Chapter Nine. Of the effects of the natural tincture and the perfected elixir.

This has already been discussed above, where three effects were mentioned. First, through this panacea, by divine grace, all diseases and injuries of the human body can be cured and healed, internal as well as external, including fistula and cancer. The authors sufficiently testify to this, especially the epitaph of Theophrastus noted in the following chapter.

Second, it was stated above that through the natural tincture and the perfected elixir all lesser metals can be tinctured into perfectly good gold. Third, all base and inferior precious stones can likewise be transformed into costly stones better than those of the East.

As to the first effect, I have so far experienced that this medicine, even while still at its lowest degree, can cure and heal every disease curable by the pharmacopoeia. Through God’s grace I have repeatedly given substantial help to various patients in disorders of the head; in hot, malignant and other fevers; in dysentery; in dangerous nosebleeds and other haemorrhages; in troublesome uterine pains; in difficult and dangerous childbirth; in weakness of the spleen, melancholy, hectic fever, shortness of breath and other conditions.

From this one can readily judge what effects may be hoped for from such a medicine at its highest degree, and that it is especially beneficial for preventing every disease and preserving health.

Here belongs Helmont’s statement: “There are certain sulphurs which, when corrected and perfected, the whole company of diseases obeys.” The philosophers’ salt, as a medicine of the first order, can likewise be used in every disease; with a single lot of it, several hundred people or more can certainly be cured of fever.

A doctor, lean though otherwise vigorous, may well have read this in one author or another. He therefore applied to me very eagerly for it, both orally and in writing, and despaired of having his request granted, perhaps prematurely. This arcanum is, as it were, the master key of the Hermetic art. Inferior Astronomy expressly warns that without it one must leave philosophy alone: whoever lacks the salt of the wise lacks their wisdom and the whole art.

I may next say with certainty that the philosophers’ sulphur and salt are excellent remedies against children’s convulsive fits, and that the compound made from them is still more effective. Both the individual principle, which is particular, and the compound, which is universal—namely the medicine of the second order—strengthen powerfully. Properly applied, they expel the offending matter without any harm or danger. This matter is nothing other than a black slime, as the late General Spar wisely had investigated by experienced physicians through the opening of a child who had died of this disease. No medicine in the apothecaries’ shops can accomplish this.

These remedies are highly beneficial not only to children but also to older people in such conditions, and likewise in gout and other severe diseases. Again, no medicine in the apothecaries’ shops can be compared with them.

To return to the point, however, the natural tincture, the medicine of the third order, is another thing. It can swiftly remove all diseases of the human body, as already mentioned. Polemann makes an exception for the stone, but reports from Helmont that the philosophers’ aroma is the surest means of protection against it.

In that disease one may also experience excellent help from such a particular preparation, especially the spirit with which Brother Basilius relieved his brother’s pain from the stone, alongside the use of other appropriate means. The tincture can also tincture all imperfect metals into gold and transform inferior precious stones into perfect ones. Medicines of the first and second orders cannot accomplish this at all, because one body or matter does not act upon another; only spirits tincture and transmute.

Fourth, according to the corresponding reports of the Lamp of the Philosophers’ Salt and other authors, glass can likewise be treated and prepared by this means so that it can be stretched and hammered.

Fifth, the often-cited author of the Lamp again testifies that such a tincture, through its great and wondrous virtue and warmth, gives life to all plants, trees, shrubs and herbs. It strengthens and awakens their fruit-bearing powers so greatly that, if a quantity of this medicine is dissolved in water at the beginning of spring and placed in the core of a vine, leaves and blossom will appear, and the same vine will bear fruit in May. All this once again sufficiently proves our subject’s universal power.

Here I shall leave the matter for the present.