jugs with them, which are very clean and very dry, and press them very hard, until the jug is completely filled with it, and there is nothing left except to place a cork stopper which is very tight, and which has been dipped in melted wax, to stop the porosity ; this being done, it is necessary to pour melted black pitch on the cork stopper, & coat it all around the mouth of the jug, put it in the cellar on a board, so that the earth does not communicate too much of freshness, & that this does not alter the plant or the flower; thus you will preserve whole years of plants & flowers, which will be fermented by themselves, & which will be ready to be distilled at all the times that one will need it, by adding ten pounds of water for each pound of flowers, or whole plants fermented by themselves; & you will draw from it a spirit & a water,

We now have nothing else to say concerning the general rules, and the common observations that the Artist must make on the vegetable in general and on its parts in particular, except that we must provide the means to make the liquors from whole plants or from their parts, & even to purify these liquors, & to exalt them more and more, until they have been returned to the nature of their first being, which will not fail to possess very eminently the central virtues of their mixture, because nature & art have preserved in this work all the seminal powers that it possessed: as our very great & very illustrious Paracelsus proves & very learnedly teaches, in the Treaty which he entitles, de renovatione & restauratione .
§. 10. Of the manner of making liquors from plants, & their first beings .

All plants are not suitable for this operation, because they do not equally have in them a sufficient proportion of salt, sulfur & mercury, to communicate to their liquors & to their first beings, the virtue of renewing & restore; & even Paracelsus recommends to us only two of them among all, which must serve as a rule & as a teaching for all the other kinds of plants, which are more or less of the nature of these two, which are lemon balm & greater celandine , between those which approach these two, we can legitimately include there the large scrophularia , the small centaury & the vulnerary plants, like the pyroha , the consolida saracenica, goldenrod , mille pertuis , wormwood , & generally all alexiterous plants, such as scordium , asclepia , gentian & gentianelles , rue , parsley , ache & many others that we will leave to the choice and judgment of the Artist, who will prepare them all in the manner that we will say below, and when he has drawn the liquor or the first being from them, he will use them on the occasions, according to the virtue of the plant.

It is necessary to pick the one of these plants, which one wishes to prepare, when it is in its state, that is to say, when it is completely in flower; but that it is not yet in seed, at the time that Paracelsus calls balsamiticum tempus , the balsamic time, which is a little before sunrise, because one needs in this operation this sweet and pleasant humor, that plants attract dew during the night, by the magnetic and natural virtue they have of providing themselves with the humidity they need, both for their subsistence and for their life, and also to resist the heat of the Sun, which sucks them, and dries them up during the day.
When you have a sufficient quantity of the plant you want to prepare, it must be beaten in a marble mortar, and reduced to an impalpable paste, as much as possible; then you have to put this porridge in a matrass with a long neck, which you have to seal with the seal of Hermes, and put it to digest in horse manure for a philosophical month, which is the space of forty natural days, or else put the vessel with a vaporous bath, & whether it is enclosed in sawdust or in cut straw, during the same time, & at a heat similar to that of horse manure. This time being expired, it is necessary to open your vessel to draw the matter which will be reduced in liquor, which it is necessary to press & separate the pure from the impure by digestion in a bain-marie at a slow heat,

But when the Artist wants to push his work further, when he wants to purify this liquor to the supreme degree & reduce it to the first being, he will proceed in this way. It is necessary to take equal parts of this liquor and water of salt, or of resolving salt, the practice of which we will teach in the Treatise on Salts, and put them in a matrass, which must be hermetically sealed, and expose it to the Sun for six weeks, & thus, without any other work, this saline liquor will separate all the heterogeneities & the smoothnesses, which prevented the purity & the exaltation of this noble medicine; but at the end of this time, three different separations will be seen, which are the faeces of the liquor of the grass, the first being of the plant, which is green & transparent like emerald, or clear & red like garnet. Oriental,

I know that there will be many who will say that the practice of this operation is easy, and that the majority will never believe that the liquor of plants, nor their first being, can possess the virtues that we attribute to them after Paracelsus. I would nevertheless like everyone to be persuaded of this by legitimate and very sure experiences, as I am, so that the Artists begin to work on these rare preparations, with the confidence of not being frustrated of the good that can come back to them. in particular, and of that which they will procure for civil society, by the health which they will preserve, or which they will repair in the particular subjects which compose it.

§. 11. Of the Virtue & Use of Plant Liquor .

This word liquor is not taken here simply for rotten juice, or for the humidity of the plant; but we give it here to this kind of remedy par excellence, because it contains in itself all that the plant from which it comes, can have of efficacy and virtue. So that it is not difficult to conceive what these well-prepared liquors can & should be used for. For if the liquor is made of a vulnerary plant, it can be given more surely than the decoction of any of the plants of this nature, in vulnerary potions; we can mix it in the injections, we can put it into the plasters, in ointments and in digestives, which will be used for appliances for wounds or ulcers; but on this condition, that the body of these remedies be composed of honey, egg yolk, turpentine, myrrh, or some other balsamic body, which rather prevents the accidents of the parts which are injured, than to make them useless & painful collication & suppuration; which is never according to the good intention of nature, and even less according to the true precepts of beautiful and learned Surgery.

It is in this excellent part of Medicine, that our Paracelsus has principally excelled, as is proved without contradiction, by the two excellent Treatises, which he entitles, the great and the small Surgery.. Moreover, if the liquor is taken from a thoracic plant, it can be mixed in the juleps and in the potions that will be taken by the sick, who will be affected by some affection of the chest. If it is made of a diuretic or anti-scorbutic plant, it will be used to remove obstructions from the spleen, mesentery, pancreas, liver & other neighboring parts; or else, it will be used against calculus, against the suppression of urine & against other diseases of the kidneys & bladder. Finally, if this liquor draws its virtue from some alexitary, cordial, cephalic, hysterical, stomachic or hepatic plant, it will be used with very happy success against venoms and against all fevers, which derive their origin from this venom, if the plant is alexitary. It will also be given against all sorts of weaknesses in general, if the plant is cordial. That if it is also cephalic, this shows that the liquor is useful against epilepsy, against threats of apoplexy, against paralysis & against all other affections of the brain. If she is hysterical, she will do wonders against the suffocations of the womb, against its upheavals, against its convulsions, and again against all the other irritations of this dangerous animal, which is contained in another. If it is stomachic, this will be the true means of preventing all the corruptions which are generated in the bottom of the ventricle, whether they come from the defect of digestion, because of superfluity, or because of vice & poor quality of food; or also that it is caused by poor fermentation. Finally, if the liquor has the virtue of a hepatic plant, if it is true that it is the liver which is the storehouse and the source of the blood; this remedy will be given in all the illnesses which are attributed to the vice and defect of this viscus; but principally in incipient dropsies, and even in those which one believes to be confirmed.

The dose of these liqueurs, or these truly balsamic & friendly tinctures of our nature, is from half a scruple to a drachma, & up to two drachmas, according to the age & strength of those in whom the Doctor will believe them. clean & useful. However, let us add a little advice, so that those who prepare these liqueurs can also keep them for a long time, without any alteration and without any reduction in their strength, their virtue, or their effectiveness: it is that it will be necessary that they mix in it only four ounces of powdered sugar for a pound of liqueur, if it is to be used internally; or four ounces of honey cooked with white wine & foam, if it is to be used externally in Surgery.

§. 12. Of the Virtue & Use of the First Being of Plants .

We can use the first being of plants in all the cases where we have said that their liquors were useful. But there must be this notable difference, that as these beautiful remedies are much purer and more exalted than the liquors which are more corporeal; which means that we must necessarily reduce their dose by a lot, so that what was given by drachmas before this high degree of preparation, is now only given by drops. The dose is therefore from three drops to twenty, increasing by degrees: one can take this remedy in white wine, in a broth, or in some decoction or some water, which can serve as a vehicle for the medicine, for the make it act & make it penetrate by the subtlety of its parts even in our last digestions,

But we must show that it is not without reason that Paracelsus speaks of the preparation of the first beings in the Treatise, which we quoted from it above, which is that of renovatione & restauratione, that is to say, renewal & restoration; because this great man, concludes this treatise, by the way of making the first beings of four different materials; namely, the first being of animals, that of precious stones, that of plants, and that of liquors, which is that of sulfur or bitumen; he did not want to content himself with making the theoretical discourse of the possibility of renewal & restoration of our interior & exterior failings; but he also wanted to give the practice of working on various materials to draw the first beings from them, & finally concludes with the way of using them to be able to renew oneself.

He therefore says that one must simply put as much of this precious liquor in white wine as is needed to color it with the color approaching that of the remedy, and that one must drink it or have a glass drunk every fasting mornings to him or her who has some defect of age or illness. Moreover, it gives the signs of the beginning & of the progress of this renewal, & the time at which it is necessary to cease the use of this admirable medicine; for he did not think it necessary to state the signs, nor the observations that one must make when one takes it for some sensitive disease, since it necessarily follows that one must continue the use of it, until until you feel relief, or until the pain subsides, and it is then that you will have to stop using the remedy.

But for the signs of renewal, he puts them in a judicious sequence, asif he wanted to prevent the incredulity of those who do not know the power, nor the sphere of activity of the virtue and of the efficacy that God has put in natural beings, when they are reduced by means of the 'Art to their universal principle, without loss of their seminal goodness; or even to prevent the astonishment of those who will use them, since what happens, does not cause a small surprise, when the person who uses these remedies first sees his toenails and hands falling off; that after all this, all the hair on his body falls out & then his teeth; & for the last of all, that the skin wrinkles, & dries up little by little & falls also just like the rest, which are all the signs & the observations that he gives of the inner renewal by what is done in the skin 'outside.

It is as if he wanted to insinuate us & make us understand that it is absolutely necessary that the medicine has penetrated through the whole body, & that it has filled it with a new vigor, since the external parts which are insensible, & like the excrements of our digestions, fall of themselves without any pain; but notice that it stops the use of the remedy, when the last sign appears, which is the dryness of the skin, its wrinkles & its fall; because it is a universal sign, that the action of renewal has been sufficiently extended by all the habit of the body, that the skin generally covers, and that thus it was necessary for this old bark to fall off, and that another came back, because the first was no longer porous or permeable enough,

I know that this remedy and the renovative and restorative virtues attributed to it will pass for ridicule among the vulgar of scientists, and even among those who claim to be physicists. So much because the Philosophy of the firm, is not able to understand this mystery of nature; only because they are not so convinced, neither of them by any proof, nor by any experience. But I must undertake to convince them by two examples, one taken from what happens naturally every year, by the renewal of a few animals in a certain season only; & the other of the very true story that I will relate, of what happened to one of my best friends, who took the first being of lemon balm; to a woman more than sixty years old, who also took it; & finally of what happened to a hen who ate grain, which had been watered with a few drops of this first being.

As for the first example, there is no one who does not know the renewal of the head or the antler of the deer, as well as the stripping of the skin of snakes & vipers, not to mention that of halcyons, since Paracelsus in fact the story in the treatise which we have quoted above; but of all those who know that it is done, there are few who know, or who take the trouble to know & to know how, by what means & for what reasons it is done. Because firstly, as regards snakes in general, it must be considered that they remain hidden underground, or in the hollows of trees and rocks, or lodged among stones, from the end of autumn until well before spring ; & that thus during this time, they are as if asleep & as dead, that their skin becomes thick & hard, that it even loses its porosity for the preservation of the animal it covers; for if there were a continual exhalation, there would also be a loss of the substance of this animal: now after the serpents have come out of their holes in the spring, & which they have begun to graze & take for their food the tip of the herbs, which have the virtue of renewing: immediately this animal being excited by an itch which it feels around the contour of its head, because of the heat of the spirits, which are heated by this natural remedy, it rubs itself & creeps until he's stripped his head of its old skin. Which he continues the rest of the same day, until he has thrown away this remains, which was not only useless to him; but who even would have made him suffocate, for lack of being porous & transpirable, & then it seems all glorious in its renewal; which is noticed by the difference between the slow and lazy movement of those which are not renewed, from the lively action of those which are stripped, whose movement is so quick and so light, that they even easily slip away from our sight; & moreover, the skin of some is ugly & earth-colored, & the other on the contrary is united, beautiful, shiny & well-coloured.

that even they easily escape our sight; & moreover, the skin of some is ugly & earth-colored, & the other on the contrary is united, beautiful, shiny & well-coloured. that even they easily escape our sight; & moreover, the skin of some is ugly & earth-colored, & the other on the contrary is united, beautiful, shiny & well-coloured.

As for the example of the deer, this is done in another way & for another reason, than what happens to snakes; for this animal does not hide itself in the ground, nor does it renew all its external parts, since there are only its horns, its head or its wood, which it gives birth to in the spring; but the reason is, that this poor animal is deprived during the winter of a food, which is sufficient to feed & maintain this marvelous production which it has on the head, since even it does not have enough for its own sustenance & for his life; then the Hunters say that the animals have fallen into poverty; which is recognized, not only by their leanness and their weakness, but also mainly by their wood, which becomes arid, spongy and dry,

Now, it is from this food that comes the strength, vigor and sustenance of the deer's antler; which means that he is forced to give birth, when a good and succulent food comes to him in the spring, which animates him, which warms him up, and which makes his head vegetate again, if one must say so. of the animal. We will say nothing more of this renewal, nor of the virtue which is contained in the new antler of the deer, as in that which is once hardened and as perfect, because we have amply mentioned it in the Chapter on the Chemical preparation of the animals & their parts.

But let us now come to the proof of the renewal, which was begun fromthe use of a first being, by the story of the story that we promised, and which happened in this way. After one of my best friends had prepared the first being of lemon balm, & that all the changes & all the alterations, which Paracelsus requires, had succeeded according to his hope & according to the truth, he thought he could not be fully satisfied in his mind, if he did not test this great mystery, in order to be better persuaded of the pure truth of the thing, and of the renunciation of the Author whom he had followed; & as he knew that the experiment is usually deceptive in others, he made it on himself, on an old servant, who was nearly seventy years old, who served in the same house, & on a hen that we fed in the same place. It therefore took nearly fifteen days, every morning on an empty stomach, a glass of white wine colored with this remedy; & from the first days, the nails of the feet & of the hands began to separate from the skin without any pain, & continued thus, until they fell off by themselves. I confess to you that he did not have enough constancy to complete this entire experience, and that he thought he was more than sufficiently convinced by what had happened to him, without being obliged to spend more before on his own person.

That is why he made this old servant drink this same wine every morning, who took only ten or twelve days of it; & before that time was expired, her lunar purgations returned to her with commendable color & in sufficient quantity, to give her terror, & to make her believe that it would cause her to die, since she did not know that she would have taken some remedy capable of rejuvenating it; it was also the cause that my friend dared not go any further, as much for the fear that had seized this poor woman, as because of what had happened to her. After having thus made the very certain test of the effects of his medicine on the man and on the woman; he wanted to know if he would also act on other animals, so he dipped some grains in the wine, which was imbued with the virtue of this first being, that he fed an old hen separately, which he continued for some eight days, & around the sixth day the hen was plucked little by little, until she appeared completely naked; but before the fortnight the feathers grew back; & when she was covered with them, they seemed more beautiful & better colored than before, her crest stood up & laid eggs more than usual. This is what I had to say on this, and from which I draw the following conclusions. her crest stood up & laid eggs more than usual. This is what I had to say on this, and from which I draw the following conclusions. her crest stood up & laid eggs more than usual. This is what I had to say on this, and from which I draw the following conclusions.

I believe that there is no one whose senses are depraved enough not to easily conceive that since nature teaches us by all operations that it is necessary to maintain porosity in living bodies to make them live, with all the functions necessary to the parts which compose them: that also it is necessary of all necessity, that the art which is only the imitator of nature, does the same thing, to maintain & to restore the health of the individuals, who are committed to its care & guardianship.

Which means that I say consequently, that the Physician & the Chemical Artist must work incessantly to discover, by the anatomy that they will make of the natural mixtures, this subtle, volatile & penetrating & active part, which is not corrosive point; but on the contrary, which is a friend of our nature, and which simply helps to give birth to it without constraining it. And as I know that it is only sulphurous volatile salts which can have the power to act in the way we have said, so they must study with all their power, to detach this agent amicable, & which is nevertheless very effective, of the trade of the gross & material body, if they want to be the true imitators of nature, which always uses this same agent, to lead all living bodies to the perfection of their natural predestination, if not prevented by some external or internal occasional cause, which ordinarily interrupts the order, the economy and the conduct of the springs, which maintain a pleasant harmony in all animate compounds. Now, this is what Paracelsus did, by teaching us how to prepare liqueurs & the first beings, because this operation separates the subtle from the gross, which it preserves & exalts the seminal powers of the compound, until she has made him capable of repairing the defects of natural functions; so that following the example of this great Naturalist, and following the ideas that we have given in this discourse that we have traced, before coming to the detail of the parts of the plants & of all the operations, to which they are subjected by the work of Chemistry, that all those who devote themselves particularly to these beautiful preparations, be informed of a general knowledge of their subtle parts or gross, they can also conduct & regulate their judgment & their actions, according to the theorems & notions that we have given, which they will appropriate by the direction of their intentions to each vegetable in particular; & so that the Artist can satisfy himself, the illustration & the ennoblement of his profession, & still what must be his main goal, the maintenance & the recovery of the health of his neighbor .

that all those who devote themselves particularly to these beautiful preparations, be informed of a general knowledge of their subtle or gross parts, they can also conduct & regulate their judgment & their actions, according to the theorems & notions that we have given, which they will appropriate by the direction of their intentions to each vegetable in particular; & so that the Artist can satisfy himself, the illustration & the ennoblement of his profession, & still what must be his main goal, the maintenance & the recovery of the health of his neighbor . that all those who devote themselves particularly to these beautiful preparations, be informed of a general knowledge of their subtle or gross parts, they can also conduct & regulate their judgment & their actions, according to the theorems & notions that we have given, which they will appropriate by the direction of their intentions to each vegetable in particular; & so that the Artist can satisfy himself, the illustration & the ennoblement of his profession, & still what must be his main goal, the maintenance & the recovery of the health of his neighbor .

according to the theorems & the notions that we have given, which they will appropriate by the direction of their intentions to each vegetable in particular; & so that the Artist can satisfy himself, the illustration & the ennoblement of his profession, & still what must be his main goal, the maintenance & the recovery of the health of his neighbor . according to the theorems & the notions that we have given, which they will appropriate by the direction of their intentions to each vegetable in particular; & so that the Artist can satisfy himself, the illustration & the ennoblement of his profession, & still what must be his main goal, the maintenance & the recovery of the health of his neighbor .

SECOND SPEECH.

Syrups.

We have, it seems to me, sufficiently insinuated the diversity of the nature of plants, & the difference of their parts in the preceding discourse, to prepare the mind of the Artist to recognize the truth of what we have to say in that that we begin, to repress & to remove, if possible, the abuse & the bad preparation that most Apothecaries practice, when working on their syrups, which are simple or compound, & which are nothing other than anything but sugar, or honey cooked to a certain liquid consistency, or with distilled waters, or with juices, or with decoctions of whole plants, or with that of their parts, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds & roots. Gold, as we have taught above the diversity of the nature of these things, to have regard to them, when the Artist wishes to distill them; it is also to this instruction that we refer the Apothecary, who wants to become a Chemist, to acquire the same knowledge, when he wishes to make simple and compound syrups. Nevertheless, as I know that all dispensaries make the same mistakes with regard to syrups, and that there was only one Chemical Physician who dared to undertake to correct them; I feel obliged to follow the example of M. Zwelfer, Physician to the Emperor Leopold, who made very learned remarks on all the faults of the ancient Pharmacy; but as he writes in Latin, and moreover he reasons like a chemist, I thought I was obliged to put those who do not follow the right path, for lack of being Chemists, & not knowing enough Latin, to understand & to follow such an admirable Author; & moreover, to urge those who know Latin, & who believe they are Chemists, not to bury their talent; but on the contrary, to assert it for the good of the sick, for the honor of the Doctor and the Pharmacy, for the satisfaction of their conscience, and for their particular profit.

It is necessary, however, that we put here some examples of the faults that we have committed in the past, and that we prove that we have failed, for want of not having known things properly, and that we finally teach the way to do better, & that we give the positive reasons, & which have their foundation in the thing itself & in the way of working, why we will have done better, & why we will have succeeded.

Before coming to the proof, to which we have committed ourselves, it is necessary that we show clearly the goal that the Ancients and the Moderns had in the composition of the simple syrups and the compounds, of which they left us the descriptions in their antidotaries & in their dispensaries. All true lovers of Medicine have always believed that remedies must have three conditions; namely, that they were able to act promptly, surely & pleasantly: cito, tuto & jucunde. Moreover, they also worked to make that what they prepared, could be preserved some time with its own virtue, so that one had recourse to it if necessary.

That is why they have composed all their syrups & other remedies, which approach this nature, with honey & with sugar, or with both together. They therefore used these two substances, like two balsamic salts, suitable for receiving and preserving the virtue of distilled waters; like that of rose water in their syrup or jalep Alexandrin; that of the juices of plants or fruits; like those of wine, vinegar, quince juice, lemons, oranges, pomegranates & many other things, in the syrups that they wanted the Apothecaries to keep in their shops. That of infusions of woods, roots, seeds & flowers, which they ordered to make syrups; & finally, that of the decoctions of a good number of all these things mixed together, such as aromatics, flowers, mucilaginous fruits, milky seeds, mucous roots & those which are endowed with volatile salts, of which they gave us the method, to make compound syrups.

But, as the greater part of those who hitherto have claimed to want, & to be able to see, teaching Pharmacy & the modus saciendi to Apothecaries, have not themselves known the difference of subjects, nor even have not known the various means of extracting their virtue without any loss, because they were ignorant of Chemistry; also one should not be astonished, if the Apothecaries who followed them, & who still follow them every day, sinned & failed much more heavily than them; since ordinarily they are not even exactly what they find in their Books.
We must therefore have recourse to Chemical Physics, which will prescribe for us the rules which will henceforth prevent Physicians and Apothecaries from committing similar faults, if they take the trouble to follow them; & if they take advantage of the examples & teachings that we are going to follow, to learn how to methodically make simple syrups & compounds, without the Apothecary losing any portion of the virtue that resides in the volatile sulphured salt, & in the fixed of the mixed ones who enter into their dispensation.

We will begin with the simple syrups, and that by degrees, and first by those which are composed of juices, which are already purified of themselves, or which can be separated, without fear that fermentation will harm them, as are the juices. acids. After that, we will speak of syrups, which are made with the juices which are drawn from plants, which are of two kinds; some are odorless and share a tartarous vitriolic taste; & the others, have an odor & are part of a volatile sulfur salt: these two kinds of juices need the eye & the industry of the Artist to separate the impurities, without any loss of their faculties , before making syrups; and this is what the Apothecary will never do except by following the precepts of Chemistry. After that,



§. 1. The way of making simple acetic syrup or vinegar syrup, the ordinary & old way .

Take five pounds of clarified sugar, four pounds of spring water, & three pounds of good white wine vinegar. Cook everything according to art in syrup consistency.
It seems to see this bare & simple description, that it is completely ingenuous, completely clear, & completely according to nature & according to the year; but our Chemical examination must show that there are more faults than there are words, & that it is entirely filled with absurdities, which are unworthy of an apprentice Chemist Apothecary, & by therefore much more unworthy of this famous & renowned Arab Doctor, Mesué, to whom the invention of this syrup is attributed.
But before beginning to make remarks on this bad way of doing things, we must make known what virtues Mesué & his Sectateurs, attributed to this syrup & to simple oxymel, & for what illnesses they used them, because that will not be of little use in making people recognize the bad indications that they have taken, for lack of having understood the nature of things and the work of Chemistry well.

They attribute to this syrup, & not without reason, the virtue & the faculty of incising, of attenuating, of opening & of mondifying: as well as that of refreshing & tempering the heat which comes from the bile, that to resist rotting & corruptions, & finally that of expelling through urine, & provoking sweat. I admit that all this is possible, when this syrup is well made; but that he will never have all these beautiful virtues, if he is not prepared as we will say below.
I have taken the description of this syrup from the Pharmacopoeia of Ausbourg, as the most correct that can be seen today; because I had taken it from that of Bauderon, or from some other even older, I would point out in it absurdities much less tolerable than those which we are about to show. What, I pray you, is worse digested than to order five pounds of sugar to be cooked with four pounds of water over a fire of lighted, flaming coals, and to skim incessantly, until at the consummation of half, without having clarified it before; & then to add three or four pounds of vinegar, to finish cooking the whole thing in syrup, since the vinegar also has its impurities & its scum, & thus it has to be started over. This is nevertheless what Bauderon commands.

The others did not succeed better with their clarified sugar, and deserve no less to be taken up again. For experience itself is repugnant to what they claim: this axione which says, que frustra su per plura, illud, quod aque bene, vel melius sueri potest per panciora,obviously shows that it is very wrong to put four pounds of water with the sugar and the vinegar, to reduce them to a syrup: since besides the fact that the water is quite useless here, I even say that it is there. absolutely harmful for two reasons: the first, because the boiling of this water causes the loss of a great deal of time, which must be precious to the Artist; & the second, which is still much more considerable, it is so because the water removes with it while boiling for a long time, the most subtle parts, the volatiles & the salts of the vinegar, which are those which constitute the incisive virtue & aperitif, which is the proper & specific of this syrups Because I would like with all my heart, that someone could tell me what four pounds of water can be used for in this syrup, what virtue they can communicate to it: for if I am told that it is to be used for the purification of sugar, and that it was Bauderon's idea; I will ask the reason why the Pharmacopoeia of Ausbourg also asks for four pounds of water there, since it prescribes taking clarified sugar, so much so that I find that neither of them has any reason.

This is why, it is necessary that those who want to make this syrup properly, with all the virtues & the powers that are necessary, to follow the intention of the Doctors, do it in the following way. so much that I find that one or the other has no reason. This is why, it is necessary that those who want to make this syrup properly, with all the virtues & the powers that are necessary, to follow the intention of the Doctors, do it in the following way. so much that I find that one or the other has no reason. This is why, it is necessary that those who want to make this syrup properly, with all the virtues & the powers that are necessary, to follow the intention of the Doctors, do it in the following way.

Take an earthenware, glazed earthenware or sandstone terrine, which you will place on a cauldron full of boiling water, which we will call the boiling bain-marie: put in this terrine two pounds of very subtle fine powdered sugar, on which you will pour eighteen ounces of distilled vinegar into a glass curcurbite with sand, & rectified in a bain-marie, to extract from it all the wateriness or the phlegm, as we will teach, when we deal with vinegar; stir the sugar & the distilled vinegar together, with a spatula or with a glass spoon, until the whole is dissolved & reduced to a syrup, which will be of the right consistency, which will be long-lasting, & which will have all the virtues you want in simple acetous syrup.cuius, tutius, & jucundius , that is to say, more promptly, more surely & more pleasantly; in order to show that Chemistry is & will always be the only school of true Pharmacy. For the end of this examination, note in passing, that nine ounces of liqueur clear of itself or clarified, according to the precepts of the year, are sufficient to reduce a pound of sugar to the consistency of syrup, by simple dissolution in the heat of the vaporous bath; so that it serves as a general remark, when we talk about other simple or compound syrups.

§. 2. The general method of properly making syrups from the acid juices of fruits, such as those from the juice of lemons, oranges, cherries, pomegranates, barberries, quinces, currants, raspberries, apples, &c .


We do not have many remarks to make on these syrups, because they are those where the ordinary Pharmacy sins the least; however as there is some small observation which we judge necessary for the instruction of our Chemical Apothecary, we did not want to neglect it.

So take whichever of these fruits you like, from which you will draw the juice artistically, according to the nature of each of them in particular, with this precaution of not using any metallic vessel to receive them; & that we also take great care to separate the grains & the seeds from these fruits, both because there are some that are bitter, and because there are some that have mucilaginous & mucous seeds, & that thus it would cause the juices to acquire a foreign taste, or a viscosity which would harm the perfection of the syrup. And for the fruits which must be grated to extract the juice, it is necessary to have silver graters, or those which are made of a tin, which is very clean and well tinned; because iron very easily communicates its taste and color to the substance of the acid fruit, which copper also does, bronze or brass.

All this having been observed with exactitude, it is necessary to allow the juices to be purified, which are liquid by themselves, until they have deposited a certain limosity, and corpuscles or atoms, which will be separated by the filtration. But as for the juices of the fruits, which are of a soft, slow and viscous substance; you have to let their juices subside and ferment in some cool place, and then separate the juice, which becomes the clearest of itself, and which floats above the rest, because if you do otherwise, you will make a jelly rather than a jelly. 'a syrup. which will be separated by filtration. But as for the juices of the fruits, which are of a soft, slow and viscous substance; you have to let their juices subside and ferment in some cool place, and then separate the juice, which becomes the clearest of itself, and which floats above the rest, because if you do otherwise, you will make a jelly rather than a jelly. 'a syrup. which will be separated by filtration. But as for the juices of the fruits, which are of a soft, slow and viscous substance; you have to let their juices subside and ferment in some cool place, and then separate the juice, which becomes the clearest of itself, and which floats above the rest, because if you do otherwise, you will make a jelly rather than a jelly. 'a syrup.

After all these sorts of juices will be well & duly prepared, as we have just said, they must be put in a glass curcurbite in a bain-marie, & evaporated until a third, or even half, has been consumed. . Now, we should not fear that this way of acting causes any portion of the acidity of the juice to be lost; since, on the contrary, it will increase it, in that the acid always remains last, and only the useless phlegm or wateriness evaporates; & moreover, this operation will be used to separate what could remain there of starch in the juice; for it should be noted that two hours of digestion in a bain-marie will purify a juice rather than three days of insolation of the same juice; but what is even more remarkable is that the juices which are purified in this way only very rarely become mouldy,

As for the preparation of the syrup, we must follow the modus saciendi , which we have given above to the acetous syrup; namely, to take nine ounces of well-prepared juice, for a pound of powdered sugar, or for the same weight of sugar, which is cooked in solid electuary or in pink sugar, & dissolve them in the heat of the vaporous bath, in vessels of glazed clay or in glass, without ever using any metal vessel, when handling acids.

§. 3. How to make syrups from the juices obtained from plants, both those which are odorless and those which are fragrant, with the remarks necessary for their purification .

We have here three kinds of planta to consider, and consequently three kinds of examples to give for making syrups well, with the preservation of their proper and essential virtue, which we will divide into three classes.

The first will be odorless succulent plants, such as the species of sorrel , chicory , sumeterre , mercuriale , purslane , borage , bugloss , blessed thistle , and others of a similar nature.

The second will be those which are also odorless, and sometimes also have an odor; but whose juice is filled with a very subtle volatile spirit & salt, such as are the anti-scorbutic plants, such as cochlearia , watercress , species of sium , mustard & mustard , berle & aquatic purslane , which is called beccabunga .

And the third will be plants which are fragrant and succulent, such as betony , hyssop , scordium , ache , parsley , bone marrow , and others of the same category.

§. 4. How to make the juices & syrups of the plants of the first class .

You must take the plant from which you want to extract the juice, which you will cut small, then beat it with a marble or stone mortar, you will press it with all the care and the observations, which we marked in the speech that we made above on the distilled waters of these same plants; & when the juice will be well purified in a bain-marie, & that a sufficient quantity of phlegm or water will have been drawn from it, which is three parts, to draw two from it by distillation; then one must mix a pound and a half of sugar, with a pound of this juice thus purified and distilled, and cook them together, until the consistency of pink sugar, which must be decooked and reduced to syrup, with six or seven ounces water that you will have removed from the juice by distillation in a bain-marie; so you will have a syrup, who will be endowed with all the virtues of the plant; & when you want to make apozemes or juleps, you will mix an ounce or two of one of these syrups with three or four ounces of its water, which you will apply to diseases, according to the virtues & qualities attributed to it. this plant: note that one can keep these juices, thus purified by distillation for one or two years, without any corruption, because they are sufficiently charged with the essential nitro-tartarous salt of these plants; but that they must nevertheless be covered with oil, to prevent the penetration of air, which is the great alterer of all things, and that they must also be kept in a place which is neither too humid, nor too dry.

you will mix an ounce or two of one of these syrups with three or four ounces of its water, which you will apply to diseases, according to the virtues & qualities attributed to this plant: note that these juices can be kept , thus purified by distillation for one or two years, without any corruption, because they are sufficiently charged with the essential nitro-tartarous salt of these plants; but that they must nevertheless be covered with oil, to prevent the penetration of air, which is the great alterer of all things, and that they must also be kept in a place which is neither too humid, nor too dry. you will mix an ounce or two of one of these syrups with three or four ounces of its water, which you will apply to diseases, according to the virtues & qualities attributed to this plant: note that these juices can be kept , thus purified by distillation for one or two years, without any corruption, because they are sufficiently charged with the essential nitro-tartarous salt of these plants; but that they must nevertheless be covered with oil, to prevent the penetration of air, which is the great alterer of all things, and that they must also be kept in a place which is neither too humid, nor too dry. thus purified by distillation for one or two years, without any corruption, because they are sufficiently charged with the essential nitro-tartarous salt of these plants; but that they must nevertheless be covered with oil, to prevent the penetration of air, which is the great alterer of all things, and that they must also be kept in a place which is neither too humid, nor too dry. thus purified by distillation for one or two years, without any corruption, because they are sufficiently charged with the essential nitro-tartarous salt of these plants; but that they must nevertheless be covered with oil, to prevent the penetration of air, which is the great alterer of all things, and that they must also be kept in a place which is neither too humid, nor too dry.

§. 5. How to make the juices & syrups of plants of the second class .

The juice of these plants must be drawn with the same precautions that we taught when we spoke of the spirits of plants, of their distilled waters and of their extracts, to which we refer the Artist, to avoid useless and boring repetition.

But as we have already said several times, that the anti-scorbutic plants were composed of subtle parts, & that they had in them a saline spirit, which is volatile, mercurial & sulphurous, which vanishes & flies away easily. ; also it is necessary that the Chemical Apothecary work carefully and diligently at their preparation, when he has once begun, so that he does not lose by his negligence, what he must preserve with study, and which cannot be no longer recover, when it is once escaped. Here, then, is the only difference there is in the preparation of these juices and syrups with the preceding ones.

It is because when they are distilled in a bain-marie, it is necessary to have a very judicious consideration, to receive separately five ounces of the first water, which will rise from each pound of juice; because these five ounces will have removed with them the portion of the spirit & the volatile salt of a pound of juice: you will then continue the distillation, until you have removed half of the moisture from your juice; then you will stop and put a pound of this juice, with a pound and a half of sugar, which you will cook into pink sugar, and which you will reduce to syrup, by a simple cold dissolution, with six or seven ounces of spirit water & subtle, who went up first, & that you have reserved for this purpose; thus you will have a syrup filled with all the virtues of its mixture, as this will manifestly prove by the smell and the taste; but principally by the marvelous effects which it produces in all scorbutic diseases, whether you give it alone, or you mix it with the second water that you have reserved. You can also keep these juices, to be supplied with them in need, for the time that the plants are not in force, by nevertheless taking the precautions required for this purpose.

§. 6. How to make the juices & syrups of the plants of the first class .

We will not make useless repetitions here, since it is enough for us to say that the Artist must prepare his juice, as he must, in order to do with it what is to follow. When you have the juice of one of these fragrant plants, you must put it in a bain-marie, to purify it by a simple and slow digestion, in order to separate the faeces and the scum that floats. After pouring this cold juice through the blanket, take four pounds of it, and put them in a curcurbite which has a blind capital, or a meeting vessel which joins very exactly; it is necessary to put in this juice a pound and a half of the tops and flowers of the same plant, which are not lettuce in the mortar, but which are simply cut very small with scissors; then you have to close the vessels & fight them with bladder soaked in beaten egg white, & place it in a bain-marie, at a slow heat for twenty four hours; after which, it is necessary to remove the top of the vessel, and apply to it a capital which has a spout, in order to draw from this juice imprinted with the new virtue of its plant, twenty ounces of a very fragrant spirit water: that being finished, you must stop the fire, & push what remains to the bottom of the curcurbite, & keep it until you have done the following.

Put the twenty ounces of fragrant water in a meeting vessel; to these twenty ounces, you will add another ten ounces of new tops of the plant on which you are working, which you will fight and digest in the slow heat of the bath, during a natural day. You will let it cool & squeeze it gently, so that it is not cloudy, & keep it until you have boiled what you had left with the marc of the expression, & until you have clarified it with egg whites, & cooked with three pounds of sugar, consisting of tablets: then it must be decooked cold, or only in lukewarm water, with the twenty ounces of your odoriferous water, which contains the mumial virtue & balsamic from the plant, & you will have a syrup which will lack nothing of what it must have,

But it seems to me that I hear most of the Apothecaries, who will say that it is prolonging the method of making syrups, and that no one will want to reward the trouble they take to do well: that moreover, they will be obliged to bear the expense of a bain-marie & glass vessels, which are necessary for digestion & distillation: that these vessels are fragile, & that thus all that joined together, will increase the price of the remedy: that even, there will be others who will not be so circumspect, who will give their syrups at the common price: that the people run to the cheapest, without knowing the goodness of the thing, & that by this means the shop will become unsold.

We must respond to all these objections, which are not without some foundation:firstly, as for the bain-marie, it will astonish only by its name, those who do not know what it is; for it is only a cauldron, which can serve them for all the necessities of the shop. Secondly for the ships, aren't they obliged to have some for other distillations, if they want to fulfill their vocation with dignity, or at least pretend to do so.

That if they apprehend the rupture, they will be able to have cucurbits of sandstone and earthenware for the acids, and those of tinned copper for the other materials; there will nevertheless still be an inconvenience, which is that they will not be able to judge of the purification of the materials, nor of the quantity which remains, any more than of the consistency, because of the opacity of the vessels. But the last consideration must prevail above all others: because each is obliged by the oath he took during the Master's degree, to make his profession with all the required accuracy, & to the satisfaction of his conscience. It is therefore necessary that this last goal prevails over all the rest, and that it serves as a spur and an attraction to do well: for those who do it in this way, will find the support of the Doctors, who will recommend their shops; & when honest people will be informed of their candor & their assiduity at work, they will wholeheartedly contribute to rewarding the virtue of those who will work on medicines, who are able to preserve their present health, & to renew that which will be lost or altered. & to the discharge of his conscience.

It is therefore necessary that this last goal prevails over all the rest, and that it serves as a spur and an attraction to do well: for those who do it in this way, will find the support of the Doctors, who will recommend their shops; & when honest people will be informed of their candor & their assiduity at work, they will wholeheartedly contribute to rewarding the virtue of those who will work on medicines, who are able to preserve their present health, & to renew that which will be lost or altered. & to the discharge of his conscience. It is therefore necessary that this last goal prevails over all the rest, and that it serves as a spur and an attraction to do well: for those who do it in this way, will find the support of the Doctors, who will recommend their shops; & when honest people will be informed of their candor & their assiduity at work, they will wholeheartedly contribute to rewarding the virtue of those who will work on medicines, who are able to preserve their present health, & to renew that which will be lost or altered. who will recommend their shops; & when honest people will be informed of their candor & their assiduity at work, they will wholeheartedly contribute to rewarding the virtue of those who will work on medicines, who are able to preserve their present health, & to renew that which will be lost or altered. who will recommend their shops; & when honest people will be informed of their candor & their assiduity at work, they will wholeheartedly contribute to rewarding the virtue of those who will work on medicines, who are able to preserve their present health, & to renew that which will be lost or altered.

Let us therefore continue to show the defect of the old pharmacy, and do not content ourselves with proving that we have done wrong; but let us teach how to do better.

For this purpose, we must give three more examples of simple syrups, which will be those of fragrant flowers, bark of the same nature, and those of aromatics; so that when the Apothecaries cook syrups of this kind, one does not smell their shops from three or four hundred paces away, which testifies to the loss of the essential virtue of the volatile & sulfurous parts of the substances of the flowers, & of the fragrant bark & ​​that aromatics: except that these Apothecaries want to make their shops felt from afar, by a vain policy, which nevertheless is very dangerous & very damaging to civil society. And as opposites appear much better when they are opposed: we will say first, how one has done wrong; secondly, why we did wrong:

§. 7. The old way of making orange blossom syrup .

Take half a pound of siers of recent oranges: infuse them in two pounds of clean clear water, which is hot, for the space of twenty-four hours: after which, make the expression; & reiterate the same infusion twice, with half a pound of new flowers each time. Expression & colature made, cook twenty ounces of this infusion in syrup with one pound of very white sugar. Notice here once and for all, that I don't mean medicinal weight here; but that I mean the ordinary weight of the Merchants, which is this sixteen ounces to the pound.

Before showing the defect of this recipe, we must say the virtues that are attributed to the syrup that comes from it, so that we can better know who is wrong or who is right. It is therefore said that this syrup marvelously rejoices the heart and the brain, that it restores the spirits, that it provokes sweating; that it is therefore very beneficial against malignant & pestilent diseases, because it hunts & pushes what is infected with this venom, from the center to the circumference, & makes its spots & marks appear.

All this may be true, if this syrup is well made: but one is frustrated of these noble effects, by the bad way which we have just described. Because all that remains of this syrup is an ungrateful bitterness, which comes from its material and coarse salt: instead of this hint pleasant to the taste, & this subtle & delicate aroma, which is discerned by smell, which is properly the mark that this syrup is not deprived of its volatile sulfur salt, in which reside all the virtues that we hope for. But the coction of this syrup, which cannot be made without boiling, takes away all this subtle virtue, which is the reason why it does not respond to the indications of the scientist and the expert Physician, and even less to the hope of the sick.

§. 8. The way to make chemically & as it was orange blossom syrup .

Take a pound and a half of orange blossoms, which will have been picked a little time after sunrise; put them in a glass curcurbite, and wash them down with twelve ounces of good white wine, and as much excellent rose water; cover the ship with its capital, the joints of which you will fight very precisely; place them in a bain-marie, & remove by distillation made with a fire, which you will increase by degrees, eight ounces of spirit or spirit water, which will be very fragrant & very subtle, which you will keep aside: continue the fire & draw a second water, almost until the dryness of your flowers; after that cease the fire, & boil the flowers which remained to you in two pounds of common water, until the consumption of a pound; squeeze this decoction, which is filled with the extract & fixed salt of the flowers; clarify it with the egg whites, & cook it to the consistency of pink sugar with a pound of sugar, which you will then decook with the eight ounces of spirituous water, & that cold; & you will have the real syrup of orange flowers, fully filled with all their virtues.

The second water that you will have drawn will serve as cordial & alexitaire water to mix the syrup, when the Doctor orders it. This preparation will serve as a model for making syrups from other flowers, which are or approach the nature of orange flowers. Let us now follow by the example of the syrup of the fragrant barks, and take that of the lemon.

§. 9. The old way of making lemon peel syrup .

Take one pound of the outer bark of recent quotes, two drachmas of Scarlet or Kermes seed, & five pounds of common water; cook & boil the whole together, until the consumption of two parts; sink what remains, & add to it a pound of sugar, which you will reduce to the correct consistency of syrup, which you will flavor with four grains of musk. This is their way of ordering & doing, which is quite unworthy of a good & a true physicist, as we will show by the virtues they attribute to this syrup, & by the ingenuous confession that they say that the good smell is absolutely necessary for him to elevate him and make him reach the high point of the virtues they attribute to him. Which are such, to fortify the stomach and the heart, to pass out & correct the rotten, corrupt & stinking humours of the ventricle, to remove bad breath, to resist poisonous & pestilent diseases, to remedy the palpitation or beating of the heart, & to dissipate sadness. All these virtues are proper & essential to the volatile sulphurous salt of the lemon peel, as its pleasant smell & taste very well testifies.

But see, I beg you, how these pretended Masters imagine being able to introduce & preserve this taste & this smell in the syrup, in question, or in a julep of sugar & water, cooked together in consistency of syrup . They order to put in one or the other a judicious quantity of the external lemon school, without saying whether it will be hot or cold, since even if they had had this precaution, still it would not be useful. You're welcome: for if the bark is put in hot, its aroma and its volatile spirit will vanish immediately, and will leave only an odor and a taste of turpentine; & if it is cold, the viscosity & the slowness of the syrup which is loaded with bitterness & the extract of the previous bark, will not be able to receive, nor will he be able to extract this power that one wants to introduce into it, although it is very subtle in itself.

They would nevertheless have done much better, if they had instructed the Apothecary to press between his fingers the remains of lemon peel, and to introduce this spirituous and oleaginous moisture into very fine sugar reduced to a very subtle powder, until until it began to melt, & then complete the dissolution of this sugar with a little well-filtered lemon juice, & thus flavor their ready-cooked syrup with this pleasant liqueur. But this way of acting is not yet worthy of an Artist or an Apothecary Chemist, he will therefore proceed in the following way. if they had ordered the Apothecary to press between his fingers the remains of lemon peel, and to introduce this spirituous and oleaginous moisture into very fine sugar reduced to a very subtle powder, until he began to melt, & then complete the dissolution of this sugar with a little well-filtered lemon juice, & thus flavor their ready-made syrup with this pleasant liqueur.

But this way of acting is not yet worthy of an Artist or an Apothecary Chemist, he will therefore proceed in the following way. if they had ordered the Apothecary to press between his fingers the remains of lemon peel, and to introduce this spirituous and oleaginous moisture into very fine sugar reduced to a very subtle powder, until he began to melt, & then complete the dissolution of this sugar with a little well-filtered lemon juice, & thus flavor their ready-made syrup with this pleasant liqueur. But this way of acting is not yet worthy of an Artist or an Apothecary Chemist, he will therefore proceed in the following way. & then complete the dissolution of this sugar with a little well-filtered lemon juice, & thus flavor their ready-made syrup with this pleasant liqueur. But this way of acting is not yet worthy of an Artist or an Apothecary Chemist, he will therefore proceed in the following way. & then complete the dissolution of this sugar with a little well-filtered lemon juice, & thus flavor their ready-made syrup with this pleasant liqueur. But this way of acting is not yet worthy of an Artist or an Apothecary Chemist, he will therefore proceed in the following way.

§. 10. The artistic way of making lemon peel syrup .

Take half a pound of the outer & thin rind of the new lemons, chop it very finely with scissors or with a knife; put it in a glass curcurbite, and wash it down with a pound and a half of good white wine, or what will be even better, with as much good Malvasia or good Spanish wine; hold this for a little time in digestion, remove by distillation which you will do with the precautions we have said, ten or twelve ounces of spirit water, or very subtle and very fragrant spirit, without any other addition; if it is for women, because of the womb, which cannot bear the smell of musk, nor the taste of amber. But if it is for men, or for women who are not subject to hysterical passions, put in the spout of the capital, which will be used for this distillation, a nouet of raw cloth, which will contain half an ounce of Kermes seed, which is neither outdated nor worm-eaten; eight grains of ambergris & four grains of musk; & thus the first vapors which are very subtle, very penetrating & very dissolving, being condensed in liquor which will distill by this beak, will carry with them, the tincture, the virtue, the essence & the odor of these three bodies, of which all the rest will be marked & perfumed. Then put in cold digestion another three ounces of lemon peel, which is only superficial, thin & subtle, & which is cut very small, in the spirit water that you have drawn from the first: run this maceration through a neat & fine linen without expression, & keep it in a vial that is well stoppered, until you have boiled in two pounds of common water the bark, which you have left from the distillation, and even that from the expression, as long as the liquor is reduced to half, that you will press, clarify & cook in pink sugar, with a pound of very white sugar, which must then be decooked to the consistency of syrup, with the required quantity of distilled spirit water.

This syrup must be kept with care, because it is as much or more useful during health than during illness; because a spoonful of this syrup mixed with white wine, or with sugar & water, together make up a very pleasant & very fragrant lemonade; those who would like to make this drink pleasantly acidic, can add lemon juice, or a few drops of sour sulfur or spirit of vitriol, if it is in the disease, provided that it is of the order of a good Physician. This syrup will also give the example of doing as it should that of orange peel, which is no less useful than the preceding one, & mainly for women, & for those who are subject to indigestion & colic. Let's continue with our third example of aromatic syrups.

§. 11. How cinnamon syrup was commonly made .

Take two and a half ounces of fine and subtle cinnamon, that is to say, which has a penetrating and pungent taste; grind it into a coarse powder, & digest it in a warm place in a glass curcurbite, with two pounds of very good cinnamon water for the space of twenty-four hours, until the vessel is so well sealed, that nothing can expiate. This past time, make it the colature & the expression; then give another two and a half ounces of new cinnamon in infusion, as long as the previous one that you will keep; & continue up to four times; keep this infusion imbued with the virtues of cinnamon apart; then take the cinnamon that remains from the expressions, and pour over it a pound of Malvasia, or some other generous and strong wine; also make the infusion,

I know that there is no one who knows cinnamon even slightly, & the parts which provide & which contain its virtues, as also those of the other aromatics, & mainly those of the clove; who is not astonished & who does not shrug his shoulders in pity, when one reads this foolish & this absurd description of one of the noblest & most excellent syrups that an Apothecary can make, or can keep in his shop, & which its Authors intend for the recreation & re-establishment of vital spirits, to awaken & restore heat & life to the heart & to the stomach, when it has been driven out by some deadly coldness, which also corrects the stench of the mouth & that of the ventricle, which helps digestion, & which finally is able to repair & preserve universally all the forces of the body.

I know, I say, that if a person is versed in distillation, & in the extraction of the ethereal substance of aromatics & particularly cinnamon; it is impossible for her not to have a secret horror at seeing such gross failings, in a dispensary, where so many grave Doctors have laid their hands. All the virtues attributed to cinnamon syrup are true and real, provided they are preserved in it; but let us examine a little, I beg you, and see what fine and judicious precaution the Authors use for this purpose. They order the Apothecary to cook this syrup in an earthen pot which is exactly corked: but consider, that at the same time that they prescribe the closing of the vessel, that they want to cook what it contains in the consistency of syrup, which can only be done by the slow evaporation of the superfluous liquor, or by boiling it.

That if the lid of the pot in which it will be cooked, has a rim which enters inside & which is just, that it closes this pot exactly, & that the joints are well-luted, so that nothing can be done expiration; the Artist or the Apothecary will never achieve their goal, which is to make a syrup, as they have been ordered, since there will be a perpetual circulation of vapors from bottom to top; for what will rise from the bottom will condense at the top of the lid & will fall back, with no hope of acquiring by this means the consistency of a syrup. There must therefore necessarily be exhalation, or even boiling, to consume two and a half pounds of liquor superabundant for the consistency of syrup. Now, wouldn't it be a great pity & a very considerable loss, to uselessly let two and a half pounds & more of a spirituous water, of a very pleasant odor, of a very delicious taste, go to waste? very effective? Only Chemistry, however, is capable of repairing these defects, since it makes us know that cinnamon has in itself, as well as the other aromatics, a volatile sulphurated salt so subtle, that the slightest heat is capable of extracting it & chasing it, if the Artist does not observe with exactitude to plug properly, not only the joints of the still, but also those of the beak, at the place that it joins the mouth of the receptacle; otherwise it will lose the most subtle and effective of the saline spirit of cinnamon, which is accompanied by that of malvasia, or that of some other wine that has been substituted for it.

Let us continue to show, how far the imperity of the Artists goes, who made this description, by the addition of two ounces of very good rose water to ten ounces of cinnamon, to two pounds of very good water of this herb, & on a pound of malvasia; & what is even more ridiculous is that the smell of this water must be lost with the subtle & volatile part of the others. But it may be objected to me that sugar, which is a vegetable salt, of the middle nature between the fixed and the volatile, will be capable of retaining to itself the spirit and the volatile salt of the cinnamon, and that thus it is wrongly that I declaim against this syrup, since this means uniting, is able to preserve the virtues of what enters in its composition.

This argument seems to have force & has a lot of it. We will, however, show the truth without deducing it, and that by the following distinction. We therefore distinguish between hot sugar & between cold sugar. For we do confess that sugar reduced to subtle powder is capable of receiving in itself the ethereal oils of aromatics, and also all the other distilled oils, that it is even capable of uniting them and mixing them indivisibly, with the spirits. & with water, which is not one of the least secrets of Chemistry; but we absolutely deny that this union and this mixture can be made hot, not at the slightest heat; & consequently still much less to that which is necessary for cooking a syrup, where it is necessary to evaporate more than two pounds of superfluous liquor.

§. 12. How to make cinnamon syrup according to the precepts of Chemistry .

This syrup will serve as a rule for making all the other aromatic syrups well, for which there is no need to give the recipes, since this will serve for all.
Take ten ounces of very good cinnamon which you will cut small, & put it in a glass curcurbite, on which you will pour three pounds of good wine from Spain or Malmsey, or even some other wine which is strong & generous, & a pound of very good rose water; cover the curcurbite with its capital, the joints of which must be fought exactly; put it in a bain-marie, & adapt a container to it, which you will also struggle with the spout of the still; give a small digestion fire for twelve hours; then give the distillation fire, so that the drops follow one another, without however the capital becoming too hot: but that one can suffer the hand there without difficulty; continue like this until the cinnamon parish dries; then cease, & craft this cinnamon apart. Repeat what you have done with as much cinnamon, pouring over it the water you have withdrawn, & distilling as before, do this the third time; & when you have finished, put your water in a bottle, which you will cork with waxed cork, & cover it with wet bladder, so that it does not exhale the best & most subtle of its virtue.

Then take all the cinnamon you have left; put it in the curcurbite, & pour over it four pounds of common water; cover it with its capital, struggle & distill with sand, & remove a pound & a half, so that if there had remained some volatile & virtual substance in the cinnamon, you remove it without losing it: this last water will be used in the laboratory for the last lotion of magisteriums & precipitates, as well as the extraction of some tinctures, then boil the cinnamon in the sand without a capital, because there is nothing more to hope for. Pour & squeeze all the liquor, which is imprinted with the extract & the fixed salt of the cinnamon; clarify it & cook it in tablets with two pounds of fine sugar,
It is a treasure in all kinds of weaknesses; but mainly in long & difficult deliveries, where women are exhausted of their strength; & where consequently, they are deprived of the best part of their spirits & of their natural warmth, so that it is necessary to resupply these poor languids with new spirits & of warmth; & as there is no plant that has more of it than cinnamon, & mainly when it is animated by the spirit of wine, all this is concentrated in this syrup with an admirable approval, so that it is capable of producing all the effects that we have attributed to it.

The dose is from one half to one & two teaspoons. Those who wish to make this syrup even more excellent, will put in the spout of the capital a scruple of ambergris mixed with a drachma of real aloe wood reduced to powder, & will return half a pound of their excellent cinnamon water by distillation , from which they will make the syrup, which will be much more effective.

We must complete this discourse on syrups, with the remarks and observations that we will make on compound syrups; because as they are intended for different uses, they are also composed of different materials, which also require a different way of preparing them.

But before going into the matter, we must say something that can strike the mind of the reader, so that he can hear us better, & that it is also more capable of instructing those who devote themselves to the being of the beautiful pharmacy. And to begin with, I would say that the Naturalist Philosophers, who are those who judge things most sanely, affirm that everything that receives, does it in its way of receiving, & not in the way of the one who is received, & which must introduce some new quality into the receiver. Whether this philosophical axiom is true in itself, as no one of sound judgment will doubt; it is here particularly that we will show the truth of it: because the Apothecary cannot make any compound syrup,Menstruation .

Now, of whatever nature this menstruation or this liquor may be, it cannot be charged or imprinted with the tincture, or the essence of any vegetable, of any animal, or of any mineral whatsoever, except according to its manner of receiving, which cannot be other than according to the weight of nature, which is nothing other than the range and the sufficient quantity of the most subtle matter of the body that one extracts, with which the menses is loaded; & when he is thus drunk & filled with it, either cold or hot, it is impossible for art to make him take more; because, as we have said, it is loaded according to the weight of nature, which one cannot exceed, if one does not want to spoil everything, or lose things uselessly; because
Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,
Quod ultra, citraque nequit consister rectum.


For example, take four ounces of ordinary salt, dissolve them in eight ounces of hot common water, & you will see that the water will only take on three ounces of this salt, & that it will leave the fourth; & although you boil the water, & stir it with the salt; however, it will not receive more, because if it appears dissolved in the heat, it is discharged to the bottom and coagulates when the water is cooled. But for a more manifest proof, that the water is charged sufficiently & naturally; it is necessary to have a large enough quantity of this water charged with salt, to put an egg in it, which will show visibly, if the water is charged according to the weight of nature; for if she has as many as she can receive, the egg will float without going to the bottom; & if it is not sufficiently charged with it, the egg will not fail to go to the bottom, because the water is not sufficiently filled with the dissolved body to prevent it.
This is further proved in the boiling of mead; because when the water is not incore sufficiently charged with the body of honey, the egg will never float; but on the contrary, it goes immediately to the bottom: but when by various attempts, one has reached the point that the egg can float; then it is the true sign of the perfect cooking of the mead, & that the water is charged with the substance of the honey as much as it should be, to make a pleasant & vinous beverage after its fermentation; whereas if it is loaded more, this beverage is sticky & attaching to the lips, because of too much honey; & if it is not enough, it does not have enough of the body of the honey in itself, to give it the taste & the strength that it must have, because the spirits of the honey, which cause its goodness, are not sufficiently abundantly introduced there to make a legitimate fermentation.
We also say the same thing of the spirit of wine, of brandy, of simple & distilled vinegar, of the corrosive spirits of salt, of nitre, of vitriol, of strong waters & generally of all liqueurs, or of all the menses which are capable of extracting or dissolving some body, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral.

For example, put coarsely powdered coral in a matrass & pour distilled vinegar over it, until the eminence of three or four fingers little by little; immediately you will see its action, and you will hear a certain noise in its boiling, which the dissolution of the body of the coral makes; but when this boiling & this noise is ceased, filter the liquor which floats, & put it on new powdered coral, & you will see that there will be no more action, nor any sound; which obviously proves that this liquor is sufficiently filled with this body, and that it cannot receive more. Take also water, brandy, or spirit of wine, and put it on saffron, until it is exalted in very high color; then take new saffron & pour this tincture over it, & you will see that this liquor will no longer extract, & that your saffron will remain the same color as you put it in the vessel. It is the same with all vegetable bodies, which enter into the preparation of compound syrups, such as herbs, flowers, fruits, seeds and roots.

All these bodies have in them a salt, which, although it is of different nature, does not fail to load with its more or less viscous substance, the menstruation which the Apothecary uses, according to the dispensary he follows, the weight of nature; & when this menstruation is once imbued with the virtue & the essence of one of these things, up to the competition of the weight of nature, it is impossible that it can attract to itself the tincture & the virtue of the other bodies which are then added to it, without causing any loss; for the virtue of these bodies will be either fixed or volatile; if it is fixed, the menses is already charged with something of the same nature, and thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup. the weight of nature; & when this menstruation is once imbued with the virtue & the essence of one of these things, up to the competition of the weight of nature, it is impossible that it can attract to itself the tincture & the virtue of the other bodies which are then added to it, without causing any loss; for the virtue of these bodies will be either fixed or volatile; if it is fixed, the menses is already charged with something of the same nature, and thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup. the weight of nature; & when this menstruation is once imbued with the virtue & the essence of one of these things, up to the competition of the weight of nature, it is impossible that it can attract to itself the tincture & the virtue of the other bodies which are then added to it, without causing any loss; for the virtue of these bodies will be either fixed or volatile; if it is fixed, the menses is already charged with something of the same nature, and thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup. it is impossible for it to be able to attract to itself the tincture and virtue of the other bodies that are added to it afterwards, without causing some loss; for the virtue of these bodies will be either fixed or volatile; if it is fixed, the menses is already charged with something of the same nature, and thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup.

it is impossible for it to be able to attract to itself the tincture and virtue of the other bodies that are added to it afterwards, without causing some loss; for the virtue of these bodies will be either fixed or volatile; if it is fixed, the menses is already charged with something of the same nature, and thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup. & thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup. & thus this body will not communicate its virtue to the decoction of the syrup, which is sufficiently charged; but if the virtue of this body is volatile, it will evaporate uselessly during the boiling of the superfluous liquor in the cooking of the syrup.

Everything we have said above shows that we need to give the remarks we promised on compound syrups, and the examples of the division of the materials which enter into these syrups, in order to draw the essence and virtue, according to the different nature they have in them, whether it resides in the fixed part or whether it is found in the volatile part.

We will therefore use the example of six syrups, which have six different uses, & consequently which are composed of different materials, & which are extracted with different menses, in order to make the truth better seen in all possible ways. . These syrups are, firstly, a stomach syrup, which is compound absinthe syrup . Secondly, an aperitif syrup which is the acetous syrup , or the compound vinegar syrup. The third, a hysterical syrup or for the matrix, which is the compound mugwort syrup . The fourth, a cholagogue & hepatic syrup, which is chicory syrup, made with rhubarb. The fifth, is a thoracic or pectoral syrup, which is intended for diseases of the chest, which is that of hysssop . The sixth, a purgative & phlegmagogue syrup, which is syrup of safflower , or bastard saffron. We will first give their ancient dispensation, and remarks on their failings; after which we will show how they must be made the modern way, that is to say, chemically & without defects.

§. 13. The old way of making compound absinthe syrup .

Take half a pound of Pontic wormwood, or Roman wormwood, two ounces of all roses, three drachmas of nard nard: macerate this, reduced to a coarse powder, in a glazed earthen vessel for twenty-four hours, with good old wine which is clear, and quince juice well purified, each of three pounds and four ounces; after that boil the whole & pour it, & make a syrup, according to the rules of the art, with two pounds of sugar.

This syrup is not one of the least in the shop of an Apothecary, provided it is well & duly prepared: for it is composed of things which can produce the effects that the Authors attribute to it, provided that one does not lose not by a gross ignorance, and which is by no means pardonable, of the things which constitute his virtue; which are the spirit of clear wine & the volatile, fragrant & subtle essence of absinthe, roses & nard. But we have already said sufficiently above the reasons for which we had done wrong, when we spoke of simple syrups; that is why we will content ourselves with simply saying here, that no one can cook the infusion of this syrup in consistency with two pounds of sugar, that one does not first evaporate by coction & by boiling five pounds & more, of the superfluous liquor; which cannot be done without losing the spirit of the wine & the volatile sulphurous salt of the ingredients, & thus only the acid of the quince juice will remain, & the coarse & material extract of the rest. We must therefore give another dispensation of this remedy, and the manner of doing it well without any loss of its good qualities.

§. 14. How to make compound absinthe syrup properly .

Take six ounces of recent absinthe, three ounces of mint, one ounce of galangal, two ounces of aromatic calamus, one and a half ounces of red roses, and a half ounce of nard indica, which you will cut very small, and put in a glass curcurbite, with four pounds of good claret wine; you will put everything in a bain-marie with the precautions required for work & distillation, & remove, after they have been twenty-four hours in infusion, eighteen ounces of spirituous & fragrant water, which you will put in a meeting vessel, & throw in another two & a half ounces of absinthe tops, two drachmas of cloves, a half ounce of nutmeg, & two drachmas of chosen mastic, all reduced to a subtle powder; & after it has been infused for two days in a vaporous bath, you will press it cold, & will filter the liquor that you will keep in a vial, until you have boiled what is left of your distillation, & of the expression in a glazed earthen pot, until the reduction by half, which you will clarify & cook to the consistency of tablets, to then decook it in syrup, with the water essencified with the stomachal virtue of absinthe & herbs; if you still want to make it more active & more ready to follow your directions; you can add spirit of vitriol, or that of salt, until it has acquired a pleasant acidity, which will be worth much more than the acid, which would have remained to you from the juice of quinces, after a so long & so useless boiling. until you have boiled what is left of your distillation, & expression in a glazed earthenware pot, until reduced to half, which you will clarify & cook to tablet consistency, for then decook it in syrup, with the water essencified with the stomachal virtue of absinthe & herbs; if you still want to make it more active & more ready to follow your directions; you can add spirit of vitriol, or that of salt, until it has acquired a pleasant acidity, which will be worth much more than the acid, which would have remained to you from the juice of quinces, after a so long & so useless boiling. until you have boiled what is left of your distillation, & expression in a glazed earthenware pot, until reduced to half, which you will clarify & cook to tablet consistency, for then decook it in syrup, with the water essencified with the stomachal virtue of absinthe & herbs; if you still want to make it more active & more ready to follow your directions; you can add spirit of vitriol, or that of salt, until it has acquired a pleasant acidity, which will be worth much more than the acid, which would have remained to you from the juice of quinces, after a so long & so useless boiling.

that you will clarify & cook in the consistency of tablets, to decook it afterwards in syrup, with water essencified with the stomachal virtue of absinthe & herbs; if you still want to make it more active & more ready to follow your directions; you can add spirit of vitriol, or that of salt, until it has acquired a pleasant acidity, which will be worth much more than the acid, which would have remained to you from the juice of quinces, after a so long & so useless boiling. that you will clarify & cook in the consistency of tablets, to decook it afterwards in syrup, with water essencified with the stomachal virtue of absinthe & herbs; if you still want to make it more active & more ready to follow your directions; you can add spirit of vitriol, or that of salt, until it has acquired a pleasant acidity, which will be worth much more than the acid, which would have remained to you from the juice of quinces, after a so long & so useless boiling.

§. 15. How the Ancients Made Acetous Syrup or Compound Vinegar Syrup .

Take roots of fennel, of those of ache and of that of endive, or of chicory, each of three ounces: seeds of anise, of fennel and of ache, of each one ounce, of that of endive half an ounce, boil the whole chopped, & reduced to a coarse powder in ten pounds of fountain water, over a slow fire, until reduced to half, which you will cook in syrup according to the art, in a vessel of glazed earth, with three pounds of sugar & two pounds of very strong vinegar.

We have again to complain here of the same errors, of which we have spoken so often above: birds, over low heat with ten pounds of water; and moreover, to add two pounds of vinegar to five pounds of liqueur, in order to make it lose its most penetrating and most active properties, and on what does all the incisive and appetizing virtue of this syrup depend? We do not, however, make it boring to repeat the same lesson so often; let us only say the best way to do it, since we have sufficiently explained ourselves on this in our previous remarks on simple acetous syrup.

§. 15. To chemically make compound acetic syrup .

Take roots of acne, chicory or endive, & fennel, three ounces each; seeds of anise, fennel & ache, each one ounce; from that of endive, half an ounce: beat the seeds roughly, & chop the roots very finely, then put them in a glass curcurbite, & pour over two pounds of distilled vinegar, which is well dephlegmated; distill the whole thing in a bain-marie, until you have removed all the vinegar, and the species are dry in the vessel. Keep in a flask the distilled vinegar, which is imbued with the volatile salt of the roots and that of the seeds, which communicate to it its principal virtue of opening the obstructions.

Take the rest of the curcurbite, & boil it in three pounds of common water, until there is only a third left which you will clarify & cook to the consistency of tablets with three pounds of fine sugar, & which you will decook in the lukewarm heat of the bath to the consistency of syrup, with the vinegar you have removed by distillation. This syrup is excellent for cleaning the ventricle of those called pituitous, which is usually stuffed with phlegm and mucilage, which coats its interior tunics, which prevent digestion and appetite, and which are the occasional causes of bastard fevers. ; it is also very good for opening the obstructions of the kidneys, liver & spleen, because of the subtlety of the tartar which has been volatilized in the distilled vinegar, which is aided by the subtle & penetrating virtue of the volatile & penetrating salt of the roots & seeds.

§. 16. How the Ancients Made Mugwort Syrup .

This syrup is ordinarily given as a masterpiece to young Apothecaries, who are aspirants to the Mastery. I believe, however, that it is more to probe if they know the plants, than to test if they will be able to make this syrup well, with the preservation of the virtue of its ingredients, which are truly capable of producing marvelous effects. , since it is composed of herbs, roots, seeds & aromatics, which all contribute to the same end, & which are all specific dedicated to the matrix, both to remove the suppression of the months, and to cleanse, & how to sweep the womb of all the filth with which it could be infected, & deliver it from the pains that the winds cause in this part, which most often irritate it to convulsions, & to suffocation & syncope.

But all this will not happen if we do not retain, by means of chemistry, all the subtle and penetrating virtue of what goes into this syrup.

§. 17. The description of Mugwort syrup .

Take two handfuls of mugwort, when it is up & still in bloom, warbler, calament, oregano, lemon balm, dictamne of Crete, persicaire, sabine, marjoram, chamoedrys, St. John's wort, chamopythis, chamomile with its flower, small centaury, rue, betony and bugloss, each a handful; roots of fennel, ache, parsley, asparagus, bruseus, pimpernelle, campane, aromatic cyperus, madder, iris & pœone, each one ounce; juniper berries, levêche seeds, parsley, ache, anise, Roman cockle; roots of cabaret, pyrethrum, valerian, bitter costus, carpobalsamum, or cubes, cardamom, aromatic cassia lignea, & calamus of the same nature, of each one half ounce. We must cut the grasses and the recent roots, and coarsely powder everything that is dry; then put them to macerate & infuse for twenty-four hours in ten pounds of pure water; after that, they must be cooked & evaporated until the consumption of just half, then remove the basin from the fire; & when the decoction is lukewarm, it is necessary to rub & handle the species with the hands, then to make an exact colature of it, which it will be necessary to cook in syrup with four pounds of sugar.

Note that they still recommend iteratively to take great care that the decoction is poured, & repoured very clearly before cooking it with the sugar, or that otherwise the syrup will become rancid, & will become cloudy easily, because they claim not to clarify it, lest the egg whites draw to them the virtue of the decoction; & that moreover, they order to put the aromatics only at the end of the boil, so that the virtue of these volatile substances is not lost by too long a coction. This makes it clear that these people sin only for not having been initiated into the mysteries of Chemistry, which would have taught them to reason more judiciously, and to work with more circumspection.

But let us come to the examination, & to the marks which are necessary for the instruction of the Chemical Apothecary, & we will only make three of them, which will make known enough the imperfection of their way of doing. And first, what is necessary for this friction and this handling of species, since they must be squeezed, to remove by this violence all the liquor, with which the species are imbibed. And what is this double & triple colature for, since it will never purify the decoction, & it is absolutely necessary to clarify it with the egg whites, to make a syrup that is pleasant to the sight & to the taste? blocked ? The second is that they want & order to put the aromatics only at the end of the decoction; out of fear, they say, that their virtue which consists in a great subtlety does not evaporate; & they do not consider that although the decoction may have received some virtue from the aromatics, because boiling would not have followed; however, this virtue would have to vanish when this same decoction is cooked with sugar, and thus their precaution is ill-advised, not to say ignorant.

But for the third, which is that it is necessary to have regard only to aromatics in the way of making this syrup; since all the plants, all the roots, all the fruits & all the seeds that enter into its composition, are all fragrant, & consequently filled with a very subtle salt, spirit, & sulphur, that it is necessary to preserve as well as the virtue of the aromatics; since these are the only things which give this syrup the efficacy and the power to soothe, as is claimed, all the irritations and exorbiaiions of the matrix.

It is not necessary that we give a particular method of making this syrup according to the rules of Chemistry, since we have taught & repeated enough times the way of being able to make it in the others that we have described above, & mainly by speaking of the compound acetous syrup: those who make this syrup with the precautions, and with the chemical method that we have insinuated above, will then be able to boast that they will have made a masterpiece of Pharmacy; since it is not enough to know the materials, and to make a pompous demonstration of them, to then neglect the preservation of the virtue of the things which enter into the dispensation, which are usually paraded before the Master Apothecaries.

§. 18. How chicory syrup is usually made with rhubarb .

Doctors use this syrup with a very valid reason, since it has its basis in the nature of the thing, and in the experience of its virtues: for there is nothing in this syrup that is not capable of to second their good intentions, and to produce the good effects they hope for, provided that it is done with the purified juices of the chicory plants which compose it, which testify by their bitter taste to the abundance of their essential nitro-salt. tartarous, which is aperitif & diuretic: moreover, the aperitif roots contain in them a salt which is analogous to that of plants; but what constitutes its main ingredient is rhubarb, which is the root of a species of lapathum or patience, which hides within itself a volatile, subtle & very effective salt, a balsamic sulfur & conservative of the faculties of the stomach; which is proved by its taste, by its smell and by its tingent color, which is communicated not only to the excrements and to the urine, when it is well conditioned; but which even shows the penetration of its dye, up to the eyes and uncles.

It would therefore be a great pity to lose the beautiful virtues of this admirable root, or not to teach how to extract them well and preserve them well.
This syrup is used against obstructions, against jaundice, against spleen ailments, against cachexia & impurity of the viscera, against the weakness of the ventricle, against epilepsy, or deciduous disease in general, but mainly against those of children; & finally we use it to drive out by the stools & by the urine, all that can be vitiated in us; & all this is true, because this syrup must be filled with the essential salt of the plants & the volatile salt of the roots, which is accompanied by the balsamic cum of the rhubarb, which corrects all the faults of the rare & of the stomach, which are the two parts that cause all the mess this syrup can soothe & put right back.

§. 19. How chicory syrup is usually made, compounded with rhubarb .

Take some domestic and wild endive, two and a half handfuls each; chicory & dandelion, two handfuls each; milkweed, liverwort, lettuce, sumaterra & hops, a handful each; whole barley two ounces; capillaries, each two ounces and two drachmas; fruit of alkekange, liquorice, ceterach and dodder, each six drachmas; fennel, ache & asparagus roots, two ounces each. We must chop the herbs and the roots, and boil them in thirty pounds of water, until reduced by half; then you will cook this decoction with ten pounds of clarified sugar in syrup, to which you will add while boiling a nouet of clear linen, in which there will be seven and a half ounces of excellent rhubarb, cut very slender, & two scruples of nard indic: it will be necessary to press the tie from time to time; & when the syrup will be cooked in consistency, & that one will have put it in its pot, it should be suspended there to tie with the rhubarb & the spicnard, to better maintain its virtue.

What we have said above, is the common order to make this syrup; but they have deemed it necessary to add some observations to make it better, which nevertheless are no better than the rest; for although they believe they have met better than before, they nevertheless only hesitate and grope about, without being able to find the true path, because the torch of Chemistry does not enlighten them. They therefore say that the barley, the roots and the dry matter of this composition must be macerated for twenty-four hours in the quantity of water they require, and then all the rest must be boiled together, until 'to the halving.

That you must then pour the decoction & take a portion, in which you will infuse for the space of twelve hours at least, seven and a half ounces of rhubarb & spicnard, to extract their tincture & virtue; after which, they must be boiled a little, then expressed gently; & that this tincture should only be added to the rest when the other part of the decoction has been cooked to the perfect consistency of syrup, & also put the rhubarb & the indidic nard in a cloth knot, so that they communicate their coming to the rest of the syrup, because otherwise one would not recognize that the suspension of this same nouet in the syrup, could contribute to its virtue; & when everything is joined, it is necessary to thicken this syrup slowly until the required consistency. then express them gently; & that this tincture should only be added to the rest when the other part of the decoction has been cooked to the perfect consistency of syrup, & also put the rhubarb & the indidic nard in a cloth knot, so that they communicate their coming to the rest of the syrup, because otherwise one would not recognize that the suspension of this same nouet in the syrup, could contribute to its virtue; & when everything is joined, it is necessary to thicken this syrup slowly until the required consistency. then express them gently; & that this tincture should only be added to the rest when the other part of the decoction has been cooked to the perfect consistency of syrup, & also put the rhubarb & the indidic nard in a cloth knot, so that they communicate their coming to the rest of the syrup, because otherwise one would not recognize that the suspension of this same nouet in the syrup, could contribute to its virtue; & when everything is joined, it is necessary to thicken this syrup slowly until the required consistency.

because otherwise we would not recognize that the suspension of this same nouet in the syrup, could contribute to its virtue; & when everything is joined, it is necessary to thicken this syrup slowly until the required consistency. because otherwise we would not recognize that the suspension of this same nouet in the syrup, could contribute to its virtue; & when everything is joined, it is necessary to thicken this syrup slowly until the required consistency.
It seems that these gentlemen took great care to reform the preparation of this syrup; but it is very roughly: for do they not judge that this decoction is charged with the body of the roots and that of the herbs, and that thus it cannot be charged more, nor can it extract the rhubarb, which is the basis & foundation of the virtue of this remedy. Even if they had ordered to clarify this decoction before, in order to strip it of the gross body that colature cannot remove from it; they would have shown some spark of judgment, which however would still be very imperfect, since that could extract better; but they would not retain the volatile rhubarb, nor the smell of spicnard,

§. 20. How to make chicory syrup made with rhubarb .

Take enough of all the succulents that go into this syrup, to have eight pounds of juice; chop them & beat them with a stone mortar; draw out the juice, which you will put in a bain-marie in a glass curcurbite covered with its capital, to make the proper purification; reserve the water that will come out of it, run your juice through the blanket, & put it in a bain-marie, & add the peeled roots & the capillaries, you will take out four drops of water which you will add to the first. Put the quantity of rhubarb & nard indicated that you intend for your syrup: I presuppose half a drachma for an ounce of syrup, which makes an ounce for a pound in a matrass, & pour over it the water that you have withdrawn from your juices , until it floats by three fingers, digested in a vaporous bath for twelve hours to extract it; pour & gently press this first impression, put the rhubarb back in the matrass with new water, & continue in this way up to three times, & you will have all the tincture of the rhubarb, which you purify by residence in the bain-marie because of the expression, which always causes some coarse & material body to pass through: this done, cook the rest of your juice, after having run it & clarified it with the sugar, & reduce it to the consistency of tablets, which you will cook with your tincture of rhubarb in a real syrup, which will have all the virtues that one hopes for, & which will keep for a long time without loss of its faculties, because of the abundance of the salts of the plants & the real balsamic sulfur of the rhubarb. Note that half an ounce of this syrup,

§. 21. The Manner of Making Hyssop Syrup Compound According to the Method of the Ancients .

Take some moderately dry hyssop, roots of ache, fennel, parsley, and liquorice, ten drachmas each; hulled barley half an ounce, tragacanth gum, mallow and quince seeds, three drachmas each; capillaries, six drachmas; jujubes & sebestes, each to the number of thirty; raisins, with the seeds removed, one and a half ounces; figs & dates that are oily, each ten in number: you have to cook the whole thing in eight pounds of water, until there are only four left, which you have to reduce to the consistency of syrup, after pressing it with two pounds of penide sugar.

If we have noticed anything improper & badly digested in the recipes of the previous syrups; this, however, makes even more apparent the ignorance of the true Pharmacy in those who have made it. For if we take the trouble to thoroughly examine the ingredients which compose it, we find there only an abyss of abuses and errors; what I find even worse is that Chemistry is here pushed to the limit, without it being able to save or repair the shortcomings of this practice: because the roots and the herbs already give a decoction of themselves quite grimy: the fruits make it slow & viscous; but the gum & the seeds will make it quite mucilaginous, so that it will be impossible to ever make a syrup out of it. That if someone boasts of being able to do it:

Talem vix repperit unum, Millibus è multis hominum consultus Apollo.

Because if he claims to make his decoction superficially, without the roots, fruits, seeds & gum being well cooked, he will frustrate the intention of the Author, & will deprive the syrup of the alleged virtue attributed to it ; that if he still cooks them properly, he will lose the volatile of the roots, and principally that of the hysssop and the capillaries; & if he clarifies his decoction with egg whites, they will retain the gum & the mucilages.

I also know that the Apothecaries, who make this syrup, claim to have fulfilled their duty, when they boiled the mucilaginous substances among the decoction in a nouet, which they afterwards withdraw without pressing it, & thus their decoction is stripped of what is asked for. Besides, what could be more ridiculous than to substitute penide sugar for common sugar? because I cannot imagine any other reason for this prescription, except that it is only to raise the price of the syrup, & to deceive the common & the ignorant. As this syrup is therefore impossible, we will leave it as useless, since it cannot have the virtues attributed to it, of being good for cold diseases of the chest, where it is necessary to unharness & attenuate the matter filth & slow that obsesses him, to remove the obstructions, to alleviate the pains of hypochondriacs, and to be beneficial to those who are worked with gravel.

Now, there is no one who knows even a little bit about the materials that go into this syrup, who does not see that it is a manifest absurdity to hope to open the obstructions with mucus and with glues, which would produce them rather than be in any way able to remove them. Therefore, whoever wants to have a good pectoral syrup, let him do it in the following way. than being in any way able to remove them. Therefore, whoever wants to have a good pectoral syrup, let him do it in the following way. than being in any way able to remove them. Therefore, whoever wants to have a good pectoral syrup, let him do it in the following way.

§. 22. Very excellent hysssop pectoral syrup .

Take recent hyssop, four ounces, and roots of ache, fennel, parsley, and liquorice, two ounces each. You have to chop them and beat them coarsely, then put them in a glass curcurbite, and pour over them a pound of hyssop juice, twelve ounces of fennel juice, and half a pound of ground ivy juice; distill the whole thing in a bain-marie, until the species seem almost dry: put again in infusion during a natural day in your water an ounce and a half of recent hyssop, & as much unprepared squill: an ounce of fennel root, & as many tops of ground ivy, pour, press & filter this infusion, & keep it apart. Then boil what is left of the distillation and the expression, in four liters of water, that only half of it remains that you will press, pour & clarify; then cook them to the consistency of tablets with two and a half pounds of sugar, which will have to be cooked in syrup with the water essencified with the tincture and the salt of the pectoral plants. So you will have a syrup that will serve you well.

§. 23. How safflower syrup was commonly made .

It seems that the ancient Physicians, and even the modern ones, pretended that they were very learned in theory, and very experienced in practice, when they made useless assemblages of a vain quantity of materials, for the composition of waters, electuaries & opiates; but mainly in the descriptions they gave us of their masterful syrups. That of safflower, or bastard saffron, which we undertake to examine, furnishes us with a sufficient example; because I don't know what trick of the Master these gentlemen claim to have done, to sometimes mix drugs with each other, which are completely different, and which most often contradict their intentions: now, this is only done at because they do not know the difference of salts, nor of spirits, & much less the action & the reaction of some on others, as it is seen every day, in the laboratory of those who devote themselves to the anatomy of natural bodies, to learn by this means the operations of the nature, in order to follow it closely in the things that art prescribes for us; because those who have made, or who still make these complicated recipes, have certainly neither well conceived nor well known by any experience, that as nature is one and simple, so she acts very simply; & that thus, it is necessary that Doctors, who are only ministers & monkeys, study to know the simple & specific virtue of natural products, in order to use them with the same simplicity, & to to be true imitators of nature.

However, they were not satisfied with making a useless rhapsody; but they have moreover ordained the modus saciendi , in such a confused way, and so little capable of extracting virtue from all these different things mixed together, that it gives horror and pity. And as these syrups are still in practice in several places, although they are now cut off from the practice of Doctors, who are the most enlightened: we thought it necessary to lead to the true method of making these syrups well, the Apothecaries who do not have no knowledge of the lights of Chemistry; but first let's say the common way to do it.

Take therefore for this purgative syrup composed of true capillary, hyssop, thyme, oregano, chamedrys, chamepytnis, centipede and bugloss, each half a handful; dodder, alkekangel fruit, angelica roots, liquorice, fennel, asparagus, one ounce each; oak polypody, an ounce and a half; tamarisk bark, half an ounce; seeds of anise, fennel, ammi, daucus, one ounce each; of that of lightly pounded safflower, four ounces; ground grapes, from which the pips will have been removed, two ounces: boil all this, roughly chopped and beaten, in six pounds of clear water, which you will reduce to a third; you must pour this decoction, & put in it a warm infusion of one and a half ounces of hulled senna, half an ounce of agaric in trochisque, six drachmas of chosen rhubarb, & a drachma of ginger: they must be left to macerate for a whole night, & the next day make a strong expression, & the colature, which will have to be cooked in syrup with a pound of fine sugar, & add to it syrups violat solutive, rosat solutif, & simple acetous of two ounces each. They intend the use of this syrup for the cure of inveterate fevers, daily fevers & quarts, to open the obstructions, which come from the slowness & coarseness of what is called pituite, & to drive out by the ways of the that it will be necessary to cook in syrup with a pound of fine sugar, & add to it syrups violat solutive, rosat solutif, & simple acetous of two ounces each. They intend the use of this syrup for the cure of inveterate fevers, daily fevers & quarts, to open the obstructions, which come from the slowness & coarseness of what is called pituite, & to drive out by the ways of the that it will be necessary to cook in syrup with a pound of fine sugar, & add to it syrups violat solutive, rosat solutif, & simple acetous of two ounces each.

They intend the use of this syrup for the cure of inveterate fevers, daily fevers & quarts, to open the obstructions, which come from the slowness & coarseness of what is called pituite, & to drive out by the ways of the womb the harmful serous fluids.

I ask now, if it is possible that a decoction which is charged with the substance of the first materials of this syrup, & which moreover is reduced to a third: I ask, I say, if it is capable of receiving, nor yet to be able to extract the virtue of purgatives; & moreover, what is the use, please, of adding two ounces of each of the syrups that are requested, since you can put sugar in their place, & add in their place an infusion of violets? , of that of roses, & a little simple & ordinary vinegar, or of that which will be distilled, as we will say it hereafter? But that's not all; because it is necessary besides that to consider the very important loss of the volatile & sulphurous salts of the herbs, the roots & the seeds, which fly away & which evaporate by the coction. Let us say then as we will do it better; & that the syrup which will follow, serve as a rule for all the other purgative syrups which are composed.

§. 24. The real way to make safflower syrup .

Take true capillary, hysssop, thyme, oregano, chamedris, chamepithis, centipede, angelica root, anise, fennel & ammi seeds; cut plants & roots, & coarsely powder seeds; adjust the whole in a gourd in a bain-marie, with two pounds of water & four ounces of juice or infusion of roses, as much of that of violets, & one ounce of distilled vinegar; cover the curcurbite with its capital, and remove half a pound of spirituous and odoriferous water which you will reserve. Add to this first decoction the bugloss, the dodder, the seeds of alkekange, the roots of liquorice, fennel, asparagus & oak polipody, the bark of tamarise, the seed of safflower & the hulled grapes, & add another three pounds of water; boil everything until a third or half is consumed; pour & press the rest of the ingredients; clarify this decoction with egg whites, & infuse at slow heat in this clarification, the senna, the agaric in trochisques, the rhubarb & the ginger, during the space of twenty-four hours; at the end of which, you will boil them a little together, then you will pour them. Keep the colature apart, & boil the purgative species once more in a pound of new common water, in order to complete the extraction of all the virtue: pour & squeeze this last decoction, which you will join to the first extraction of the purgatives, which you will clarify & cook in the consistency of electuary with two pounds of brown sugar; then what, you will reduce your syrup in true consistency with the spirituous & aromatic water, which you will have drawn by distillation. In this way, you will have a compound purgative syrup, which will be very pleasant, which will have all the virtues of the things that go into its composition, and which will keep for several years, without any alteration, as long as it is held, like all the other syrups, in a moderate place, which is neither hot nor cool; because it is these two qualities which are usually the occasional causes of their fermentation, which makes them acid, or of their mold, which corrupts and spoils them. that you will have drawn by distillation.

In this way, you will have a compound purgative syrup, which will be very pleasant, which will have all the virtues of the things that go into its composition, and which will keep for several years, without any alteration, as long as it is held, like all the other syrups, in a moderate place, which is neither hot nor cool; because it is these two qualities which are usually the occasional causes of their fermentation, which makes them acid, or of their mold, which corrupts and spoils them. that you will have drawn by distillation. In this way, you will have a compound purgative syrup, which will be very pleasant, which will have all the virtues of the things that go into its composition, and which will keep for several years, without any alteration, as long as it is held, like all the other syrups, in a moderate place, which is neither hot nor cool; because it is these two qualities which are usually the occasional causes of their fermentation, which makes them acid, or of their mold, which corrupts and spoils them. like also all the other syrups, in a moderate place, which is neither hot nor cool; because it is these two qualities which are usually the occasional causes of their fermentation, which makes them acid, or of their mold, which corrupts and spoils them. like also all the other syrups, in a moderate place, which is neither hot nor cool; because it is these two qualities which are usually the occasional causes of their fermentation, which makes them acid, or of their mold, which corrupts and spoils them.

Here is what we had to say about the plants, and the remarks that we deemed necessary for those who want to make distilled waters and syrups well. What we have said is sufficient to learn well, not only what is useful for these two preparations: but it can still be used with great reason, to make all macerations, infusions, decoctions, digestions & the boilings, of all that the Physicians order to the Apothecaries, for the apozemes, for the juleps, and for the potions that they prescribe for the good of the sick; & I know that after the Apothecaries will have known what good can be evaporated by the actions of heat, that they will study to preserve it; in order to do all the good for their neighbour, to the discharge of their conscience & to the honor of the Pharmacy; & moreover, they will recognize that they have been able to receive these lights from elsewhere, only by the dogmas of Chemical Pharmacy.

Now, after having thus given a general idea of ​​whole plants and of their constituent parts, of what they contain that is fixed and volatile; & after having given the necessary marks, to ensure that the chemical artist loses nothing of what he must preserve: it is time to move on to the parts, that nature & art provide us with this ample family, & that we gave a section to each of the fourteen subordinate genera, which are drawn from the principal vegetable genus; so that the example that we will give of the chemical work, which must be done on the species of the same nature of this subordinate genus, serves as a beacon & guide, to be able to work on all the other species which resemble it.

These subordinate genera are as we have already said, the roots , the leaves , the flowers , the fruits , the seeds , the barks , the woods , the seeds or the berries , the juices , the oils , the tears , the resins , gum resins & gums .
We will give a Section to each of these genres in particular, so that if this genre, although subordinate, nevertheless still has some subordination under it, that we make the subdivision, to give by this means more light to the artist, because that there is variety and difference between parts of the same genre, which consequently require a different way of working them. We will begin the second volume with the roots.

ADDITIONS TO VOLUME I.

I. Particular preparation of a very healthy Hydromel, and whose taste is not very different from that of the wine of Spain, or of Malmsey .

The advantages that many people derive from the use of mead in foreign Nations have recently made this liquor so recommendable in France, among people who take any care of their health, that several having testified that they are would oblige, if we wanted to give them an exact preparation, we did not want to deprive them of this satisfaction; and we give it to them all the more willingly, as we have a perfect knowledge of the usefulness that we receive from it, by using it for ordinary drink.

Boil over a moderate fire, about twenty pints of rainwater, or failing that, as much very pure common water, in a large copper pan tinned on the inside, and whose capacity is such that the water fill only two-thirds of it. Dissolve in this boiling water five or six pounds of new honey, the purest and whitest you can find, such as that of Narbonne; & cook it, skimming it often, until the liquor has acquired enough consistency to support a fresh egg without falling to the bottom of the vessel.

During this operation, you will boil separately, in a glazed earthenware pot, half a pound of damask grapes cut in half, with four quarts of water, until the liquor has reduced by half; then having passed it through a white cloth, pressing the grapes a little, you will pour it into the large frying pan with the other liqueur; & still leaving everything on the fire, you will insert a toast of bread soaked in new brewer's yeast: after which, having skimmed it again, you will draw it from the fire, & let it rest until clear, which you will separate from its sediment, to pour it into an oak barrel, on an ounce of very pure and very white salt of tartar dissolved in a glass of spirits of wine, as long as this barrel is full, which you will then expose all loosened on tiles to the heat of the midday sun, in summer, or on a baker's oven, in winter, as long as the liquor no longer boils, it no longer scums.

Then having filled it with the same clear liquor, you will seal it, and put it in the cellar, to pierce it in two or three months later.
That if you wish this mead to have some aromatic odor, you will put five or six drops of essence of cinnamon in the spirit of wine, which serves to dissolve the salt of tartar, or you will infuse it with the remains of new lemon rind, or strawberries or raspberries, according to your taste, observing to pass this spirit, and to separate the fruits immediately after the infusion, before dissolving the salt of tartar; & by this means, you will have a vinous mead of a very pleasant taste & smell, which experience has shown to have the following properties.

This liquor being taken ordinarily instead of wine, strengthens the stomach, aids digestion, purifies the blood, preserves plumpness, stops headaches, lowers vapours, cures consumption, asthma , & all other diseases of the lungs, lifts the obstructions of the lower abdomen, & preserves all the viscera in such a good constitution, that its use makes one enjoy perfect health for a long time, & a long & quiet life.

II. Quintessence of honey .

You will take two pounds of white honey, which has a good smell and a good taste. You will put it in a large glass curcurbite, three-quarters of which will be empty. You will cover it with its well-luted beak cover, to which you will apply a large similarly-luted container. Make a low fire of ashes, until you see rising white vapors; & to condense them in spirit, you will apply on the yoke & on the receptacle cloths moistened in cold water, & a liquor will come out of it which will be red as blood. After the distillation, you will put this liquor in a well stoppered glass vessel, as long as the liquor is well clarified & of ruby ​​color.

After which you will distill seven or eight times, until its red color is converted into a golden yellow, & will take on a very sweet & very pleasant smell. This quintessence dissolves gold into lime, and makes it drinkable. Two or three drams of this liquor taken internally, bring back to them those who are at the extremity: it even strengthens those who enjoy health, cures coughs, catarrhs ​​& the spleen; applied to wounds & ulcers, it heals them immediately, Fioraventi reports having given it to people near death, & whom he thus called back to life, to give them at least time to put their affairs in order . Distilled twenty times with fine silver, and given for forty-six days to a paralytic, he was cured of it: this is what Fioraventi claims to have experienced himself. Whereupon this Physician makes a very sensible remark on this subject, which God never promised in Holy Scripture, neither scammoned, nor broken, nor turbith, nor rhubarb; but wheat, wine, oil, milk and honey.

III. Honey oil .

You will take what you want of good, well-chosen white honey, which you will mix with its double weight of neat sand. Put it in a retorte, or in a cucurbite, to distil over a heat of degrees. First a phlegm will come out of it, then a black oil which will turn a beautiful red after it has been exposed to the sun for thirty or forty days. Distill this oil several times, and it becomes golden in color.
I
V. Fermentation of honey, to make wine, brandy, & spirit .


All chemists know that leaven is needed for the fermentation of materials, which naturally do not ferment on their own, as is needed to make dough rise, as well as for beer. But though every vegetable leaven ferments another vegetable, yet there is difference from one leaven to another. All leaven is a vegetation of its kind; & consequently a leaven can alter the nature & the essence of another species with which it will be mixed; like another which is confermented with the trunk on which it is joined, from which it comes mixed fruits, which partake of the two species. Thus the Bergamots of Italy are the proof. They have the shape, color and smell of a pear; & when you cut them, you find the inside of an orange.

It is therefore necessary that in fermentation, nothing can degenerate, if we want that the virtue of the mixture is not altered, and that it remains in its pure, natural and seminal wanderings, otherwise it does not produce the effect that we have to wait. From which it appears that the yeasts of bakers, of beer, of wine and of cider, are not suitable for making the fermentation of honey, of which they alter the virtue, because they are of a different species. It is therefore necessary to ferment the honey by itself. It is a substance produced by the universal spirit. It is a beginning of corporification & coagulation of the spirits of air & water, which unite with the vapors of the earth, from which an unctuous substance is drawn, which serves as food for plants. , & which gives them the first movement of fecundity.

On this principle, dissolve one weight of honey in four weights of very pure and very clear hot river water. You will keep this solution in ovens heated day and night by a stove, which is in the middle of the oven. The degree of heat must be such that one can remain in the oven without being inconvenienced. After three or four days, without the need for any foreign leaven, the dissolved honey begins to ferment. And when it is in good fermentation, that is to say, a day or two after it has started, you can add crushed damask raisins, two ounces per pound of honey, with half a large cinnamon. .

The whole being well mixed, the fermentation is left to finish, which is not complete until your grapes and your cinnamon have sunk to the bottom. We mix them again once or twice,

After this fermentation, your liquor will have a vinous taste, and you can keep it in clean vessels for your use; or if you want to push it further, you will distil the eau-de-vie in the refrigerator, as eau-de-vie is distilled: for this, you will put all your material, juice & marc, in the still . The distillation being done, it is rectified more or less, if you want, to draw from it a spirit which takes the place of spirit of wine, and which is a much more natural and homogeneous dissolvent of plants and simples, than other ; & by this means, we will be able to carry out the operations that we are going to mark.

V. Manner of making good lemon balm water by the spirit of honey .

Take a pound of white honey four pounds, or two pints of clear river water, which you will heat a little, to dissolve the honey in it, in the proportion that we mark for working in large volume. Put everything to ferment in a warm place in a wooden vessel, like a small vat, which you will cover lightly with a cloth.
If after four days the material does not enter fermentation, one could add brewer's yeast to it to make it ferment more quickly. When it begins to ferment, you must add lemon balm, cut and ground well in a mortar, until the consistency of porridge. The proportion is to put two pounds, or a pint's worth of this lemon balm, thus in marmalade, for every pound of honey dissolved; & leave to ferment, until all the lemon balm has fallen to the bottom of the vessel.

After which, the liquor must be drained, which forms a vinous mead, filled with the spirit of lemon balm. You can reserve part of it in the bottle; but it is necessary to perfect the rest, to still draw from it the spirit; after, however, the marc, which has remained at the bottom of the vessel, has been pressed, here is what must be done.

Crush the new lemon balm again, and put it into a kind of marmalade; add a pint's worth to each pint of your mead. Let them digest together for two or three days; then put them in a still, to extract a brandy of lemon balm made by its meads. This brandy will be even more perfect than mead; but to go further, do the following.

Have some lemon balm, which you will have dried a little in the shade for five or six days, you will add about a good handful of it to each pint of your brandy, with the peel of a lemon & a quarter of a nutmeg, which you will digest for about two days, after which you will extract the spirit from it through the still, & you will have an excellent spirit of lemon balm, & which is very good for the preservation & the restoration of health.

As this last spirit is too strong to be drunk alone, it can be mixed with a syrup made with water & sugar, & clarified with beaten egg white; & for then, we dose it as we deem appropriate; or else, you can mix it with the first mead that you have reserved. But to use it externally, you must take the spirit without mixing it, and rub the painful or afflicted parts with it.

All the marc that we had from the lemon balm should not be thrown away; but they must be calcined and reduced to ashes as much as possible. Being well calcined, wash it with boiling water; filter it through paper, then evaporate it, and you will have a salt left, which you will melt in new hot water; evaporate to extract the salt, which will be whiter than the first. Put half an ounce of this salt in each pint of your lemon balm spirit, and its strength and virtue will be increased; or else, instead of calcining the lemon balm, you will take it & add new ones, & triturate it with clarified water, as the practice of M. le Comte de Garraye in Hydraulic Chemistry

VI. Manner of making the true water of the Queen of Hungary, by the spirit of honey .

This water, which has so much reputation, should not be made with the spirit of wine from the vines, as is usually practiced: but with the spirit of rosemary wine fermented by honey, which multiplies the quantity and the virtue of the plant, without altering its simplicity.

It is therefore necessary to make this water, take a pound of white honey, four pounds of well clarified river water, & ferment them with a pound of rosemary, flowers, leaves & stem pounded, & crushed as we said that it was necessary for lemon balm water. Honey, which is a substance homogeneous with flowers and plants, is a solvent drawn from the universal spirit, and much more apt to make its quintessence, than would be the spirit of wine, which is of a species difference. . When the fermentation is finished, the marc falls to the bottom, and there remains a kind of vinous mead, which must be cleared, squeeze the faeces to have what can be expressed: this first work does not last more than eight days. Take new rosemary flowers, leaves & stems, pound & put with your mead in a large curcurbite, to distil over low heat, as one does brandy: you will take the distilled liquor, & you will add a sufficient quantity of rosemary flowers; let it digest & distill over low heat, & you will have the true water of the Queen of Hungary, in which there is all the substance of the plant, & which can be taken internally, in small quantities however.

But for outdoor use, one could fortify this water with the own salt of the calcined plant, & which one makes a laundry. We extract from this lye by evaporation the salt of the plant, which we join with its spirit, and which we even fortify with an eighth or sixth of a spirit of sal ammoniac; then this water from the Queen of Hungary is excellent for rheumatism, gangrene, putrid ulcers, bruises & extravasated blood, by steaming the part several times a day: which has been tried more than once.

One can draw the same spirit & by the same way from all the aromatic plants, like sage, rheumatism, lavender, imperative, wormwood, hyssop, & from those which abound in volatile salts, whose virtue is infinitely exalted by this operation.

VII. Very useful electuary of great cousoude taken internally, from Fioraventi .

Comfrey is a herb on which this name has been imposed, for the virtue it has of consolidating wounds & separated places in the flesh: it also helps a lot, taken by the mouth, for ruptures from below ; it is useful for all wounds which penetrate the body, for ulcers of the lungs, dries the skin, and has other similar effects. But in order that it may be used easily, an electuary is composed of it, which is such.

Take a pound of comfrey root, & boil it in water until it is consumed; & having crushed it well in a mortar & passed through a sieve, you will add as much white honey as you have spent liquor, & boil them over a low heat, until they are cooked in the shape of a electuary; & when they are all cooked, you will add to them what follows.

Clove. Safran, each one a dragme. Fine cinnamon, two drams. Musc de Levant dissolved in pink water, one carat. Incorporate everything, while still hot, & it will know. Here is the electuary of cousode made, of the composition of Fioraventi, of which before using it, it is necessary that the patient is first well purged, and that he goes on a heavy diet, if one wants to draw help from it. It cures all internal diseases, as I said. You can also make plasters on wounds & broken bones, take it by mouth; & thus the patient will heal in a short time without any disgust, with the help of God first, & the virtue of such a medicine. With this remedy I have seen old men healed, who were broken down, or who had wounds that went right through, broken bones,

VIII. Excellent plaster made by honey .

The following ointment is to be used in ailments, which do not suffer from greasy & unctuous things. Take four ounces of very pure honey, twelve ounces of expressed & purified plantin juice, & two ounces of sweet Venus vitriol; cook gently until thickened; then add half an ounce of well ground oriental saffron; & to make the whole thing more effective, add a little balm of antimony. The virtues of these two remedies, as experienced by Juncken & myself, far outweigh any other remedy, in the worst wounds & ulcers: this appears even by the simple verdigris plaster. grey, reduced to a plaster with the wax which marvelously softens the hard tumors of the breasts. From Saulx .

IX. Pectoral syrup, which is suitable in all kinds of coughs, or the sputum is viscous .

Take dry leaves of borage, bugloss, & donkey flowers, a handful each; lemon balm, hysssop, agrimony, half a handful each, well peeled & cleaned; dates, figs, jujubes, sebestes, two ounces each; fresh lemon peel, one ounce. Boil the whole in six pints of water, reduced to half; add an ounce of beaten liquorice at the end; remove the cockle from the heat; pass the whole through a cheesecloth, with expression: clarify this decoction with the white of eggs, & then put in the colature a pound of brown candy sugar. Boil it again, until it is reduced to the consistency of syrup.

The patient will take half a spoonful of it every three hours, beaten in a glass of hot water, and continue it until the cough is appeased. This syrup is universally good in all sorts of colds and inveterate coughs.

The patient can make his usual drink of it, mixing three or four spoonfuls of this syrup in a pint of boiling water, and then letting it cool.

When we cannot recover these different ingredients, we increase in proportion to those which are lacking, the quantity of those which we employ. With the same simples, you can make all kinds of herbal teas & broths.

The less well-off people, instead of sugar, can use common white honey, and well chosen: they can use it everywhere, where sugar is necessary. Methods of Helvetius .

X. To make the laxative syrup of Fioraventi by honey, & the manner of practicing it in several diseases .

The laxative syrups made by decoction are very beneficial, especially against raw humors; because they arrange the material, & evacuate it with great ease, without tiring it out. Thus, let anyone take this laxative syrup, that will not prevent him from being able to go out that day without any danger, and he will not fail to operate well, which is very convenient for patients. patients who need these kinds of syrups. But the way to do it is to take:

Sage, Rue, Rosemary, Alornier, Chicory, Blessed Charcoal, Nettle, Oregano, a handful of each of these herbs. Figs, Dates, Sweet Almonds, Rock Salt, each four ounces. Hepatic Aloe, Cinnamon, Mirobolants citrines, of each two ounces. Common honey two pounds.

All these things are coarsely pounded, & put together in infusion in eighteen pounds of common water: then boiled until they return to half; squeeze the decoction, which must be clarified through the filter, & flavor it with two carats of musk & a pound of rose water, & it will be done.

This decoction should be kept in a tightly stoppered glass vessel. It is useful for all illnesses as I have said, taking from four to six ounces fairly hot, in winter, autumn and spring, lukewarm; & summer, cold. It purges the coarse humors, & does not corrupt the meat. You can continue to take it for fevers, four or five days in a row, and they will be cured. But for illnesses which are caused by raw humours, & even by Naples sickness, gouts, catarrhs, joint pains, & other similar which are without fever, one can take ten or fifteen days for ten or fifteen days; for it can do no harm, & purges the body perfectly.

It can be taken for cough, flow of urine, headache, for fleshiness of the penis, for hemorrhoids; finally, it is good for all illnesses caused by corrupt humors, being of such virtue, that it purges the external parts, & also evacuates the internal humors of the body. I have made an infinity of experiments with this syrup, on people almost abandoned by Doctors, and who had lost their appetite, who immediately recovered.

XI. Elixir of Paracelsus property .

Take Myrrh of Alexandria , Hepatic Aloe , Oriental Saffron , ana four ounces. Pulverize together, & put them afterwards in a glass vessel, moistening them with a good spirit of alcoholic wine: this done, you must add the oil of rectified sulfur, & made by the bell. I say, however, in passing, that to have more sulfur oil, it must be distilled in rainy weather, having chosen the most yellow or greyish. The said oil must float the rest to the eminence of three or four fingers, & immediately you will put the whole thing in digestion for the space of two days, circulating it often, & the tincture does not fail to be made, which must be separate by inclination.

As for the matter which remains at the bottom, it must be sprinkled with a good spirit of wine, and left to digest for the space of two months, circulating it every day, so that it renders all its tincture, which will be removed and mixed with the first, to distill it slowly. Faeces must also be distilled; & what comes out first, mixed with the first tincture; & by this means, he will not feel the fire so strongly as in the ordinary way of distilling.

Care must be taken to sprinkle the matter with the spirit of wine, so that it can be put into a paste; after which, oil of sulfur must be added; for without that, all matter would burn and become black as coal, which Paracelsus hid very subtly.
Its strengths & its use.

It is the balm of the Ancients, according to the report of Paracelsus, warming the weak parts, & preserving them from putrefaction.

Finally, it is a very perfect elixir; for in it are all the virtues of the natural balm, with the preservative virtue, chiefly for those whom age has brought up to the fiftieth or sixtieth year.

It does wonders for stomach & lung ailments. Against the plague & the poisonous air. It expels the various humors from the ventricle. It comforts the stomach & the intestines, & preserves them from pain. It mondifies the chest, & relieves hetics, catarrhous, & those who are oppressed by cough. It is no less beneficial in cooling the head & stomach. It cures hemicrania, or migraine, & even dizziness, which often happens to weak people. It is useful against chassie of the eyes. It strengthens the heart & the memory. It relieves in the pains of sides, & little by little the itching, which often comes to the body. It ruptures the calculus of the kidneys. Cures quartan fever. It preserves from paralysis & tastes.It subtilizes & purifies the understanding, & all the other natural senses. It chases away melancholy & procures joy.

It resists old age, & prevents man from soon becoming old, & decrepit. It prolongs life, which by debauchery of drinking & eating excessively, would have been shortened. It heals internal wounds & ulcers in a short time. And finally all infirmities, both hot and cold, receive relief & even desired health.
Dose said liquid salt.

The dose is from six, to ten or twelve drops, according to the necessity of the patient, thrown into wine, or suitable waters.

End of the first volume.