into plates, smeared with salt reduced into a paste with the best vinegar, then put on a large tile, placed in a blast furnace, and for a quarter of an hour burnt with a strong fire, but so that the plates may not melt. Let these plates, while still glowing, be extinguished in vinegar wherein sal ammoniac has been dissolved—half an ounce in a pound of vinegar. Let the plates be again heated, and extinguished as before; but continually scrape off into vinegar the scales which adhere to the plates after they have been extinguished, or else knock them off by beating the plates, or in any way you can. Keep doing this until the plates of copper are nearly consumed. Then let the vinegar be extracted by distillation, or let it evaporate in an open vessel, and let it coagulate into a very hard stone. Thus you will have the crocus of copper used in Alchemy. Many persons commonly make æs ustum, or the crocus of Venus, from Venus by the extraction of alcohol (others of vinum aceti), like the crocus of Mars; but I much prefer this method.
The mortification of Mercury, in order that it may be sublimated, is brought about by vitriol and salt. When it is mixed with these two and then sublimated it becomes as hard as crystal and as white as snow. In order that Mercury may be reduced to a precipitate,[1] nothing more need be done than calcine it in the best aqua fortis; then let the graduated aqua fortis be extracted from it five times, more or less, until the precipitate acquires a beautiful red colour. Sweeten this precipitate as much as possible; and finally distil the rectified wine from it seven or nine times, or as often as necessary, until it burns in the fire and does not escape. Then you have the diaphoretic precipitate of Mercury.
Moreover, here should be noted a great secret concerning precipitated Mercury. If, after its colouration, it be sweetened with water of salt of tartar, by distilling it until the water no longer ascends acid, but is altogether sweet, then you will have the precipitate as sweet as sugar or honey. This is the principal arcanum for all wounds and ulcers and the Gallic disease, insomuch that no physician need wish for better; and it, moreover, brightens up despondent alchemists. For it is an augmentation of Sol, it enters into the composition of Sol, and by it gold is rendered constant and good. Although, then, much labour and toil may be required for this precipitate, it compensates for these and returns to you what you have spent. Moreover, you get sufficient gain from it—more than you could compass by the highest artifice of any kind. You ought, therefore, to rejoice over it, and to thank God and me
- ↑ It is also stated that there is nothing in medicine to compare with precipitated mercury for the cure of icteritia.—Fragmenta Medica s. v. Annotationes in Lib. de Icteritiis. The medical preparation of the precipitate of mercury as a healing unguent has been boastfully claimed to their own credit by many persons, though they are all filched from the writings of the ancient artists and Spagyrists. Vigo was not free from the disgrace of this falsehood. Precipitated mercury is certainly an ancient remedy, but has lain hidden for a long time by the perfidy of physicians. All cavernous ulcers (except those of the eating and spreading kind) are completely cured by its use. But experience teaches us that the oil of argent vive, when outwardly applied, has much greater efficacy.—De Tumoribus, etc., Morbi Gallici, Lib. X. The bloodlike redness of the precipitate of mercury has caused it to be ignorantly confused with the ruddy powder into which the sweet balsam of mercury is reduced when it is prepared without sublimation or calcination by means of the water of eggs.—Ibid. Precipitated mercury of the metals is the reduction of the metals into their first matter, which afterwards is deposited below.—Chirurgia Magna, De Impostumis in Morbo Gallico, Lib. II.
