CHAP. VIII.
A better way of making Gold and Silver living and efficacious.
Gold and Silver may be made living and efficacious after another and better way and manner, thus. If they be dissolved in suitable Waters, and made Spiritual, and so used in Medicine, for they are by this means fitted to operate and display their Vertues after their manner, and according to their preparation.
The manner of making such well opened and unlocked Golden Water, I taught some years since, and published it under the title of Aurum Potabile. For I then knew a way of reducing Gold into a white Water by some certain Medicinal Salts, and have it now by me at all times, as being better and far more excellent than that former Aurum Potabile, and may supply the place of an Universal Medicine; and that on this account, because it doth operate universally in all curable diseases, and doth withall excell all the other Medicaments that I know of in its wholsome operation, for it doth by little and little expell every obnoxious thing out of the whole body. I confess that the same things are performed by my Golden Panacæa, or my Purging Gold, and Diaphoretick Gold, but in some cases I prefer this white Aurum Potabile of mine, as I now prepare it, before them, for it hath an invisible and contrary or different operation from my Purging Gold, or Golden Panacæa, which do, for the most part, work visibly. And whereas I have formerly divulged those Medicaments in my Treatises, I will omit their superfluous description here, and onely add thus much, That these three Medicaments of mine, viz. the Golden Panacæa, my Diaphoretick Gold, and my white Aurum Potabile are so abundantly sufficient both for the preserving from, and curing of all diseases, that whosoever will onely use them, need not at all any other Medicaments.
But forasmuch as Men are delighted with variety, and that sometimes such or such a coloured Medicine, or such an Odour or Savour is far more acceptable, I have judged it worth while to add for the sake of the sick yet two or three excellent Medicines more, and such, as to the best of my knowledge, were as yet never divulged. ’Tis at every ones liberty to make use of such an one as best likes him, or now and then to try this Medicine or that, and so to make use of that which best pleaseth him.
The incomparable Paracelsus, the Monarch of Philosophers and Physicians, supposed, that these four Minerals, viz. Sulphur, Mercury, Antimony, and Vitriol, did prop up the whole Medicinal Art, like so many Capital Pillars, and that by them mought all things be prepared, as were necessarily requisite for any kind of cure. And indeed the thing it self (or the effect) sufficiently proves the truth of this opinion, and so doe those four Minerals themselves too, if they be but dissected, purged, and prepared according to Art, else they are of no worth, but doe more hurt than good, because if they be not duely prepared, they are not deprived of their Venenosity, and are not turned into wholsome Medicines. But as for such as are set to sale in our days in the Apothecaries shops, they are verily but of small moment. For the Antimony which (being turned into Glass) they sell, hath never as yet admitted of any separation of the good from the evil.
And as for Mercury, they turn him into a Sublimate, abounding with Venom, and likewise into a red Precipitate, both of which are sufficiently hazardous both in external and internal Medicinal uses; For the vulgar Mercury never desisteth from his malice, unless it be exalted by a safer and better preparation. It is sufficient (to say) that being prepared after the aforesaid usual ways, it ought to be wholly shunned, and so it will not create any danger.
As for Common Sulphur, although it be exalted into Flores, and those exceeding subtile too, such as are at this day in use, yet shews it no wonderfull matters; for there is not as yet made any separation of the pure part from the impure, neither is it thoroughly opened by Sublimation, or rendered subtile or fit, to operate upon the Body of Man; for as it was taken in, so it passeth out with the Excrements: For the Acidity of the Stomach cannot dissolve it; so far is it from yielding to the Stomach any efficacy, for a strong Aq. Fortis cannot dissolve it.
As for Vitriol, it yields the Workmen an austere or sowr Oil, and a sharp Spirit, little availing to Medicinal uses, this onely excepted, viz. the mixing it with cooling Syrups and Conserves, gives them a gratefull sowrishness; the which Spirit of Salt well rectified, would perform much better. Hence it comes to pass, that these four Minerals, according as they are at this day used, and sold by the Apothecaries, cannot be accounted for the four Pillars of the whole Body of Medicine, and possess that title, which Paracelsus exalteth them by, unless they are prepared after another manner than they have hitherto been.
As for Sulphur, I bring it to the highest purity by a due washing, and do by suitable and proper Salts turn the same, together with Gold, into a clear water, that so our Nature may assume it to it self, as is to be seen in my Aurum Potabile.
I draw from Antimony its purer part, and I implant it in exceedingly well prepared Gold, that it may make the Gold efficacious, witness my Purging Gold.
Instead of the common Vitriol, I use the Vitriol made of Gold, the which is wont to perform such effects in Medicine as the common Vitriol never will, as shall be taught by and by.
Instead of the common and poysonous Mercury, I make use of a Mercury prepared out of a good Metal, or artificially extracted by a certain Magnet from the beams of Sol and Lune, as shall be taught anon. And this Mercury is rightly called the Universal Mercury of the Philosophers, because being as yet an invisible thing, is extracted out of the Air, and made visible and palpable, and is the effector of wonderfull things in Medicine and Alchymy, as we shall hear anon.
But before I proceed to Vitriol and Mercury, I count it fit, first to set down a good Medicine prepared out of Silver by the help of Antimony, that so every body may know, that even Gold and Silver (how thick and compact soever they be) may, by the addition of other Medicinal Subjects, be quickned and stirred up, and be brought to such a pass as to emit their Vertues, as we have afore mentioned more at large. The preparation of this Medicine out of Silver and Antimony is as followeth.