Allum, if it bee fixed with its proper Water, is called the Sugar of Allum, which also is resolved into a Liquor, which Liquor if it bee putrefied a moneth, produceth a Water of the sweetnesse of Sugar, which is of great vertue, and an excellent secret in Physicke, to extinguish any Metalline heate in Man, as wee have wrote more at large in our Booke of Metalline Diseases.
And as you have heard of Vitriall, and Allum, so also Salt nitre, and other Watery Mineralls may bee fixed by Cohobation.
What Cohobation is.
Now Cohobation is, that the dead head be oftentimes imbibed with its own water, and that again bee drawn off by Distillation.
The force of Distillation in things to be Transmuted.
Moreover, in Distillation many bitter, harsh, and sharp things become as sweet as Honey, Sugar, or Manna; and on the contrary, many sweet things, as Sugar, Honey, or Manna, may bee made as harsh as Oyle of Vitriall, or Vineger, or as bitter as Gall, or Gentian, as Eager, as a Corrosive.
Many Excrementitious things lose their great stink in Distillation, which indeed goeth forth in the water.
Many Aromaticall things lose their good savour.
And as Sublimation alters things in their Quality, and Nature, so also doth Distillation.