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CONTENTS.
The Secret of the Immortal Liquor called Alkahest . Aurum Potabile . . .
The Admirable Efficacy of the True Oil of Sulphur Vive The Stone of the Philosophers .... The Bosom Book of Sir George Ripley .
The Preparation of the Sophie Mercury .
JAMES EI.LIO'i'T AND CO., LONDON, E.C.
prefatory 1Rote.
The Hermetic Tracts comprised m this volume are printed from a quarto manu- script (itself a transcript from an older but noiv untraceable work) belonging to the celebrated collection of the late Mr. Fred- erick Hockley, who was well known among modern students of the seci'et sciences, not only for the resources of his Hermetic library, but for his practical acquaintance with many branches of esoteric lore, and for his real or reputed connection with the numerous but unavowed associations which now, as at anterior periods, are supposed to dispense initiation into occult knowledge. While practically the reprint is verba- tim, it would have been a needless source of confusion, in a subject which is already sufficiently confused, to have reproduced
PREFATORY NOTE.
the obsolete orthography, the superfluous capitals, the perplexing parentheses, the unnecessary italics, and the chaotic punc- tuation of the original. These, there- fore, have been abandoned in favour of a simpler method. BtU the flavour of an- tiquity is sometimes vakied for its age rather than its excellence; and partly in deference to this prejiidice, there has been no attempt to reconstmict the style of these old writings. Moreover, though somewhat barbarotis and entangled, it does not presetit sttflicient difficulties to justify a drastic purgation.
THE SECRET
4
OF THE
IMMORTAL LIQUOR
CALLED
ALKAHEST
IGNIS-AQUA.
By EIREN^EUS philalethes.
Communicated to his Friend, a Son of Art, and now
a Philosopher.
By Question and Answer.
THE SECRET OF THE LIQUOR
ALKAHEST.
1. Question. — What is the Alkahest ?
Answer. — It is a Catholic and Universal
Menstrtmm, and, in a word, may be called ( Ignis- Aqtia) a Fiery Water, an uncom- pounded and immortal ens, which is pene- trative, resolving all things into their first Liquid Matter, nor can anything resist its power, for it acteth without any reaction from the patient, nor doth it suffer from anything but its equal, by which it is brought into subjection ; but after it hath dissolved all other things, it remaineth entire in its former nature, and is of the same virtue after a thousand operations as at the first.
2. O. — Of what substance is it ?
A.— It is a noble circulated salt, pre- pared with wonderful art till it answers the
12
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
desires of an ingenious artist ; yet it is not any corporal salt made liquid by a bare solution, but is a saline spirit which heat cannot coagulate by evaporation of the moisture, but is of a spiritual uniform substance, volatile with a gentle heat, leav- ing nothing behind it ; yet is not this spirit either acid or alkali, but salt.
3. Q. — Which is its equal ?
A. — If you know the one, you may without difficulty know the other ; seek therefore, for the Gods have made Arts the reward of industry.
4. 0. — What is the next matter of the Alkahest ?
A. — I have told you that it is a salt ; the fire surrounded the salt and the water swallowed up the fire, yet overcame it not ; so is made the philosopher’s fire, of which they speak ; the vulgar burn with fire, we with water.
1;. O. — Which is the most noble salt ?
\J
A. — If you desire to learn this, descend into yourself, for you carry it about with
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. 1 3
you, as well the salt as its Vulcan, if you are able to discern it.
6. O.— Which is it, tell me, I pray you ?
A. — Man’s blood out of the body, or
man’s urine, for the urine is an excre- ment separated, for the greatest part, from the blood. Each of these give both a volatile and fixed salt ; if you know how to collect and prepare it, you will have a most precious Balsam of Life.
7. O.— Is the property of human urine more noble than the urine of any beast ?
A. — By many degrees, for though it be an excrement only, yet its salt hath not its like in the whole universal nature.
8. Q. — Which be its parts ?
A. — A volatile and more fixed ; yet according to the variety of ordering it, these may be variously altered.
9- Q. — Are there any things in urine which are different from its inmost specific urinaceoiis nature ?
A. — There are, viz., a watery phlegm, and sea salt which we take in with our
14
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
meat ; it remains entire and undigested in the urine, and by separation may be divided from it, which (if there be no sufficient use of it in the meat after a convenient time) ceaseth.
10. Q. — Whence is that phlegm, or insipid watery humidity ?
A. — It is chiefly from our several drinks, and yet everything hath its own phlegm.
11. O.— E xplain yourself more clearly.
A. — You must know that the urine,
partly by the separative virtue, is conveyed with what we drink to the bladder, and partly consists of a watery Teffas (an excremen- titious humour of the blood), whence being separated by the odour of the urinaceous ferment, it penetrates most deeply, the saltness being unchanged, unless that the saltness of the blood and urine be both the same ; so that whatsoever is contained in the urine besides salt is unprofitable phlegm.
12. Q. — How doth it appear that there is a plentiful phlegm in urine ?
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. I 5
A, — Thus suppose ; first, from the taste ; secondly, from the weight ; thirdly, from the virtue of it.
13. Q. — Be your own interpreter.
A. — The salt of urine contains all that is properly essential to the urine, the smell whereof is very sharp ; the taste differs according as it is differently ordered, so that sometimes it is also salt with an urin- aceous saltness.
14. Q. — What have you observed con- cerning the weight thereof?
A. — I have observed thus much, that three ounces, or a little more, of urine, taken from a healthy man, will moderately outweigh about eighty grains of fountain water, from which also I have seen a liquor distilled which was of equal weight to the said water, whence it is evident that most of the salt was left behind.
15. Q. — What have you observed of its virtue ?
A. — The congelation of urine by cold is an argument that phlegm is in it ; for the
i6
COLLECTANEA CIIEMICA,
salt of urine is not so congealed if a little moistened with a liquid, though it be water.
b. * IBut this same phlegm though most accurately separated by distillation, retains the nature of urine, as may be perceived both by the smell and taste.
A. — I confess it, though little can be discerned by taste, nor can you perceive more, either by smell or taste, than you may from salt of urine dissolved in pure water.
17. Q. — What doth pyrotechny teach you concerning urine ?
A. — It teacheth this, to make the salt of urine volatile.
18. Q. — What is then left
A. — An earthly, blackish, stinking dreg.
19. Q. — Is the spirit wholly uniform ?
A. — So it appeareth to the sight, smell,
and taste ; and yet it containeth qualities directly contrary to each other.
20. Q. — Which be they ?
A. — By one, through its innate virtue,
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. 1 7
the Dulech is coagulated ; by the other, it is dissolved.
21. O. — What further ?
A. — In the coagulation of urine, its spirit of wine is discovered.
22. Q. — Is there such a spirit in urine? A. — There is indeed, truly residing in
every urine, even of the most healthful man, most of which may be prepared by Art.
23. Q. — Of what efficacy is this spirit ? A. — Of such as is to be lamented, and
indeed may move our pity to mankind.
24. Q. — Why so ?
A. — From hence the Dulech, its most fierce enemy, hath its original.
25. Q. — Will you give an example of this thing ?
A. — I will. Take urine, and dissolve in it a convenient quantity of saltpetre. Let it stand a month ; afterwards distil it, and there will come over a spirit which burns upon the tongue like a coal of fire. Pour this spirit on again, and cohobate it four
i8
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
or five times, abstracting every time not above half ; so the spirit becometh most piercing, yet not in the least sharp ; the heat which goeth out in the first distillation of the liquor, afterwards grows sensibly mild, and at length almost (if not altogether) vanisheth, and the second spirit may be perceived mild, both by the smell and taste, which in the former was most sharp.
26. Q. — What have you observed con cerning the former spirit ?
A. — If it be a little shaked, oily streaks appear sliding here and there, just as spirit of wine distils down the head of the alembic in streaks like veins.
27. 0. — What kind of putrefaction should the urine undergo that such a spirit may be got from it ?
A. — In a heat scarce to be perceived by sense, in a vessel lightly closed, or covered rather ; it may also be sometimes hotter, sometimes cooler, so that neither the heat nor cold exceed a due mean.
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST.
19
28. o. — How may this winy spirit become most perspicuous ?
A. — By such a putrefaction as causeth a ferment, and exciteth ebullition, which will not happen in a long time if the urine be kept in a wooden vessel, and in a place which is not hot, but yet keeps out the cold, as, suppose, behind a furnace in winter, where let it be kept till of itself a ferment arise in the urine and stirs up bubbles, for then you may draw from it a burning water which is somewhat winy.
29. Q. — Is there any other spirit of urine ?
A. — There is ; for urine, putrefied with a gentle heat, during the space of a fortnight or thereabouts, sends forth a coagulating spirit, which will coagulate well rectified Aqua Vitce.
30. Q. — How is that spirit to be pre- pared which forms the Dulech of itself with a clear watery stalagma ; and also that which dissolves the same ?
A.— U rine putrefied for a month and a-
20
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
half in a heat most like the heat of horse- dung will give you, in a fit vessel, each stillatitious stalagma according to your desire.
31. Q. — Doth every spirit coagulate the spirit of wine ?
A. — By no means ; this second spirit is observed to want that virtue.
32. Q. — What doth urine, thus ordered, contain besides the aforesaid spirits ?
A. — Its more fixed urinaceous salt, and, by accident, foreign marine salt.
33. O. — Can this more fixed salt be brought over the alembic, with a gentle heat, in form of a liquor ?
A. — It may, but art and ingenuity are required.
34. O. — Where Is the phlegm ?
A. — In the salt ; for in the prepara- tion of putrefaction, the salt, being putre- fied in the phlegm, ascends together with it.
35. O. — Can it be separated
A. — It may, but not by every artist.
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. 2 I
26. O. — What will this spirit do when
it is brought to this ?
A. — Try, and you will wonder at what you shall see in the solution of bodies.
37. Q. — Is not this the Alkahest ?
A. — This liquor cannot consist without partaking of the virtues of man’s blood ; and in urine the footsteps thereof are observable.
38. Q. — In urine, therefore, and blood the Alkahest lies hid ?
A. — Nature gives us both blood and urine ; and from the nature of these py- rotechny gives us a salt which art circu- lates into the circulated salt of Paracelsus. ’
39. Q. — You speak short.
A. — I will add this ; the salt of blood ought so to be transmuted by the urin- aceous ferment that it may lose its last life, preserve its middle life, and retain its saltness.
40. Q. — To what purpose is this ?
A. — To manifest the excellency which is in man’s blood above all other blood
2 2 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
whatever, which is to be communicated’ to the urine (after an excrementitious liquor is separated from it), whence this urine excels all others in a wonderful virtue.
4T. O. — Why do you add urine?
A. — You must know that to transmute things a corruptive ferment is required, in which respect all other salts give place to the strong urinous salt.
42. O. — Cannot the phlegm be collected apart from the salt ?
A. — It may, if the urine be not first putrefied.
43. Q. — How great a part of the water Is to be reckoned phlegm ?
A. — Nine parts of ten, or thereabouts, distilled from fresh urine are to be rejected, the tenth part (as much as can be extracted in form of liquor) is to be kept ; from that dried urine which remains in the bottom by a gentle fire (which will not cause sublimation), let the salt be extracted with water, so that there be as much water as half that urine whence this feces was
THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. 23
dried ; whatsoever is imbibed by the water, let it be poured off by decanting ; let it be strained, or purged, per deliquium ; then filter it through a glass. Let fresh water be poured on, and reiterate this work till the salt become pure, then join this vastly stinking salt with your last spirit and co- hobate it.
Praised be the Name of the Lord. — Amen.
I > i
AURUM POTABILE:
OR THE
RECEIPT
OF
Dr. Fr. ANTONIE:
SHOWING
His Way and Method. How he made and prepared tlial most Excellent Medicine for the Body of Man.
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DR. FR. ANTONIE’S RECEIPT,
Showing tho way to make his most oxcollcnt medicine called “ Aurum Potabile.”
Take block tin, and burn it in an iron pan (making the pan red hot before you put it in), keeping a continual fire under it, and stirring it always till it be like unto ashes. Some will look red ; it will be burning a day, or half-a-day at the least ; it must be stirred with an iron coal rake, a little one, the handle two feet long.
G. H. M. made an iron pan a foot and a-half long and a foot broad, the brims two inches deep, and made an oven in a chimney with bars of iron in the bottom, whereon he placed the pan, and a place under to make fire ; and it will after this manner sooner be burned (viz., half-a-day). The smoke will not hurt it.
These ashes keep in a glass close covered.
28 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
Take of these ashes four ounces and of the strongest red wine vinegar three pints, and put them in a glass like an urinal, the ashes being put in first ; lute the vessel, and let it stand in a hot Balneum ten days, which ended, take it forth, and set it to cool, and let it stand two or three whole days that the feces may sink unto the bottom. The glass must be shaken six or seven times every day.
That which is clear let it run forth unfiltered by two or three woollen threads into a glass basin, and distil it in a glassen still till the liquor be stilled all forth. This distilled water put upon four ounces of fresh ashes, upon the ashes from which the first liquor was filtered ; put also a quart of strong red wine vinegar ; lute the glass as before, and put him into the Balneum, and there let him stand to digest ten days ; filter this, and distil it as aforesaid. Thirdly, pour on those ashes one pint of the like vinegar, and put it in Balneum ten days : filter it, and distil it, as aforesaid. After
AURUM POTABILE.
29
the third infusion throw away the ashes.
Distil all the infusions apart, till the liquor be clean distilled forth.
Take this distilled water, as often as it is distilled, and pour it upon new ashes, keeping the weight and order ; their in- fusions, filterings, and distillations reiter- ate seven times.
And you shall have of this water the menstruum sought for.
You must take heed that the vinegar be of red wine, and very strong, otherwise your menstruum will not perform your expectation.
The Bishop gave Dr. Antonie 30s. for a quart of menstruum.
Take an ounce of pure refined gold (which costs ;^3 13s. qd.) ; cast it into a wedge and file it into small dust with a fine file. Put this ounce of filed gold into a calcined pot, and put to it so much white salt as will near fill the pot, and set it among charcoals where it may stand
30 COLLECTANEA CMEMICA.
continually hot four hours (if it stand too hot the salt will melt). Which four hours ended, take it forth, and let it stand to cool ; then put it on a painter’s stone, and grind it very small with a muller. Then put it into the pot and calcine it, and grind it again till you have done it four or five times : if it look red and blue when you take it forth, it is perfect good.
After this calcining and grinding, put it into a glass basin, and put to it the basin- ful of scalding hot water, and stir it a good while, till the thick part is fully settled to the bottom. Then pour away that water, and put the like ; stir it, and let it settle as before ; and so do again, till the water, when it is settled, have no taste of salt. This will be doing two or three days.
Of this ounce of gold there will be hardly above sixteen or seventeen grains brought into fine white calx, but to separate it from the gold leave a little of the last fresh water in the basin, and stir it well together. The
AURUM POTABILE.
3*
calx will swim to the top, which softly pour from the gold into another basin. If all the white calx go not forth, put a little more water and stir it again, and pour it into the basin to the other calx ; then let it settle, and pour away almost all the water, and evaporate away all the rest over a heat till it be throughly dry. And so put it up into a glass.
Then put the gold which is not yet calx to salt as aforesaid, and calcine it, and grind it four times again ; and then wash it ; and then take the calx from it as be- fore ; and the gold that remains calcine and wash as before, till it be all calx.
Take an ounce of this calx, and put it into an urinal-like glass, containing about a pint, and put to it half-a-pint of the men- struum. Set this glass In a hot Balneum six days (being close luted), and shake it often every day. When the six days are ended, let it stand two or three days ; then pour away that which is clear very gently, for fear of troubling the feces. To these
COLLECTANEA CIIEMICA.
feces put fresh menstruum, but not fully so much as at the first ; and so the third time, but not fully so much as at the second. Then take the dry feces, which are the calx, and keep them lest some tincture remain therein.
These coloured liquors put into a glass still, and distil them in a Balneum, at the first with a very gentle fire, till all that which is clear be run forth, and that which remain be as thick as honey. Then take it forth and set it to cool. Then put the glass into an earthen pot, and put ashes about the glass into the pot, and fix the pot into a little furnace fast, and make a fire under, so that the glass may stand very warm till the feces be black and very dry. You may look with a candle through the glass still, and see when it is risen with bunches and dry. Then take away your fire, and let the glass be very cold ; then take out the black earth. This black earth being taken forth, put it into a glass basin, and grind it with the bottom of another
AURUM POTABILE.
33
round glass to powder. Then put it into an urinal-like glass, containin gabout a pint, and to th?.t put a little above half-a-pint of the spirit of wine. Set this glass in a cold place till it be red, which will be about ten days. Shake it often every day, till within three days you pour it forth. Then pour away the clear liquor gently, and that clear put into a glass still or other glass, till you have more. Then put more spirit of wine to those feces, and order it as before ; and if that be much coloured, put Spirittts Vini to it the third time, as at the first. Put all these coloured liquors together and distil them till the feces (called the tincture) be as thick as a syrup.
Take an ounce of this tincture, and put it into a pint of Canary sack, and so when it is clear you may drink of it, which will be about a day and a-half.
The Prepciration of the V inegcir to make
the Menstrtmm.
Glasses necessary : Get three or four
34 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
glassen stills which will hold a gallon or two apiece, and a Balneum two feet and a-half square to hold many glasses- Get about six gallons of the strongest red wine vinegar {vinegar of claret or whitewine is too weak), made of red wine, sack, or Muscadine, and set as many stills going at a time as your Balneum will hold. Take a pint of that which runneth first, and put it away, as weak and not fit for this use. Then still out all the rest, till the still be dry. Wash the still with a little of the (phlegm) the first running, and then wipe it dry. Then put in that which was distilled, and do as before, putting away the first pint ; and so do five times. So of a gallon you shall have three pints of the spirit of vinegar, and of your six gallons only two gallons and two pints. And if your spirit be yet too weak distil it oftener.
This keep in a glass close stopped to make your menstruum with ; you may stop it with cork, and leather over it.
You must provide three strong green
I
AURUM POTABILE. 35
glasses to make menstruum, with little mats round the bottoms, containing four pints apiece.
To lute them, fit a wooden stoppel of dry wood, first boiled, and then dried in an oven, to the mouth ; then melt hard wax to fill the chinks ; then paste a brown paper next over that ; then prepare luting of clay, horsedung, and ashes, and stop over all that.
Glass Stills : T wo or three to distil the first infusions on the earth ; cover three or four pints apiece of green glass.
The rule of all stillings : You must paste brown paper to the closing of the head of the still, and also paste the receiver and nose of the still together so that no strength go forth.
Calcining Pots : Provide about a dozen, for many when they are put into a strong fire will break ; then must you let your fire slack.
FINIS.
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THE ADMIRABLE EFFICACY AND ALMOST INCREDIBLE VIRTUE
OF TRUE
OIL WHICH IS MADE OF SULPHUR YIYE SET ON FIRE
AND COMMONLY CALLED
OIL OF SULPHUR
PE/^! CA MPA NAM.
BY
GEORGE STARKEY.
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THE OIL OF SULPHUR.
Of this most noble liquor, and not vulgar medicine, the noble Helmont writeth thus, in his excellent discourse concerning The Tree of Life. In the year 1600 a certain man belonging to the camp, whose office was to keep account of the provision of victuals which was made for the army, being charged with a numerous family of small children unable to shift for them- selves, himself being then fifty-eight years of age, was very sensible of the great care and burden which lay upon him to provide for them while he lived, and concluded that, should he die, they must be enforced to beg their bread from door to door : where- upon he came (saith Helmont) and desired of me something for the preservation of his life. I then (being a young man) pitied his sad condition, and thus thought
40
OIL OF SULPHUR.
with myself : The fume of burning sulphur is, by experience, found powerfully effectual to preserve wines from corruption. Then I, recollecting my thoughts, concluded that the acid liquor of oil, which is made of sulphur vive, set on fire, doth of necessity contain in itself this fume ; yea, and the whole odour of the sulphur, inasmuch as it is indeed nothing else but the very sul- phureous fume imbibed, or drunk up in its mercurial salt, and so becomes a condensed liquor. Then I thought with myself : Our blood being (to us) no other than, as it were, the very wine of our life, that being pre- served, if it prolong not the life, at least it will keep it sound from those many diseases which proceed originally from corruption ; by which means the life being sound, and free from diseases, and defended from pains and griefs, might be in some sort spun out into a further length than other- wise. Upon which meditated resolution I gave him a vial glass, with a small quantity of this oil, distilled from sulphur vive burn-
OIL OF SULPHUR.
41
ing, and taught him (moreover) how to make it as he should afterwards need it. 1 advised him of this liquor he should take two drops before each meal in a small draught of beer, and not, ordinarily, to exceed that dose, nor to intermit the use of it, taking for granted that two drops of that oil, contained a large quantity of the fume of sulphur. The man took my advice, and at this day, in the year 1641, he is lusty and in good health, walks the streets at Brussels without complaint, and is likely longer to live ; and that which is most remarkable, in this whole space of forty- one years he was not so much as ill, so as to keep his bed ; yea, although (when of great age) in the depth of winter, he broke his leg, near to his ankle bone, by a fall upon the ice, yet with the use of the oil he recovered, without the least symptom of a fever ; and although in his old age poverty had reduced him to great straits and hard- ship, and made him feel much want of things necessary for the comfort and conveniency
4
42
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
of life, yet he lives, healthy and sound, though spare and lean. The old mans name is John Moss, who waited upon Rithovius, Bishop of Ypres, in his chamber, where the Earls of Horne and Egmondon were beheaded by the Duke of Alva ; and he was then twenty-five years of age, so that now he is complete ninety-nine years of age, healthy and lusty, and still continues the use of that liquor daily. Thus far Helmont, which relation, as it is most remarkable, so it gives the philo- sophical reason of his advice, on which it was grounded. And elsewhere the same author relates how by this liquor he cured many dangerous, deplorable fevers, which by other doctors had been given over for desperate. And in other places he commends it as a peerless remedy to assuage the intolerable thirst which accom- panies most fevers.
To which relation and testimony of this most learned doctor and acute philosopher I shall add my own experience.
OIL OF SULPHUR.
43
I find it a rare preservative against cor- ruption, not only in living creatures, but even in dead flesh, beer, wine, ale, etc.; a recoverer of dying beer and wines that are decayed, a cure for beer when sick and roping. Flesh by this means may be pre- served so incorruptible as no embalming in the world can go beyond it for the keeping of a dead carcase, nor salting come near its efficacy ; as to the conserving meat, or fowls, or fish, which by this means are not only kept from corruption, but made a mumial balsam, which is itself a preserva- tive against corruption of such as shall eat thereof ; which being a curious rarity, and too costly to be made a vulgar experiment,
I shall pass it over, and come to those
cases which are most beneficial and de- sirable.
It is an excellent cleanser of the teeth: being scoured with it, they will become as white as the purest ivory, and the mouth being washed with oil dropped in water or white wine, so as to make it only of the
44 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
sharpness of vinegar, it prevents the grow- ing of that yellow scale which usually adheres to the teeth, and is the forerunner of their putrefaction ; it prevents their rot- tenness for the future, and stops it (being begun) from going further, takes away the pain of the teeth, diverts rheums, and is a pure help for the savour of the breath, making it very sweet. In a word, there is not a more desirable thing can be found for such who would have clear or sound teeth, or sweet breath, or to be free from rheums : for which use let the water be made by dropping this oil into it, as sharp as vine- gar, as I said before.
Against a tickling cough, or hoarseness, it is a rare remedy, not only taken two or three drops twice a day inwardly, in the usual drink one useth before each meal, but also by gargling the throat with it ; and (so used) it is excellent against swelled throats, anginas, strumas, palates of the mouth inflamed, or the uvula of the throat, or the almonds of the ears, which are
OIL OF SULPHUR.
45
(usually said then to be) fallen. It is excellent also against the headache, and to divert rheums from the eyes, to wash the temples therewith ; likewise to take away tetters, morphew, or scabs, this dropped into water is a pleasant, safe, and effectual remedy.
Besides which outward applications, it is a Lord internally taken, preventing corrup- tion, rooting out the seeds thereof, though never so deeply concealed in the body, and, upon that score, opening inveterate obstructions, eradicating old pains, and preventing otherwise usual relapses into stranguretical, colical, or arthritical pains: it is abstersive, cleansing all excrementitious, settlings in the mesaraic or mesenterial ves- sels, and so cutting off the original source, and taking away the cause of putrefactive corruption, which is the productive beginner of very many diseases.
On this score it lengthens the life, and frees the body from many pains and ails to which it otherwise would be subject.
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COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
It is a pleasant remedy, having only a little sharpness, which to the palate is most grateful; and yet this acidity is contradistinct from that acidity which is the forerunner of putrefaction, which it kills and destroys, as the acidity of the spirit of vitriol is destroyed by the fixed acrimony of its own caput mortuwn, or that of vinegar by the touch of ceruse or minium.
Preternatural heat and thirst in fevers are in no way allayed so speedily, and easily, as by this, nor is there anything which for a constant continuance may be more safely and profitably taken. Spirit of salt (such as the noble Helmont speaks of) alone may be joined with this, for its safety and continual use with profit, especially in nephritical distempers, and the heat or sharpness of urine.
Now, as this is so noble a medicine, so there is none in the world more basely adulterated and counterfeited, our wise doctors commending for it ( quid pro quo) an adulterated mineral acidity of vitriol,
OIL OF SULPHUR.
47
distilled in a retort from vulgar sulphur, which the apostate chemists prepare and sell for, and the knavish apothecaries use and give to their patients, instead of this true spirit, which if sincere is clear as water, ponderous, and exquisitely acid, made of sulphur vive only, set on nre without any other mixture, and the fumes received in a broad glass, fitted for the purpose, vulgarly called a campana or bell, from its shape or likeness.
Most sottish is that maxim of the doctors, that spirit of sulphur and vitriol are of one nature, when experi- ence teacheth that mere acetosity of vitriol (which brings over nothing of its excellent virtue) will dissolve argent vive, which the strongest spirit of sulphur, truly and not sophistically made, will not touch, nor will that recover beer or wines, or pre- serve them, as this will do : one, there- fore, is an unripe esurine acetosity, of little virtue ; the other a balsam of antidotary virtue, a preservative against corruption.
4S COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
and, upon that score, nothing can be used more effectually as a preservative against, ora remedy in, contagious fevers, small-pox, measles, or pestilence than this, nor more ridiculously than the other, which being drawn from the vulgar sulphur, that hath an infection of malignity mixed with it (which it took from the arsenical nature of the minerals from which it was melted), adds nothing to the virtue of the crude vitriolate spirits, but only that which was before of little virtue, to become a medicine of more danger and hazard, but not a jot more goodness than it was, when first wandr from the vitriol ; which being of itself clear and crude, is for to deceive the ignorant (by its colour) tinctured with some root or bark. Thus the credu- lous world is imposed upon and cheated, while, instead of most noble remedies (in name promised), adulterated trifles are produced, to the disparagement of art, and the scandal and reproach of the pro- fessor’s medicine.
OIL OF SULPHUR.
49
To discover which abuses and vindicate the art, I have made my preludium, con- cerning this oil or spirit of sulphur, the virtues of which (if truly and faithfully made) are so eminently remarkable, and almost incredibly efficacious, that I thought it not unworthy my pains in a few lines to communicate to the studious reader both what real benefit is to be ex- pected from the true and what injury is done to the deluded (at least), if not de- stroyed, patients by the sophisticate oil of sulphur.
Postscript.
That those who desire this so pleasant, so efficacious, and profitable a remedy may not be abused by the base counterfeit oil of vitriol, corruptly called oil of sulphur, because it has been once distilled from common unwholesome brimstone, and tincted with some bark or root of which the town is full, and all apothecaries’ shops, to the great abuse of art, but much greater of those who make use of it instead of the
50 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA,
true, when indeed it hath not one quality like thereto ; let the reader be informed that at George Starkey’s house, in St. Thomas Apostle’s, next door to Black Lion Court; and at Richard Johnson’s, at the Globe in Montague Close, in Southwark, the true is to be had, drawn from sulphur vive (set on fire), without any addition but the sulphur itself, which is easily known by its clearness, sharpness, weight, not work- ing on quicksilver, turning bitter like to gall on the filings of silver, preserving wine and beer from corruption, restoring them when decayed, and, in a word, by its quenching feverish heat and thirst, etc. As before hath been rehearsed at large, it may by anyone be distinguished from that which is false and sophisticate. However, at those two places he may be confident of that which is real and true. And likewise at Richard Johnson’s house in Montague Close, in Southwark, aforesaid, you may have any chemical salts, oils, and spirits. Besides which oil or spirit of sulphur.
OIL OF SULPHUR.
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several other rare and admirably effectual medicinal secrets for the certain, safe, and speedy cure of most, if not all diseases, as hath been proved by many hundred patients (adjudged rather incurable or des- perately dangerous by other doctors), are there to be had, being more than ordinary secrets and preparations of George Star- key, who entitles himself a Philosopher by the Fire.
And in particular that pill, or antidote- injuriously challenged as an invention of Richard Matthews, who, in truth, had that preparation (for which he hath since been so famous) from the said George Starkey, the true author thereof, who had it from God, by studious search, without help of book or master ; and which preparation he hath since amended and advanced in virtue beyond comparison of that which Mr. Matthews had from him, as hath been, and is daily, confirmed by the experience of able men.
Concerning which antidote, or pill, or
52 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
rather anodinous elixir, its virtues and advancement, to almost a true universality, by four variations thereof, which the first author of the thing (by long experience) found out, he hath wrote, particularly, and at large, with the way of administering it and how to order the patient, by one and all of these preparations, for his recovery out of any ol the most desperately acute, or fixed chronical diseases ; which book being now ready for the press, in a few days, God willing, shall see the light. It is called “A Brief Examination and Censure of Several Medicines, etc.”
For the undeceiving of such as have been injuriously and falsely persuaded that only Mr. Richard Matthews and Paul Hobson have that medicine truly prepared, condemning all others as counterfeit, to the disparagement and palpable injury of the first inventor, who counts it unreasonable that he who learned what he had from him should censure himself as a counterfeit, un- less he bind himself up to his preparation.
OIL OF SULPHUR.
53
which, though it be a true one, yet is the most inferior in virtue of all the author knows, and called by him his “ Elixir Diaphoretick Commune.” Of which able, judicious practitioners (having once bought his more effectual and higher graduated preparations in the same kind) have so low an esteem (comparatively to these others) that they desire no more thereof. Farewell.
George Starkey.
When this treatise and the postscript were written, Mr. Starkey then lived in the place therein specified ; but he died, as I have been informed, of the sickness. Anno. Dom. 1665, by venturing to anato- mise a corpse dead of the plague, as Mr. Thomson, the chemist, had done before him, and lived many years after ; but Mr. Starkey’s adventure cost him his life. However, the medicine, truly made and prepared from the mineral sulphur, called sulphur vive, may now be had of very many chemists in and about London ; nay.
54 COLLECTANEA CHEMICA.
the difficulty in making thereof is not so great but that you may make it yourself if you please, and if you do but wait the time and opportunity to buy the mineral sulphur (not common brimstone), for the mineral is not to be had at all times.
The process and shape for the glass bell, and the manner of making and rectifying this spirit from the mineral sulphur, or sulphur vive, as it comes stone-like out of the earth, may be seen in the chemical works of Hartman and Crollius, called “ Royal Chymistry,” Chara’s “ Royal Pharmacoptea,”Lefehure, Thibault, Leniery, Glaser, Shroder’s “ Dispensatory,” and many others, unto whom I refer you. —
W. C. B.
THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
EMBRACING
THE FIRST MATTER
And the Dual Process for the Vegetable and Metallic
Tinctures.
THE CONTENTS.