called Zuccari. This, too, is resolved into a liquid, and if it be putrefied for a month it produces a water as sweet as sugar, which, indeed, is of great power and an excellent arcanum in medicine for extinguishing the microcosmic fire in men of a metallic temperament, as we write more at length in our books on Metallic Diseases.[1] And just as you have heard of vitriol and alum, so also salt nitre and other watery minerals can be fixed by cohobation.
The process of Cohobation is that a caput mortuum is frequently imbibed with its own water, and this is again drawn off by means of Distillation. Moreover, in Distillation many bitter, sharp, and acrid things become very sweet, like honey, sugar, or manna; and, on the other hand, many sweet things, such as honey, sugar, or manna, become sharp, as oil of vitriol or vinegar, or bitter, as gall or gentian, or sharp, as corrosive. Many excrementitious things lose their excessive stench in distillation, since it passes out into the water. Many aromatic things lose their pleasant odour. And just as Sublimation alters things in their quality and nature, so does Distillation.
Coagulation is the sixth step. There is, however, a twofold process of Coagulation, one by cold, another by heat; that is, one of the air, another of the fire. Each of these, again, is twofold, so that there are really four processes of Coagulation, two by cold, and two by fire. The Coagulations by fire are fixed, the others by cold are not fixed. One, indeed, is produced only by common air, or without fire. Another is produced by the upper firmament of winter stars, which coagulate all waters into snows and ice. The Coagulation by fire is produced by the artificial and graduated fire of the alchemist, and is fixed and permanent. For whatever such a fire coagulates, that becomes permanent. Another Coagulation is produced by the Ætnean and mineral fire in mountains, which, indeed, the Archeus of the earth rules and graduates in much the same way as the alchemist; and whatever is coagulated by such a fire is also fixed and constant, though originally its matter was mucilaginous, and it is coagulated by the Archeus of the earth and by the work of Nature into metals, stones, flints, and other bodies. But it should also be known that fire coagulates no water or moisture, but only the liquids and juices of all natural things. For this reason no phlegm can be coagulated, unless it was originally a corporeal matter, whereto, indeed, it can be again restored by the industry of an experienced alchemist. So every mucilaginous matter or spermatic lentor can, by the heat of fire, be coagulated into a body and corporal material, but cannot again be resolved
- ↑ Medicines are therefore chosen which are free from coagulation, such as alum, in which humidity and coagulation simultaneously exist. If these two be separated one from another, the quality withdraws into one place, and the element, in like manner, into another. Now, the element of alum is most akin to the element of water. For the element of water also consists in its Hyle, as alum after its excoction, and when it has been separated from its coagulates, it passes into its pure and proper element, despoiled, however, of its medicinal arcana. But alum does not suffer this privation. For water alone prevails against the microcosmic fire. Whence the matter stands thus, that the aquosity must be separated from the alum, and must be rectified therein till it is almost like sugar. The dose is one scruple. If the symptoms of the elementary disease again present themselves, they must be again extinguished as before. There are many such arcana, which I leave to the experience of the school of Vulcan, as it is impossible to enumerate them in this place.—De Morbis Metallicis, Lib. II., Tract IV., c. 6.
