This spirit therefore deserves some place in the shops, i. e. it is unjustly rejected in the shops, seeing it is easie to be made. In distilling of wormwood and other vegetables, there remaines in the bottom of the furnace ashes, which being extracted with warm water yields a salt by decoction, which being again dissolved in its own spirit or vinegar, and filtred, doth by the evaporation of the flegm, being placed in a cold place pass into a Crystalline salt, which is of a pleasant tast, not like unto a lixivium, nor unto other salts that are dissolved in the air. This salt is also more efficacious (being reduced into Crystals by its proper Spirit) than that which is made by the help of sulphur, or Aqua fortis, and oyl of Vitriol, and otherways which Chymists, and Apothecaries use.
The spirit of paper and linnen cloath.
Pieces of linnen cloth gathered, and got from Sempsters being cast into the furnace upon living coals, yield a most acid spirit, which tingeth the nailes, skin, & hair with a yellow colour, restores members destroyed with cold, is good in a gangrene, and erysipelas if linen clothes wet in the same be applyed thereto, &c. The same doth spirit made of paper, viz. of the pieces thereof.
The spirit of silk.
After the same manner is there a spirit made of pieces of silk, which is not so sharp as that which is made of linnen and paper, neither doth it tinge the Skin, but is most excellent in wounds as well old as green, and it makes the Skin beautiful.
The spirit of mans hair, and of other animals, as also of horns.
Out of horns also, and hair is made a spirit, but most fetid, wherefore it is not so useful, although otherwise it may serve for divers arts: being rectified it comes clear and to be of the odour of the spirit of urine. It dissolves common sulphur, and yields a water, that cures the scab in a very short time.
Now for this business, shreds of woollen cloth undyed may serve, being cast in a good quantity into the furnace. Pieces of cloath dipt in this spirit and hanged in vineyards, and fields, keep out Deer and Swine from coming in, because they are afraid of the smell of that spirit, as of an huntsman that waits to catch them.
The spirit of vinegar, honey, and sugar.
He that will distil liquid things, must cast red hot coals into them, as for example into vinegar in the furnace, or if it be honey, or sugar, let them first be dissolved in water, by which means they will be drank up by the coals, which being therewith impregnated, must afterwards at several times be cast into the furnace, and be burnt; and whilst the coals are burning, that which is incombustible comes forth. And by this means you may distil liquid things in a great quantity.