PHILOSOPHICAL DISSERTATION ON ARABIC SALT AND SUNPOWDER.

COLONNA

Of the three kingdoms of nature, whose mixtures are so many different subjects on which chemistry is exercised to draw medicines to remedy our illnesses, the metallic is the one that has always given more trouble to Artists, the illustrious d between them easily overcome plants and animals, they find nothing difficult in them, they draw waters, spirits, sulfurs and salts from them: but when it comes to fighting against metals, their weapons are found either too sharp, or too blunt, or to serve me their terms, their agents are devoid of these little knives capable of sticking their points into the metallic particles, in a suitable way, so that their operations on metals are mostly useless for health: they admit they the same as the minerals are composed, like the other mixtures, of essential and accidental parts; but they dare to advance that they cannot be really and distinctly separated, why do they deny a fact which is unknown to them?

What do they not admit frankly that there will always be in nature, things that will make us hidden that those who come after us will discover What Arabian Salt & Sun Powder is, why they are given these names.

Those who cling only to words will no doubt believe that these extraordinary titles of Arabian Salt & Sun Powder, were only invented to give these medicines an air of novelty; but they will change their minds when they are made to see that it is not without foundation that these names have been imposed on them.

It is not that this Salt comes to us from the fortunate climate of happy Arabia whose mixtures, particularly heated by the rays of the Sun, are endowed with more eminent qualities than those which are born in our Northern regions, so much far from it. Nature, which takes special care of her Works, has not made us so unhappy, although less eager than the Asiatics to deprive us of our needs, this good mother treating us according to our constitution.

But as the good it presents to us is mixed with harmful and earthly parts, it is necessary to develop this good and to separate the pure from the impure, the substance from its accidents, to relieve us in our infirmities. This separation is all the more necessary because this substance, which is in very small quantity in relation to its envelope, being absorbed in many filthy faeces, it does not have the strength to detach itself from itself.

even to act in our bodies according to our intention: what having been recognized by the most skilful Doctors, they undertook the purification with as much prudence as generosity, the analysis which they made on the animals, the plants & the minerals got them the perfect knowledge of the nature in general & in particular, it is by decomposing the mixtures that they learned the composition, & by corrupting them they knew the generation, & by a good chemistry , they have prepared admirable remedies for the preservation and restoration of the three kingdoms.

But the minerals were the object of their greatest attention, superior to that of other mixtures: they drew the natural principles from it under a body of substantial Salt, to which they gave several names because of its different forms and extraordinary qualities.

As for us, since we are quite happy to possess this same Salt through our long labors, it will allow us to impose on it that of Arab Salt, in imitation of the illustrious Fernel who named it Sal & Elixir Arabicus. A name which suits it perfectly by its invigorating heat, just like that of Solar Powder, because the sun is its father, and it is through it that this admirable agent of nature executes the will of the Creator for the production of mixtures of this sublunary world.

It is easy to understand that the subject in question is a metallic salt, especially since it is drawn from the center of metals by an exact separation of the pure from the impure, from the substance of accidents: but before passing Besides, it will be good to say here what is meant by these terms substance & accident, the lack of knowledge of which causes considerable prejudice to most of those who practice chemistry, which I will do succinctly . , having already amply dealt with this matter in my first Dialogue.

What are Essential or Substance Principles, and Accidental or Accidental Principles.

My intention is not to mention the first two kingdoms which are quite well known, and whose principles are almost the same as those of the ore.

suffice to elucidate in a few words what the ancients left us mad about obscure and mysterious terms. I therefore say that the metals are composed of mercury, sulfur & salt, earth & water, the first three are the essential principles without which the body cannot be a true mixture, nor a perfect body; the other two which are accidental make those which enter into the mixture, either to nourish, or to augment the body.

a true Chemistry these principles from each other, which will be done by means very different from those which one ordinarily employs for the preparation of the other kingdoms. We must now examine in what form or appearance these principles are manifested by the analysis that we make of them.

In the first purification of metals, that is to say in the melting of mines, an elemental and sulphurous water is separated from them, which is called mineral vinegar, and an excrementous earth which appears in different forms (according to the purity or impurity of the metals, of their perfection or imperfection.

We then take these metals & by a new separation of the pure from the impure, we reduce them to their principles or their seminal substance, we find a salt & a dead earth: the mineral vinegar mentioned above & this earth, are the principles of accident, & Salt is the principle substance containing the other two; it is impossible to find anything else there, no matter how much research we do.

What the Salt of Metals is properly speaking.

The Salt of a moral well purified of its excrements & clarified like a subtle nitre, is as it has been said a principle which contains the two others, or to speak more intelligibly, it is an assemblage of mercury & sulfur which contain in them a Salt which is inseparable from them ; it is for this reason that some of the ancients did not establish as principles that mercury binds sulphur; others mercury, sulfur & salt, others spirit, soul & body , others phlegm, oil & salt.

This natural compound which a religious chemist designated to us under the name of vitriol, appears to us under the figure of salt, because the sulfur is united to the salt by means of the mercury or the spirit which is the bond of the two. as we see at the soap factory, where water serves as a medium to join oil & fats to lexious salts; what made him give by Van-Helmont the name of alkaest which is a phlegmatic & nitric substance.

This triple Salt is the base & the foundation of the vegetation & of the preservation of all the mixtures, since there is none that does not contain some quantity.

We are quite convinced of this truth. As for our metals, if we deprive them of their salts, they will be destroyed and composed, never being able to return to what they were before by any artifice whatsoever.

Chemists constantly engaged in the search for Universal Medicine, learn that this Salt is a fire of nature whose action is incomparable to the elemental fire of your furnaces, whatever degree you can give it, a agent without which there can be no true dissolution, and a key without which the doors of nature will make you eternally closed.

It is therefore very necessary that you apply yourself to know it before all things, as a blacksmith cannot work without a hammer or an anvil, so the wise Artist cannot do without his own agent, which he will never find in the minds salts or vi-triols known to everyone. In order not to stray too far from my subject, I will continue by showing the difference between natural metallic salts and artificial ones.

On the difference between natural and artificial metallic salts. The difference between natural Salts or Vitriols and artificial ones is the same as that of the Art which produces them, (we put among the last, the Vitriols which come out of the earth, because they have been formed accidentally from a acid liquor , & of some metallic particles to which it is attached) of spagyrics, & of ordinary chemistry, the latter making its vitriols from the whole body of metals by a violent & forced dissolution, without any separation of impurities, so much these metals are far from being amended and purified by common operations which reduce them to salt, on the contrary they acquire a salt.

malignant & corrosive quality often opposed to the uses for which they are intended. These metals take the form of salt, because the corroding spirits of vitriol, nitre, alum, and vinegar, which have been used, have hooked themselves by their points into the whole body of these metals.

they are obliged to give up as soon as they are pressed by the fire, leaving these bodies in the same state as they were before, that is to say, as impure, as earthly, and sometimes less. These vitriols can only subsist as long as the mixture of these two subjects lasts, the agent of which operated on the patient only through annoyance, the agitation of these two matters, when they are mixed together, make it clear to us that nature has no part in it, which is why these vitriols appear purely artificial.

Our spagyric, by its soft & unforced operations, working jointly with nature, only makes vitriols where this same nature acts more than Art which only lends a hand to it. Also our agents, very different from corrosions, are gentle, benign, and attractive by a sympathetic virtue which is between them and their patients, therefore the essential parts allow themselves to be extracted and sublimated, without the eye being able to notice any action, while the accidents remain at bottom like land henceforth useless.

Our vitriols, very different from artificial ones, which are only a confused assemblage of good & bad, foreign & corrosive parts, are formed from a homogeneous mixture of the three principles, resulting from the natural destruction of bodies. Marks & qualities that true Arabian Salt must have.

Although several before us have written with great obscurity on this marvelous Salt, I have no doubt that curious minds of that time have gloriously drawn themselves out of this labyrinth by their penetration. If this Writing falls into their hands, they will readily admit that I could dwell amply on the qualities of this essential Salt; that if I don't, it's because I don't intend to compose large volumes.

This subject having been dealt with in my Dialogues, it is useless to repeat here what has been said about it. I will only add in favor of the amateurs of Medicine that this Salt is of externally cold &, humid, & internally hot & dry quality, or rather it contains these four qualities in a right temperament, because one cannot notice if the one of these qualities predominates over the other.

I can speak of it with certainty, since experience has taught me that when mixed with cold things, moist, hot & dry, it increases its qualities in an extraordinary way.

The virtues & the use of Arabian Salt for the cure of Diseases.

Although the mixtures were created for the use of man, they are not all of equal value; some are endowed with many properties, others with few. Their choice is difficult to make, and their essence, in which their virtues consist, is not easy to separate, especially if one wants to extract it, as has been said, from subjects where it is more concentrated, such as do those of the metallic kingdom, who alone can give us remedies capable of radically curing rebellious Diseases by their fixed, confident & penetrating properties.

Our Salt is an essence of this kind whose qualities are universal, being able to communicate amicably to the animal nature, when it is joined with specific vehicles so the dormant virtues are animated & sharpened by the presence of this agent.

If we mix 2. 3. or 4. grains with hydragogues, it expels the waters with much more force, if it is with catareics , it purges pleasantly; with sudorifics, it grows better by perspiration; with narcotics it calms the spirits; with astringents it tightens, & it opens obstructions with suitable vehicles.

In a word, it warms a cold temperament & refreshes a heated temperament, which is not easy to understand for those who are not advanced enough in the knowledge of the secrets of nature. I am not advancing anything that has not been confirmed by experience: those who doubt it, will be able to convince themselves of it, my intention is to share it with the Public, if it is received favorably, I will be arrived at the end that I had proposed to myself in my work, which is its particular utility.

I have no doubt that those who have a natural inclination for beautiful things, and who are justly driven in search of our Salt, put all their attention to get to the possessors; but let them know that it is seen only by those who have declared war on the malignity of the acid waters of corrosives, and on the tyranny of violent fire, the ordinary effect of which is to destroy and corrupt in the root.

the things that make exposed to their fury. Let them also know that as nature only produces its mixtures by the way of gentleness, it is necessary that the artist who is to imitate them should act in the same way in their decomposition, using the same means as that which she used for their construction, and by rejecting faeces which are as useless to her as they were necessary before: which he will do easily, if he knows the action of the higher elements on the lower ones.

Remarks.

As this Salt is a universal flux for all the obstructions of the viscera, however inveterate they may be, which corrupt the blood, because they prevent its free circulation, which causes several diseases, such as scurvy, pains in the articles, erysipelas, continual headaches, debility of the limbs, stench of breath, suffocations of women, suppression of their menses, palpitation of the heart, syncope, vertigo & many other diseases known & unknown: by evacuating thick & viscous humors & expelling them through the urine, it surely prevents & cures all these inconveniences. Quia fublat a causa, tollitur effectis.

The cause being removed, the effects will necessarily follow.

END.