The works of the highly experienced and famous chymist, John Rudolph Glauber

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

N. B. The Butter of Antimony must be made of the Regulus of Antimony, with rectified Spirit of Salt, and not with Mercury sublimate, as the common custom is.

Purging Gold.

In the first place, you must make a most strong Spirit of Niter thus, viz. put equal parts of calcined Allum and good Salt-peter into a well coated Retort, out of which is to be drawn (leisurely and by degrees into a very large Receiver luted on to the neck of the Retort) a Spirit, which will make the Receiver look red. All the Spirit being distilled, let the Fire go out of its own accord, and leave on the Receiver so long till all the Spirits are setled, and that the Receiver be become clear agen: Macerate the Lute, which joyned the Receiver on to the Retort, with water, and have an especial care when you take off the Receiver, that none of the Lute fall into the Spirit. Put the Spirit in a strong Glass, and shut it up well with Wax, that it may not exhale, for it is very strong, and is red as Bloud, because it had no water put unto it in the Receiver.

Pour two ounces of this strong Spirit upon one ounce of the Butter of Antimony, and it will presently pass into a red Solution, whereto put one ounce of pure Gold that it may be dissolved, which Solution will be redder than Bloud. Then pour in thereupon some common fair water, and the Antimony and the Gold will precipitate into a Purple Powder, which is to be washt well with water, and so dried.

Its Dose is from one, two Grains to six, (according as the Age and Party is,) it may be given in Wine, Ale, Water, or any other Liquor, which may be as a Vehicle unto it. It works without any danger, and doth safely and pleasantly (beyond all other Purges) drive out all offending Humours out of the Body of Man.

Aurum Diaphoreticum, or Sweating Gold.

If no water be poured upon the just-now-spoken of red Solution, thereby to precipitate the same, but that that strong Spirit of Niter be drawn off by a Retort, it then takes from the Antimony its purging and vomiting power and makes it Diaphorical. Nor needs the Purple Powder, when it’s taken out of the Glass, any washing at all, because being administred in two, three, four, five, six, or ten Grains Dose it may be safely taken, and it provokes Sweat. It is therefore very profitable in all the Diseases that are to be expelled by Sweat; yea in the Leaprosie, Gout, Dropsie, French-pox, Plague, Scurvey, and in all Feavers doth it play its part even to admiration, for (by reason of the Gold which it contains in it) it doth both provoke Sweat, and strengthen the powers of the Body.

The former Powder or purging Gold, being mixt with an equal weight of purging Lune, or purging Saturn, and molten in a Crucible, turns into a red Stone or Glass, of which, little Tablets or Pellets somewhat bigger than a Pea may be again cast or molten, and kept for use. And now when there’s need of purging, let one of those Tablets be put in to some spoonfulls of Wine and lie therein all night, and let the Wine be drunk off in the morning following, just after the self same manner as other purges are wont to be administred. For there is so much virtue extracted by the Wine out of the glazen Tablet as to give several Stools. If one Tablet or Pellet be not sufficient, then may a second, or a third, or more be adjoyned thereunto, and so left all night in the Wine, that so the Wine may work more effectually if need requires. The Tablets or Pellets remain good a long time, and may be many times applied to the self same use.

But if any one should be desirous of performing this labour even yet better, he may get a little Pot or Cup to be made for him of white Earth, and may have it glazed both inside and outside with this same Glass; for two or three Spoonfulls of Wine infused for a night in such a Cup, and drunk off next morning, are capable of purging you even as doth the other.

These are the effects of these purges in Medicine. They likewise do some good in Alchymy, if all three of them, viz. the Saturnine, the Lunar, and the Solar are reduced by melting into a Glass: this Glass being Philosophically cemented somewhat of the Silver, Lead, and Antimony will be meliorated, and turned into Gold by the Gold.