Dissertation on temperate salts

SAMUEL COTTEREAU DU CLOS
dit Duclos (1598-1685) French chemist and physician to Roy
Member of the Academy of Sciences in 1666

Transcription of the manuscript PAGES 144 to 198

… Nitrous salts mixed with acetous acquire new properties which are very considerable. I give these Salts the name Temperate, because the acrimony of each seems to be weakened by their mixture, as one recognizes in vitriolated Salt of Tartar, although their activity is notably strengthened, since they then have the virtue of acting on all parts of the solid Mixed to solve them.

What they have of nitrous joins with terrestrial sulphurities, which give compaction and resolve them by its liquidity. Which is chiefly required for the resolution of Metals, which are composed of manifestly diverse parts, some mercurial and others sulphurous. For these metallic bodies condensed by the earthiness of their Sulfurs are not resolved well except by mixed Solvents which have the double power of penetrating and of resolving.

The acetous portion of their inconcrete Salt penetrates and brings with it the nitrous portion of these resolving liquors, which alone acts on the Sulfur of the Metal which the heterogeneous acetous Salt is not capable of resolve, being able to act only on its like, and only discontinuing the compact metallic mass, without resolving the composition of the discontinued parts. But it happens in this resolution of the metallic Sulfur by the action of the nitrous and sulphide portion of the mixed Solvent, on this condensative Sulfur of the Metal, that this Sulfur resolves by this nitrous portion of Salt, retains not only this nitrous Salt, but also the acetous which accompanies it, and which the Metal thus resolves, becomes saline, and if it preserves in this state its specific properties, it can communicate them to other subjects disposed to receive it. This means is the most esteemed of Alchemists for the perfecting transmutation of Imperfect Metals.

If Gold acquires this saline quality by the double Salt of wine contained in its inflammable Spirit, it is one of the greatest mysteries of Medicine for the healing of illnesses and for the preservation of human health .

I will explain myself better on this subject in another dissertation. The strong waters only acuous penetrate and discontinue the Metals, but they do not resolve them. They can be brought back to a metallic consistency and form. Only nitrous or sulphurated solvents act only on the sulphurous parts of the Mixtes from which they take some tincture, but this extraction is not a complete resolution.

Resolving liquors, to act on the third parts of the solid mixture, must therefore be composed, both of acetous salts which opens and attenuates by penetrating, and of nitrous salt, which resolves by uniting with the sulphide terrestrial particles, which give compaction by the connection which they have between them. If these Solvents are homogeneous with the subjects on which they are used, the resolution is better, because similar things unite more easily to act on each other. The liquor distilled from a plant cohobed several times on the same plant makes it better to release the Salt without altering it, and the dissolution of Metals is done better by metallic mercurial waters than by other heterogeneous Solvents.

Solvents composed of nitrous salts and acetous of various kinds are very numerous. Chemists give to some of these Solvents the name of Menses, taken from the time and duration of their resolving action, which takes place in some mixture in the space of a calendar month, or at most forty days which are the month of chemists. This resolution was called menstruation, and thus the name of Menstrue passed to the saline liquor in which the Mixed compact is resolved in this space of time. This appellation has been made by some common to all resolving liquors; but it is not suitable for simply corrosive waters that are put on solid materials to discontinue them only in subtle particles, for this discontinuation of parts is not a resolution of the compound into its constituent parts. This resolution is only effected by Solvents which have a double power, one to penetrate, the other to resolve. Penetration is proper to the acetous salts and to the spirituous liquors which derive from it by distillation, and it is from the rare and subtle air joined to the igneous spirit that the acetous salts hold this property. But the resolution of the mixed condensed by the earthiness of their Sulfur is done in these bodies by the nitrous Salts which are more igneous and only capable by their homogeneity,

I have often exercised myself in these sorts of resolutions. Here are some of them:

Tincture of Coral with lemon juice I took a hundred sour lemons, which I lifted and separated with a knife, the yellow outer skin and having cut it to the size of a farthing , I put them in two masses (trap, matras) of glass, then I removed the big peel from these lemons and put the pulp in the press to extract all the juice that I filtered. There were about two pots measuring Paris. I poured them into the two matras on these yellow barks and put them in digestion at very slow heat for fifteen days, so that the oily essence of the bark was well mixed with the acid juice. To know if this solvent was then in good condition, I plunged into this juice a branch of red coral attached to a thread, observing if it became white.

This juice having then been removed and filtered, I soon after poured it over a pound of pulverized red coral and passed over the marble, and when there was about a pint of this juice on this coral, after allowing the coral in the terrine, I poured the liquor by inclination into another terrine, because having lost all its acidity on this coral, it would have weakened the lemon juice that I had continued to put there, which would have less acts on the coral. On which I then added little by little a second pint of this lemon juice, stirring with a wooden spatula, then letting it rest, and repeating the same process for the third and fourth time.

After that, I put in a large glass matrass this coral, which had become grayish white and had spilled all the liquor which had been passed over it, then I held this matrass at a slow heat for eight days, stirring from time to time, and this liquor would turn red/brown, and finally almost black. Having then poured by inclination all this liquor into earthenware terrines, I filtered it and kept it to gently evaporate it at the heat of the sand, until the consistency of liquid honey, taking care not to give too much heat which would cause the extract of the coral to bind too strongly with the Solvent from which the Spirit of Wine could (could) extract the tincture on this matter thus reduced to the consistency of liquid honey by the slow evaporation of the Menstrue;

I put two pounds of Esprit de Vin well dephlegmated, and by stirring with a wooden spatula without heating, the Esprit de Vin became very red and drew all the dye from the coral from which the lemon juice had charge. Having poured this colored Spirit of Wine out of inclination, I put in something new which no longer took on color. What was left of matter was red/brown and still had uses in Medicine against the malignancy of spotted fevers and others by taking the weight of two drams, with some suitable liquors.

On the material of the coral remained after the extraction of the tincture by the fire of the lemon, I put common water on which hot I had infused the yellow peels of these lemons after having pressed them to draw the rest of juice in which they had been digested, and having put this rest of coral in digestion with this water, it was still extracted from the tincture, and the water became almost black, which I put on the matter thickened with the evaporated juice of the lemon to dilute it, and having then filtered this liqueur, I put sugar in it and cooked it in syrup. The Spirit of Wine of the aforesaid tincture of coral has virtues so effective that they gave me subjects of admiration before I had recognized that red coral participated in Gold, which I observed twice by the Gold that I got out of it. This be said on the occasion of lemon juice, which is not a simple acid, but a nitrous acid; for it causes the Salt of Saturn dissolved in common water to precipitate, which simple acids do not do. The lemon juice by its mixed acidity, opens the body of the coral and draws from it the tincture which it communicates to the Spirit of Wine.

spirit impregnated with a double Salt in various proportions Depending on the quality of the wheat. That of wheat and barley yields more nitrous salt, and that of rye and oats is more acetous. These waters, by mixing these two salts, have the property of partially dissolving metals, enamels, etc. and totally coral and pearls; but with this difference that in the dissolution of the coral, the only acetous portion acts and leaves its Salt concentrated in this nitrous matter, and the nitrous portion of these bread waters remaining without alteration separated from the coral, can be removed therefrom by distillation . little heat. In the dissolution of pearls, these two Salts mixed with these spirituous waters act jointly, and concentrate them together on the matters dissolved by these two Salts. The dissolving liquor is colored with an obscure redness which can be attributed to the sulphurity of the Menstrua, for when the nitrous portion of this solvent, which being the most volatile passes first through the distillation-rectification, is separated from the acetous which only distills at the end, this simply acid portion placed on the azure of rock or on coral becomes green instead of reddening when the nitrous portion remains mixed with it.

Having put the Spirit drawn from wheat bread on the pulverized coral, there is a dissolution of this coral with effervescence by the portion acetous of this Spirit. By then gently distilling it in the heat of a bain-marie, the nitrous portion of this Spirit passes first into the receptacle, and if it is set aside there is found an aromatic odor and a peppery flavor. What then distills is only the phlegm of the acetous portion whose Salt is retained in the coral. After the total separation of this phlegm, if the nitrous portion of this Spirit is put back on this condensed coral in the form of Salt, of acute and subtle flavor, this Salt dissolves and this solution filtered by the paper is red like blood. of beef, of austere flavor and great virtue for gonorrhea and flowers white. This remedy can be made effective against several other diseases by means of the Spirit of Wine.

Preparation of pearls by the spirit of bread The pearls dissolved in the spirituous water distilled from wheat bread retain all the salt of this solvent, and the phlegm being evaporated, the pearls remain in the form of grayish salt, with a notable increase weight. This Salt diluted in a marble mortar with the Spirit of Phlegm of wine, makes this Spirit milky, in which in several days nothing precipitates. And if the Spirit of Wine is removed from it by distillation in a bain-marie, there remains a very light white powder, with a sour and fiery, which retains some portion of the Spirit of Wine. The medicinal use of this matter is much better than that of the vulgar salt of pearls.

Gold itself, without being calcined or otherwise prepared, resolves itself cold, in part, in the Spirit of bread. To try it out, I had put two powdered starting drams of Gold in a matrass with two books of this well rectified, limpid and colorless Spirit, leaving it on a valet, cold , for three months, after which I found this Spirit dyed with a very beautiful hyacinth color, and having filtered it to separate the gold from it reduced by its weight, I had it distilled by the still in a bain-marie; he stayed in the curcurbite a red-brown extract on which having put the Spirit of wine, it became the color of blood. But if the Gold has been well attenuated, its dissolution by the Spirit of bread is easier and quicker.

To satisfy those who will have the curiosity to know how I proceeded to this dissolution, I add it here, although this is not the proper place to particularize all the properties of the specified Salts and which would make the matter of a large volume:

Having dissolved an ounce of starting Gold in Common Salt Spirit mixed with an equal weight of Saltpeter Spirit and put in this solution well-refined raw Saltpeter to dissolve it too, I made soaked all this dissolution in thick gray paper which I then let air dry well. Then I burned this paper in a neat iron pan , lighting the sheets one after the other. There remained in the pan a very subtle and very light reddish ash, tasteless and weighing more than an ounce and a half. This ash slightly moistened and rubbed on silver made it golden, and this gilding was constant.

The spirit of wheat bread well rectified, limpid and colorless, put on this ash in a matrass drew in three days a red/brown tincture, and by renewing this Menstrue four times to extract all the rest of the tincture, it is not remained only the ashes of the paper weighing four and a half gros, all the Gold having remained dissolved in the Spirit of bread which I had distilled by the ash heat still, until the consistency of cooked wine.

And because the solvent had left in this matter an unpleasant smell of empyreum, to remove it, I dissolved it in the rectified Spirit of Verdet, which I then removed after filtration by distilling it. to the ashes, then having removed the smell of this second by distilling in it several times common water , dry matter, from which I finally extracted the tincture with the Spirit of wine, and having found it very effective in Medicine, I used it usefully against several diseases.

Tincture of Antimony by the Spirit of bread Having also drawn by the Spirit of wheat bread an excellent diaphoretic tincture of Antimony, the curious will not find it wrong that I put here the way: I took some Antimony Star Martial Spelter which I had crushed for a long time to reduce it to very subtle dust, without anything appearing shiny, and having put this dust in a dish of frozen earth on a window and exposed to the sun, I set fire to one extremity of this dust of antimony by means of the sun, with the aid of a burning mirror, then immediately removing the mirror, all the matter of the antimony was successively set ablaze and reduced to lime of the color of iron rust , and its weight was increased by one-eighth. That is, two ounces for every pound. On this well regrinded lime, I put well distilled and rectified spirit of bread, which when cold in a few days drew from it a very strong red-brown dye.

From this tincture filtered and separated from the Menstrue by distillation, I removed the empyreum by the Spirit of Verdet, leaving the tincture in the consistency of clear syrup which I kept for use, and of which I saw very beautiful effects. I gave a dram with two ounces of Spanish wine, or with some syrup, or white wine, which made you sweat a lot without exciting nausea or moving the stomach.

Wine, which is also one of the main supports of our life, contains, like bread, a double salt whose properties are quite remarkable.

I did a remarkable dissertation.

It is not only in the resolution of mixtures that the action of temperate salts is considerable. It is even necessary for the conservation of all natural mixtures in which two kinds of fires are observed, or of igneous agents that temper each other to moderate their disadvantages. The most active is that of nitrous or sulphurous Salt, which is the principal seat of Nature, because of the predominance of the igneous Spirit in this kind of Salt, the heat of which serves to ferment life in the mixed species which are endowed with it. The acetous Salt contains a less active fire, the movements of which tend to rest, not to put a stop to by coldness those whom the heat of the nitrous Salt excites, but to moderate them according to Nature's design and occasion a longer continuation of subsistence in the state acquired by these first movements. Which seems to have given reason to say in the School that Nature is of itself principle internal movement and rest to preserve it in its action, which would soon cease in mobile subjects if the movement were not moderated.

Contrast of Hot and Cold Hot and cold in the particular Mixed, as well as in the terrestrial globe, are in proper contrast for the maintenance of the natural movements by a moderation which prevents the excesses of the one and the another whose Nature would be disturbed.

Heat is the effect of the fiery Spirit, and coldness is peculiar to the air and suits it as that of the elementary bodies which is the most subtle in insinuating this attractive quality into the other two elements and temper in them the activity of the heat contracted by the movement of the igneous Spirit. What heat rarefies is condensed by cold. What freezes and hardens in the cold dissolves and liquefies in the heat. One changes what the other does and they both temper each other.

The igneous Spirit would find none of these elementary bodies fit to receive its union, and discord without agreement would prevent nature in the production of the Mixed. If Water and Earth were of themselves endowed with this active coldness, which Air has of itself, and which, by its contrariety, is repugnant to this union of the igneous Spirit which is necessary for the constitution of the natural Mixed, the humidity of Water is susceptible to the heat caused by the igneous Spirit. The dryness of the Earth is not against it. What the aqueous humidity receives from the igneous Spirit, the terrestrial dryness helps to retain and disposes it to suffer the excess of Air infused into the Earth by means of Water. Thus in particular mixtures, as in the terrestrial globe, there is a discordant accord, so that the circle of generations and corruptions may continue the periods which are late or early, according as the movements are more or less moderate.

The Minerals which abound in acetous Salt, are less subject to alterations, corruptions, and the movements of the igneous Spirit have in the generation of these Mixed, longer periods. Woody plants have more acid than soft grasses and last longer. And the animals which have a better temperature of acetous nitrous, of bile and of melancholy, are of longer life and healthier, because the movements which are made in them are more moderate.

The milk which is the most temperate of the alimentary juices and which nature intends for the first nourishment of the majority of newly born animals, and principally of those which need more copious, better food, is more digestible, is composed of nitrous. and acid.

The nitrous or sulphurous portion of the milk, having received by digestion a fatty consistency to be more nutritious, separates itself into cream which floats and from which the butter is drawn, by the separation of the rest of its aquosities and of its earthly starches, either on the fire which causes some to exhale and others to precipitate, as one does to get the oil for this cream, and which is called melted butter, or by mere agitation, which causes it to accumulate and join together the fatty particles leaving the serosities and the earthiness in what remains liquid, and which is called buttermilk .

After the separation of the cream, the acetous portion of the milk remains in what remains of the milk, the more earthly part of which curdles by the acidity which emanates from itself or which is increased by rennet, which is soured milk in the ventricle of a calf or by that of the flower of a species of thistle, in which flower as in almost all other distillates there is acid.

The chyle of the food that we take to maintain our life, which subsists by natural heat and by radical humidity, receives in the first of the intestines, after the first digestion which has taken place in the stomach, the mixture of pancreatic juice, which has acidity, and nitrous juice which flows into itself through the common bile duct.

that there takes place in the other intestines a second digestion which is fermentative, in which what is purest and most fit to nourish separates , enters the milky veins and passes to the heart by the thoracic duct; the coarsest is rejected by the emunctory of the belly.

The first of these digestions does not take place even without the help of acid and nitrous, either by the release of what is salt in the matter of the food, by the resolution which takes place in the stomach. , or by some reflux of the pancreatic juice and that of the common bile duct which may rise together through the pylorus, which one sometimes feels come to the esophagus, when this first digestion is rendered difficult, quality of the food, or by the excessive quantity. The excess and the degradation of one and the other of these two saline juices gives occasion to several diseases. Indigestion, stomach flushes, stomach aches, colic and corruption of the nourishing chyle are the immediate effects which are followed by many others.

Causes of Fermentation

All fermentations take place in moist matter by the mutual action of the two Salts, or better said, by the movement of the igneous Spirit which is in one and the other. This fermentative movement is excited by the contrast of acidic cold and nitrous heat, both released by the aqueous humidity, which dissolves and resolves them, and because in this movement what there is of igneous Spirit in the acid, joins that which predominates in the nitrous Salt, and that by this movement junction the heat increases it in the matter and makes there a swelling which is sometimes accompanied by bubbling which the latrineers call effervescence, one took reason to call this movement fermentation, to say that it is the action of some internal heat which can be helped by the external in certain matters or by the mixture of another matter suitable to excite it, which the Latins call "fermentum quasi fermententum a feruore" it is the of the Greeks, taken from the verb,close (?) What to hear from the heat which sometimes arises in fermentation and not from that which causes it. For not all heat is fermentative. Heat alone does not ferment; it foments, matures, digests, cooks etc.

It is by the contrast of some cold acid, either internal or external and added, that it is excited , to do what is called fermentation, which is often a movement without manifest heat, but always with some alteration. resolving.

The fermentation of the bread that we eat not only makes it easier to digest in our stomach, but this leaven also contributes to the digestion of the meats that we eat with this bread. The wines of liqueur which are nitrous and sweet, serve less for digestion than common wines which have a little green. These liqueur wines heat up, and the excess of their heat hastening digestion prevents the separation of the parts of the food, from which it passes with the nourishing chyle of the impurities, which give occasion to several diseases. Even meats which have a lot of nitrous salt, and little acid, give food less suitable for health.

Different effects of the action of heat on the moist Through the intrinsic movement of the igneous Spirit in the materials that humidity makes intrinsically mobile, there are different alterations, according to the quality of the elementary body on which this Spirit acts.

particularly. The action of the igneous Spirit is digestive, on the aerial acetous it is fermentative, and putrefactive on the aqueous. We must therefore not refer to fermentation alone all the intrinsic actions of the igneous Spirit in the moist, since digestion perpetuates and corruptive putrefaction make, by their material subjects, and by their ends very different from fermentation, which holds the middle between these two extremes.

In digestion, coction, maturation, the material parts unite together for the perfection of the subject. They are disunited in putrefaction, and by this disunion the subject is corrupted and destroyed. But in fermentation, after the contrast of fiery heat and airy cold, there is union of what is homogeneous, and separation of what is not. The igneous Spirit of the Nitrous Salt draws to itself that of the acetous and retains it, and the aqueous and earthly superfluities can then be easily separated.

These two Salts in their union do not merge, each retains the character which is proper to it, and their junction is not so intimate that it cannot be resolved. Fermentation holding the middle between digestion and putrefaction, can tend to one or the other, and can become either perfective or corruptive.

Different effects of mixing nitrous salts with acetals Fermentation properly so called is that which takes place either by itself or with the aid of some ferment by the natural action, by the mutual action of the nitrous salts and the acetous which are naturally contained in the fermentable substances. . Those that are mixed together indeed make some similar movement but which is not alterative like the other and we must make a distinction. The union of these Salts manually mixed together is not so great. The acids concentrated in the volatile nitres are easily separated from them to join the fixed Nitres which retain them better, but they are not inseparable from them although they have taken a strong concretion; the fixed Salt of calcined Tartar draws to itself the Spirit of common Salt concentrated in the volatile nitrous Salt of the horn of the Stag, of Vipers, of Urine, etc. and what the fixed Salt of Tartar has retained from the saline Spirit of Vinegar, withdraws from it by means of the calcined Deer's horn if it is pushed into the fire by the retort. The only Spirit of Saltpetre unites so intimately with the Nitrous Salts that it imprints their character on them and takes on with them the form and virtue of Saltpetre.

Those who have taken this reduction of the nitrous Salt of Tartar calcined into Saltpetre, by the distilled Spirit of Saltpetre for a transformative conversion of the species seem to me to have been mistaken, for the matter of the Saltpeter is a nitrous salt which receives the accidental form of saltpeter in the earth or in old plaster, by the union of the air which insinuates itself into these earths and which is retained there by their humidity, and it is the air alone makes this Nitre cold, windy, capable of making flaming Brimstones fulminate, which it cannot do without this mixture of air.

The distilled Spirit of Saltpeter, preserving this union of air in a nitrous Salt and resuming concretion in another nitrous Salt, either fixed or volatile, resumes the form of Saltpeter as in a homogeneous matter, susceptible of the same form by means of the air contained in this Spirit distilled from Saltpetre, simple in moist earth or in old damp plaster. It is therefore not a transmutation, for there is none between homogeneous things which unite without changing. It is only an addition which gives some new quality. By the union of the air, the Nitre simply salt, becoming aerial and participating in the qualities of the air, is always Nitre, and in this sense it is right to still give the name of Niter to the Saltpetre, but it requires a adjective which distinguishes it from simple Nitre, and which marks what it has received from the air.

The acetous Salts simply Salts do not change the nitrous It also seems to me a mistake to generally give to the Salts acids the prerogative of subjecting the nitrous to their power, and of rendering them homogeneous. For experience has taught me that the fixed and nitrous Salt of Tartar does not become Vitriol and that it does not leave the essential qualities by the Spirit of Common Salt. Salt of Tartar, which is called Vitriol, has neither the form, nor the flavor, nor the properties of Vitriol.

Being dissolved in common water, it does not take on that columbine or minimal color that certain austere liquors distilled from a few plants give to common water in which vitriol similar to that from which one had extracted Spirit that had been put on this Salt of Tartar to make it Vitriol. Moreover, in the distillation of this vitriolated Salt of Tartar, the liquor which comes out of it retains the nitrous qualities of the Salt of Tartar so well that it causes the sublimated Mercury to precipitate, dissolved in common water as volatile nitrous Salts do. The Nitrous Salt of Calcined Tartar mixed with the Spirit of Common Salt, which is very acid, also preserves its qualities in this mixture; so that the Spirit which comes out of it by distillation by cohobing, has many other effects on the Metals, than the simple Spirit of common Salt. Because it makes Gold, Copper, and Iron volatile.

What he could not do if the Nitrous Salt of Tartar, passed into this Spirit, had retained its clean and nitrous qualities. Which joined to the acidity of the Spirit of common Salt make this Spirit more active. Among these Salts made tempered by an artificial mixture, I particularly consider those which result from the concentration of saline Spirits which can be more usefully employed in Medicine or in the preparation of more effective medicines.

The one that I propose the first is made by the mixture of the Spirit of phlegm well rectified with wine, with a good Spirit of Saltpetre, and the Salt which is formed from these two Spirits, after some cohobations taking more of that of wine than that of saltpetre, has very considerable properties:

When I was preparing this Salt, I put eight ounces of Spirit of Saltpetre in a very high mass (vessel, matrass) of glass at the orifice of which I had fitted a funnel also of glass with a little cotton in its channel. . This vessel placed on a stool under the mantle of a chimney, I poured into the funnel a spoonful of Spirit of Phlegm of wine, and this Spirit not being able to flow quickly into the trap because of the cotton which was in the channel of the funnel, fell drop by drop on the Spirit of Saltpetre. It made no movement at first, but half a quarter of an hour later the Spirit of Saltpetre began to quiver, then to boil very strongly, pushing up red fumes that warmed the whole ship. When this effervescence began to diminish, I put another spoonful of Spirit of wine into the funnel, which, falling drop by drop on the Spirit of Saltpetre, caused the tumult and bubbling of this Spirit to begin again, whose broths rolled like those of water boiling over a great fire. Continuing to make the Spirit of wine fall drop by drop on this Spirit of Saltpetre until there was no more movement or heat , I used four ounces of Spirit of wine.

The vessel being cooled and the fumes reduced, I poured by inclination all this liquor into a glass still, separating a little faeces which were at the bottom of the vessel, and I set to distill in a bain-marie. He first passed a little spirit of wine, which was not yet well united with the spirit of saltpetre, then took out the phlegm from both, and at the bottom of the still there remained a thicker liquor with a fibrous and fine Salt on which having put back all that was distilled from it and repeated the distillation of the more volatile liquor, with gentle heat by cohobations repeated eight times, the Salt of the Spirit of wine remained coagulated with that of the Spirit of Saltpeter at the bottom of the still, to the quantity of about an ounce, and the rest of these two Spirits passed into almost tasteless water.

This Salt was not corrosive and only had an acidity similar to that of refined Saltpeter, it was more Nitrous than acetous because being united with new Spirit of Saltpeter, it made effervescence there as if it had been a simply nitrous Salt. Which further makes it known that Saltpeter is a species of Nitre, but impregnated with air, which having separated from it, what remains is pure Nitre. I observed that it made no effervescence or saline concretion by the mixture of the Spirit of wine with other acid Spirits as with the Spirit of common salt, with the Spirit and the oil of vitriol, with the Spirit of Sulfur and that of Alum. And that it does not also done when the Spirit of Saltpeter is put on the Spirit of wine, in equal weight; because it is necessary that the Spirit of the Saltpetre overcomes much in quantity that of the wine to make effervescence and concretion. This Salt put on the hot coals melts quickly without fulmination, and even without noise. It dissolves in the Phlegm Spirit of wine, and makes it capable of dissolving calcined Gold and reducing it to a very effective medicine. The medicinal virtues of this Salt are great against fevers, esquinancies, pleurisy, colic, obstructions etc. I will say more if we do not judge its material qualities well, what it is capable of doing, both in Medicine and in Metallurgy.

Salt of Tartar Tempered by that of Distilled Vinegar

The Salt of the Spirit distilled from Vinegar, concentrated in the fixed Salt of Tartar, composes with this nitrous Salt a tempered Salt whose medicinal virtues are great. It is appetizer and purgative, and these two properties are required for the cure of most diseases, and mainly those caused by obstruction of the viscera.

To make this Salt more effective it is necessary to add so many times to it again Distilled Vinegar that it can no longer retain the Salt. And because these mixed salts become black and have a bad smell by the release of their sulphurities, they must be dissolved several times in a good Spirit of wine, filter, condense etc.

From this double Salt there is made another Salt tempered with the Vitriol of Mars, prepared in the vulgar manner, by dissolving the steel filings in the Spirit of Vitriol, and of this second Salt tempered resolves into the Spirit of wine, an excellent aperitif remedy is made, which Zwelfer valued so highly that he claimed to keep the secret to himself. Here is what he writes about it: This man was well reserved to make here yet another secret of the preparation of Salt of Tartar by the Spirit of Vinegar which he had previously transcribed from the books of Semert…

To discover all this mystery, I declare that must be taken from this Salt tempered with Tartar, expose this mixture to the air, where it soon resolves into a reddish -brown porridge, on which, putting good Spirit of wine, it quickly takes charge, and when cold, of a very high red tincture, which is good against diseases of the Spleen and the Liver, and even of the Kidneys, because this tincture is Tartar and Mars together.

There is yet another secret in this mixture of temperate Salt of Tartar and Vitriol of Mars, which Zwelfer did not know, and that is that this self-fixed Salt of Tartar becomes volatile by means of this Vitriol Martial, and we know in what recommendation is the Volatilized Salt of Tartar.

Salt tempered with Vinegar

I observed that the Salt of Tartar impregnated with that of the Spirit of Vinegar, until it no longer retained, was almost as fixed as before and that after having passed several times of the Spirit of wine , that he left some portion of his Salt there. This salt of tartar remained very little in the sublimatory vessel, although the heat was very strong, and being mixed with sand from Etampes, and pushed to a very high heat, it remained more fixed.

What is proper to the Alkalis, which the acetous Salt of the sand helps to fix more, so that after having supported together the fire of the frit in the carcass of the glassware, they become vitrified in the great furnace. I have shown that the sands partake of an acid salt, and we know that the acid salt and the nitrous or sulphurous salt have an inclination to unite notwithstanding the contrast of their particular qualities; and it is by this junction that one of these Salts retains the other. The lime which is used in buildings abounds in nitrous salts, by which it dissolves the common Sulphur, and that of the Mineral means. This Nitre joined to the acetous Salt of the sand which one mixes there, gives with time to the stones this firm bond which one finds with the old walls. By the reaction of Salt tempered with Tartar and Vinegar on Etampes sand , with which being mixed it makes it more fixed in the fire, it is made release of the coagulative salt from these materials, which can coagulate common water, which I have observed in the following practice : ,

I put it with twice as much sand from Etampes, and threw it at intervals into an iron retort, kindled in the stove of the lamppost and arranged in the manner in which Glauber described in the second part of his Book. furnaces; but from one pound of this salt mixed with two pounds of sand, very little phlegmatic water has passed into the container - although I gave a large fire ; the sand having retained the saline spirits and reduced all this matter to a half-molten mass, from which, wishing then to withdraw the Salt, I crushed it , and poured boiling common water over it, in the quantity of about ten books, waving with a wooden spatula; then having immediately filtered this still hot water through gray paper, I found that it had hardly any acrimony, and judging that it had taken only a little salt, I left it in a large terrine of sandstone. But the next day I found all this water taken and coagulated, as if there had been dissolved Gum Arabic.

I put this terrine on the sand bowl, and the water by the heat condensed more. Having continued the rather strong heat all day long , thinking to evaporate this water, the whole thing became hard and similar to rubble stone.

I knew well that the simple fixed Salt of Tartar melted with sand dissolved this sand; but that put in water did not coagulate it as when the Salt of Tartar had been well impregnated with the acetous Salt of Vinegar.

Separation of the Salt of the Spirit of Vinegar from the Fixed Salt of Tartar To find out whether the Salt of the Spirit of Vinegar concentrated in the fixed Salt of Tartar was separable from it and could be reduced by distillation to a spiritual liquor, j I took this tempered Salt, and having dissolved it in of the Spirit of wine, I poured this solution into a glass retort on pieces of white calcined Deer horn, then I first distilled the Spirit of Wine, at low heat, and having removed it from the receptacle, I increased the fire which brought out Phlegm which I also separated, and then, by a heat strong enough to make the retort red, a white vapor passed into the receptacle and Argentina, which condensed into a red-brown liquor of aromatic odor and acrid flavor, without corrosion, which seemed to be the Spirit of Vinegar concentrated in the Salt of Tartar from which it had been detached by means of the charred horn of Deer. This Spirit was very effective in Medicine for the cure of fevers and scurvy, it was diuretic and diaphoretic.

Having washed with common water the matter remaining in the retort to remove the Salt, I found that this Salt was nothing more than simple Salt of Tartar and such as it was before I had put any salt in it. the Spirit of Vinegar. Which made me know that the union of the salt of vinegar distilled with the fixed salt of tartar is not intimate, and that the acetous salts do not really change the nitrous; but on the contrary that the acetous are changed.

The Saltpeter fixed and alkalized by the Sulfur of coals of some suitable wood may likewise be reduced to Salt tempered by the Spirit of Vinegar; the medicinal effectiveness of this Salt can make it have place here:

To prepare it well it is necessary to take good refined Saltpeter, to grind it, to put it in a very clean iron mortar and to throw there little by little hot coals, until until there is no more fulmination. The saltpeter remains fixed in its nitrous quality which manifests itself by the deprivation of the air which the fire has expelled. One can diversify the medicinal virtue of this Salt by pouring it on hot coals of various plants or even shavings of certain woods, such as guaiac, sassafras, juniper, boxwood, ash, elm, tamari etc. because it is fixed in this Salt some portion of Sulfur of these matters. As for the blue color that this Salt contracts in this fixation, it marks the nitrosity, just as in the Salt of Tartar which is obviously nitrous, and which also takes on a blue color by a strong calcination.

The saltpeter being thus restored to its nitrosity, it must be pounded and dissolved in distilled vinegar, filter the solution through gray paper and evaporate the phlegm of the vinegar, the acetous salt of which remains concentrated in this saltpeter, which must be further impregnated by several outpourings of new Vinegar distilled by dissolving, filtering, evaporating. By these repetitions this salt becomes blackish. It must be purified and whitened by dissolving it in good spirit of wine, filtering, digesting, distilling and cohobing, so often that this salt is white and leafy, which must be kept in well-stoppered vials. This preparation is not a mystery, but it gives a strong proof of the nitrous and primitive quality of saltpetre, which differs from other purely nitrous salts only by an intimate mixture of air, which can be removed by fulmination with coal and wood.

This salt taken internally resolves the obstructions, corrects the corruptions, tempers the emotions, opens the belly, provokes urine and months, and can be usefully mixed in purgative infusions. Those who find themselves inconvenienced by constipation of the stomach can take half of this salt, in a broth made from half a hen.

The manner of restoring this saltpeterous Nitre to its first nitrous state by fulmination with charcoal and wood, gives me here occasion to speak of some properties of this salt which are little known and which well deserve to be considered:

If after having make the saltpetre fulminate with the charcoal in an iron vessel, as long as it is fixed, then left to resolve in the humid air, this water is put in a still whose cap is well lute at the commissure either pierced from the top to cohob, and if it is distilled in the heat of a vaporous bath, until dry, cohobating so many times, that finally the water comes out white and with a sweet taste. This water put back on its salt to dissolve it will have the virtue of extracting the tinctures from the mineral means and calcined Metals , separating a portion of their Sulfur without resolving. Their bodies and these tinctures will be very effective in Medicine, mainly those of Gold and Silver, Iron and Antimony.

To make this extraction it is necessary to put the Metal well calcined and well washed, or the raw Antimony very subtly pulverized and reduced in alchohol (kohl?) in a long-necked matrass and pour into it the aforementioned salt dissolved in its circulated water, then hold in digestion, until the Menstrue is well tinged.

When putting good spirit of wine into this vessel, and continuing the digestion, all the tincture passes into this spirit of wine, which must then be separated through the funnel, and removed by distillation in a bain-marie, to have the extract that must be kept. These extracts have so many virtues that one cannot estimate enough. The extracted Menstrue being withdrawn can still be employed in such extractions.

The Saltpeter fixed by the coal acquires other properties by the mixture of the Oil of Vitriol which makes it able to act on the Gold in the fusion, and to extract from it some sulphurous portion which can communicate it to Silver and Mercury, and which resolves by the Spirit of wine must be very effective in Medicine. This saltpeter fixed by coal, and made tempered by Oil Vitriol has the virtue of vegetating in a marvelous way.

A few days ago I showed this vegetation in our Assemblies.

I had taken eight ounces of saltpeter fixed by charcoal, and having left them to resolve in the humid air, I poured into them little by little ten ounces of oil of vitriol so that there was no longer any contrast. : this being then put in a sandstone cucurbite covered with a glass screed, which distilled it at the The heat of the sand was first tasteless water, then acid, and at the end rose red fumes in the screed. There remained in the curcurbite a hard and very white saline mass. To remove this salt from the curcurbite, I poured cold spring water into it, which caused part of it to dissolve and the rest to detach.

Having put all this salt in a stoneware bowl, and left it on a table for a few days, part of the water exhaled, and the still damp salt began to vegetate in several places, pushing up fibrous tufts which each went from the same center, as from the same root, and which extended into various plumaceous branches of a length twelve to fifteen lines. Most of these vegetations were made on the edge of the bowl, all around; there was less in the middle. These plumaceous fibers drying out in the air, their points became blunt, and small transparent grains were formed there which fell of their own accord, like a dying seed. But by putting water back on this salt to moisten it, it vegetated again.

I have observed that Saltpeter fixed by charcoal is different from the Nitrous Salt of Tartar calcined without addition, although it has several similar effects. Because this fixed Saltpeter made nitrous by the Sulfur of the charcoal , being made tempered by the mixture of the Oil of Vitriol, did not give point in the distillation of nitrous water, which causes the sublimated Mercury to precipitate, dissolves in common water, as does the salt of Tartar made similarly tempered by the mixture of the Oil of Vitriol from which a water impregnated with volatile salt is drawn.

nitrous, which precipitates in white color the dissolved sublimed Mercury. And this temperate salt, which the vulgar chemists call vitriolic tartar, does not vegetate as does that of saltpetre.

I had previously observed that Tartar calcined with Saltpetre gave a different salt from Tartar calcined without addition in that the Spirit of Wine mixed and agitated with the lye of the Salt of Tartar calcined with Saltpetre, became nitrous and precipitated the dissolved sublimated Mercury; what the spirit of wine, put on the lye of tartar salt, calcined alone, did not redo.

To return to the Salt of Tartar, I have further to say that it may also be tempered by the acetous salt of common Sulphur, with the addition of some portion of Gold, and give to the Spirit of Wine an effective tincture against many diseases. My frankness does not allow me to conceal (hide) the procedure that some keep secret. Here, then, is how I did it:

I took six ounces of tartar salt, which I melted without a crucible, in a wind stove, and on this well-melted salt, I threw in pinches and with intervals, two ounces of pulverized yellow common Sulfur observing that what had been put of Sulfur would no longer appear on the melted Salt of Tartar before putting again.

This Sulfur thus thrown on the melted Salt of Tartar partly inflamed it, and melting, it swam while turning, then it was absorbed in this salt. All this Sulfur being put in the crucible and no longer appearing on the surface of the Salt of Tartar, I put a large amount of starting Gold there which immediately went to the bottom of the crucible, then the salt swollen, and out of the middle of the molten salt came a flaming rocket, which made me judge that this Gold was molten. Then I put another big gold starting there observing the same thing, and so I successively placed four large gold coins.

After that I continued the fire for six hours, keeping the crucible covered and the salt still melting. Then I poured everything into a heated bronze mortar. The material poured into the mortar was dark tan in color and weighed four ounces and six gross. Having immediately crushed it and put it all hot in a mass of glass, I poured into it two pounds of Spirit of Phlegm of wine, which very soon turned yellow, and having left it without heat until the next day I found that he was starting to blush.

I then put the vessel in a bain-marie, where, having left it for four days, the Spirit became very red. I poured this Spirit of Wine into a paper filter, then I put it to distil in the still at low heat; there remained in the curcurbite two ounces of red-brown liquor which I kept.

On the matter remaining after the extraction of this tincture, I put water to dissolve it in order to extract the Gold which had been put into shot and which had only been used in this operation to retain the Sulfur so that more of it would be fixed with the salt of Tartar, and according to my assertion it was fixed about half an ounce. A greater quantity can be fixed if instead of Gold we put in it clean Steel filings. But we must continue the fusion longer. The salt that dissolved into this common water being condensed, after filtration, no longer had the nitrous quality by which it previously caused the metals dissolved in strong waters to precipitate . The acetous salt of this Sulfur had made it temperate. This red tincture of the temperate salt of tartar and sulfur was very effective in medicine and I made several beautiful cures.

By reverberating the ashes of the plants with common Sulphur, the resulting salt is tempered and more clean in Medicine than if it remained only Nitrous. The acid Salt of Sulfur joining with the nitrous salts of the ashes takes away from them that disagreeable flavor which washing salts have, prevents them from being dissolved in the air, and renders them more familiar to the stomach, and more resolutive.

Salt of tartar calcined and tempered by raw tartar The fixed salt of calcined tartar, tempered by crystallized raw tartar is also very medicinal and can be reduced by distillation into a spirituous liquor.

For the preparation of this tempered salt, it is necessary to take two pounds of pulverized raw white tartar, to dissolve it in twenty pounds of common water, boiling at the end; then, having run this hot solution through the sheet, evaporate the water until a film forms on the surface and put it to crystallize in a cold place. These crystals being well drained and dried, it is necessary to take a pound, reduce it to powder, and put this powder little by little in a strong lye made of a pound of white lime of tartar, dissolved in a sufficient quantity of very hot common water, keeping this lye on the fire to facilitate the dissolution of the crystals, which will do with effervescence and swelling.

This solution is then filtered to separate the faeces, then evaporated to dryness. There remains a red salt which must be rectified by dissolving it in the Spirit of Wine, filtering the solution, and removing the Spirit of Wine by distillation. This temperate salt is an effective remedy against all tartar diseases. It is appetizer, resolvent, diuretic etc. The Rakes, the melancholy, the calculating, the scorbutic, the dropsical, the gouty, find it useful.

The weight of twenty-four or thirty grains should be taken daily in some suitable decoction in the morning and two hours before meals. It can be usefully given with cinnamon water to make women give birth and to bring them to their months.

The spirit liquor obtained from this salt by distillation is much more effective. This salt being put in a retort, and pushed over an open fire like strong waters, yields Spirit and oil. Having separated the oil, having dissolved it in the Spirit of Wine, it must be mixed with the spirit water of this Salt, and distill everything together in the heat of the sand. Also we have the double Spirit of Tartar, and these two salts, the Nitrous and the acetous pass together. This liquor is not unpleasant to smell and taste. It is diaphoretic, clean against malignant fevers, good in rheumatism and specific to scurvy. The dose is from one scrupulous up to two or three.

Spirit of Wine tartarized by Temperate Salt of Tartar One can also make with this tempered Salt of Tartar an excellent Spirit of Tartarized Wine suitable for reducing Gold into a medicinal liquor of very great virtue, and for making several other good medicines.

Having very well rectified the inflammable Spirit of the wine, it must be put on this temperate, very dry salt, to extract it by heat from the sand, in a high mass of glass, with a narrow orifice, for two or three days. ; then pour by inclination this colored Spirit, put some more on this salt, and reiterate until it takes no more tincture. All this spirit of wine , being then pushed by the retort at a very strong, graduated heat, carries with it into the container the most subtle portion which it has extracted from the salt. Which makes it very dissolving and capable of extracting Sulfur from Gold into very subtle red lime, through Mercury and Sulphur, amalgamating it with Mercury cementing with Sulphur, reverberating and reiterating five or six times. The spirit of Wine thus tartarized put in digestion on this lime of Gold draws from it at various times all the red dye and leaves the Gold in white ground.

The Spirit of wine charged with this tincture being put in a still, in a bain- marie and removed by distillation, leaves the extract of the Gold at the bottom of the cucurbit in the form of oil. What has passed into the container must be rectified with very slow heat, in a mass (trap, matras) of very high glass to remove only the most subtle and spirituous portion which must be remixed with the extract of the Gold in order to have the whole thing distilled together, in the heat of the sand, in a low still. From this tincture of Gold thus volatilized, the Spirit of Wine can be extracted by distillation at low heat in a bain-marie.

This Sulfur of Gold is of itself so recommendable that there is no need to say anything about it.

The Nitrous and Sulphurous Spirit of the marc or grater (water passed over the marc of grapes) of the grapes concentrated in the Verdet, then withdrawn with the common water, in the form of Vitriolic Salt and distilled in a suitable manner, gives a liqueur spirit capable of ignition, like the pure Spirit of Wine. And because it derives from the acrid nitrous and sulphurous of grapes and the mercurial acid of copper, of which Verdet is composed, it is very dissolutive and one can to do great things in Medicine as well as in Metallurgy.

But the spirit drawn by the distillation of verdet and common sulfur mixed together is very dissolving, and even acts on talc, the dissolution of which is not otherwise easy.

The matters which it dissolves do not precipitate by the alkalis. The fixed salt of calcined Tartar mingles with this Spirit without contrast. It powerfully resolves Metals and reduces them to a very subtle gum. From this Spirit put on pulverized raw Antimony, with which then was mixed the Spirit of urine, there is sublimed after some digestion a fibrous salt sweet like sugar.

The spirit liquor distilled from Verdet alone mixed with salt from Tartar soaked in the Spirit of Wine is a Menstrue suitable for resolving the internal Sulphur; for I recognize in these mixtures two kinds of Sulfur: one generic and common to all Metals, by which the metallic Mercury is coagulated into Metal; the other is specific and added to the first to give it a particular specification. This second Sulfur is not essential to Metal according to the metallic kind, because with the first, which I name internal, Metal is Metal, that is to say Mercury coagulated in metallic form, ductile under the hammer, and fusible. fire.

The specific Sulphur, accidental to the Metal, determines its Species by particular and proper affections, which make Gold differ from silver, silver from copper, copper from iron, iron from tin and lead. And all these differences proceed from certain Sulphurs, which can be said to be external, with regard to the metallic Being which does not depend on it. This external Sulfur can be separated from it without destroying the Metal by sulphurous Menses which are called extractives, which do not act on the internal Sulfur, not totally resolving the Metal which can be put back into the metallic form, but with deprivation of its tint and of some other accidents, which chiefly happens to gold, the composition of which is more perfect. The metallic Sulfur of Copper and Iron is not so strongly united to Mercury that it cannot receive any attack by rather weak Solvents.

Some authors have spoken of the preparation of a liquor drawn from the flowers of the mineral Sulfur with three kinds of salts suitable for resolving them, which put on Gold only resolves the specific Sulphur, leaving the whole metallic mass, but with little decrease in its first weight. This Sulfur extracted from Gold retains its dyeing and aurifying virtue and can give the internal and mercurial Sulfur of Silver the specification that it gave to that of Gold.

It is the common doctrine of Alchemists, that all Metals are composed of Mercury and Sulphur. Paracelsus tried to give the demonstration in the fourth book of his “Archidoxes,” where he taught how to resolve Metals into two different substances. One generally white in all, the other variously colored, according to the particular condition of each Metal. That which is white, he says, can be reduced to a white Metal, which does not relate to any of the Metals specified and it is like the mercurial body coagulated by a generic Sulfur which gives the general and common metallic Being, and which receives specific differences by another particular Sulfur added.

Gold is therefore like the other Metals composed of a coagulated, white mercurial body, and of a tinting and special red Sulphur, whose redness modified by the whiteness mercury of the metallic body, comes in yellow color. It is this tinting and aurific external Sulfur which can be separated from this Metal by homogeneous dissolutions and introduced into another metallic body. Common Sulphur , which is found in all mines, like the excrement of Metals, contains a metallic salt which penetrates them all, and which corrupts those who are not perfect. Gold itself does not always resist it. What I experienced several times in the total destruction of this Metal. The volatilization of gold by the nitrous spirit of urine, or of sal ammoniac, mixed and tempered with the acid spirit of honey, is considerable enough to be communicated. Here is the whole practice:

To make the distillation of Gold, I took eight ounces of good Saltpeter, six ounces of Roman Alum, and four ounces of common Salt, having mixed the all together and put this pulverized mixture in a stoneware dish, then spilled four pounds of common water. I held the terrine to a strong heat of sand to dissolve these salts, and having added to this solution three large starting gold, which had been calcined with mercury and sulfur, I continued the fire to evaporate the water, stirring these materials with a wooden spatula; when the salts began to condense and turn yellow from the dissolution of the Gold, leaving not too much dry out these materials. On which cooled and pulverized, I put the Spirit of Wine Phlegm which when cold was responsible for dissolving the Gold.

The next day, having poured by inclination this colored and very yellow Spirit of Wine, I put new Spirit of Wine on these salts to extract the rest of the Gold, then I poured all this Spirit of Wine into a still and removed it by distillation in a bain-marie. The Gold remained at the bottom of the curcurbite in the form of yellow salt, and not in powder form, because the aqueous humidity which had remained in the coagulated salts, had mixed with the spirit of Wine, and had prevented the precipitation of gold.

On this Golden Salt I put six ounces of liquor composed of parts equals of Spirit of Wine and Acid Spirit of Honey, mixed together, to resolve this Gold. Having filtered this dissolution through gray paper. The next day I gradually overflowed three ounces of Nitrous Spirit of Ammoniac Salt which caused the Gold to precipitate into a yellow mud which I drained into a paper filter, where it changed color becoming greenish-brown. , first on its surface, by touching the air, then on the rest of the matter by stirring it. This precipitate of Gold, having been well washed, then air-dried, on bricks, was volatile, so that putting it on a very hot iron lamina, it rose in smoke, of a dark purple color, without fulminating and only by sparkling a little. Wanting to see if this volatility of the Gold could be lost by the distilled Vinegar, which takes away the fulminant quality of the Gold, which was precipitated by the Salt of urine without addition of Spirit of honey, I boiled a portion of this Gold on the fire, in the Spirit of Vinegar, but then this Gold, which had taken on a blackish color, was still volatile. The smoke received in a blind screed condensed into a purple soot could be easily dissolved in some suitable Menstrue, to employ it usefully in Medicine.

But without sublimating this Gold, the Spirit of Verdet dissolved part of it, the color of hyacinth, and the rest became fixed.

Having removed by distillation the Spirit of Verdet, he left an extract red-brown, and almost black, which hardened in the cold and softened in the heat, it had no flavor, and the Spirit of Wine impregnated with the inconcrete volatile Salt of the earth drew a red-brown tincture from it.

Speaking below of the Salt of the urine, I will say in what way having fixed the Sulfur of this Gold, the rest of the matter was fixed in Mercury. The saline Mercurial and Sulphurous Spirit which is drawn from the icy liquor of Antimony and sublimated Mercury, by separating from this liquor the high flowers of Antimony, by means of Saltpeter, which retains and fixes them, has the virtue of making Gold similarly volatile and passing it through the retort, and the remaining Gold is so open that only the Spirit of Wine can extract the tincture Sulphur. This Spirit of the icy liquor of Antimony also dissolves Silver and Gold, if an equal quantity of Saltpeter is mixed therein. But it does not dissolve Mercury, it only reduces it to a bluish powder.

The Spirit of Sea Salt, distilled on salt of Tartar passes with this spirit. It is a Menstrue capable of making powerful resolutions, because of its Mixed and Temperate Salt.

The concentration of the Salt of the Spirit of Vinegar, made in the Coral, in the pearls, in the stones of crayfish, by means of their coagulated nitres, makes this salt temperate, and acquires for it virtues greater than the vulgar chemists do not think.

The nitrous salts, both volatile and fixed, of plants, and the volatile salts of animals tempered by Vinegar distilled by the Spirit of common salt, or similar acids, have also their efficacy in Medicine…