HENRI DE MONTBAZON
Capuchin du Louvre
That there are universal remedies and what is meant by universal remedy.
If one had never seen or heard of spring, dye, glass, crystal, salt, saltpetre, strong water, gunpowder, and so many other wonders that 'Art draws from Nature, or helps it to produce, could one believe that it was even possible to invent them? We must therefore not so easily disagree with the extraordinary things that pass our ideas, when the Sages assure us of their reality.
because they have not yet come to our knowledge, it is rash to condemn them, because we despair of reaching them; on the contrary, the excellence of the subject and the testimony of the Scholars should not raise our courage, and animate us in the search for that which could not escape their sagacity.
But to establish the truth of Universal Remedies, it would be useless to resort to the authority of the great Philosophers and extraordinary Physicians who have only written about them enigmatically; preoccupied minds would only be more strongly confirmed in their prejudices. Let us instead focus on the ordinary Doctors of Medicine, and see how they talk about it.
We have no doubt, say Ludovicus and his Commentators, that there are remedies of particular excellence, capable of powerfully strengthening and purifying at the same time all the substances of the human body, and by this means of guarantee & save it from an infinity of illnesses: Dissertation 1 of selectu remedorum, pag. 56. Credimus dari posse arcanum aliquod, insigne totius corroborativum, vel mundificativum; complurium morborum solamen, &c. (We believe it can be given some secret, a signal corroborative of the whole, or sanctifying; the comfort of several diseases, &c.)
And we do not disagree with the virtues, wisely attributed to some great secrets, such as the Panaceas, the Mercurys of the Philosophers, the quintessences of Venus, potable gold, & the like; by preparing them scientifically, & administering them with circumspection each according to his property.
But we do not pretend to approve indifferently. all these so-called secrets, which Charlatans exalt infinitely above their qualities to obtain sordid gain, and which people who do not have enough knowledge of Medicine, credulously, and sometimes fatally, imagine themselves to have virtues & universal properties; although often their claimed excellence consists only in the difficulty of research and expenditure, or at most, (when the hyperbole and the illusion are removed) in a simple and weak virtue, like that of barley tea which is suitable for all fevers; or in a quality common to diaphoretics, aperitifs, or usual & ordinary astringents.
These are the terms of Ludovicus; & here are those of its Commentators Wolfgangus, Weletlius, & Ettmullerus:
The ignorance of the people and the poor application that has been made of the great remedies have made the very name of Panacea or Universal Remedy odious and ridiculous. This ignorance comes from the fact that the people do not know enough about the strength and nature of the remedies, they admire their particular effects, and immediately attribute to them universal qualities, then in the sole name of Panacea they are used. indifferently, without distinction of time and circumstances, and through poor application we receive more harm than we hoped for relief.
This is why it is appropriate to clarify what it is, and what we must understand by universal remedy so that we do not imagine that such a remedy can indifferently cure all the defects of the human body. What an error to claim by this means to cure wounds, fractures, dislocations, and similar accidents which necessarily require the operation of the hand and the assistance of Surgery.
speak by this Aphorism Nature morborum meditatrix; it is nature itself that cures diseases. Also the effect of any Panacea consists only of increasing the forces of nature, or of correcting the occasional causes of illness; from which it follows that a universal remedy is only suitable for those which come from internal causes; still we must not pretend to exclude the use of any other remedy; on the contrary, general remedies must always precede as necessary preparations, & the regime of life must always be prescribed & observed according to the rules of the diet.
Much more, universal remedies are needed in the administration itself take into account the difference in sex and age, and make them specific and specific as much as possible by mixing and combining particular remedies. It is, says Ettmuller. Cap.3 of auxillis, that if all these precautions are not observed exactly, the very proven and infallible specifics become ineffective.
Finally, when forming the idea of a universal remedy, we must not imagine that it can necessarily and infallibly cure all kinds of ills and make man immortal: this is a thought contrary to common sense; but we can reasonably assure, such that the forces of nature are not oppressed, nor the virtue of the remedy introverted, the universal remedy will infallibly have its effect and cure whatever illness it may be. Just as jalap, which is purgative, does not purge, if the infusion is not made during a suitable and appropriate period; it is the spirit of wine, and not water, or simply wine because of the abundant phlegm it contains: because the purgative Virtue of jalap resides in its resin for the dissolution of which a solvent is required spirits & non- aqueous. Ettmulller torn. i. Schroderi dilicidati Phitologia, late reign. vegtab. class. 3. page. 226. Jalap is, however, purgative in some menstruation let it be mixed, but we can only extract the resin with the rectified wine spirit. It is then a violent purgative, which is only given in small quantities and mixed with other purgatives.
So that to fully understand the essential virtue of universal remedies, it is necessary to note that every illness has two causes, the formal and the material, or occasional; & that one or the other yields, the effect ceases. Now the formal, efficient & proximate cause of all illnesses are the spirits, that is to say, the vital principle which is the first origin of health & illness; which being destroyed by death, sickness, health, all ceases We cannot say that a corpse is a participant in neither one nor the other. But this same vital principle being well constituted and in perfect economy, it works wonders. On the contrary, if it is injured or irritated by the disturbance of the body's economy, it excites attacks and disorders in the sick.
It is almost the same that the vices and defects of humans are the occasional or material causes of diseases.
So that if these parts & these substances contained in the body are perfectly well ordered & tempered, the body is in health; if they are poorly tempered, the body's economy is disturbed.
From which it is easy to observe, causes, Universal Remedies are wont to operate in two ways; one by pacifying irritated spirits, strengthening them & thus making them capable of correcting the material causes of illnesses, & restoring peace & tranquility to the natural economy. A good use of Opium, for example, aided by some other Anodins, often has this effect, by calming all the most pressing symptoms, by strengthening nature, and by this means putting it in a position to drive out what is present to it. harmful. And this is how the sweet sulfur of the vitriol of Venus acts, and all the panaceas which have as their basis natural cinnabar or antimony cinnabar.
The other way in which universal remedies act on occasional causes is to temper them by correcting and softening the excess of salty qualities, of which Hippocrates speaks, and which he calls acid, bitter, acrid. , the gentle, the acerbic, &c. according to Ettmuller cap.2 of Medicina Hypocratis Chymica. And thus preventing precipitation, coagulations, effervescence. This is done all the more powerfully, the more these Remedies are endowed with diaphoretic Virtues, diaphoretics usually being natural & specific remedies to provide these kinds of softening. The oily volatile salt of Sylvius which acts in this way sort, is almost universal. It tempers all acrimony, it calms all disorderly movements of humor; & through gentle perspiration it purifies the whole body. The fixed Mercurys are still of this type, softening all acridity by means of their extroverted sulfur and their diaphoretic nature. Finally, the universal air salts that are prepared with dew and rainwater are still in this category.
But if one and the other of these two virtues, that is to say, the virtue of calming & strengthening the minds, and that of tempering & purifying the humors combine in the same Remedy, without doubt it must be a very universal remedy, fixed metallic natural ones, which temper the powers or saline qualities, & at the same time calm the ardor & impetuosity of the spirits. The fire stone of Basil Valentin is of this type; it even comes very close to the philosopher's stone by the excellence of its medicinal and metallic virtue.
Besides this way of operating Remedies by their bodily touch, & by certain mixture or application of their material tissue to the parts of the human body, there is another, says Ettmuller, cap. 3. de auxiliis, taught by Helmont, mainly in his Treatise entitled In verbis, herbis & lapidibus est magna virtus. And this way is done without natural mixing, but only by certain ideal influence, which makes the Remedies cure radically. This Author (Helmont) believes that Remedies only operate in the stomach, and only on its archaea, which on the occasion of the Remedy forms various ideas according to the direction of which it is led in the healing of diseases; he assures, moreover, that diseases only come from vicious or foreign ideas of the stomach; and that the Remedies only operate by extinguishing these foreign ideas, or by forming and presenting to the archae other ideas contrary to the first ones as in a mirror with the appearance of which new ideas, it is recalled to the duty of its natural functions, & directed in a certain way in the healing of diseases. All this, he says, is confirmed by an infinity of prompt and almost sudden cures, which take place without any perceptible effect of the remedy or evacuation of the morbific matter, but only by a certain great emotion or affection of the soul, of which the idea variously leads the archaea to cure illnesses.
All this speech is only a literal translation of Ettmuler, taken from the first volume, chap. 1. de auxiliis, & from the Commentary on the Dissertation of Ludovicus de remediorum selectu, tom. 2. But however the Remedies act, all these Authors agree that there are universal Remedies. If they are rare, difficult to discover and prepare, should this repel, or rather should it not animate not only the curious and the great Philosophers, like our illustrious deceased; but the Academies, the Faculties, the Universities entire to the penetration & the explanation of the enigmas of the jealous Authors who wrote about them & in the search for the perfection & publication of these extraordinary aids.
It was in the genre of Medicine the principal and wise object of the great talents that the Father of Enlightenment had so liberally bestowed upon my late brother, for the deepest mysteries of Physics, of Medicine & Theology. In truth, ordinary medicine is not too weak. What help do we get from it in major illnesses? Is it not in pressing extremities that to verify this Aphorism extremis morbis extrema remedia exquisiteita sunt, one must have recourse to the great Remedies. And in ordinary illnesses , would it not often be wiser to be content with a good diet and good government, and according to the advice of the Prince of Medicine himself, to rather abstain from all Remedies, than exposing oneself to uncertain and perhaps harmful remedies?
Optimal medicine, medicine not used.
Fortunately the King, whose wisdom makes him attentive to everything there is useful and great, has just established an illustrious Academy in Paris, to make up for the neglect and jealousy of the Suppôts of the Corps or Communities; & to excite at the same time the ardor and courage of individuals. Scientists will be able to have recourse to it, and address their works there, and hope that under the protection of LOUIS THE GREAT, their discoveries will not be buried in eternal oblivion by ignorance, nor covered with ingratitude by envy.
Perhaps if the person to whom it was necessary to address, (and to whom I addressed myself in all the best ways possible) had been favorable to my design; the King who loves great things, would perhaps, I say, have been happy to test the effectiveness of the natural and incomparable remedy, of which my brother left me the idea, and of which I offered to give the secret to His Majesty. It is a perfect Elixir, a specific and natural quintessence, a vital seed, suitable for repairing dissipated spirits, multiplying radical principles, reviving old age, and naturally prolonging days until the end ordained by God. Finally, it is a species of tree of life very superior to the universal and admirable Remedies, whose enigmas I will explain and reveal the secrets. All my regret is that the King is deprived of it; it's not my mistake. If this one were practicable by a few individuals, I would willingly give it to the public like the others: but as preparation for it is impossible for them, as well as for myself, knowledge of it could also be perilous, the The use of it becomes useless, other than by the charitable dispensation of some Sovereign. However, I do not despair, if God preserves my life, of having in time the honor of presenting to His Majesty some means which could, in my opinion, contribute greatly to making his Reign even more brilliant, his empire even more flourishing, and its people even happier.
principles of my brother which my profession and the state of my private affairs have not allowed me to prepare and which the skilful who have enough leisure and zeal for their neighbor, will be able to have the satisfaction of experimenting. This science (says one of these great Philosophers) & these high processes require an entire man , absolutely freed from domestic cares & the commitments of the century, animum semotum a curis & ad nihil aliud applicatum.
Universal preservative derived from plants Bread is so naturally intended for human nourishment that even birds, fish, animals, and generally all species of animals love & desire it. It is the best, strongest , and most universal of all foods. Bread, (said Sennerte libr 4. part.1. cap.3 of Cibo Panis optimus cibus) is a food so excellent that it is suitable for all ages, that it can be eaten alone or mixed, that it is like the material & basis of all others, flesh, fish, vegetables. We can hardly eat other foods without bread without feeling some inconvenience. We easily become disgusted with other foods, never with bread when we are healthy, as it is so pleasant and natural to the stomach. The sick almost always even abandon it last, almost always pick it up first. Finally, bread is a very excellent food, mainly bread made from pure wheat flour.
Wheat, adds this Author, is hot & humid, & gives more food, more solid & healthier than any of the other grains; because its excessive humidity is tempered in the way of the bread, the preparation of which is exquisite. Fermentation corrects the viscosity, and cooking dries out the moisture. By fermentation, when it is well done, the coarse parts are subtilized, the viscids rarefied & all made light & participating in the nature of the air, & more suitable for digestion. Finally, it is the property of bread, says Holy Scripture, to strengthen the heart of man: Panis cor hominis confirmat.
Wine, according to Schroder, is called by Paracelsus, the blood of the earth; by Quercetan, the Prince of Vegetables, as more charged with Vitriol than any other; & Holy Scripture assures that it rejoices the heart of man: Vinum latificat cor hominis. It contains a singular principle of joy & health. It is a food of such particular excellence that it also resembles medicine. It is narcotic, soporative, inbriative & purgative when taken in excess.
But, when taken in moderation, it is comforting, stomachic, cordial, cephalic, diaphoretic, diuretic, sudorific, laxative, acting according to the disposition it finds. It revives languishing spirits, it repairs dissipated strength; it is the most prompt, the most powerful, and the most pleasant restorer of exhausted natures. Of what use is it not in Medicine? How many preparations are made with the wine and the parts of the wine, the spirit, the vinegar, the tartar?
It is an almost universal solvent; at least it is a subject from which we can derive very excellent remedies. Finally, the spirit of wine is called by common people, and by doctors themselves, brandy; & by Zapatha, potable vegetable gold, as an essence suitable for conservation & recall life in the most desperate accidents, & as a more powerful comfort than even drinking gold. The Juniper is such a precious shrub, although very common in Europe, that Van Helmont, Tackius & several others, who believe it to be incorruptible, substitute it for the cedar. Helmont claims that we can prepare an incomparable Remedy for the conservation & prolongation of life until the natural end marked by Eternal wisdom. I gave the process at the end of my brother's book.
Juniper Milk is a type of medicated food . We make a drink with pure water, which has a lot to do with wine, & we get so many unique remedies from juniper, for so many major illnesses, that we can reasonably conclude with all the Germans, who call it their aroma, according to Ettmuller, that it has universal properties .
It corrects & purifies bad air, pestilential air ; it is the best and most powerful of all stomachics: and this is why Van Helmont, who places the principle of life and the seat of the soul in the stomach, says that it is a species of tree of life. It is a great sudorific & diuretic, also it is admirable for the kidneys; it causes urine, pushes sand & protects against gravel. It unravels the spleen & uterus; he is clean against phthisis, & lung ulcers, colic, nephritic, vapors, paralysis, dropsy, scurvy, nerve affections finally, say the Physicians, it is excellent against malignant diseases, poisons, plague , curses & enchantments: that’s how they talk about them.
Bread is a simple food, but the best & most universal of all foods. Wine is a medicinal food, the most natural, the quickest of all Remedies. Juniper fruit is a nourishing medicine, the most innocent & the most effective of simple medicines. Of these three excellent, well-chosen subjects, united by a philosophical preparation in a sweet Essence, it results in a restoration of comfort so powerful that it can draw an infinity of dying people, so to speak, from the arms of death itself, and restore the most exhausted natures, as much as they are capable of recovery, and that the sick, who are otherwise desperate, nevertheless still have some remaining life.
Take excellent bread, crust & crumb, not burnt, but well cooked, made with fine flour from good & pure wheat of one year: both because the bread is only at its perfect maturity after he sweated in the sheaf, and the winter concentrated all its virtue in the attic; that because that immaturity & rawness in all foods is a kind of poison so contrary to the provisions necessary for nutrition, that it is only to prevent the bad effects that we prepare foods by so many coctions, of digestions & previous alterations , by means of which we mature them & make them capable of being transformed by human ferment into our very substance; cut all the bread into toasts, & actually roast it in front of a clear & dry fire, without smoke, until all the superfluous moisture is exhaled, & all the crumb is very dry & well roasted inside, without anything is nevertheless burned.
Reduce these toasts by kind of coarse powder & put a pound of this powder in a double glass cucurbit, with four ounces of seeds or juniper berries, very ripe, very dry, without evaporation except superfluous humidity, & chosen between a sufficient quantity, kept until after winter for the reasons explained above, & also ground into coarse powder. Put on top of it two pounds of simple brandy, taken from twenty pounds of excellent red Burgundy wine, after the winter, or similar very ripe wine, of well-tempered quality, because the essences always hold their own. first qualities of the subjects from which they are drawn, this is natural. You want a great comfortable, so look for it in naturally excellent, & naturally abundant subjects .
Now in the family of Vegetables there is nothing greater and more suitable for this purpose than the philosophical union of Bread, Wine, & Juniper in a sweet Essence. So adapt a very large meeting vessel to the cucurbit , without leasing the joints too precisely, on the contrary arranging them in such a way as to be able to make some small opening with a pin, to let the gas escape, that is to say the uncontrollable spirits , which could break the vessels. Digestion in horse manure for forty days; & after having very well lute the cucurbite & put a spouted capital on it, exactly lute in place of the meeting vessel, which you will have removed, you will distill over graduated fire until the last degree of perfect dryness (yet without roasting or combustion) all the substances which will want to pass, in a large, well-lit Balloon at the nozzle of the capital.
Then you will separate by rectification according to art, spirit, phlegm & oil, which you will keep apart. Put the phlegm back on the caput mortuum in new digestion for eight or ten days, then pour all the liquor by inclination into another cucurbit, & distill it until dry to have the Salt. Repeat this operation until the caput mortuum no longer gives you Salt, and has become useless.
Throw it away like simple excrement, & keep the phlegm to serve as a vehicle; put the Spirit, Oil & Salt back into digestion; circulate for forty days: you will have an exquisite Essence, capable of strengthening Nature so much that it will resist an infinity of illnesses and of reviving dying spirits so quickly that it will almost bring back agony.
The custom in the extremities is to take from fifteen or twenty to thirty, forty, fifty & sixty drops, in a spoonful of one's own phlegm or in some specific vehicle appropriate to the disease; with discretion, depending on age, temperament, the state of the patient, & other circumstances, then every day evening & morning in a suitable broth until perfect convalescence.
And as a precaution, you can take it three or four times a year, each time for fifteen days or three weeks, more or less, depending on need, every morning, in an ordinary broth. Those who are subject to, or who have the disposition to some particular infirmities, can take this Essence a sufficient time, & suitable doses, in specific or appropriate vehicles, of which the ordinary books are filled between which they will be able to choose, by the the opinion of their Doctor,
Condom & Universal Remedy, taken from Animals.
My Brother gave in the seventh Chapter of the second part of his Book, the certain & philosophical method of preparing the true & perfect Essence of Animals by the example of that of Vipers. At the same time he made known the excellence of this great Remedy, so common and so used in Medicine. All the Authors give it extraordinary praise as a very sovereign Remedy against all malignant, contagious diseases, & proceeding from corruption & poisonous causes, fevers, leprosy, scurvy, smallpox, plagues. The essence of Viper, say several Authors, purifies the mass of blood so perfectly, & perfects nature so much with its vital Balm that it separates worn temperaments, provides fertility & in some way restores youth.
This insect is livelier and more poisonous than other snakes. It produces its living young, whereas the others only make eggs, a mark that it has a greater principle of life i. vipera quasi vivi para, id est vivum patura edens.
The Deer, says Ettmuller, is a very perfect animal, entirely alexiterous, entirely antidote. All its duly prepared parts are so many diaphoretics & powerful sudorifics, which drive away through perspiration & through sweat the venoms of malignant diseases. These are effective remedies against pleurisy, colic, uterine suffocation, abortions, gout, and epilepsy.
These great Remedies are drawn from the wood, the tablecloth, the bone found in the heart, the heel, the limb, the buckskin or testicles, the marrow, the blood, the tears, the fat & mainly from a certain stone that is sometimes found in one's heart, in one's stomach, or in one's intestines. It is compared in virtue to the natural Bezoar. This marvelous stone which is found in the ventricle of the deer of the East and West Indies, which is so sovereign that Schroder holds it as universal & admirable against dizziness, obsolete illness, syncope, heart palpitations, jaundice, suppression of the months, gravel, colic, dysentery , difficult childbirth, melancholic passion, malignant fevers , poisons, plague, cancers, and scrofula.
Deer are so long-lived that it is said that they live several centuries; besides that Pliny says, that they were taken with gold necklaces more than a hundred years after the death of Alexander, who had them put on, so that these necklaces were even covered with their skin. It is certain that similar ones have been found in Germany & In France. It is the Deer, says the same Author, who taught the vulnerary virtue of dittany, mainly for arrow wounds . They have no gall, but it is claimed that at the end of their tail there is a worm resembling gall, which is a poison as quick and as dangerous as Napel.
Finally, as proof of the excellence of the nature of the Deer, Furetière reports in his Dictionary, that Jean André Graba Doctor of Erford wrote a physical and medical treatise which he calls elaphography.
Man is the King of Animals. His immortal soul, which is equal to the Angels themselves, not only communicates to his body through its personal union this august dignity whose majesty shines on his face, & which makes him respectable & formidable to other animated creatures, but also it exalts & perfects by the vital ferment of the spiritual irradiations of his luminous idea all his physical virtues, & all his natural properties.
This is done in the same way that the soul communicates to the organs of reason the aptitude & participation in the faculty & acts of reasoning to the organs of the senses, sensation; to the organs of vegetation, growth; to the organs of life, movement & rest. It is the immediate source & the active principle from which emanate essentially all the admirable virtues which produce these noble & sublime operations.
The corporeal Spirits which it uses are only its instruments which soon perish with the rest of matter by their own dissolution, as soon as the soul separates from them and abandons them to the predominant activity of the Universal spirit of the air, whose property is to alter and corrupt elementary beings.
Whether the soul is united to the body immediately, or through the interposition of a neutral means, is indifferent here. My Brother clearly proves in his Theophysical Treatise that man is composed of a material body, director of the organs, of an animal & brutal soul, & of a spiritual & intellectual soul. It is sufficient for our subject that this spiritual soul, this very intelligence is united personally to the body, as well as to the spirit or archaeum & to the animal soul, that this personality causes the communication of idioms, body is raised to the participation of all the qualities of the soul.
No other Animal therefore approaches the perfection & excellence of the only natural & medicinal properties of the human body, which contains in itself a principle of permanent life, as originally intended for impassibility & immortality.
inverted & not annihilated, that the body of man has become subject to death, & per peccatum mors. Without sin, man would never have died. However, he would not have remained on earth forever, he is destined for Heaven. But he had to acquire it through the meritorious works of his faithfulness.
God had placed him in the Garden of delights to sacrifice there, & to defend him from the entrance of the tempter, Posiut cum in paradiso voluptatis ut operetur, & custodiret illum. To work towards the consummation of one's perfection by meriting through the exercise of the virtues, that is to say through the sacrifice of one's adorations & of one's prayers, of one's praises, & mainly by the submission of his mind & by the sacrifice of his heart & his will, works par excellence that he had to carry out there ; thus deserving, I say, the grace of his confirmation in justice.
So when the innocent man would have been confirmed in the justice in which he was created, having nothing left to desire on earth , content to have there by the help of the fruit of the tree of life prolonged his days to his discretion; man would no doubt then be inflamed with the ardent desire to fully and sovereignly possess his Creator and his God, would be in a kind of sleep, so to speak, or rather a pleasant and sweet rest, become what the Saints after their death, called the sleep of the Righteous, will become during the Resurrection.
The soul aided by a superabundance of grace would have, through the impression & communication of its luminous, spiritual, holy & glorious qualities, illuminated, spiritualized, sanctified, & glorified its body perfectly disposed to receive them through sublimation (so say) continual of its matter, & by the sovereign exaltation of its perfections. Finally, by a holy & loving rapture, she would have transported her to Heaven to contemplate there face to face, & without enigma in an intuitive, immediate, unitive & beatific vision, the very essence of Divinity, & enjoy for a blissful eternity the fullness of rest, peace & glory that the most perfect possession of God gives.
Whatever way this was done, it would have been done, since it must be done, and it will be done so necessarily and so infallibly to enter Heaven, that the body cannot enter without this transformation.
Now although human nature became mortal through sin, men nevertheless lived in the early times a series of centuries of seven, eight, and nine hundred years. How much more would they not have lived, and how much more would they not live, of their present duration, by the Master of Eternity, anni cerum septuagina, &c.
Who can therefore doubt that there is essentially in the very body of man, a natural principle and a second seed of very solid duration and perpetual life, since it was only interrupted and not extinguished by the fatal accident of sin, and that it must one day be reborn much more perfectly, to be immortalized by the miracle of the Resurrection.
Physicians so truly recognize these great qualities in the human body that there is almost no part from which they do not extract extraordinary Remedies. That is to say, they find seeds & extraordinary principles of life & perpetuity. They assure that several are obtained from milk and menstrual blood as well as from afterbirth, urine, excrement, blood, mummies, fat, bones, brain, gall, skin &c. & that these Remedies are singularly effective against asthma, phthisis, eresipella, gout, epilepsy, abortions & all sexual diseases, plague, jaundice, dropsy, cachexia, obstructions , calculus, fevers, scurvy, languor, colic, lethargy, diseases of the hypochondria, extinction of the fermentative faculty of the stomach & blood, rabid beasts, loss of blood in women, apoplexy, suffocation of the womb, childbirth, trembling of limbs, relaxation of tendons, shrinkage & hardening of fibers, loss of memory, deafness, ailments of the eyes, & against diseases that they call magicomagnetic & transplantative.
Finally Becker, in the Preface to his Microcosmic Doctor says, that although we can draw from other subjects, and from poisons themselves, as well as from other Animals, an infinity of exquisite Remedies, it has nevertheless pleased God to put into the human body an excellence which surpasses all others, having wanted to be confined in man alone, as in the center of all sublunary creatures , all the most excellent natural virtues. Now the beautiful & divine harmony, continues this Author, which is found between the parts, by which a member is capable of relieving the same member & the same part, proves how evident & certain it is, that very great Remedies of the human body, like things being preserved by like.
If truly, adds Becker, that certain parts of the Brutes relieve and cure the same parts of the human body, for example, the brain of the Hare is good for headaches, as is the lung from foxes and calves to consumptives and lung sufferers, the heart of the deer is a great cordial, the hen's gizzard strengthens the stomach; wolf liver is good for liverworts, deer rod helps with generation &c. And among several other processes, this Author gives at the end of his book a human quintessence which he claims to be the character of all nature and which for this reason he calls by the name of Microcosm or abbreviation of the world.
Take two pounds of vipers' flesh; dry it gently, as it is taught in my brother's book & reduce it to a coarse powder. Take two ounces of deer antler powder, & all the heart, the penis, the testicles, the marrow, the blood, and the flesh around the kidneys which we call the large and small fillets, with the kidneys themselves, otherwise the kidneys, & (if it is 'one can find) this bezoar stone which has been spoken of, all together to make four pounds of powder. Take four ounces of powdered human urine from which the moisture has been gently evaporated, four ounces of powdered human excrement gently dried, with a pound of powdered human blood, from which the superfluous moisture has also been gently evaporated, & which was taken from healthy, robust & young people, as well as urine & excrement.
Assemble all these powders thus arranged with a weight of eight pounds.
I do not repeat the reasons for this simple first & important preparation as my brother made a particular observation of it in chapter 7 of the second part of his book page 111. Paracelsus says in the first chapter of his book of the first three essences of which the bodies generated are composed, that the form of mercury is in liquor, that of sulfur in oil, that of salt in Alkali; in the second chapter, that urine is only a superfluous salt, and stercoral matter an equally superfluous sulfur; but that no superfluities are evacuated and that the liquor (that is to say the mercury) remains entirely in the body.
However, one could say that excess mercury evaporates through sweat. Then proceed exactly as taught in Chapter Seven of the second part of my brother's book page 123 &C. to make the perfect essence of vipers, by putting little by little all your powders in a large vessel made of good wood from an old barrel where there was only excellent wine, with eight pounds of Mane chosen, & 16 pounds of good Narbonne honey in good fermentation, with fifty pints, that is to say approximately one hundred pounds of very pure fountain water. Follow and then opt to the letter like a good artist throughout his process; & if you are skillful, judge by excellence of the simple essence of vipers whose secret he manifested, by all the properties that the Authors attribute to the Deer, & by the super-eminence that they recognize in the qualities of the human body.
What remarkable and universal virtues must have a perfect essence, which results from the philosophical union of the most medicinal of all insects , of the most perfect of simple Animals, & of the body of man itself, which eminently contains all the properties of all other Beings.
I could dwell here on the praises of such a universal and excellent remedy, but I leave the judgment to the Doctors. I also do not enter into all the reasoning that one can make for & against this Remedy. My Brother warned them, and he learnedly satisfied them throughout the course of his Book.
The use of the dose of this Remedy will be easy to prescribe to those who have the talent to prepare it. The usual dose is five or six drops in a vehicle suitable for the disease. A little more or less cannot do any harm, because this remedy is not like any other.
I will only add that by joining what comes from plants & Animals, & working all these subjects together by a single & same preparation, it must necessarily result from the perfect union of these Balsamic materials an incomparable & sovereign balm, which will make a specific remedy for the healing of bruises, wounds , ulcers & other diseases named above. Your Essence will be well made, if it does not have a stinking & cadaverous odor, & if it gives a pleasant & balsamic odor, & for then you can boast of having a Remedy that is gentle, easy & pleasant to use, which will be of prompt & certain effectiveness, of excellent & universal virtue.
First universal remedy derived from minerals.
The true diaphoretic Mercury described by Van Helmont in his Treatise on Fevers, chapter 14 article 7 is one of the greatest and most universal Remedies, process. Good Artists would often have succeeded, if this Philosopher had been less jealous of his secret which he calls the fire element of Venus, that is to say, the sweet spirit of the green oil or external volatile sulfur of the copper vitriol, the extraction of which my Brother so clearly taught in Chapter 10 of the first part of his Book.
As soon as I can complete the translation of the Theophysical Treatise that he left me, we will know that his rare genius gave him knowledge of the highest mysteries of Physics & Theology , which he knew even better than Medicine. Through study, work, and experience, he had acquired knowledge of this rare sect. But God, who is the master of everything, did not want to give him the consolation of putting it to use, nor of profiting from it. On the contrary, his Providence, whose orders are incomprehensible, allowed that a large vial of this precious Essence that my Brother had prepared with so much care in Rome during the last Embassy of the late Monseigneur the Duke of Chaulnes that he had the honor to accompany there unfortunately fell into the sea when they disembarked. My Brother suffered this loss without the slightest emotion being seen on his face, as this illustrious and wise Lord did me the honor of telling me.
establishment in Paris, and all that remained to be done was the distillations & rectifications. But the one who healed others with so much success, was himself carried away by an illness which lasted only five days while I was in agony. This precious Essence was again lost, because everything was looted, because my brother was religious, and because different people claimed his succession. I could not know what this preparation had become, and my profession, nor my business, did not allow me to attach myself in particular, as I could have done with my Brother, to these Beautiful experiences. I am happy to share it with people in the trade. I have no doubt that the skilled people do not thank me for having opened their eyes to the use that can be made of it. To do this, I advise you to read my Brother's entire Book carefully, and to meditate deeply on chapters 9. & 10. of the first part. You will then apply it to the translations of the Authors that I will cite & to the explanations that I will add in enigmatic places. Then put your hand to work yourself for your particular satisfaction, for the relief of your neighbor, and for the glory of God.
Here is a literal translation of some Authors, with the explanation of the enigmatic places, John of Vigo, second part, Practice of Surgery liv. 5 of additione auxilorum multerum.
Here is the preparation of a very strong Water with which we prepare our diaphoretic powder; This water removes excess flesh , it is also good for fistulas, and a single drop of this water can consume excess flesh and warts.
Take citrine orpiment, brass flower, that is to say, verdigris , two ounces of each, nitre salt two and a half pounds, rock alum two pounds, & of Roman vitriol three pounds. Grind everything together, and put it in a well-lubricated glass cucurbit with its capital and its container that you will lute well.
stove on slow fire at the beginning. Distill, increasing the heat little by little, until the container begins to turn red. Then increase the heat again until all the water is distilled: this water has great virtue.
Here is how to make our powder. Take strong water above a pound and a half, quicksilver a pound. Put the water & the quicksilver in a well-lubricated cucurbit & large enough to hold three pounds. Leave everything together for 14 hours in the well-sealed cucurbit. Then put the cucurbit in the stove over a slow fire at the beginning, with its capital and its container well-lit. Do distill until gradually increasing the heat the container (which must be three times larger than the cucurbit) begins to turn red; & fortifying the fire, distil, until all the water has passed into the container. This done, break the cucurbit, & remove all that you find of calcined quicksilver or lime in the color of minium, separate it & purge it of all that is found of white or yellow: & because this water with quick silver has the habit of producing in the neck of the cucurbite a certain whiteness like a very white salt, which is a very good sublimated substance, take care to separate this sublimated exactly from the red powder, lest it make pain, then put this calcined powder in a metal mortar, & grind it with a pestle until it is very subtle.
Then put it on high heat for two hours in a brass vessel, always stirring it with a rod. All the poisonous fumes of the water and the quicksilver will evaporate by this last correction, and the powder will become more perfect and less painful. This is the secret of making a very perfect powder that causes no pain. And as we said in the first Part, this powder is among its other corrosives of a nobler and safer operation, therefore it deserves preference. Van Helmont to the Treatise on Fevers, chap.14.art.7. & 9. speaks in these terms:
The occasional cause of all Fevers is removed by a sudorific remedy which incises, exhausts, resolves, liquefies, & cleanses. It is a universal diaphoretic medicine for fevers; this is why I make no distinction between fevers, when the Remedy is of sovereign goodness. This Remedy is the diaphoretic precipitate of Paracelsus.
Taken by mouth, it cures all kinds of fevers with a single dose, and even etic fever. It also cures cancers, wolves, gangrene, bad dispositions, external & internal ulcers, dropsy, asthma & all chronic diseases, sufficient to cure all diseases alone.
The description of this Remedy, says the same Author, is in Paracelsus, in the Book of the Death of Natural Things, and in the Book of Great Surgery. But since Paracelsus has shrouded it in obscure terms, Van Helmont declares that he will teach it more clearly. We will first say as Paracelsus speaks of it, then we will add the practice & explanation of Van Helmont.
PARACELSUS, book 5 of the death of natural things.
Preparation of Paracelsus verdigris.
It is necessary to anoint copper blades with a paste made of equal parts of honey & vinegar & a little salt, then put them in the reverberatory or in a potter's kiln for as long as it takes to fire his pots. You will find a black material attached to the blades which you will put in the air; this material will become in a few days a very beautiful green of gray, which we can call the balsam of copper, from which we can draw a sovereign balm, as we will say below.
My Brother gave in chapter 9 of the first part of his Book, page 55, the way of making verdigris, rust, vitriol of Mars & Venus without addition, which is therefore more suitable for large operations , as being simpler, more natural & gentler & whose spirit, he says, does not have the burning acidity oil of vulgar vitriol. But let us follow Paracelsus.
Stratify very thin copper blades with powdered salt, sulfur & tartar, equal parts in a large crucible: reverberate for 14 hours over high heat, without melting the blades; then remove & break the crucible.
Expose the blades with the material adhering to the air for a few days : this material will change to a very beautiful verdigris; this green dyes gold & silver with a high color in all etchings, gradation waters & cementations & colorings; that's to say,
How is Mercury sublimated according to Paracelsus?
The mortification of Mercury to sublimate it is done by vitriol & salt: mix Mercury with these two materials & sublimate it; it will become hard as crystal, and white as snow.
Diaphoretic precipitate.
To reduce this sublimate to a precipitate, there is nothing else to do than to calcine in very good strong water, like that of Jean de Vigo, then it is necessary to remove the graduated strong water five times, more or less until 'until the precipitate is of a beautiful red color, (which the water of Vigo does all of a sudden) Dulcify the precipitate as much as you can, like eight or nine times on the ardent spirit of wine, Or as many times as it turns white in the fire and does not fly away; then you will have diaphoretic precipitated Mercury.
Sweet Precipitate & its use.
Here is a big secret of precipitated Mercury. After having colored the sweet precipitate, you will dulcify it with water of salt of tartar, which is done by distilling it and adding new water so many times that it is no longer acrid nor strong, but entirely sweet: for then you will have a sweet precipitate like honey or sugar, which will be a great remedy for all wounds, ulcers & venereal ailments.
I will say nothing about what Paracelsus adds to the property of this precipitate to increase gold.
tartar, in which the difficulty consists, because it is necessary to dulcify that the water of salt of tartar is sweet itself, that is to say stripped of the acrimony of the salt of tartar. My Brother taught the way to do it in the first part of his Book, chap. 9. & 10 which contains the way he kept to make the radical spirit of salt, saltpeter & vitriol by decorporification. You only have to do the same on the tartar, to get the water or the spirit that Paracelsus is content to indicate and does not explain.
Quicksilver balm of Paracelsus, taken from Book 10 of the Great Surgery. There is a sweet balm in quicksilver that can be prepared without calcination nor sublimation, with egg water distilled on lime in which Mercury has been extinguished, and with which it must be reduced to red powder. This balm acquires through this preparation so much virtue and sweetness that it heals the most incurable wounds and ulcers, even those of the bladder, throat, and esophagus.
Preparation of the diaphoretic Mercury of Paracelsus, taken from chap. 2. of his major Surgery.
To do this, take Mercury coagulated with tin, whatever you want; reduce these materials into very subtle powders; put this powder in a golden bowl which you will keep immersed in good vinegar made from excellent wine after having filled it with sublime wine, & you will leave it there for some time. Then light this alcoholic wine, & repeat this a few times; you will see that wine, mercury & tin will resolve into certain oil.
Paracelsus gives a grain of this oil in his good wine (tramineo vel alsatico) and the patient is covered well to prepare him to sweat.
Then take the powder of Jean de Vigo prepared by yourself, because the one you buy would be falsified by a mixture of minium, like most of the chemical remedies that are sold. Having poured on this powder the spirit of the sweet green oil of the sulfur of the vitriol of Venus, the preparation of which my Brother taught, you cohere five times with aqua regia which is the strong water of Jean de Vigo regalized with the fourth part of armoniac salt or sea salt , or finally rock salt; increase the heat towards the end; the powder will set completely and will be very corrosive. This powder must then be mixed ten times with well-delegated wine spirit, that is to say, rectified with the salt of tartar, and renewed each time, until it has taken away all the corrosion, & you will have a powder soft like sugar, but with its own & natural sweetness, because besides the fire of vitriol is sweet, the sulfur of extroverted Mercury is also very sweet. This powder is fixed, & is called or horizontal. This, in a few words, is the secret of Paracelsus. It is difficult to prepare it the first time, but you should not be put off.
Here is how the same Author still speaks of the sulfur of Venus in his Treatise on Stone, chap. 8. art. 5.6. & 8. where he makes it known that it is the spirit of Vitriol's mother, that my Brother discovered & made public.
The sulfur of Venus, says this Author, after having been separated from her body & resurrected, (that is to say, spiritualized or rectified) becomes a sulfur which immediately dyes the sulfur of Mercury, which was extroverted into the powder of Jean de Vigo by corrosive mineral sulfurs .
inseparably, and from the union of their virtues, the resulting diaphoretic Mercury makes a medicine such as the Physicist and the Surgeon can wish for, whether for acute illnesses or for chronic illnesses.
But the fire of Venus is not the spirit of vitriol, that is to say, the spirit of vitriol itself, however rectified it may be: this fire is the volatile sulfur of copper in the form of oil green sweeter than honey, when perfectly separated from the mercurial body of its copper. It is therefore the spirit of the mother of the vitriol of Venus taught by my Brother, of which the copper, that is to say the remaining vitriol, says Van Helmont, as no longer being one of the seven metals, because it has become a new & anonymous metal. He adds that this external sulfur of Venus is this green & sweet oil which can no longer be reduced to the metal which was extracted from it.
He says below: “this external sulfur, such as is obtained from copper, is not necessary for the perfect metal; but God added it to copper for the healing of the infirmities of men. » After all these descriptions, who can doubt that this medicinal external sulfur of copper, that is to say the vitriol of Venus, is not the spirit of this oil which is so fatty, so thick & so green, that it appears black; which my Brother so clearly & so learnedly taught to separate from the essential body of vitriol as from all other salts. Summary of the operation.
So with the red precipitate, from Jean de Vigo, & twice as much mother spirit very purified with vitriol of Venus, cohob together five times at a graduated fire, with four times as much regalized strong water from Vigo , increasing the fire on the end until the powder is fixed; then the sweetener by ten cohobations with the spirit of wine tartarized & renewed each time, until it has taken away all the corrosion: you have this great & incomparable Remedy of Mercury which is a sweet diaphoretic precipitate, which made so many wonders, and whose mystery still remained hidden by the difficulty of extracting the true external element from the fire of Venus that my Brother taught.
Those who want to pay attention to my Brother's procedures on sea salt and vitriol, and unite them philosophically, can hope to have the drif that Van Helmont invented in imitation of Butler's Sovereign Stone, which is the most surprising of all Remedies. But we must observe an essential difference, which is to proceed with salt by progressive operation, instead of proceeding with vitriol by retrograde operation; because retrograde operations make solvents, that operations progressives make fixatives, and that the glorified salt (as the Philosophers speak) must corporify the Mercury of decorporified vitriol. This is what this Author says.
Second Universal Remedy from Minerals.
Butler's Stone, of which Van Helmont made a special treatise, is one of the greatest and most surprising remedies that it is possible to invent. What is more admirable than curing in an instant just by touching the tip of the tongue all different illnesses that we believe to be incurable? We must see what the Author himself says about it, and convince ourselves that such a serious Philosopher, also pious and also Christian cannot be reasonably suspected of charlatanry & lying. Here is a faithful translation of the Author's speech; pay attention to it, you will find that the clarification that I add in a few words is enough to discover the whole mystery: I have sufficiently shown, says Van Helmont, in the preceding Treatise that there is no diseases only in living bodies, &. that not only is the living body the root cause of diseases, but that the interior organ and the very principle of life is also the worker and the efficient cause.
all the traits of diseases are firstly drawn, but it is still the material from which and with which this worker forms his fears, his disturbances and his disorders to his own ruin. For by a fatal consequence of sin, when man distances himself from God, he turns all things to his own destruction. However, as everything in nature consists only of matter and form, as I have amply proven in a particular treatise, all natural things must only be defined by their immediate and proper matter and by their efficient cause; since all essence & existence is nothing other than the assembly & union of these two causes. It is certain that the disease is nothing other than the vital matter of the archaeum on which it was entangled, where a seminal character was born, or the idea of a badly affected or vitiated archaea.
Now whether the archaeus continues in its pernicious error, or whether it spreads the ideas of its anger on some other production, or whether it ceases, this does nothing to the disease. It is only an accident whether it is maintained or not by an unregulated cause, since the archaeum characterizes in the moment on some production or excrement of its body (which it forms for this purpose, maintained. Now the archaeus does not wander like a wandering stranger outside the matter it has corrupted; on the contrary, it either incubates it and causes it to vegetate, or it introduces itself by symbolic union into the natural spirit of the organs. It is from there that it attacks the forces of the members like a fortress , or that it sleeps & wakes up at periodic intervals in the manner that it has imposed on itself in the vital principle, like a host & to a natural saver of life, instead of simply flowing into the fluid archaeum. What he then finds excrementous introduced, received, or produced by a bad diet, whether it follows the type of purgative causes or that of productions, these are always only occasional things, by the importunity of which the archaeus being moved, it represents the true scene of the disease. From which, among other things, it appears that illnesses are no less real when, so to speak, they are silent and asleep, than when they happen to be awake and seem to reason in their access.
This is why I have had to speak so many times about this kind of Tragedy of Diseases, to give posterity the hope of reaping the fruit of something so important, and about which we have nevertheless spoken so little.
Knowing therefore the tree & the fruit of illness, that is to say, its cause & its production, the connection & progress of the causes which contribute to it; We must now apply ourselves to knowing the Remedies that we have wanted for so long and that we have until now ignored.
I have principally considered that disease attacks us in six ways in which it afflicts our body, as if first excited by the spirit of the Demon, to imitate in struggle the week of creation. It follows from this that we would only have to consider six kinds of Remedies in Nature, if divine Goodness had not wanted to communicate to man the original character of its unity which is engraved by everything in nature, having by his omnipotence Unity & its simplicity spread on all sides excellent Remedies for the destruction of diseases. But human understanding naturally finding itself too weak and too cowardly to research it, we were content to listen to Paracelsus and search for its secrets, believing by this means to repair all the faults of corrupt nature. We will subsequently undertake to cure illnesses after we have noticed that the only source of life causes all infirmities by becoming corrupted.
However, I do not disagree that diseases attack us every day in various ways, and that they do not come from different sources. occasional causes which all tend towards our destruction.
Firstly, diseases necessarily occur in the ordinary course of nature through the defect and extinction of the vital forces from which then come the difficulties of the functions, and then the excrement. Secondly, diseases arise from the inequality of the strength of the limbs from which follow disproportion & discrepancy. Thirdly, they come from the disorders of life , the immoderation of which overloads and weighs down the faculties and prevents their functions, as do the debaucheries of women, bloodletting and any loss of strength whatsoever which causes advanced death. Fourth, passions of the soul & of the archaeus debauched voluntarily or on the occasion of some matter which arose, the causes of which had been until now unknown. Fifthly, they are born from the inconstancy of the air, from the insult of the seasons, from the reception of materials which cause obstructions and introduce evil within.
Finally, illnesses arrive through external causes, such as wounds, ruptures, falls, bruises, burns , freezing, snake bites, which all tend only to destroy life and the archaea which the preserve, from which all these things draw their principle.
we will look at God who presides over it, as the only source of life, and as the only one who allows all illnesses: this is why we must honor him even more, as being the dispenser of Remedies. Thus although I have formerly written about the secrets with which each in particular cures almost all diseases by a single virtue, which is the separation & modification of superfluities; nevertheless, as these secrets are very difficult to have and to prepare, they must remain eternally secret among the Mystics. But the healing which comes by their means does not so much immediately concern the disease as it mainly concerns its antecedent occasional cause, or at least its last production & its last effect. Moreover, there are very few of these secret Remedies, and most men are deprived of them without even hope of acquiring them. Which can come from the fact that the infinite goodness of God is only communicated with profusion, and not by so few Remedies.
But I conjecture that the time is approaching when Almighty Goodness wants to manifest to its faithful the science of the essence of diseases which has been unknown until now. However, these secrets are only revealed to very few people, and only for the glory of God. But it appears that divine Goodness after having discovered the intimate essence of illnesses, by wanting to discover the Remedies for the faithful, and we will thereby see that all the power to heal is not contained in the Secrets alone. Thus I did not believe that it was impossible to find a Remedy, which by an unequivocal virtue restores the tree of the archaeus vitiated by any alteration whatsoever , since nature was perfect before being corrupted.
Consequently life and the archaeum as they are simply the cause of being, are before the vice which occurs to them, because as the immediate cause of whatever indisposition it is life itself; so certainly the consideration of healing & of the perfect recovery of altered or weakened life is principal, first, more intimate & nobler than the healing which takes place through the Secrets or excellent worldly. For although these kinds of Secrets often look at & remove the previous occasion, their action is nevertheless as secondary with regard to the healing, which comes from internal causes, which were first altered & affected. It is for this reason that they require and mainly their own pacification by a natural indication which is the principal of all, since the natures themselves have always been recognized as operative in the healing of diseases. This is how under the veil of the true spirit which does violence, it has been recognized that it is the very vital nature which makes and generates diseases, Nevertheless from the time of Hippocrates to Galen, and since the examination and speculation of diseases have been neglected.
This is why what I have said so far about how to cure them by pacifying and calming the archaea, that is to say, by separating all its alterations, is completely new. & unknown. So I will first explain myself with a few stories or examples, considering the state, peace, rest & docility of the archaeus.
A certain Hibernian named Butler, Castle of Vilvoorde, had compassion on a man named Bailus Monk of Saint Francis, famous Preacher in Brittany, who was also a prisoner with him. This Monk had a formidable erysipelas on his arm, and almost despaired of his recovery. Butler soaked a certain small stone for a little time in a spoonful of almond milk and removed it at the same time; he told the jailer to give this to this Monk to drink, and that if he took some he would be cured in an hour. The Monk having taken this Remedy, was immediately healed, and the Jailer very surprised. The Monk, who did not know that he had taken any Remedy, was surprised by such a rapid recovery. His left arm which was extremely swollen and immediately went down, & there was little difference with the other arm. The next morning I arrived in Vilvoorde where I had been called by the principals of the City to witness this healing. I made friends with Butler, who in my presence cured an old washerwoman who had been ill for about sixteen years with an unbearable migraine.
Butler dipped the same small stone in a spoonful of olive oil for a moment, after removing it he wiped it with his tongue & put it in a case. He put this spoonful of oil in a vial in which there was other olive oil, and ordered the sick woman to take one drop and rub her head with it, which having done, she was immediately cured. I was so surprised by this sudden cure that Butler, seeing it, said to me, mocking me: “My dearest, if you do not succeed in being able to cure all kinds of illnesses with a single Remedy, you will never be anything other than a apprentice. » I easily agreed with what he told me, because I had learned & known that this could be done through the secrets of Paracelsus.
But I candidly admitted to him that this new way of healing was completely unknown to me and seemed extraordinary to me. I told him that a young Prince of our Court, Viscount of Ghent, brother of the Prince d'Epifoy, from the Maison des Moles, was tasty, that he could only lie on one side, and that he was completely misshapen and full of knots. He took my hand and said to me: “Do you want me to heal this young man? I will be for your sake. » I told him that he was so stubborn that he would rather die than take a single Remedy. " Well ! he won't take any, said Butler, I only ask him to touch this stone with the tip of his tongue every morning, and for three weeks he washes his knots and diseased areas every day with his urine. , and you will see him immediately healed and walking around. Come on, and tell him that! "
I immediately returned to Brussels to report to the Prince what Butler had told me. The Prince replied that he would gladly do what I told him, and that if Butler cured him in this way, he would give him whatever he wanted and that he would put in deposit the sum he asked for. The next day I reported all this to Butler who was angry: “Really,” he said, “this is a beautiful proposition that this Prince is making to me; I will never relieve him; I have good things to do with his money! »
I could never get him to do what he had promised; this made me doubt whether what I had seen was not chimerical.
who was extremely fat, urged Butler to deliver him of his fat. Butler gave him a small piece of his stone so that he could lick it once every morning with the tip of his tongue for a short time, which having done for three weeks, I saw his chest shrinking 'half a foot; & he was no less well off. This made me believe that he could have cured the gouty Prince as he had promised me. Some time later I sent to Vilvoorde to ask Butler to send me his Remedy to cure me of a venom which had been given to me by a hidden enemy. I languished miserably, all my limbs gave me pain, my pulse increased, and then it became intermittent.
I was failing, and all my strength was fading. Immediately Butler, who was still in prison, ordered my valet to bring him a vial of olive oil, in which having dipped his little stone like the other time, he sent me this oil, and ordered that I rub it with a a single drop of this oil on the place of my pain, which I did without receiving any relief. My enemy having fallen ill and ready to die, ordered that someone come from him and ask me for forgiveness for his sin; this is how I knew that he had given me poison. I did everything possible to turn off this slow poison, from which with the grace of God I heal myself. For several months my wife had been bothered by pain in her right arm, so much so that she could not even raise her hand. She had become so swollen from her feet to her groins, that the mark of my fingers remained imprinted far into her swelling: and because my illness was the cause of her sadness, she did not want to take any Remedies until I was cured. My wife seeing that Butler's oil had been useless, she wanted to make fun of my credulity in front of some servants; she rubbed her right arm with a single drop of this oil and instantly, against all hope, it was completely healed. We were all astonished by such a sudden and prodigious event. She also rubbed the ankles of her feet with a drop of this oil, and in a quarter of an hour all the swelling was gone, and thanks to God she lived another nineteen years later, in good health.
One of our servants having learned what had happened to her Mistress, she asked for a few drops of this oil, because she had poorly healed erysipelas on her right leg, her leg still leaden, and silage up to the toes. . In the evening when she went to bed she rubbed her soreness with four drops of this oil, in the morning there was no longer any appearance of soreness, and the servant did all her functions as she was accustomed to doing before her illness. She went the same morning to the Church of the Blessed Virgin, came back cheerfully and brought me water from the Fontaine Sainte Anne which is very far away. A young lady had for several months been so inconvenienced in both arms that she could not raise her hand; she rubbed them with a few drops of this oil, and in the afternoon she was restored to perfect health.
After this I asked Butler why so many people were so quickly cured with his Remedy, from which I had not received the slightest relief. He asked me what illness I had. When he learned that she had just poison, he told me “That as the illness had started internally, it was necessary to swallow its oil or lick the stone, because the pain was not topical or external, but that it came and was maintained from within. » I also observed that this oil gradually lost its virtue, because this stone which had only soaked lightly in it, had not radically and totally transformed this oil, but had only imparted to it a passing odor or virtue, as much as that this stone resembled melted sea salt , in its color and its taste. Now it is certain that salt does not mix perfectly with oil.
Butler also heals an Abbess who is quite famous, by making her touch her stone with her tongue. This Abbess had a swollen right arm , her fingers extended and immobile, and she had been in this state for eighteen years .
All those who witnessed these surprising healings suspected it of magic, because it is the custom of the people to report to the Devil and enchantments what they cannot understand. However, the Remedy seemed natural to me, it was only extraordinary in its small quantity, it required neither ceremonies nor words, nor things suspicious of magic.
Although we do not understand things, we do not need to bring them back to the demon; but we must give the glory to God. These women had not believed in Butler as a male Magician, on the contrary they had no confidence in him at first. But no matter how much we say in its favor, this ease and speed of healing will remain suspect for a long time to many people. The people have a weak mind, and as they are incapable of judging difficult and extraordinary things , they attribute them more easily to deception. God is the Creator of human nature, the Repairer, the Savior, the Father, & the Protector of the poor.
It is not only the people who give in to these illusions; people of letters are not always exempt, because the majority, not yet being educated enough, follow popular opinions, they are like children, who, having never left their fathers' house, listen without reflection to everything that is said to them. Those who have not known until now that all illnesses are contained in the impetuosity of the vital spirit, or who from reading my writings have only a slight impression of this way of healing, will return easily to the precepts of ordinary Physicians to which they have been accustomed from the beginning of their studies, and will leave me to attach themselves again to the system of humors.
point on the devil the benefits of God, I found among other things that all things are formed in nature from an invisible seed that the Creator spread there to produce all material beings, & these seeds coming to germinate, produce the beings that God had enclosed within. It is for this reason that I taught that diseases take their beginning from an even more invisible seed, and that consequently it is only a question of destroying this cause of the disease.
I said of an invisible seed; for we can say that illness being a consequence of sin, it proceeds, so to speak, from non-being; because sin is only a privation, and the deprivation is a real nothingness; in fact we often see that several illnesses are cured with the external application of condoms, as often happens in the plague, caducous disease and other illnesses, and this is how we have seen health restored by the anointing with Butler's oil.
Butler's stone is, by the goodness of God, a familiar and pleasant remedy for the human archaeum, or principle of life, because through its simplicity it provides peace and rest for the archaea. Those who begin to study Medicine should notice that at the time of the Serpent's bite, the part swells extremely with great pain, instantly excites a hard & painful tumor with its sting.
If leprosy or the plague infect us in a moment with its contagious venom, why will our archaea which is thus tainted by it not willingly receive the communication of such a powerful Remedy, since it is true that Remedies have at least less as much strength & power in nature as poisons & the goodness of God as much as bad things. It is therefore reasonable to believe that a rapid attack of illness can be immediately pushed back by a kind of reflux. I saw a fat woman who was threatened with a whitlow on her finger which was swollen almost as big as her arm, For several nights she had suffered from pain to the point of losing sleep; she wrapped his finger with blood and fresh skin from a Mole, and he was perfectly restored. Doesn't reason dictate that the antidote has at least as much virtue as the venom?
We also see that the well-known and famous Orvietan stops in a moment the convulsions, pains and syncopes caused by the venom, as if we had not taken poison. Just as illness is a defect of nature and a prevarication of the archaeus, the Remedy is also a participation of divine Goodness by which the virtue is given to repair all these defects. That's why the Remedy is much more powerful & quicker than the disease; it is the effective presence of the Remedy which frees the archaea from its embarrassments, calms its furies, and at the same time imprints on it its eminent and medicinal virtue for which it was created with this prompt way of healing. It is certain that if we dip Butler's stone in a spoonful of oil, and pour this oil into a pot or even into a barrel full of oil, everything becomes a remedy, just like an odor. stinking infects an entire vase with its contagion.
It is certain that Surgical Remedies do not heal other than by their odor and by touching the part alone.
injured: because plasters and oils do not enter into the vital composition of the substance, nor into the nourishment of the injured part. When ulcers arise or arrive in a certain part, like cancers, magnifying glasses, etc. the mere touch of a powerful remedy is enough to extinguish the venom that the anger of the archaea has produced there. It is the same thing with excrescences and productions which stop in certain places, although they have previously taken their birth from elsewhere, and have finally settled in a place ; because the external anointing of the Remedy tames the entire archaeum by its sole touch and its contiguity. It is in this way that the The tooth of a rabid animal, although perfectly cleaned by the air to which it has been exposed, still sometimes communicates rabies.
This is how the Remedy of our stone heals internal affections, nevertheless operating more effectively and more quickly when taken by mouth; just as certain poisons have no effect when they only touch the skin: if these kinds of Remedies touch the tip of the tongue even slightly, it is no wonder that the entire archaea is immediately affected, soothed and softened. , especially since this stone is of the nature of salt which does not melt into oil, in which it does not mix other than a sweet smell. This is how the stinking smell of the trace of a plague victim acts.
It seems to me that Holy Scripture says something about this stone; this is how she speaks: The Apothecaries will compose gentle ointments whose virtue will not be exhausted. That is to say, by dipping the Butler stone in oil, its medicinal value is hardly diminished. This is why if this excellent Remedy is taken from within, then not only does it change the blood into a medicine similar to balm; but the very excrements, for example, urine, are imbued with goodness, the urine of a child at the breast smells of anise when its nurse has eaten it, and those who eat asparagus smell it through their urine; in the same way urine cures by its own lotion or anointing all kinds of diseases which have their seat in the habit of the body. The goodness of God wanted that just one of these stones could suffice for several thousand people, so that the Physician would not excuse himself from healing the poor, under the pretext of the great expense.
In a word, all illnesses are cured with this one Remedy, either by anointing or by touching only with the tip of the tongue, especially if you immediately swallow your saliva. It is therefore necessary that the virtue of this Remedy be well great, since it quickly cures poisons and plague. Philosophy teaches me that this Remedy must be a body destroyed, resurrected and, as it were, glorified, so that it is no longer capable of being defiled by the sublimation of the vicious parts.
From which it follows that it must be much more powerful and more operative than whatever pestilential venom it may be; because this plague venom is simple & has its seat in an air or bodily spirit. And although the venom of the plague ferments more familiarly or naturally because of the suitability it has with human nature, it is not for that reason a more powerful venom. It is true that the venom produces a venom, but it is similar to the leaven of the first producing venom, and not stronger, because the producer cannot raise the virtue of the product above his own strength, on the contrary, in a resurrected remedy, the goodness of the simple remedy is increased to a thousand degrees, & spreads by its light odor, expands throughout the body, & at the same instant commands the present archaea to contain itself in peace.
This is how this mystery operates, which is the effect of its virtue, the true hope of life, and the joy of the archaeus. From which it follows that the whole virtue of medicines consists almost only in the communication of the odor or of a certain perfume almost momentary. So there is no reason to be so surprised that the fragrant oils of Butler's stone heal in the moment by their smell. These are the murmurs of apprentices against the experience of the Masters. It will seem completely chimerical, although admirable, to minds accustomed to condemning extraordinary things, that the archaeus in fury suddenly falls asleep, as if by a kind of enchantment, or is so corrected, that it stops harming & hurting . Which is certainly not so admirable, since all things naturally tend to be and remain what they are, and they easily cease to be harmful, provided that they are made gentle, docile & capable of appeasing their sadness or fury. The sacred text convinces me that Butler's stone can cure thousands of sick people every year by its virtue as infused with a single grain of this remedy.
Here are his words: “The virtue of these kinds of Remedies will not be exhausted. I was forced to believe what I saw with my own eyes, which is that if you dip this stone in a spoonful of oil, then if you put this spoonful in a vial of oil, it becomes an excellent medicine. . » For a long time I applied myself to several experiments to find the composition of the Butler stone.
While working on this great Remedy, I learned that in the genre of Plant remedies there is a simple one called chameleon or thistle, and another called persiquaria, persicane or aquatic pepper, which by their mere touch immediately at least very considerably reduce excruciating pain. I have also seen a bone from the arm of a Toad take away toothache with the first touch, and I have noticed certain other things cure the defunct disease, and similar infirmities.
This led me to believe that among the simple species there were Remedies for all kinds of illnesses, but that they were only particular and not universal. This is why I preferred minerals to plants, as being enriched over the duration of a long sequence of time. There Holy Scripture teaches me that great virtues are found in stones; & I knew that all the color & virtue of precious stones is taken from metals.
It further ensures that their virtues are very great even though they are enclosed and sealed under the hardness of their crystal. This is why I considered that the same virtues of precious stones are more familiar to us and easier to treat in metallic bodies. Pic asked his wife why gold, from the very commandment and appreciation of God, is of such great value. But she couldn't answer the question.
It is certain that the seven metals do not bear the names of the seven planets only because they received the celestial virtues from it; at least they are the juice and the most exquisite substance of the entire terrestrial globe; & this is why they are the reward for the labors of men.
But the Father of the poor, who takes so much care of them, has not arranged the Sun & the Moon, I mean gold & silver, for the healing of their illnesses. On the contrary, he has sealed them so strongly that they almost surpass all the skill and ability of the artists. So that when they consider them very open, they still find the same obstacles; they can't get anything out of it. As for mercury or quick silver, although it appears fluid, and for this reason open, yet nothing in nature is so closed, as I have amply shown elsewhere in treating volatile or fugitive subjects. So that barely one among a hundred thousand artists reaches the mysteries that can be drawn from the Sun, the Moon, and Mercury.
Besides these, there are four other metals which obey more easily the operations of artists. Paracelsus boasts of being able to cure two hundred species of diseases by the virtue of lead alone, and he assures that there is nothing which acts so powerfully on the humid radical as the first being of copper, nor anything so soft and so suitable for lengthening life as the sulfur of vitriol, because it represents the sulfur of the Philosophers.
Finally, mars or iron, although very vile, so despised by a large number of people, is nevertheless esteemed by Paracelsus for a very good Remedy. It is true that metallic bodies, as for their mercury, are sealed with the seal of perfect homogeneity; but their sulfur can be treated when we know how to make it treatable. Finally, I had Butler's stone so strongly in my mind that I didn't think of anything else, and I had dreams about it; It often seemed to me that I saw young, sweating Chemists pouring flaming trochisques similar to Butler's stone.
Then I tried to do it several times, and although it seemed to me that I had achieved the same thing that I had seen between his hands, it is nevertheless true that I had not succeeded. I finally knew that my faults came from the old and ordinary error of the Schools, and that those who until now have only claimed to be cured by the removal of occasional causes, needed a certain time and a certain quantity of Remedies to achieve healing . But those who want to heal by the sole restoration of the altered archaea, using a sweet ferment, do not need the quantity of Remedies, since they can heal by the sole virtue of the smell of the ferment. .
As I was still in the old error, and did not know the essence of evil well, great disease could only be cured by a large quantity of Remedies given over a long period of time. Thus I measured the greatness of the Remedy by its quantity, and not by its virtue, as also do the Schools with which I fell into error.
What had mainly deceived me was that I believed that as two Horses drag more than one, and that a whole loaf nourishes more than its half, I also thought that a Restorative Remedy for the archaeum should contain a large quantity of Medicine to overcome the effects and consequences of illnesses, & I had not yet been able to get rid of my prejudices, which were to look at illnesses through their occasional cause, instead of considering them by their true efficient cause. I had fallen into this error, because I had not yet fully understood that archaea and life itself cause and maintain illnesses; & I understood even less that, being misguided, they resisted and were reluctant to submit to a comprehensive remedy.
I know a certain liquor with which if you lightly rub your hand, let it dry, and then touch your beard, eyebrows or head, all the hair falls off in a little dirt . If there are venoms which extinguish by a slight touch the vegetative life of the hair which grows even on corpses, why do they Remedies which act by virtue, and which have that of rectifying by their sole touch the aberrations of life, will they not soothe the irritations of the archaea, given in small quantities? It is true that I had difficulty understanding this, both because of the prejudice into which the Schools had thrown me, and because I saw that if a grain of poison kills, a dragme will kill even more quickly. I was in this error, because I had not yet known well enough that all illnesses come from the deviated or irritated archaeum, and that the Potestative Remedy is endowed with an excellent virtue by which it restores the archaeum. & repairs its defects.
This is why these kinds Remedies must be given, without the patient or the archaea realizing it; otherwise the archaeus becomes angry and becomes even more heated when it sees that people are trying to use Remedies to calm their disorder. He becomes furious, refuses Remedies, persists, breaks the rules, and increases the idea that causes him harm.
But let us return to Butler's Remedy, which cures by touching it with the tip of the tongue, or by taking it by the weight of a grain. I gave the name Drif to this Stone, and to similar Potestative & Fermentative Remedies, because it means sand, or virgin earth, and that in Animals or sensitive beings, these Remedies drive away, as does a shifting sand, all the irritation & everything that is foreign to them. I will first say the things which are necessary for the composition of this stone; then I will teach, as much as a Philosopher should, the way of composing it.
It is first necessary that this stone be a metallic body, which by its long duration marks incorruptibility, which by a favor of Heaven has acquired the perfection of its being, & which by a particular grace of the Almighty, seems to be intended for relief of the wretched & the poor.
Secondly, this stone is not one of these extraordinary secrets that God only communicates to very few Scholars, or to a few of his Elect, since our Drif seems to be mainly intended for the relief of the poor. Thirdly, this stone must be taken from a natural body which participates in metallic benignity , which previously was rendered by death & obedient & open, not with the extinction of its strengths & virtues, as would be the corpse of 'a person who died his natural death, but that he is opened by the artist by retaining his properties, delivered from his obstacles, & as if resuscitated & even enriched, completely renewed, & recently emerging from the fire..
Fourth , he must be resurrected as from death, volatile & spiritual fact; that is to say, two or three times sublimated with the addition of necessary things.
Fifthly, but because the volatiles soon perish while dissipating , & evaporate before even being swallowed, having penetrated the stomach & viscera, pushed & communicated their excellence, & pacified the archaeum, this stone requires that after perfect volatilization, it is united with some friendly body, pleasant and familiar to the archaea which holds it as if in its bosom to communicate it to the human body; & for this this body must hold the middle between the easy & the difficult to evaporate & dissipate in fire. Moreover, she must be united by some means, when its greatest heat is almost softened, lest the greater part of the volatile should evaporate in uniting it.
Sixthly, he must until then not only by the constancy of his body, but also by the extent of his forces and virtues, be entirely fermentative agent, so that by the excessive communication of his odor he can extend his virtues until to the archaeum to soften it & put it to sleep.
After having described the Butler stone in the previous six articles, we will now give its composition in the following six.
We taught in the Book of Stone chap. 8. one way particular to distill the spirit of sea salt, with potter's earth or dried clay, because sea salt is very suitable for us.
To make this stone, it is necessary to take the residue of sea salt which remains in the feces, which is the marc or dregs, which is called caput mortuum, or dead head. This salt, through the loss of its spirits, attracts foreign ones, which it contains within itself, without fixing them perfectly. 2. I taught that we can only separate the first being from Venus by death and separation of its mercury from its sulfur, and even that this sulfur is only drawn by the adepts, whose number is n 'being only Elected, is very rare & very small. 3. vitriol & in dissolved copper & distilled several times, the current copper still remains there. 4.
This stone requires at least a separation of Venus from the feces of vitriol, which can only be done by sublimation. 5. This sublimation is carried out and perfected by a foreign fermental being who is perfectly friendly to the archaea. 6. Having melted sea salt extracted from feces, mix with it before its perfect condensation approximately three times as much being or essence of Venus resurrected by sublimation & accompanied by its foreign ferment, & immediately cover the crucible; then when everything is perfectly cooled, grind it into powder on the marble, & there add about ten times as much human skull moss as there is essence of Venus & make trochiques of this powder with dissolved fish glue; you will have a very excellent Remedy, these are Van Helmont's own words.
Is it possible that the Masters of the Art, after having read everything this Author says in chap. 8. de la Pierre & de la Gravelle in chap. 14. Fevers & its essence of Venus with everything that Mr. Abbé Rousseau says about the preparation of vitriol, saltpetre & salt; Is it possible, I say, that clever people do not see only external sulfur , which Van Helmont says is not essential to Venus, and which is particularly intended from God for Medicine & for the relief of the poor sick, is none other than the mother oil which remains after the separation of all the salt or vitriol which contains its sulfur & its essential & metallic mercury? My brother taught the way of rejecting this salt to then sublimate, that is to say, rectify the spirit of this oil or sulfur, which is the element of fire or sulfur of Venus, of which this Philosopher makes the basis & the capital of its universal remedies.
Who only sees this foreign ferment, with which this spirit of Venus must be accompanied, is none other than the mercury of John of Vigo Cidevant described in chap. 4. This ferment is foreign to Venus, since it is essential & constitutive of quicksilver which is another species of metal, although they are all of the same genus, as coming from the same metallic root. The mercury being thus prepared, Helmont adds his Venus fire to make it perfectly diaphoretic and universal. And to make them both solid, to corporify them further & to fix them as in a kind of stone, he unites them with a real body or fixed alkali of sea salt separated almost from all spirits, in the manner that he taught in chap. . 8 of the stone, so that it holds these more strongly and unifies them more perfectly.
By working like this, you have the assembly philosophical of the spirit of mercury, the sulfur of Venus, & the body of salt united together & a much better Remedy than the previous one which is only composed of Venus & mercury. Although great virtues are attributed to the moss of the human skull, it is easy to understand that it is not the essence of this stone. You can even take human blood essence in its place, which is also very effective. The rest is only used for the external form, and for the ease of putting the Remedy into use. Here is the preparation of salt, saltpeter, vitriol, & the like that Van Helmont teaches in the chapter on gravel mentioned above.
There is only this difference, that the vitriol having sufficient colcotar or dead head to retain its fixed salt, it is necessary to mix perfectly with sea salt, saltpeter & the like three times as much very dry, pulverized potter's clay, & incorporate them together, in order to that it helps to retain the fixed salt, and by this means to let go of the acidic mercurial spirits which are contrary to Medicine.
Take real common vitriol from Cyprus or Hungary, very pure & unadulterated. Cook it and dry it in a large earthen vessel, until the pot breaks, and the vitriol is hard as a stone; grind it into powder & distill it to the minimum with six glass retorts at a time & very well calibrated, because those of earth or stone are too porous; lure the neck of the retort to a large container so perfectly that nothing can exhale.
Place your container in damp sand, and cover it with a bag half full of similar sand which you will moisten from time to time. The retort must be half full of your vitriol powder which you will distill over a graduated fire, increasing over a coal fire in a wind furnace as hot as possible. Then when no more spirits pass through this degree of fire, you will give a flame and streetlight fire as violent as possible day and night for five or six days without interruption. Don't be surprised if your retort seems to melt, the glass will only become incorporated into the retort as much as necessary.
But don't forget to remove your container while the fire is still very strong, because the spirits would enter the retort and the feces at the slightest cooling. Take your colcotar or caput mortuum, and burn it with double the flower of sulfur, until all the sulfur is entirely consumed; then sprinkle the colcotar in a glass vessel with its distilled spirit, the colcotar will immediately drink the distilled spirit. You will only get useless phlegm, because the mind will remain in the colcotar. Repeat the operation six or seven times, until the spirit becomes red and the colcotar floats, this is the mark of the saturation of the colcotar, and the imbibitions must stop .
Dry this precious colcotar & distill it until the last spirit which will be yellowish and smell of honey. Remove the container as done above; keep it in a tightly stoppered double glass vial; because if the slightest drop of water fell on it the vessel would break. This spirit can only be made processable by mixing that of the first distillation. You cannot even pour a pound from one flask into another without it evaporating in the process.
less than an ounce, it is so subtle. It should be noted that the caput mortuum of the colcotar from the second distillation is still of the nature of copper, and becomes extremely green. It follows from this, as I have already said, that the fire of Venus is only released by the perfect destruction of the metal, and by a much more secret path than that of which I spoke above; (this is the one that Mr. Abbé Rousseau demonstrated) He says that the vitriol which abounds in copper is less suitable for distillation and medicine than the common one; that the vitriol of Venus gives an acid spirit of mineral salt or mineral vinegar, like the common spirit of vitriol, & not a volatile liquor of copper, & that by therefore the sulfur of Venus, which is sweet and not acidic, is properly the sulfur of the Philosophers, intended to prolong life.
He also says that the spirit of vitriol that I taught above cures some chronic illnesses, & that its residue or colcotar is very medicinal.
This reasoning proves that by preparing common sea salt & common Cyprus or Hungarian vitriol we obtain the true sulfur of Venus & the first being of salt. If you unite its sublimated spirits of this sulfur with the mercury of Vigo, you will have a much more excellent remedy than the composition that one would make with the spirit of vitriol & the body of salt which we spoke about above, because that in these preparations there still remain corrosive acids and mercury contrary to the benignity which is so necessary for a universal remedy.
This common sea salt and common Cyprus or Hungarian vitriol must be prepared according to my Brother's method, because in this way all the crystals, that is to say, all the salt and the metallic mercury are entirely separated from vitriol & all mercurial spirit is separated from common salt.
Take one part of the ground sea salt mother spirit; three times as much rectified spirit of mother of vitriol from Cyprus or Hungary) unite them philosophically with two parts of the red precipitate of John of Vigo; add four parts of essence of human blood: you will have a composition much more excellent than all the Remedies taught above. To make it solid, it must be incorporated with candy sugar, and good gums and resins, such as camphor, mastic, benzoin, myrrh, armoniac gum, and the like.
Third Universal Remedy, taken from minerals.
Mr. Devisé reports in his Mercure of the year 1687 that the late Mr. Abbé de Commiers, Provost of Ternant, gave the composition of a universal medicine drawn from antimony, that Mr. d'Aulède, First President at the Parliament of Bordeaux, had three people prepare Artists. This President says that one of these Chemists succeeded, and that the other two always failed, not having been able to achieve the true preparation of nitre. He assures that a patient who had a continuous fever with inflammation of the chest was perfectly cured in twenty-four hours by a single intake of this Remedy, which was followed by very abundant and very stinking sweat.
That another was cured of pleurisy with transport to the brain. That a frenzied man who had become as if demonic, having taken this medicine three times in three days in a row, likewise recovered his health, and that he cured his own daughter of fatal pleurisy.
Composition of the Universal Medicine of the late Father of Commiers, with the explanation of the difficulties.
Take nitre salt refined by solutions & coagulations in distilled rain water , so many times that all the alum & common salt it contains are removed: what you will know when it is no longer produced , & that the niter will come out at the same weight as you put it in. Observe that you should only take that which crystallizes first in the first water; it is the best & the one which contains all the most essential qualities of nitre. Put this salt to melt slowly in an iron vase, and when it is well melted, throw over a small quantity of soft charcoal, such as well-pounded willow, which will first burn and consume: repeat little by little until after the detonation this niter salt is fixed and it has become a slightly greenish color, which happens when the coal does not rise, as it did before.
Pour your melted niter salt into a hot marble mortar; When the niter has cooled, it will be white like an alabaster stone and brittle like glass. Pound it immediately, and spread the powder on glass slides or earthenware or glazed earthenware plates. Expose it to the air in a cellar, or other place in which it either covered from dust, the sun, rain, and dew: lean the plates a little, and place a glass vase underneath to receive the oily liquor which will flow from it due to failure, because the humidity of the air resolving the nitre salts in the space of a few days, you will find twice as much oil as there was in the nitre salt, if the operation is carried out in weather which is neither too cold nor too hot, but temperate & humid.
The increase in oil is because your niter attracts the invisible niter salt that is in the air. Filter this oil several times, then put it on the hot ashes, in a retort with its container to extract a small amount of phlegm. Put the oil remaining in the retort on a fourth part of the new niter salt prepared as above. Put everything back into fault, filter, remove the phlegm, & start the whole operation a third time, you will have a very rectified oil or gasoline & such as requested by Mr. de Commiers. This oil is a very powerful menstruum or solvent for extracting essence or tincture from all kinds of blends.
Kerckerin, Commentator of Basile Valentin, said on page 14s. that the ordinary spirit of wine is not enough to extract the true tincture from the antimony glass, and that it is necessary to prepare it in the manner next. Take armoniac salt sublimated three times, four ounces; of tartarized and delegminated spirit of wine, ten ounces. Put everything together to digest in a well-stoppered matrass, until the spirit of wine is charged with sulfur or fire with armoniac salt, then distill in the alembic. Repeat the whole operation three times, you will have the real menstruation to draw the red dye from the antimony glass. But as it is only a question here of drawing out the tincture, the spirit of tartarized wine must suffice.
So take four or five parts of this oil thus rectified, and a part of the best antimony, which we recognize by certain freckles that it gets from the gold mine near where it is located. Basil Valentin in his Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, page 108. SC 109. from the Amsterdam printing, in 1671. wants us to take antimony mine which has not passed through fire . After the antimony or mine has been put into a very fine powder on the marble, put it in a large glass bowl and the oil on top, observing that two thirds of the bowl remain empty. Block the mattress so that it does not breathe; digest over low heat or in a lamp, until the oil on top of the antimony appears gold or ruby in color; then draw out your oil, and having filtered it through the paper, put it in another long neck matras, & put on top at least as much very good spirit of wine well rectified on the salt of tartar, & leave empty at least two thirds of the matras.
Close the flask in which you have put your tincture of antimony with your spirit of wine; put in slow heat digestion for a few days, until the spirit of wine has drawn all the color from the oil or tincture of antimony. The nitre oil will remain very clear & white at the bottom, on which the wine spirit impregnated with the gold tincture of antimony will float.
Draw the wine spirit thus colored & separate it from the nitre oil by decantation; nitre oil will always be useful to others operations to extract the essence of antimony as many times as we want.
Put your wine spirit in a glass still; distill very gently until only about a fifth part remains at the bottom , which will retain with itself the tincture of antimony, or else distill all the spirit of wine, leaving only the essence at the bottom antimony . You will have in liqueur or powder the universal medicine, by which Mr. de Commiers assured that one can preserve and cure all kinds of infirmities.
If it is used as a liqueur, take five or six drops in wine or broth, or some liqueur suitable for the disease. If we uses it in powder, we will put 3, 4, or 5 grains, more or less, because if the dose is a little stronger or weaker, it cannot harm, like ordinary medicines which almost all have qualities poisonous; the sick are cured in the second or third dose. When the disease is persistent, you must increase the dose each time, and take it three times a week. This medicine, says the author, cures not only all the most inveterate internal diseases , but also external ones, being applied in the form of balm to wounds, ulcers, and gangrene. It cures quartan fever, etic fever, dropsy, venereal disease, obsolete evil. It strengthens the head, stomach & digestion like drinkable gold , since it is the aurific tincture of antimony, which is the first being of gold.
It usually operates by insensible perspiration; often through sweat and urine, rarely from below , and even more rarely through vomiting, and without any violence. The patient is not weakened as by other medicines: this is why it can be given to any age, any complexion and at any time. Use it, share it with the public, and especially to the poor, and bless God who created Medicine.
Fourth Universal Remedy from Minerals.
The Stone of Fire of Basil Valentin, recognized as Universal Medicine, even by ordinary Physicians, with all the preparations necessary to make it, taken from the same Author & his Commentator at the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.
Take the antimony mineral which is found in gold mines, & equal part of niter salt, (the Author simply says nitre, without speaking of prepared nitre, it must however be prepared in the manner which will be taught below .) Grind them into subtle powders, & mix them.
Place them on a moderate fire and burn them together very gently; (this is what this operation mainly consists of ) your mining will become blackish. Make it glass, as will be hereinafter taught. Grind this glass into a subtle powder, & extract from it the high-colored red dye with the strong distilled vinegar & made from the proper mining of antimony & in the manner that will be described below.
Remove the vinegar by distillation in the bath, a powder will remain ; (take care, says the Commentary, not to burn the wings of your bird, which begins to rise on the high mountains) from which powder you will make the extract with the spirit of very rectified wine, as well as it will be taught below. The feces will remain & you will have a beautiful red & soft dye, which is widely used in Medicine.
If you have two pounds of this extract, take four ounces of salt of antimony prepared, as will be said hereafter; pour your extract on them, & circulate them for at least a month in a hermetically sealed mattress, the salt will combine with the sulfur of the extract. If feces are produced, they must be separated and extracted again in a bain-marie with the prepared wine spirit. Push the remaining powder over very high heat and a soft oil of several colors, transparent and red, will pass through .
Grind this oil again in a bain-marie & take out the fourth part & then the oil will be prepared. This operation being completed, take quick mercury of antimony done in the way that we will say below: (the Commentary says that we need the true mercury of the Philosophers, without which we will do nothing) We will teach below the way of doing it. Pour on this mercury red oil of vitriol made on the fire, that is to say, with steel filings mixed with the vitriol, which is very rectified. Distill the phlegm of mercury with sand, and you will have a precious precipitate of an admirable color. It is excellent in chronic diseases and ulcers, it powerfully dries the humors which cause martial diseases,
Take of this precipitate & sweet oil of antimony prepared, as above taught, equal parts. Put them together in a well-sealed bag. The Commentary says that it takes several months, and that we must not rush this martial union puta 6 months, and a suitable fire, (puta-lamp fire) with time the precipitate will dissolve in this oil and will fix; even the phlegm is consumed by the fire, and a red powder is formed, dry and fixed, which does not smoke.
This, says the Author, is the medicine of men and metals. It is pleasant & gentle, harmless, penetrating & drives away evil without causing bowel movements.
temperament, so as not to overwhelm nature by excess, and not to deprive it of the effect by defect. However, we must not so scrupulously fear excess, because it is not harmful, but it is likely to provide recovery of health, and resists venom when there is any hidden. The ordinary and sufficient dose is three or four grains each time in ordinary wine spirit mixed and tempered with pure water, or in a broth, or finally in a suitable vehicle. It cures dizziness, and all diseases that come from the lungs, difficulty breathing, coughs, leprosy, smallpox, and often plague, jaundice, dropsy, fevers, The poison we swallowed, the philters, & curses.
It strengthens all the members, the brain, the head, and everything that depends on it, the stomach and the liver. It cures all diseases that come from the kidneys, purifies the blood, breaks & pushes the stone out, causes urine retained by flatus, restores & reestablishes the vital spirits, cures suffocations of the womb, stops & causes menstruation, putting Nature, in the state and disposition it should have, provides fertility by making the seed healthy and prolific for both men and women. If it is mixed with suitable ointments and applied externally, it heals the cancers, fistulas, decayed bones, all corrosive ulcers, even the noli me tangere, & everything that comes from the impurity of the blood.
Finally, it is a remedy that cures accidents that can happen to the human body.
Preparation of Nitre.
Although Basil Valentin does not speak in this book of any preparation of nitre, nevertheless it must be prepared. The best is that which crystallizes first in the first water, as containing all the most essential qualities of nitre.
It can be purified perfectly by dissolving & coagulating it with pure rain water, at the same weight as we put it there.
But it must not be calcined or fixed, because in the calcination it would lose with its volatile flammable part almost all that it contains of acids, which must be used for the calcination of antimony.
To make antimony glass.
Take your impalpable powder or mixture of antimony & nitre, calcine it perfectly & gently in a wind furnace on a rimmed tile, avoiding receiving the smoke, (because it is dangerous.) Stir constantly with an iron rod until until the material no longer smokes. Grind it again into an impalpable powder & recalcinate it & repeat so many times that it does not coagulates more in lumps, and is white like pure ash; then put your material in a good crucible in the furnace, give it a very strong fusion fire, until your antimony is a clear fluid like water, & keep it in good fusion for three or four hours for the cook & make very pure, clear & transparent, throw it into a large, flat & very hot copper vessel, & you will have a beautiful glass of antimony.
Antimony Vinegar or Philosophers' Vinegar.
To do this, take six pounds of very subtly pulverized antimony mineral ; digest it in a mattress with fourteen pounds of distilled rainwater; the matrass must be half full, well sealed, and put it in natural heat, or in horse manure for forty days, which will be the time that the material will begin to foam and ferment and no more. Then put this material in a cucurbit, adapt its capital to it with a large container filled up to a quarter of pure water, all well mixed, so that the nozzle of the still enters far enough into the container, so that the water that will be inside & that which will distill before the spirit can touch the spout & surpass it with two fingers.
Distill the water over low heat, and when it has completely passed, increase the heat to bring out the sublimate. Grind the feces with the sublimate that you have removed & separated from the water by distillation, & put the same water back on top for new digestion, until the matter begins to foam or ferment, & then remove it with sublimation, it will be more pungent. Repeat this entire process until the water is as strong as the strongest distilled wine vinegar.
The more you iterate, the more your sublimation will decrease. When you have made the vinegar or acid, take a new mine, pour the vinegar over it and let it top it by three fingers. Digestion for twelve days in a pelican at gentle heat, your vinegar will turn red & much stronger than before. Pour the vinegar by decantation, and distill it without addition in a bain-marie, the clear will pass, and the red will remain at the bottom. The tincture drawn with the spirit of wine is an excellent medicine.
Rectify the vinegar again in a bain-marie to free it of its phlegm; finally dissolve in four ounces of this vinegar an ounce of its own salt, and push it strongly over the ashes; the vinegar will become stronger and of greater virtue. It refreshes incomparably more than common vinegar, & it is an experienced remedy against gangrene caused by gunpowder, & against all inflammations; it is applied as an ointment with saturn salt & sugar. If mixed with endive water & sloe salt, it cures esquinancia & inflammation of the blood. Mixed with the third part of frog spawning water, & applied to the pestilential buboes, it draws out the venom, & taken internally by spoonfuls once in the day in a time of plague, it refreshes very well.
Preparation of wine spirit.
To make it, take four parts of armoniac salt sublimated three times, ten ounces of wine spirit rectified with salt of tartar & perfectly delegged. Put these materials for digestion in a well-closed matrass, to charge the wine spirit with sulfur or fire with salt armoniac, then distill in the still. Repeat the whole operation three times, & you will have the real menstruation to draw the red dye from the antimony glass. It is also drawn with its own vinegar, and then becomes a very excellent remedy.
Preparation of the salt of antimony and its spirit Take a pound of antimony, two thirds of salt of tartar, and the other third of saltpeter. (The Commentator says that niter is useless, that we only need salt of tartar as much as antimony, instead of the raw tartar that the Author says to take with the nitre, namely as much tartar as antimony, all together into a subtle powder, & melt in a wind furnace. Throw into the copper basin, let the regula cool; repeat the entire operation at least three times, until the regula is white and shiny like silver from a dish.
The juniper oil, or the pure & clear spirit of turpentine which comes out first from the distillation, extracts in a bain-marie from this pulverized repel an oil red as blood, which is rectified with the spirit of wine. This oil has the same virtues as antimony sulfur balm. Three or four drops are given in mulled wine three times a week to cure lung diseases, coughs, asthma, dizziness, stitches in the kidneys & old cough. Grind this regula into impalpable powder, and put it in a large round glass vessel , over a low sand fire, the antimony will sublimate; Every day, use a feather to knock down what has sublimated, and make it fall to the bottom of the vessel, until nothing is sublimated anymore, and everything remains at the bottom. You will have a fixed & precipitated antimony regulus.
But don't get tired, because it takes a lot of time and effort . Grind the precipitate into impalpable powder; put it in a damp cellar for six months on a marble or stone that is clean & flat. It will begin to resolve into red liquor & pure from which the feces will separate; it is only the salt that resolves . Filter the liquor, put it in a cucurbit; remove the phlegm through the still to thicken it to a film.
Return to the cellar & you will have beautiful crystals. Separate the phlegm from it, they will be transparent, mixed with red color; purify them once again in their own phlegm, they will all become white, & you will have the True Antimony Salt. Dry this salt, and mix with it the three parts of Venetian earth called tripel; distill over high heat, the white spirit will pass first, then the red spirit which also becomes white. Gently rectify this spirit & sublimate in a dry bath, or in a bain-marie. You will have another white oil from the distilled antimony salt, which is much inferior to the above salt made from the red dye.
This spirit of salt cures quartan fevers and others; it breaks the stone in the bladder, it causes urine, cures the drops & purifies the blood.
To make Antimony Mercury
Take regula made as taught above, eight parts, one part of clarified & sublimated human urine salt, one part of armoniac salt, & one part of tartar salt. Mix all your salts in an earthen vessel, pour strong distilled vinegar over them; seal tightly, & digest for a whole month on fire suitable. Then put everything in a cucurbit, & distill the vinegar over an ash fire, until the salts remain salts. Add three parts of Venetian earth to the salt, and push through the retort over high heat, you will have an admirable spirit. Pour this spirit on your powdered spelter, and put it to putrefaction for two months.
Gently distil the vinegar from it. Then mix with the residue four times as much steel filings, & distill through the retort over a violent fire: then the spirit of salt which passes takes with it the mercury in smoke into the container which must be very large & half full of water. The spirit of salt mixes with the water, and the mercury gathers in mercury bright & flowing to the bottom of the vinegar.
Antimony Mercury Oil.
To make it, take the mercury that we have just talked about, pass it through the leather; pour over it four parts of very rectified oil of vitriol ; remove the oil, the spirits will remain with the mercury. Turn on high heat, it will sublimate some parts. Put this sublimate back on the residue, put new oil on top of it at the same weight as above; repeat the whole operation three times, and on the fourth time grind what has been sublimated with the earth, it will become clear and pure like crystal. Put him in a circulatory vessel, with as much oil of vitriol & three times as much spirit of wine; move around until the separation takes place, and finally the mercury is resolved into oil which floats like olive oil.
This done, separate this oil from all the rest: put it in the circulatory vessel with strong distilled vinegar, and leave them like this for about twenty days, the oil which had floated will regain its weight and fall to the bottom, and all that Any remaining venom will remain in the vinegar which will remain cloudy. This wonderful oil is the Remedy for lepers. It is also excellent against apoplexy, because it strengthens the brain and the spirits. It makes man industrious & rejuvenates him, diseases. It cures all kinds of illnesses by purifying the blood, radically cures all Venereal illnesses & it would be difficult to report all of its virtues. If we prepare this Remedy well, we can boast of having a tincture which is second only to the philosopher's stone.
Fixation of common Mercury.
The author says that common mercury is fixed by means of the metallic spirits of which the mother of Saturn abounds, without which it is impossible to fix it, unless it is with the philosopher's stone which makes it fusible and malleable like the other metals, The method of drawing these metallic spirits, is the same as the one that my Brother observed on all mining or metal lands.
Mercury of the Philosophers.
It is easy to understand by all these processes that we can carry out the same or similar operations with the minerals, materials, and mothers of all metals, as well as with those of antimony and saturn. Even more, it is manifest that these minerals being prepared & reincarnated by the method of my Brother, like the mother of vitriol, saltpeter & salt, they are as many radical solvents of metals as that which would be taken from the mineral & mother of gold or gold mine mercury must be mercury from Philosophers, capable of naturally, radically & essentially dissolving well purified common gold & (by cooking them together philosophically in the fire of nature, that is to say to the appropriate degree of fire) of exalting it in a true metallic medicine for the transmutation of imperfect metals.
It should be observed that instead of Basil Valentin only leaving the antimony mine in digestion with distilled rainwater after fermentation until the first effervescence from which he makes Philosophers' vinegar, which is not a solvent so perfect as their mercury, it is necessary to let the fermentation of the mineral proceed until its perfection, in order to open perfectly matter, & to radically draw from it the principles, which not having yet reached the last state of metallic nature in simple mining, only give a mercurial substance, that is to say, matter next to metals, which is what Philosophers call their mercury.
This mercury or solvent of the Philosophers is very different from the great circulation or alkaest of Paracelsus. Both differ from the universal spirit by which they are super-abundantly animated.
Their main difference, however, consists only in that the mercury of the Philosophers is specified & determined to the metallic nature whereas the alkaline is a general & indeterminate solvent. Mon & the other differs from the universal spirit only in that the latter is the form and soul of the two others in which is concentrated and sovereignly exalted. Thus the matter or body of the alkaline must also be universal & indeterminate, to suit the radical, natural & essential resolution, generally of all sublunary bodies without reaction, such as pure elementary water, on which the The Spirit of God (which is this universal Spirit) was brought to the creation of the world, the same Spirit with which the whole earth is filled, spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum:
was concentrated in the stars with this light, as in secondary and inexhaustible sources from which it spreads abundantly in the immensity of the heavens and in the vast expanse of the air, by means of what we call their influences, thus that the sensitive and continual effects of those of the Sun and the Moon invincibly prove it. That is to say, by the splendor & irradiation of their different lights, which make secondary, active & magnificent flows of this spirit, which is the incomprehensible worker of all the wonders of nature.
Lights which are still, as they will be until the end of the centuries, the ornament, the brilliance & the clarity of the firmament; as well as the beauty, luster & fecundity of the Elements by illumination, (ut illuminent terram) with which they separate the essential & interior light that the Elements have received from the darkness by which it is obscured. And posuit piles (stellas) in firmamento coeli, ut lucerent super terram & praessent dici.&. nottî, & dividerent lucem & tenebras. Separation, movement, illumination, which are the first principle of all sublunary generations.
But it is neither my intention nor my design to deal with these matters. I will only say, to the confusion of these presumptuous people, who rashly dare to condemn the transmutations of which they are ignorant, than those which are made in their eyes in all nature, by the production of new beings, & in their own body by the conversion of the same foods into so many different substances & so many different organs of which the machine of the human body is composed , & in the very stones that are formed in the body; all these transmutations, I say, prove noticeably and manifestly that the transmutation of beings is not only not impossible, but on the contrary it is very real, effective and ordinary, nothing being so common in nature, nor easier to a perfect ferment suitably united with clean and well-disposed materials, thus that the sudden ignition of gunpowder, and the instantaneous and deadly action of some poisons visibly show this. Because the ferments are the formal agents and the efficient causes of transmutations.
This is how the petrifying ferment which abounds in desert Arabia, and mainly on the banks of the Red Sea, changes in a very short time melons, snakes, mushrooms, pieces of wood, and even large stone logs. As my Brother who saw it, assures us in his Chapter or Treatise on Manna, speaking of the coagulative virtue of that of Mount Sinai, the experience of which he made and reports.
to so perfectly exalt the ferment of gold that it can promptly communicate the aurific virtue to imperfect metals, which, according to all Philosophers, only differ accidentally, & are all only more or less raw gold, & all together more or less loaded with impurities? Because our ignorance and the weakness of our genius deny us the penetration of this mystery, is this a reason to absolutely deny its possibility? Who would believe that of gunpowder and its admirable and terrible effects, if we did not see the experience? Could we reasonably deny its possibility so as not to understand it, & not to know composition, nor promptness, nor activity, nor impetuosity, nor fire, nor violence? How many things are possible in nature that are beyond the reach of our weak intelligence?
There is much more reason to condemn the pride of these reckless critics as well as the avarice and disorder of those who are not infatuated with the hope of succeeding in this mysterious research, only with the intention of filling themselves with illusions of the century, & of becoming intoxicated with the vain pleasures of this mortal life. On the contrary, we undoubtedly cannot praise enough those who try to benefit, as the late Abbé Rousseau had so happily done, from the enlightenment of the great Philosophers who have dealt with this mystical and perfect medicine, to arrive at the discovery of the ways of nature in the production of its wonders which charity makes them seek, & to imitate it in the preparation of the great remedies for the relief of their neighbor .
Art with nature, or rather nature aided by art, advances and perfects an infinity of productions, which without the help of art would be extremely late and imperfect. It is on this principle that medicine operates to cure the majority of diseases. It separates what is harmful, exalts the virtue of medicines, strengthens nature and provides it by these means with ease of quickly reestablishing herself in her functions, and of resuming her health, that is to say, her state of perfection: whereas if she were abandoned to herself, she would often succumb under the weight of the illness, or would drag on in length, without being able to barely & over a long period of time dissipate the causes of the illness, repair its strength & regain its initial vigor.
Quote of the Day
“The matter does not proceed from the crassitude and grossness of the Earth; but from a Spiritual Metallick Substance, which does penetrate and enter.”
Bernard Trevisan
Treatise of the Philosophers Stone
Alchemical Books
Audio Books
Total visits