Herbs require one process, flowers another, seeds another, leaves another, roots another, trees, shoots and stalks another, fruits another and woods another. In this stage of distillation four distinct degrees of fire must also be considered. The first degree of fire in distillation is the bath of Mary: distillation carried out in water. The second is distillation in ashes; the third, in sand; the fourth, in an open fire, as distillation is also commonly performed with aqua fortis and other violent waters. Herbs, flowers, seeds and similar things belong to the first degree; leaves and fruits to the second; roots, branches and shoots of trees to the third; woods and similar things to the fourth. Each, however, must be cut small or crushed before being put into the still. Let this suffice on distillation of waters and vegetable substances. As for separation and distillation of oils, the same process must be followed as was described for separating waters, except that some must be distilled downwards. They cannot rise upwards in the still as waters do, so their process must be changed in that case. Liquors, however, are not separated by distillation like waters and oils, but squeezed from their bodily substances under a press. Know also that some oils are pressed and separated from their bodily substances in the same way as liquors, because they cannot endure any burning or heat of fire, but acquire an unpleasant smell from it. Of this kind are oil of almonds, nuts, hard-boiled eggs and the like. Observe also that all oils, if prepared or coagulated according to spagyric and alchemical art, yield a varnish, electuary, gum or resin, which may also be called sulphur. If the materials left in the still are calcined and reduced to ash, alkali can be extracted and separated from them with plain hot water alone. The ash that remains is called dead earth, from which nothing further can be drawn or separated.

On the Separation of Animals.

Four methods or stages in the separation of animals.

Mumia and so forth.

Anatomy must precede the separation of animals, so that blood, flesh, bones, skin, intestines and tendons are each apart. Afterwards each must itself be separated by the spagyric art. There are chiefly four separations here. The first draws watery and phlegmatic moisture from blood. When blood is separated in this way, according to the process given in the book on preservation, a most noble mumia emerges, a specific remedy so excellent that any fresh wound can be healed and closed within twenty-four hours with a single dressing.

Balsam and so forth.

The second separation is of fat from flesh. Separated from human flesh, it becomes a most excellent balsam, soothing the pains of gout, contracture and the like if the affected parts are anointed with it warm. It also benefits contracted tendons of the hands or feet if they are anointed daily. It cures scabies and all kinds of leprosy too. Thus this is a supreme surgical specific, especially useful in every injury and wound.

The third separation is of watery and phlegmatic moisture extracted together with fat from bones. If these two are separated from human bones by spagyric art through distillation, the bones then burnt or reduced by calcination to a very white ash, and finally the three properly united again until they resemble butter, this will be a wonderful arcanum and specific. With it you can completely cure any broken bone without pain in only three dressings, provided you treat and set the fracture itself according to surgical science and then apply the specific as a plaster. It also heals wounds of the skull and every other bruising of bones very readily.

The fourth and last separation is of resins and gums from skin, intestines and tendons. This resin, extracted and separated from them by spagyric art through extraction and coagulated by itself in the sun’s rays, becomes a shining, transparent glue. From this glue, prepared, extracted and separated from the human body in the prescribed way, comes a most excellent styptic arcanum and specific. By it a wound or ulcer can readily be joined and its lips drawn and brought together, just as two boards are joined by applying glue, if only two or three drops of it dissolved are cast into the wound. This is also a singular arcanum for burns and for fallen or rough nails, if applied with a feather, for bare flesh will thus be covered with a little skin.

Many other separations of these or other things could indeed be recounted here. Since we have mentioned them elsewhere, however, it would be pointless to repeat them idly. Here it is necessary to describe only those which we have not mentioned elsewhere.

The last separation is the Last Judgement.

What the Last Judgement will be like.