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Book 3 On the Preservation of Natural Things
Latin witness: Frankfurt 1605, printed pp. 208–213, SUB Göttingen PPN578052199. Source facsimile: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN578052199?tify=%7B%22pages%22%3A%5B192%5D%7D
The enemies of things must be known.
For a thing to be preserved and defended from harm, its enemy must first be well known, so that it may be protected against it and not injured or corrupted in substance, virtue or force, or whatever name that damage may bear. Much therefore depends on knowing the enemy of every natural thing. Who can guard against damage and adversity without knowing the enemy and its capacity to harm? That enemy must be well known, for enemies are of many kinds. Moreover, knowing bad things is as necessary as knowing good. Who can know good without knowledge of evil? Surely no one. No one who has never been ill can know what a treasure health is. Who knows joy who has never been sorrowful or sad? And who could rightly know what God is without knowing anything of the Devil? Since God has made known to us the enemy of our soul, the Devil, he also shows us the enemy of our life: death, which is the enemy of our body and health, of medicine and of all natural things. Indeed, he also makes known how and by what means it should be driven away. Just as no disease exists for which a medicine has not also been created and found to cure and expel it, so one thing is always set against another: one water against another, one stone against another, one ore against another, one poison against another, one metal against another. It is so in many things, all of which need not be listed here.
Death is the enemy of things.
Preservatives are found among all things.
By what means and how things are preserved.
As to how and by what means each thing is preserved and guarded from damage: many things must be preserved in earth, and especially all roots remain effective and uncorrupted in earth for a long time. Plants, flowers and all fruits likewise remain uncorrupted and green in water. Many other fruits and apples can also be kept in water and protected from all decay until new apples are born.
By what means flesh and blood are preserved.
Flesh and blood, which putrefy and become rancid very quickly, can likewise be preserved in cold spring water. More than that, through the cooperation of renewed fresh spring water they can be changed into a quintessence and preserved forever from decay and bad smell without any balsam. This not only preserves flesh and blood but also preserves other flesh and blood, so to speak, and furthermore protects the human body from all putrefaction and many diseases arising from putrefaction, better than common mummia. To preserve blood by itself from putrefaction and offensive smell, rather than as a quintessence, and so that it may preserve other blood as just described, use this process. Separate the blood from its phlegm, which moves of itself and is expelled to the upper part. Draw this water off by gently tilting the vessel, and add an equal quantity of salt water to the blood: we teach how to prepare that water in our Surgery. It immediately mixes with the blood and preserves it so that it never putrefies or becomes rancid, but remains fresh and beautifully red for many years, as on its first day. This is a great miracle. If you do not know how to prepare the salt water, or do not have it ready, pour on the same quantity of the best and most excellent balsam, which accomplishes the same thing. Such blood is now the balsam of balsams and is called the arcanum of blood. It is so marvellous and so powerful as to be incredible to tell; therefore conceal it as a great secret in medicine.
How the arcanum of human blood is prepared.
By what means metals are preserved.
What the enemies of metals are.
In preserving metals their enemies must first be known, so that they can better be guarded against harm. The chief enemies of metals are all aquae fortes, all aquae regis, all corrosives, all salts, crude sulphur, antimony and mercury. To understand specifically how all these exercise their hostility, I say that aquae fortes, aquae regis, corrosives and salts show it by mortifying, dissolving, calcining, corrupting and reducing all metals to nothing. Crude sulphur shows its hostility through its fumes: they take away Venus’s colour and redness and make it white. From white metals such as Luna, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars they remove whiteness and make them red, or impart a reddish colour. From Gold they strip its beautiful, pleasing yellowness and golden colour, making it black and utterly disfigured, as disfigured as can be.