10 the Tree of Dulcification and the Mineral Arcanum

Chapter outline

The tree and the passage through vegetable mediation

Quantity, measure, and the distinction between alteration and mere dilution

Preparation and conjunction of animal and vegetable spirits and acids

Dulcification of the mineral and objections about its principles

The watery vehicle and the identity of the original spirit

Fixation, volatility, and the inseparability of dissolvent and dissolved

Comparison of menstrua and criticism of fruitless extractions

The desired medicinal middle state and the author's final method

TREE OF DULCIFICATION. THE VOLATILE: animal—spirit of urine; vegetable—spirit of wine. THE ACID: animal—vinegar of urine; vegetable—vinegar of wine. THE ALKALI: corrosive mineral; spirit or oil, or their corrosive salt.

So that the lover of the art may see in all my undertaking that I always seek to remain at nature's ground, proceed with her, and follow her closely, let him consider with me how she dulcifies minerals and makes them homogeneous with human and vegetable nature. Every careful investigator sees that nature sends mineral corrosive spirits and vapours from the centre of the earth. Very corrosive at their first source, they lay down their strongest corrosiveness in the earth's entrails, attacking and corroding stones while coagulating themselves. Every distiller knows that no mineral corrosive spirit rises as high as vegetable and animal vapours; otherwise he would need neither a low vessel such as a retort nor so high a degree of fire. Once the strongest corrosive has been laid down in the earth, central heat drives the vapours higher, until they reach plant roots. Entering the vegetable kingdom, whatever remains sharp is caught, drawn in, or attracted by those roots and transmuted into their nature. What the vegetable kingdom does not retain rises still higher into the region of the lower air, the animal kingdom. Animals draw these now-mild vapours in through their breath, change them into their nourishment, and finally into their specified animal nature. Everyone can conclude from this how nature herself works in the finest order. We must acknowledge that the corrosive mineral is first changed into vegetable nature before an animal should or can consume it as food. Nature herself would say: if you wish to consume a mineral, or any part of it, make a vegetable from it, or it will bring you horror. Thus the mineral becomes vegetable through nature's own order, and only through consumption becomes animal or homogeneous with animal nature;

conversely, an animal putrefied in earth first becomes vegetable, or an essential nitrous salt. If, dissolved by waters, this flows toward the centre, it passes into a mineral. Thus every practitioner sees how nature, as forerunner and teacher, always takes the middle route. She does not leap directly from mineral to animal nature, but first to vegetable. Once changed into this, it is eagerly and unhesitatingly accepted by animal nature as homogeneous food. Nature likewise proceeds with animals, first putrefying them at the earth's surface in the vegetable kingdom and bringing them into a soluble saline nature, fitting them for vegetation. While at the boundary of this quality, if they are dissolved by fire and carried down through the earth's channels, cracks, and fissures toward its centre, they enter the boundary of mineral nature to be mineralized there. Mineral nature exceeds them in quantity, and the greater predominance transmutes them into mineral. They are fermented in the earth's stomach and driven again by heat into the mountains' entrails, just as a smaller mineral quantity becomes vegetable through a greater quantity of plants, and these become animal through an exceeding quantity of animal matter. A person never eats at once as much herb as his own size and weight. He therefore exceeds the plants in quantity, and this excess changes the lesser: the plant becomes animal through the predominance of the other, animal juice, as we daily see. If equally strong enemies meet, neither wins; if one exceeds the other in strength or amount, the weaker must fall and obey the stronger. Nature acts thus, and so must we in art if we wish to accomplish anything sound.

Someone may object: 'If I pour a bucket of animal or vegetable liquid over half an ounce of mineral, it will of course become animal or vegetable, because the quantity disperses the corrosive mineral so widely that no corrosiveness can be detected.' This seems to me just as if I said: I shall pour a drop of oil of vitriol into the whole sea. I do not believe the fish will die from it, or that the drop will corrode all the ships and fish. Such an objection comes from someone without understanding, not a philosopher. Nature and all natural things have weight, measure, and order in every composition, destruction, and circumstance. They cannot be forced beyond these without producing opposition. Every practitioner sees and readily recognizes this. With eyes, hands, tongue, and all his senses he can discern whether nature has enough, too little, or too much. If it receives too much dulcifying agent, it lets the excess go again by distillation; if too little, taste shows whether sharpness remains. Thus everyone can help and advise himself. Let us therefore set down the method of dulcification in order. Whoever wishes to make minerals homogeneous with the animal and vegetable kingdoms and calm their corrosiveness must again take the philosophical axiom deeply to heart: one cannot pass from one extreme to the other without an intermediary. Minerals do not leap immediately into animal nature without injury, nor animals into mineral nature. As contraries, the two would sooner destroy each other than produce a pleasing fruit. One must therefore take the intermediary, promoting minerals to animal nature through plants, and conversely carrying animals through the vegetable and fixing them. Through nature's degrees they readily unite.

For example, if I wished to join the three volatiles or three acids of these kingdoms and took the animal and mineral first, pouring them together, they would fight like two fires, opposing one another. But if I follow nature's order and first pour the animal volatile into the vegetable volatile, a homogeneous conjunction occurs without adversity. Only then do I add the mineral volatile. On distillation, they unfailingly come over together, or all three remain together. Take one part each of volatile spirit of urine and spirit of wine, and pour them together. Then add one part of the sourish phlegm of vitriol as the volatile, and they all unite without resistance. Likewise take one part each of animal and vegetable acid, pour together, and add one part spirit of vitriol; these too readily unite. The vegetable is the coupler, associating and agreeing individually with the animal and mineral kingdoms alike. The mineral kingdom readily and easily permits dulcification if treated according to nature's degrees, but not otherwise. To serve the reader properly, take putrefied urine and distil its volatile spirit and volatile salt in a water bath. Rectify this through a phial from its coarser phlegm until wholly pure and crystal clear, and keep it. The volatile of urine is prepared. Distil the water-bath residue down to a honey-thick liquor, separating the coarser phlegm. Remove this and mix the thick residue with leached ashes until almost dry and capable of being formed into balls. Put it in a retort and distil from sand everything that will come over. You obtain the animal acid with a thick stinking oil. Separate the oil by a tritorium or glass funnel. Filter the acid and whatever volatile salt has come over with it, and draw them over gently once more through a retort. This too is prepared.

Now take a good old wine and make from it a spirit of wine strong enough to ignite powder. It is prepared as commonly taught in books. After distilling from wine in the still, take the residue and evaporate it in a copper kettle to the thickness of honey. Attend carefully: when a sour vapour rises into the nose, stop. Distil the evaporated material with leached ashes through a retort. Coarse phlegm comes first, then acid of wine, and afterward a thick stinking oil. Separate the oil from the acid by tritorium or funnel, and distil and dephlegmate the acid by rectifying it two or three times. This too is ready. You have everything prepared and will find that this dulcification differs from the common kind as heaven from earth. There is no need to say more; practice will demonstrate it. When you wish to dulcify, follow nature's degrees, or you will throw everything into confusion. Take equal quantities of spirit of wine and volatile spirit of urine, pour together, put them in a tall flask, and draw them over from a water bath and ashes until coarser empty phlegm remains. This is ready. Likewise take equal quantities of acid of urine and acid of wine, pour them together, and draw them over together. This too is ready. Take any corrosive, liquid or dry: one part. Pour on three parts of the prepared acid, set it in the water bath, and draw phlegm over from a low flask until an oily consistency remains. When you stop distilling, try whether the dissolved oil is sweet enough. If not, add three more parts of acid and proceed as before. It becomes ever sweeter, and you can dulcify it as far as you please. Once sufficiently sweet, pour on three parts of the prepared spirit of wine, set it in the water bath, and draw it off by distillation. It becomes sweeter still and increasingly homogeneous with human nature. Add spirit of wine a second or third time, three parts each time, making it sweeter and more agreeable. Whenever you pour on fresh spirit, always draw it off again in the water bath as far as oil. The spirit of wine, like the acid, will almost always come over very weak and phlegmatic, because the volatile or dulcifying salt remains with the corrosive. It must do so, or it could not transmute the corrosive.