_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.